P Potrac
Biographic Data
| ID | 346788 |
|---|---|
| NAME | P Potrac |
| GIVEN NAMES | P |
| FAMILY NAME | Potrac |
| SIGNATURE | POTRAC P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northumbria University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9616-6491 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 312 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Unchallenged deception in performance sports work
This article breaks new ground in the sociology of sports work through its novel exploration of unchallenged deception in performance sports coaching contexts. Qualitative Jisc online survey data from 29 sports workers (coaches, performance analysts, sports scientists, doctors, a sport psychologist, physiotherapist, and scout) was subject to iterative analysis. Findings address how participants detected diverse deception attempts by co-workers an…
Entangled positionality
This paper develops the concept of entangled positionality as a way of theorising how researcher positionality is constituted across the multiple connected worlds the ethnographer inhabits. Drawing on Crossley’s relational sociology and building on Desmond’s call for relational ethnography, we extend recent scholarship on relational positionality (Bolade-Ogunfodun et al., 2023; Delfino, 2025; Drujon d’Astros et al., 2024) by applying Crossley’s (…
I Have to Work So Hard to Make Sure I'm Likeable While Getting the Job Done”
Despite a rise in established, high‐profile female sport broadcasters, enduring and significant challenges remain for women pursuing sport broadcasting careers. Climbing the career ladder to high‐status positions requires more than just confidence and technical expertise; it necessitates strategic social skills that help female broadcasters navigate male‐dominated networks, deal with discrimination, generate good impressions, and position themsel…
Combining crystallisation and creative non-fiction to develop new insights on the politically astute use of humour in sports coaching
Through adopting a crystallisation approach, this paper provides original insights into the ways in which players and coaches used humour to astutely navigate the everyday challenges and opportunities of organisational life at Senghenydd City Football Club (pseudonym). Specifically, we revisited and re-analysed a previously existing ethnographic data set that focused on the use of humour in a semi-professional football club. Our analytical effort…
Playing by the (emotional) display rules
While the social and interactive complexity of coach education work has attracted increased scholarly attention, there is a paucity of work addressing the emotional display rules that feature in coach educators' interactions with others. This article begins to address this lacuna by presenting novel insights into how the emotions that coach educators convey to their learners are shaped by identifiable display rules. Data were generated via 21 emo…
Research Methods in Sports Coaching
Research Methods in Sports Coaching is a key resource for students and scholars who are completing research into sports coaching. The book comprises five distinct parts that prompt readers to think about important considerations: 1. preparing and initiating the coaching research process 2. philosophical considerations for coaching research 3. coaching research designs 4. methods of collecting coaching data 5. analysing coaching data This fully re…
Understanding workplace collaboration in professional rugby coaching
This ethnography examined the occupational teamwork of a Head Coach and his colleagues (assistants) in the rarely accessed world of professional rugby union. Extensive field notes and participant interviews were subject to emic and etic interpretations. The heuristic framework comprised the work of both classic and contemporary dramaturgical theorists. Our analysis generated novel findings regarding the everyday strategies and tactics that underp…
Maintaining professional face
This article breaks new ground in the sociology of sports work through its novel exploration of workplace deception and the associated development of an original typology of deceptive impression management. Analysis of data collected from a two-phased research design, comprising online interviews and survey responses from 102 participants, revealed that community sport coaches employed deceptive impression management to display emotional control,…
Coaching in the shadows
Background Influence is at the very core of physical education and sport pedagogy. Indeed, a large and growing body of work has focused on the (inter)actions of sport pedagogues which are deemed to be influential in terms of shaping the thoughts, feelings and actions of others. In comparison, little attention has been paid to the practices of sport pedagogues that are noninfluential or unintentionally influential. That is, when pedagogues or lear…
Repairing relationship conflict in community sport work
Through our investigation of relationship conflict and repair in community sport coaching this article makes a novel contribution to the sociology of sport work. Such inquiry is necessary as interpersonal conflict has the potential to erode worker commitment, engagement, performance, satisfaction, and mental health. To date, the study of interpersonal conflict in coaching has been framed psychologically. It is our position that sociologically ins…
It’s not all about me’
