Alan Tomlinson
Biographic Data
| ID | 125343 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alan Tomlinson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alan |
| FAMILY NAME | Tomlinson |
| SIGNATURE | TOMLINSON A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Brighton |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8059-9778 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 71 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 245 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 63 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 8 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Association football and the administrators who made it, c. 1863–1914
The game of ‘association football’ or ‘soccer’ emerged as an English amateur pastime, to metamorphize into the ‘world’s game’. In this historiographical contribution we consider the formative history of football by highlighting the entrepreneurial role of the amateur administrators who imported the logic of bureaucratic organization from other sectors, identifying their influence on the entities which govern and organize the sport. We demonstrate…
There's a brand new dance’: 1 Fashion in English men's and women's professional football
This article explores the intricate and evolving relationship between English football, its male and female professional players, and the fashion industries from the inter-war years of the last century to the present day. Following a historical overview that engages with traditional understandings of classed masculinity, the article argues that some of the most significant aspects of the contemporary football and fashion relationship can be uncov…
Portraying Black Love in the Media: Bridging the Gap Between Representations and Real-Life Experiences of Black Romantic Relationships and Families
Leisure for all: Reclaiming the right to leisure
Rights and wellbeing in sport policy and provision: A New Zealand case-study
This article reviews ways in which leisure and sport provision have been seen as a social necessity or public good, or an element of a citizen's rights in a single democratic society. We present a case study of the development and implementation of sport policy in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). We highlight the specificity of socio-political influences upon the emergence of state support for leisure development, and the creation of forms of access to…
Populist Dimensions of Sport Histories
This article explores the concept of populism to further our understanding of sport-based institutions and discourse and to demonstrate the relevance of “sportive populism” to sport history scholarship. It begins with an account of the application of the concept to strongman populism in historical and contemporary contexts and then focuses on two specific historical cases: the Colosseum in Rome in the first century CE, and the formative discourse…
The role of social capital in participatory arts for wellbeing: Findings from a qualitative systematic review
Qualitative findings from a systematic review: Visual arts engagement for adults with mental health conditions1
This article reports on an investigation of the effects of ‘visual arts’-based programmes on subjective well-being (SWB) outcomes for adults with mental health conditions. In a systematic review, electronic databases were searched for articles published from January 2007 to April 2017. Grey literature completed from January 2014 to April 2017 was also considered. Six published articles of mostly moderate quality and six evaluation reports (grey l…
Sport and Social Class
The entry shows the influence of social class, as an economic relationship widely associated with wealth and occupation, upon forms of sport. It focuses in particular upon participation, but also looks at the historical manifestation of class and status differences in historical contexts such as the Colosseum in ancient Rome, and the formative phase of the growth of modern sports in industrializing Britain. Neo‐Marxist scholarship and the work of…
Solace: Music-Making as a Route to Recovery and Well-Being
In this article, we examine the contribution of a distinctive participatory intervention, the Brighton-based New Note Orchestra (NNO), to our understanding of the sources of subjective wellbeing for people who are dealing with addiction. The focus of the article is upon Solace, a performance piece generated through collaborative improvisation by NNO and presented at several public venues from December 2017 to March 2018
The Untold Story of Fifa’s Diplomacy and the 1966 World Cup: North Korea, Africa and Sir Stanley Rous
The article addresses the diplomacy practiced by Sir Stanley Rous, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) president (1961–1974), and the international history of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea involvement in, and the boycott by African nations of, the 1966 World Cup in light of a number of newly available primary sources. The new materials reveal first, Rous’s diplomatic practice and the tension between formal and informa…
Foundations of managing sporting events: Organising the 1966 Fifa World Cup
Foundations of managing sporting events: organising the 1966 FIFA World Cup." Business History, 61(4), pp. 741–742
What works for wellbeing? A systematic review of wellbeing outcomes for music and singing in adults
The Olympic Legacy: Social Scientific Explorations
Sport and Peace-Building in Divided Societies: Playing with Enemies
