Why Do We love Football?
A theory that suggests why fundamentally football takes on such an important role to some is Identity fusion. This refers to a psychological concept that describes a deep, visceral connection individuals may feel with a group. It goes beyond a simple sense of belonging and involves a sense of oneness with the group, where the individual’s personal identity becomes closely intertwined with the group identity.
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Researchers typically understand identification to reflect people’s feelings of allegiance to a collective as the “social identity theory”. At the heart of social identity perspective lays the distinction between the personal and social self. Personal self refers to characteristic properties of the individual for example, ‘intelligent’ ‘kind’. The social self refers to those aspects self-associated with group membership for example ‘socialist’ ‘British’. When one’s personal and social self ‘fuse’ together this results in a novel explanation for group loyalty (Swann W. B Jr 2012)
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In a report on Explaining Lifelong loyalty, evidence was found that identity fusion arises once an individual has experienced group events that they believe to be personally self-shaping. Euphoric and dysphoric events, when seen as highly self-shaping, were both likely to result in strong levels of fusion and lifelong loyalty (Newson M, 2016).
Bill Cronshaw
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It’s an increasingly volatile and unpredictable world and we all crave some form of stability. I am now in my sixty-eighth year as a City fan and in common with my friends, relatives and acquaintances this stability is provided by our favourite football teams. Life’s rollercoaster takes its toll of course and people come and go but one constant is the fact that team loyalties remain rock solid. As I look down the Premier League table, I can associate a personal contact of mine with each team and smile at my memories of their unfailing humour and patience as they coped with their team’s ups and downs. And perhaps this is why we love football. The game mirrors life in that we all have our moments in the sun and our trials in the gloom, and in those ninety minutes we can see those fortunes being played out in front of our eyes. Most of all is the knowledge that however low we might feel after a devastating loss, the slate is wiped clean and next week beckons with a promise of glory!
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Vicky Lees
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Towards the end of last season, I was navigating my way through the crowd after a game, when I was drawn to a conversation between two passing supporters. They weren’t reviewing the game or passing comment on the manager’s tactics; they were discussing what they thought football was really about. Amongst the echo of footsteps from the dispersing hordes, the one supporter turned to his friend and said, ‘it’s my time, it’s our time, nothing else matters at this place’
I wrote it down when I got to the car ‘it’s my time, it’s our time, nothing else matters...’
It was this notion of escapism that prompted me to consider, was this the reason football means so much to so many? Or is there so much more to it than that...
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