The aim of this study was to explore the multiple transitions that occur during retirement from (semi-) professional sport. The study used an autoethnographic methodology to consider the embodied, relational and emotional dimensions of these transitions as I, the first author approached the end of my football career. Over a period of six years, I shared, reflected, evaluated and critiqued these transitional experiences and associated autoethnogra…
Sport Participation for People with Disabilities
Reverse integration is defined as the inclusion of able-bodied people into disability sport. For decades, there have been movements towards integrating people with a disability in mainstream society. There has been a lack of research supporting the movement of able-bodied involvement in disability sport, known as reverse integration. In this study, the real-life experiences and motivations of 11 national wheelchair basketball players (four able-b…
Actors, interactions, ties, and networks
The Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) has transformed the ways in which young players are recruited, coached, supported and evaluated. To date, our scientific understanding of talent identification and development processes has been largely informed by (post)positivist studies addressing the physiological, psychological and biomechanical features of elite youth performance. In this paper, Crossley’s relational theorising is pr…
Social and Cultural Constraints on Football Player Development in Stockholm
In this paper, we consider how youth sport and (talent) development environments have adapted to, and are constrained by, social and cultural forces. Empirical evidence from an 18-month ethnographic case study highlights how social and cultural constraints influence the skill development and psychological wellbeing of young football players. We utilized novel ways of knowing (i.e., epistemologies) coupled to ecological frameworks (e.g., the theor…
The Career Experiences of Football Association Coach Educators
Coach education has been the subject of increasing investigation in recent years. While such inquiry has provided important insights into coaches’ engagements with various forms of coach education provision, coach educators’ perspectives have remained curiously absent from the literature base. This study provides rich insights into the ways in which four Football Association (FA) coach educators interpreted their everyday workplace relationships …
Fear, Anger, and Loneliness
This interpretive study provides original insights into the socioemotional experiences that contributed to referee attrition in English grassroots football. Data were generated using an online survey ( n = 251) and in-depth interviews ( n = 20) with former referees. Using complementary symbolic interactionist and relational conceptualizations of identity, social interaction, and emotional pain, the analysis addressed the participants’ interpretat…
Understanding (disrupted) participation in community sports clubs
Participation in sport is viewed as a key means of improving health and wellbeing in many countries, but the processes constituting participation in community sports clubs remain poorly understood. Although studies have considered the wellbeing implications of non-competitive and individual sporting activity, further theoretical and empirical work is required to understand (both sporting and non-sporting) participation in community sports clubs. …
Translation, intensification and fabrication
The micro-level enactment of elite sport policy has received little critical coverage in the sociology of sport subdiscipline. This paper provides original insights into how coaches working in professional youth football academies variously interpreted, experienced and engaged with The FA Premier League's Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP). In-depth, cyclical interviews were used to generate data for this study. The transcripts were rigorously …
The enactment of setting policy in secondary school physical education
The micro-level enactment of educational policy has received little attention in the physical education [PE] literature, particularly as it relates to setting policy. This study employs enactment theory to provide original insights into the ways in which setting policy was enacted by PE teachers in three mixed-gender secondary schools in England. The work of Stephen Ball and colleagues is used to examine the distinct and combined influence of the…
Realist evaluation of the Football Association’s Post Graduate Diploma (PG Dip) in Coach Development
Recent studies have provided important initial insights into the relational and micropolitical dimensions of coach educators’ and coach developers’ work. However, there remains a paucity of inquiry addressing how sporting organisations prepare these members of their workforce to achieve desired goals and objectives. This research uses realist evaluation and normalisation process theory to examine a bespoke ‘reality grounded’ learning initiative t…
Athletes as “Sites of Normative Intersectionality”
Social structure remains an equivocal term in (sport) sociology. Our understandings of its constitution and role in causally influencing behavior are arguably underdeveloped. Using a critical realist approach, this paper examined how structural entities and reflexive agency combined to influence behavior in an elite youth cricket context (e.g., athletes, coaches). A methodological bricolage was used to generate data and Elder-Vass’s theorizing pr…