Sport is a cultural institution that stands at the interface between political and civil society. In divided communities, sport has been an agent of separation, sectarian hatred and violence, but also a highly effective tool for conflict resolution, reconciliation and peace-building. In this important study, John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson draw on their extensive international experience of working with divided communities to develop a methodologi…
Understanding International Sport Organisations: Principles, Power and Possibilities
The governance of international sport is dominated by the SINGOs (sporting international non-governmental organisations). The IOC, FIFA, IAAF and the FIA wield global influence, but how exactly do such complex organisations operate? This important book examines the rise of the SINGOs, their structures, organisational behaviour and their power in the context of modern sport and international politics. Written by two world-leading experts, the book…
Football, Corruption and Lies: Revisiting 'Badfellas', the book Fifa tried to ban
World football is in crisis. The corruption scandal engulfing FIFA is arguably the biggest story in the history of modern sport and a watershed for sport governance. More than a decade ago, John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson laid the foundations for subsequent investigations with the publication of Badfellas, a groundbreaking work of critical sport sociology that exposed the systematic corruption at the heart of world football. It was a book that FIF…
Understanding International Sport Organisations: Principles, Power and Possibilities
Sport and Peace-Building in Divided Societies: Playing with Enemies
Fifa (Fédération Internationale de Football Association): The Men, the Myths and the Money
Founded in 1904 by representatives of the sporting organisations of six European nations then expanding into the Americas, Asia and Africa FIFA has developed to become one of the most high profile and lucrative businesses in the global consumer and cultural industry. Recent years however have been characterised by a series of crises leaving the organisation open to critique and exposure, and creating a soap operatic narrative of increasing intere…
Sport, Leisure and Social Relations (RLE Sports Studies)
When this book was first published the study of sport had been largely neglected by sociologists. The contributions to this volume bring the sports field, the leisure centre and everyday leisure activities to a more central position within the sociological enterprise. Whether amateur or professional, sport contributes to wider relations of power, privilege and domination and this debate represents an important phase in the sociology of sport and …
Olympic legacies: Recurrent rhetoric and harsh realities
This article traces the genesis of the principle of legacy as it has featured in Olympic discourse, and become enshrined in the expressed philosophy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), so shaping elements in the process of bidding by cities to stage the Olympic Games, in both their winter and summer manifestations. The article shows how Olympic bidders have increasingly mobilised the idea of legacy, and how event by event over the last …
Fifa: The Men, the Myths and the Money
The supreme leader sails on: Leadership, ethics and governance in Fifa
The leaders of the governing body of world football, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), formed in 1904, have often claimed that its contribution has been not just to the global growth of a sport, but also to potential and actual changes in intercultural understanding and international relations; the organization has claimed to contribute to hope and integration through football development. But in recent years, its governan…
Power Games: A Critical Sociology of Sport
Critical and radical perspectives have been central to the emergence of the sociology of sport as a discipline in its own right. This ground-breaking new book is the first to offer a comprehensive theory and method for a critical sociology of sport. It argues that class, political economy, hegemony and other concepts central to the radical tradition are essential for framing, understanding and changing social and political relations within sport …
The Changing Gender Order in Sport: The Case of Windsurfing Subcultures
New sports such as windsurfing have been perceived as the product of a postmodern society and culture in which sporting and physical activity offer a basis for the generation of new and multiple identities. Drawing on ethnographic work within England and across global subcultural networks, this article documents the persisting gendered basis of the subculture of windsurfing. It identifies the core principles of windsurfing's culture of commitment…
Olympic spectacle: Opening ceremonies and some paradoxes of globalization
Male Coach/Female Athlete Relations: Gender and Power Relations in Competitive Sport
This article reports participation observation evidence, questionnaire survey, and in-depth interview data in an examination of the male coach / female athlete relationship in competitive sport. Focusing on athletics in the United Kingdom, the authors demonstrate the gendered nature of female athlete / male coach relationships, and the dynamics of power and control that contribute to the nature and perpetuation of those relationships. The vulnera…
Power: Domination, Negotiation, and Resistance in Sports Cultures
Culture of Commitment in Leisure: Notes Towards the Understanding of a Serious Legacy
1993). Culture of Commitment in Leisure: Notes Towards the Understanding of a Serious Legacy. World Leisure & Recreation: Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 6-9
Power and Resistance in the Governance of World Football: Theorizing Fifa's Transnational Impact
FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) has been the governing body of world football since 1904. It has grown from a small European-based organization into a body with a membership of almost 200 nations. In this article, we trace this growth and locate the place of FIFA within a world order of transnational organizations and worldwide cultural politics. Drawing on previously unpublished material, face-to-face observation of the …
Digging the Dirt and Staying Clean: Retrieving the Investigative Tradition for a Critical Sociology of Sport
This article draws upon the authors' work on the global politics of world football and related studies of other sports and methodological issues, in order to argue for the retrieval of the investigative mode of sociological inquiry. In the context of a general critical interpretative framework, the gonzo style of Hunter S. Thompson and the investigative epistemology of Jack Douglas are evaluated and synthesized in a framework that challenges the …
The supreme leader sails on: Leadership, ethics and governance in Fifa
The leaders of the governing body of world football, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), formed in 1904, have often claimed that its contribution has been not just to the global growth of a sport, but also to potential and actual changes in intercultural understanding and international relations; the organization has claimed to contribute to hope and integration through football development. But in recent years, its governan…
Argentina versus England at the France '98 World Cup: Narratives of nation and the mythologizing of the popular
The football (soccer) game between Argentina and England during the France '98 World Cup is analysed as a form of media event in which the sports encounter is the source of and high-profile focus for the media's mobilization of narratives of the nation, and reaffirmation of popular mythologies of the national. The legacy of previous Argentina-England encounters is discussed in the light of the persistence of foundation myths concerning the style …
Olympic legacies: Recurrent rhetoric and harsh realities
This article traces the genesis of the principle of legacy as it has featured in Olympic discourse, and become enshrined in the expressed philosophy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), so shaping elements in the process of bidding by cities to stage the Olympic Games, in both their winter and summer manifestations. The article shows how Olympic bidders have increasingly mobilised the idea of legacy, and how event by event over the last …
Fifa and the men who made it
(2000). FIFA and the men who made it. Soccer & Society: Vol. 1, The Future of Football: Challenges for the Twenty‐First Centu, pp. 55-71
Global power struggles in world football: Fifa and Uefa, 1954–74, and their legacy
Stories From Planet Football and Sportsworld: Source relations and collusion in sport journalism
The profile of sport journalism has increased as the scale and media profile of large-scale international sporting events have escalated. This article considers the ways in which sport journalists have responded to such changes. It concentrates upon the nature of sport journalists’ relationships with their sources; their relationship with gatekeepers; and the issue of collusion, between journalists themselves and journalists and their subjects an…
Riefenstahl's Olympia: Ideology and aesthetics in the shaping of the Aryan athletic body
This article is part of the following collections: The International Journal of the History of Sport Best Article Prize: Early Winners (1984-2009)
Lord, Don't Stop the Carnival: Trinidad and Tobago at the 2006 Fifa World Cup
Trinidad and Tobago played in the men's football FIFA World Cup Finals in summer 2006 in Germany, becoming the smallest qualifier, according to population, in the history of the World Cup. In this article, the questions are posed of how such a small nation has achieved this and what the contribution of Jack Warner has been to this story. The analysis is informed by a critical, investigative framework that combines sociological synthesis with qual…
Getting There: Cultural Theory and the Sociological Analysis of Sport in Britain
In this paper we offer a rejoinder to MacAloon’s arguments in his article, “The Ethnographic Imperative in Comparative Olympic Research,” and briefly situate the other contributions in this theme issue of Sociology of Sport Journal . We argue that while MacAloon’s polemic against the so-called “cultural studies” approach raises important issues, notably the need for more soundly based empirical work, his characterization is misconceived, and that…
Leisure for all: Reclaiming the right to leisure
Towards a New History of European Sport
The European Commission has invested much symbolic capital in sport's potential contribution to European identity, recently stating ‘that sport has a role in forging identity and bringing people together’. Yet such claims must be strongly qualified. Whilst sport is conspicuously present in Europe as an everyday activity, it is elusively variegated in its social and cultural forms and impacts, and historically informed scholarship points to a more…
What’s Left When the Circus Leaves Town? an Evaluation of World Cup Usa 1994
This article reviews the impact of the 1994 World Cup (Soccer) Finals upon contemporary US sports culture. The authors draw upon historical and sociological scholarship on North American sports culture, participant observation data generated by them during the World Cup itself, and empirical sources on the context and impact of the World Cup’s development and implementation. These sources are used within an analytical framework derived from criti…
Whose side are they on? Leisure studies and cultural studies in Britain