More than just a ‘Pro’
This paper addresses the social and relational dimensions of player transitions in professional football. Data were generated through a total of 24 cyclical, in-depth interviews with three former players. The interview transcripts were subjected to emic and etic readings, with Bauman's metaphors of liquid modernity, hunters and pointillist time, May's theorisation of belonging and Crossley's relational theorising providing the primary heuristic f…
Uncertainty, shame and consumption
This paper addressed the lived experiences of two community sports coaches in an era of neoliberal capitalism, consumerism, and insecure employment. Specifically, we considered (a) their attempts to develop a desired occupational identity in a casualised and audit-driven industry and (b) their experiences of the tensions that existed between the conditions of their employment and their ability to effectively enact other (important) identities out…
Trust and Distrust in Community Sports Work
This study addressed the issue of interpersonal trust and distrust in the (sporting) workplace. Data were generated through cyclical, in-depth interviews with 12 community sports coaches. The interview transcripts were subjected to emic and etic readings, with Hardin and Cook’s theorization of (dis)trust and Goffman’s dramaturgical writings providing the primary heuristic devices. Our analysis produced three interconnected themes. These were a) h…
The Sociology of Sports Work, Emotions and Mental Health
The central object of this introductory \nessay, and of this Special Issue more \nbroadly, is to explore relations between \nthe study of work and the continuing \nevolution of the sociology of sport with a \nparticular focus on the mental health of \nsports workers. In particular, we argue \nthat revitalizing the study of sports work, \nand eschewing the highly individualized \nand reductionist approaches most often \ndemonstrated by dominating …
It's All About Getting Respect
In light of the paucity of research addressing the critical concerns of social interaction at the micro level of the coaching process, this study aimed to generate an in-depth understanding of the coaching behaviours utilized by a top-level English football coach. A mixed-method approach was used to not only identify the pedagogical behaviours used by the subject in the practice environment, but to also generate an in-depth insight into the ratio…
You’ve not made the grade, son’
The purpose of this investigation was to utilize in‐depth interviews to explore the experiences of young former elite footballers whose respective professional careers were prematurely ended as a consequence of deselection. To this end, the analysis focuses upon (a) the respondents’ development of a strong athletic identity, (b) the impact of deselection on the respondents’ sense of self, and (c) the respondents’ adaptations to life outside of pr…
Studentship’ and ‘impression management’ in an advanced soccer coach education award
The purpose of this study was to investigate how coaches perceived and responded to the content knowledge and assessment processes that they were exposed to during an advanced level soccer coaching award programme. In-depth interviews were conducted with six coaches who had successfully completed the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) ‘A’ Licence in the UK. Using the concepts of the ‘dialectic of socialisation’, ‘studentship’ and Goff…
Constructing Expert Knowledge
The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth understanding of some of the ways in which one elite soccer coach has constructed, and continues to construct, his professional knowledge. By adopting a life-story approach the paper problematises the predominant rationality of much existing coaching research and questions the role of coach education programmes in the development of coaching knowledge. To accomplish this, the paper focuses on th…
I found out the hard way
This paper examines the micro-political experiences of Adam (a pseudonym), a newly appointed fitness coach at a Football Association Premier League club, in his search for acceptance by senior colleagues. Data were collected through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, before being subject to a process of inductive analysis. Goffman's writings on impression management and stigma, Kelchtermans's micro-political perspective and Garfink…
Constructing Images and Interpreting Realities
Through its interpretation of events, and subsequent creation of social reality, mediated sport is often seen to be presented within certain ideological discourses which reflect existing power structures. The aim of this study was to investigate this phenomenon through an analysis of the images constructed of the Black soccer player in the UK by television commentators. The methodology employed was two-fold. First, 100 hours of football footage w…
Micropolitical Workings in Semi-Professional Football
This paper seeks to illuminate the micropolitical strategies that Gavin (a pseudonym) used in an attempt to persuade the players, the assistant coach, and the chairman at Erewhon City Football (soccer) Club to “buy into” his coaching program and methods. Data for the study were collected through in-depth, semistructured interviews, and a reflective log relating to those interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim with the subsequent tran…