After discussing some of the responses to the 1988 LSA International Conference, particularly the theory-practice or academic-practitioner relation, this paper goes on to explore the roots of leisure studies and the sociology of leisure in Britain, and to account for the impact of cultural studies upon the study of leisure. It is argued that the critical dimension to cultural studies could restore to the study of leisure some of the major concern…
The Untold Story of Fifa’s Diplomacy and the 1966 World Cup: North Korea, Africa and Sir Stanley Rous
The article addresses the diplomacy practiced by Sir Stanley Rous, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) president (1961–1974), and the international history of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea involvement in, and the boycott by African nations of, the 1966 World Cup in light of a number of newly available primary sources. The new materials reveal first, Rous’s diplomatic practice and the tension between formal and informa…
Whose game is it anyway? The cultural analysis of sport and media consumption
This article presents work towards a critical sociology and a cultural analysis of sport, developing as the fullest example an interpretation of shifting patterns of power in English professional football, in the context of wider patterns of sports development and participation. The impact of selected work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (at the University of Birmingham, England) is reviewed, and located with regard to some of its…
Shifting Patterns of Working-Class Leisure: The Case of Knur-and-Spell
This article presents a single case study in the context of an exploration of social and cultural change and the major influences affecting patterns of working-class culture in interwar and postwar Britain. The case study is of knur-and-spell, a form of working-class sport (also known as tipping or poor man’s golf) in the northwest region of England. The study draws upon newspaper and oral sources. It is presented as evidence of the unevenness of…
Leisure, Sport and Working Class Cultures
Rights and wellbeing in sport policy and provision: A New Zealand case-study
This article reviews ways in which leisure and sport provision have been seen as a social necessity or public good, or an element of a citizen's rights in a single democratic society. We present a case study of the development and implementation of sport policy in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). We highlight the specificity of socio-political influences upon the emergence of state support for leisure development, and the creation of forms of access to…
George Bernard Shaw
O autor afirma que Shaw, em qualquer avaliação da literatura britânica, durante o século passado e o começo deste, merece um lugar proeminente.Uma das razões para isso, é que Shaw foi um escritor que percebeu a necessidade premente das mudanças sociais e tentou tornar essa necessidade evidente aos olhos dos outros.Desenvolvendo esse tema, o autor trata da centralidade das questões levantadas nas peças de Shaw, em relação aos problemas sociais, po…
Introduction: The Sociological Analysis of Sport and Leisure
Reflections on Brazilian Football: "A Review and Critique of Janet Lever's "Soccer Madness
Whose side are they on? Leisure studies and cultural studies in Britain
After discussing some of the responses to the 1988 LSA International Conference, particularly the theory-practice or academic-practitioner relation, this paper goes on to explore the roots of leisure studies and the sociology of leisure in Britain, and to account for the impact of cultural studies upon the study of leisure. It is argued that the critical dimension to cultural studies could restore to the study of leisure some of the major concern…
Leisure, Sport and Working Class Cultures
Consumption, Identity, and Style: Marketing, Meanings, and the Packaging of Pleasure
Whose game is it anyway? The cultural analysis of sport and media consumption
This article presents work towards a critical sociology and a cultural analysis of sport, developing as the fullest example an interpretation of shifting patterns of power in English professional football, in the context of wider patterns of sports development and participation. The impact of selected work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (at the University of Birmingham, England) is reviewed, and located with regard to some of its…
Shifting Patterns of Working-Class Leisure: The Case of Knur-and-Spell
This article presents a single case study in the context of an exploration of social and cultural change and the major influences affecting patterns of working-class culture in interwar and postwar Britain. The case study is of knur-and-spell, a form of working-class sport (also known as tipping or poor man’s golf) in the northwest region of England. The study draws upon newspaper and oral sources. It is presented as evidence of the unevenness of…
Getting There: Cultural Theory and the Sociological Analysis of Sport in Britain
In this paper we offer a rejoinder to MacAloon’s arguments in his article, “The Ethnographic Imperative in Comparative Olympic Research,” and briefly situate the other contributions in this theme issue of Sociology of Sport Journal . We argue that while MacAloon’s polemic against the so-called “cultural studies” approach raises important issues, notably the need for more soundly based empirical work, his characterization is misconceived, and that…
Strange Meeting in Strange Land: Wilfred Owen and Shelley
Lecture intertextuelle des consequences psychologiques et morales de la guerre dans Strange Meeting de W. Owen a la lumiere de l'esthetique romantique de P. B. Shelley