The Sociology of Sports Work, Emotions and Mental Health
The central object of this introductory \nessay, and of this Special Issue more \nbroadly, is to explore relations between \nthe study of work and the continuing \nevolution of the sociology of sport with a \nparticular focus on the mental health of \nsports workers. In particular, we argue \nthat revitalizing the study of sports work, \nand eschewing the highly individualized \nand reductionist approaches most often \ndemonstrated by dominating …
Am I just not good enough? The creation, development and questioning of a high performance coaching identity
While the career experiences and trajectories of various sports workers have received increased scholarly attention, those of professional coaches have, in comparison, received scant consideration. This paper focuses on the career experiences of Maeve (a pseudonym), a high performance coach, and the critical incidents related to the creation, development, and, ultimately, questioning of her professional identity. Data were collected through a ser…
The enactment of setting policy in secondary school physical education
The micro-level enactment of educational policy has received little attention in the physical education [PE] literature, particularly as it relates to setting policy. This study employs enactment theory to provide original insights into the ways in which setting policy was enacted by PE teachers in three mixed-gender secondary schools in England. The work of Stephen Ball and colleagues is used to examine the distinct and combined influence of the…
Power, consent and resistance
This study builds upon existing socio-cultural work into sports coaching by probing the meanings and varieties of the shared coach–athlete experience. Specifically, the paper utilises an autoethnographic approach in an attempt to chart the complex and dynamic relationship that existed between me, the principal author, as a rowing coxswain and my coach during the preparation for a national rowing championship. Data were drawn from a training diary…
Trust and Distrust in Community Sports Work
This study addressed the issue of interpersonal trust and distrust in the (sporting) workplace. Data were generated through cyclical, in-depth interviews with 12 community sports coaches. The interview transcripts were subjected to emic and etic readings, with Hardin and Cook’s theorization of (dis)trust and Goffman’s dramaturgical writings providing the primary heuristic devices. Our analysis produced three interconnected themes. These were a) h…
Thinking, Feeling, Acting
This paper aimed to shed light on the emotional nature of practice in coaching. In particular, this article was designed to explore the relationship between emotion, cognition, and behavior in the coaching context, through a narrative exploration of Zach’s (a pseudonym) experiences as the head coach of a semiprofessional soccer team. Data for this study were collected through a series of in-depth semistructured interviews that were transcribed ve…
Carl Rogers, learning and educational practice
Discussions about ‘athlete-centered’ coaching and ‘coach-centered’ coach education have started to gain increasing popularity in the field of coaching science. While it has been suggested that these ‘learner-centered’ approaches arguably align with the theoretical ideals of humanistic psychology, an in-depth examination of the implications of this learning orientation to sports coaching remains elusive. Rather, discussions have tended to be detac…
Uncertainty, shame and consumption
This paper addressed the lived experiences of two community sports coaches in an era of neoliberal capitalism, consumerism, and insecure employment. Specifically, we considered (a) their attempts to develop a desired occupational identity in a casualised and audit-driven industry and (b) their experiences of the tensions that existed between the conditions of their employment and their ability to effectively enact other (important) identities out…
Receiving video-based feedback in elite ice-hockey
The aim of this paper was to provide some rich insights into how an elite ice-hockey player responded to his coaches' pedagogical delivery of video-based feedback sessions. Data for this study were gathered through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and a reflective log relating to those interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim with the text being subject to the process of inductive analysis. The results highlighted how …
Social and Cultural Constraints on Football Player Development in Stockholm
In this paper, we consider how youth sport and (talent) development environments have adapted to, and are constrained by, social and cultural forces. Empirical evidence from an 18-month ethnographic case study highlights how social and cultural constraints influence the skill development and psychological wellbeing of young football players. We utilized novel ways of knowing (i.e., epistemologies) coupled to ecological frameworks (e.g., the theor…
Understanding Power and the Coach’s Role in Professional English Soccer
The purpose of this study was to analyze the coaching behaviours of top‐level professional English soccer coaches within the practice environment. The Arizona State University Observation Instrument (ASUOI) was used to compile data on four coaches during three phases of a given season. The results indicated that the categories of ‘pre‐instruction’, ‘concurrent instruction’, and ‘post instruction’ represented 54.45 per cent of all the recorded beh…
Translation, intensification and fabrication
The micro-level enactment of elite sport policy has received little critical coverage in the sociology of sport subdiscipline. This paper provides original insights into how coaches working in professional youth football academies variously interpreted, experienced and engaged with The FA Premier League's Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP). In-depth, cyclical interviews were used to generate data for this study. The transcripts were rigorously …
More than just a ‘Pro’
This paper addresses the social and relational dimensions of player transitions in professional football. Data were generated through a total of 24 cyclical, in-depth interviews with three former players. The interview transcripts were subjected to emic and etic readings, with Bauman's metaphors of liquid modernity, hunters and pointillist time, May's theorisation of belonging and Crossley's relational theorising providing the primary heuristic f…
Exploring the everyday realities of grass-roots football coaching
While scholars have increasingly engaged with the (micro)political and emotional experiences of coaches in professional and semi-professional football, little attention has been given to grass-roots coaches’ understandings of these issues. The aim of this paper is to outline one possible research agenda that could contribute to the development of a rich and increasingly nuanced understanding of the everyday realities of being a grass-roots footba…
An elite hockey player's experiences of video-based coaching
In this article, we present a poststructuralist reading of Claire's (a pseudonym) experiences of receiving video-based coaching in elite level field hockey. Data were gathered through a series of in-depth interviews that formed part of a recursive and iterative data collection and analysis process. Interpreting Claire's stories through a neo-Foucauldian application of Mathiesen's synopticon revealed how the presence of a video camera mediated Cla…
Maintaining professional face
This article breaks new ground in the sociology of sports work through its novel exploration of workplace deception and the associated development of an original typology of deceptive impression management. Analysis of data collected from a two-phased research design, comprising online interviews and survey responses from 102 participants, revealed that community sport coaches employed deceptive impression management to display emotional control,…
Actors, interactions, ties, and networks
The Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) has transformed the ways in which young players are recruited, coached, supported and evaluated. To date, our scientific understanding of talent identification and development processes has been largely informed by (post)positivist studies addressing the physiological, psychological and biomechanical features of elite youth performance. In this paper, Crossley’s relational theorising is pr…
Fear, Anger, and Loneliness
This interpretive study provides original insights into the socioemotional experiences that contributed to referee attrition in English grassroots football. Data were generated using an online survey ( n = 251) and in-depth interviews ( n = 20) with former referees. Using complementary symbolic interactionist and relational conceptualizations of identity, social interaction, and emotional pain, the analysis addressed the participants’ interpretat…
It's All About Getting Respect
In light of the paucity of research addressing the critical concerns of social interaction at the micro level of the coaching process, this study aimed to generate an in-depth understanding of the coaching behaviours utilized by a top-level English football coach. A mixed-method approach was used to not only identify the pedagogical behaviours used by the subject in the practice environment, but to also generate an in-depth insight into the ratio…
Constructing Expert Knowledge
The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth understanding of some of the ways in which one elite soccer coach has constructed, and continues to construct, his professional knowledge. By adopting a life-story approach the paper problematises the predominant rationality of much existing coaching research and questions the role of coach education programmes in the development of coaching knowledge. To accomplish this, the paper focuses on th…
Constructing Images and Interpreting Realities
Through its interpretation of events, and subsequent creation of social reality, mediated sport is often seen to be presented within certain ideological discourses which reflect existing power structures. The aim of this study was to investigate this phenomenon through an analysis of the images constructed of the Black soccer player in the UK by television commentators. The methodology employed was two-fold. First, 100 hours of football footage w…
Formal, Nonformal and Informal Coach Learning
Using Coombs and Ahmed's [1] framework of formal, non-formal, and informal learning as the analytical framework, this paper aims to review and conceptually locate literature exploring how sports coaches acquire the knowledge that underpins their professional practice. Furthermore, in an attempt to develop a robust set of accessible terms and concepts this paper identifies, explores and positions various terminologies under the broader heading of …