Culture of Commitment in Leisure: Notes Towards the Understanding of a Serious Legacy
1993). Culture of Commitment in Leisure: Notes Towards the Understanding of a Serious Legacy. World Leisure & Recreation: Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 6-9
What’s Left When the Circus Leaves Town? an Evaluation of World Cup Usa 1994
This article reviews the impact of the 1994 World Cup (Soccer) Finals upon contemporary US sports culture. The authors draw upon historical and sociological scholarship on North American sports culture, participant observation data generated by them during the World Cup itself, and empirical sources on the context and impact of the World Cup’s development and implementation. These sources are used within an analytical framework derived from criti…
Olympic spectacle: Opening ceremonies and some paradoxes of globalization
Global power struggles in world football: Fifa and Uefa, 1954–74, and their legacy
Male Coach/Female Athlete Relations: Gender and Power Relations in Competitive Sport
This article reports participation observation evidence, questionnaire survey, and in-depth interview data in an examination of the male coach / female athlete relationship in competitive sport. Focusing on athletics in the United Kingdom, the authors demonstrate the gendered nature of female athlete / male coach relationships, and the dynamics of power and control that contribute to the nature and perpetuation of those relationships. The vulnera…
Power and Resistance in the Governance of World Football: Theorizing Fifa's Transnational Impact
FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) has been the governing body of world football since 1904. It has grown from a small European-based organization into a body with a membership of almost 200 nations. In this article, we trace this growth and locate the place of FIFA within a world order of transnational organizations and worldwide cultural politics. Drawing on previously unpublished material, face-to-face observation of the …
The Changing Gender Order in Sport: The Case of Windsurfing Subcultures
New sports such as windsurfing have been perceived as the product of a postmodern society and culture in which sporting and physical activity offer a basis for the generation of new and multiple identities. Drawing on ethnographic work within England and across global subcultural networks, this article documents the persisting gendered basis of the subculture of windsurfing. It identifies the core principles of windsurfing's culture of commitment…
Power: Domination, Negotiation, and Resistance in Sports Cultures
Riefenstahl's Olympia: Ideology and aesthetics in the shaping of the Aryan athletic body
This article is part of the following collections: The International Journal of the History of Sport Best Article Prize: Early Winners (1984-2009)
Digging the Dirt and Staying Clean: Retrieving the Investigative Tradition for a Critical Sociology of Sport
This article draws upon the authors' work on the global politics of world football and related studies of other sports and methodological issues, in order to argue for the retrieval of the investigative mode of sociological inquiry. In the context of a general critical interpretative framework, the gonzo style of Hunter S. Thompson and the investigative epistemology of Jack Douglas are evaluated and synthesized in a framework that challenges the …
Football, ressentiment and resistance in the break‐up of the former Soviet Union
(2000). Football, ressentiment and resistance in the break‐up of the former Soviet Union. Culture, Sport, Society: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 89-108
Fifa and the men who made it
(2000). FIFA and the men who made it. Soccer & Society: Vol. 1, The Future of Football: Challenges for the Twenty‐First Centu, pp. 55-71
Argentina versus England at the France '98 World Cup: Narratives of nation and the mythologizing of the popular
The football (soccer) game between Argentina and England during the France '98 World Cup is analysed as a form of media event in which the sports encounter is the source of and high-profile focus for the media's mobilization of narratives of the nation, and reaffirmation of popular mythologies of the national. The legacy of previous Argentina-England encounters is discussed in the light of the persistence of foundation myths concerning the style …
Speculations on the Body and Sporting Spaces: The Cultural Significance of Sport Performance
Sociological work on sport and the body has escalated in recent years as the theme of the body has become more established on the social scientific research agenda. This article reviews some of that work and also notes that historical work on the sporting body remains relatively undeveloped. The core of the article is dedicated to the examination of sporting bodies in 19th-century England in popular events and pastimes such as pedestrianism and l…
Pierre Bourdieu and the Sociological Study of Sport: Habitus, Capital and Field
Pierre Bourdieu was one of the most influential social theorists of his generation, both in his home country France and throughout the international sociological community. For close to half a century he researched a range of anthropological and sociological topics and, as a consequence, has had an enormously influential impact across the academic world. His initial specialism was in anthropology, and his publications in the early 1960s addressed…
Sport and Mega-Event Impacts (51 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (50 works) · Sociology (45 works) · Political science (42 works) · Law (31 works) · Law (23 works) · Social science (20 works) · History (19 works) · Politics (19 works) · Art (18 works)