Understanding Power and the Coach’s Role in Professional English Soccer
The purpose of this study was to analyze the coaching behaviours of top‐level professional English soccer coaches within the practice environment. The Arizona State University Observation Instrument (ASUOI) was used to compile data on four coaches during three phases of a given season. The results indicated that the categories of ‘pre‐instruction’, ‘concurrent instruction’, and ‘post instruction’ represented 54.45 per cent of all the recorded beh…
Power, consent and resistance
This study builds upon existing socio-cultural work into sports coaching by probing the meanings and varieties of the shared coach–athlete experience. Specifically, the paper utilises an autoethnographic approach in an attempt to chart the complex and dynamic relationship that existed between me, the principal author, as a rowing coxswain and my coach during the preparation for a national rowing championship. Data were drawn from a training diary…
You’ve not made the grade, son’
The purpose of this investigation was to utilize in‐depth interviews to explore the experiences of young former elite footballers whose respective professional careers were prematurely ended as a consequence of deselection. To this end, the analysis focuses upon (a) the respondents’ development of a strong athletic identity, (b) the impact of deselection on the respondents’ sense of self, and (c) the respondents’ adaptations to life outside of pr…
Micropolitical Workings in Semi-Professional Football
This paper seeks to illuminate the micropolitical strategies that Gavin (a pseudonym) used in an attempt to persuade the players, the assistant coach, and the chairman at Erewhon City Football (soccer) Club to “buy into” his coaching program and methods. Data for the study were collected through in-depth, semistructured interviews, and a reflective log relating to those interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim with the subsequent tran…
Studentship’ and ‘impression management’ in an advanced soccer coach education award
The purpose of this study was to investigate how coaches perceived and responded to the content knowledge and assessment processes that they were exposed to during an advanced level soccer coaching award programme. In-depth interviews were conducted with six coaches who had successfully completed the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) ‘A’ Licence in the UK. Using the concepts of the ‘dialectic of socialisation’, ‘studentship’ and Goff…
Receiving video-based feedback in elite ice-hockey
The aim of this paper was to provide some rich insights into how an elite ice-hockey player responded to his coaches' pedagogical delivery of video-based feedback sessions. Data for this study were gathered through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and a reflective log relating to those interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim with the text being subject to the process of inductive analysis. The results highlighted how …
Carl Rogers, learning and educational practice
Discussions about ‘athlete-centered’ coaching and ‘coach-centered’ coach education have started to gain increasing popularity in the field of coaching science. While it has been suggested that these ‘learner-centered’ approaches arguably align with the theoretical ideals of humanistic psychology, an in-depth examination of the implications of this learning orientation to sports coaching remains elusive. Rather, discussions have tended to be detac…
Thinking, Feeling, Acting
This paper aimed to shed light on the emotional nature of practice in coaching. In particular, this article was designed to explore the relationship between emotion, cognition, and behavior in the coaching context, through a narrative exploration of Zach’s (a pseudonym) experiences as the head coach of a semiprofessional soccer team. Data for this study were collected through a series of in-depth semistructured interviews that were transcribed ve…
I found out the hard way
This paper examines the micro-political experiences of Adam (a pseudonym), a newly appointed fitness coach at a Football Association Premier League club, in his search for acceptance by senior colleagues. Data were collected through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, before being subject to a process of inductive analysis. Goffman's writings on impression management and stigma, Kelchtermans's micro-political perspective and Garfink…
Am I just not good enough? The creation, development and questioning of a high performance coaching identity
While the career experiences and trajectories of various sports workers have received increased scholarly attention, those of professional coaches have, in comparison, received scant consideration. This paper focuses on the career experiences of Maeve (a pseudonym), a high performance coach, and the critical incidents related to the creation, development, and, ultimately, questioning of her professional identity. Data were collected through a ser…
Developing micropolitical literacy in professional soccer
To date, there has been a paucity of inquiry into the contextual learning of performance analysts in elite-level sport. A narrative approach was used to explore Ben’s understanding of his early career experiences as a performance analyst in professional soccer. In our discussion of Ben’s career stories, we contend that the inherent structural vulnerabilities of his job, as well as Ben’s desire to advance his position and protect his professional …
Exploring the everyday realities of grass-roots football coaching
While scholars have increasingly engaged with the (micro)political and emotional experiences of coaches in professional and semi-professional football, little attention has been given to grass-roots coaches’ understandings of these issues. The aim of this paper is to outline one possible research agenda that could contribute to the development of a rich and increasingly nuanced understanding of the everyday realities of being a grass-roots footba…
The Sociology of Sports Work, Emotions and Mental Health
The central object of this introductory \nessay, and of this Special Issue more \nbroadly, is to explore relations between \nthe study of work and the continuing \nevolution of the sociology of sport with a \nparticular focus on the mental health of \nsports workers. In particular, we argue \nthat revitalizing the study of sports work, \nand eschewing the highly individualized \nand reductionist approaches most often \ndemonstrated by dominating …
An elite hockey player's experiences of video-based coaching
In this article, we present a poststructuralist reading of Claire's (a pseudonym) experiences of receiving video-based coaching in elite level field hockey. Data were gathered through a series of in-depth interviews that formed part of a recursive and iterative data collection and analysis process. Interpreting Claire's stories through a neo-Foucauldian application of Mathiesen's synopticon revealed how the presence of a video camera mediated Cla…
More than just a ‘Pro’
This paper addresses the social and relational dimensions of player transitions in professional football. Data were generated through a total of 24 cyclical, in-depth interviews with three former players. The interview transcripts were subjected to emic and etic readings, with Bauman's metaphors of liquid modernity, hunters and pointillist time, May's theorisation of belonging and Crossley's relational theorising providing the primary heuristic f…
Uncertainty, shame and consumption
This paper addressed the lived experiences of two community sports coaches in an era of neoliberal capitalism, consumerism, and insecure employment. Specifically, we considered (a) their attempts to develop a desired occupational identity in a casualised and audit-driven industry and (b) their experiences of the tensions that existed between the conditions of their employment and their ability to effectively enact other (important) identities out…
Trust and Distrust in Community Sports Work
This study addressed the issue of interpersonal trust and distrust in the (sporting) workplace. Data were generated through cyclical, in-depth interviews with 12 community sports coaches. The interview transcripts were subjected to emic and etic readings, with Hardin and Cook’s theorization of (dis)trust and Goffman’s dramaturgical writings providing the primary heuristic devices. Our analysis produced three interconnected themes. These were a) h…
Understanding (disrupted) participation in community sports clubs
Participation in sport is viewed as a key means of improving health and wellbeing in many countries, but the processes constituting participation in community sports clubs remain poorly understood. Although studies have considered the wellbeing implications of non-competitive and individual sporting activity, further theoretical and empirical work is required to understand (both sporting and non-sporting) participation in community sports clubs. …
Translation, intensification and fabrication
The micro-level enactment of elite sport policy has received little critical coverage in the sociology of sport subdiscipline. This paper provides original insights into how coaches working in professional youth football academies variously interpreted, experienced and engaged with The FA Premier League's Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP). In-depth, cyclical interviews were used to generate data for this study. The transcripts were rigorously …
The enactment of setting policy in secondary school physical education
The micro-level enactment of educational policy has received little attention in the physical education [PE] literature, particularly as it relates to setting policy. This study employs enactment theory to provide original insights into the ways in which setting policy was enacted by PE teachers in three mixed-gender secondary schools in England. The work of Stephen Ball and colleagues is used to examine the distinct and combined influence of the…
Realist evaluation of the Football Association’s Post Graduate Diploma (PG Dip) in Coach Development
Recent studies have provided important initial insights into the relational and micropolitical dimensions of coach educators’ and coach developers’ work. However, there remains a paucity of inquiry addressing how sporting organisations prepare these members of their workforce to achieve desired goals and objectives. This research uses realist evaluation and normalisation process theory to examine a bespoke ‘reality grounded’ learning initiative t…
Psychology (34 works) · Sociology (28 works) · Sport Psychology and Performance (27 works) · Political science (26 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (25 works) · Coaching (19 works) · Physical Education and Pedagogy (19 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Pedagogy (15 works) · Football (14 works)