Football and the Military in Contemporary Britain

• Author: Roger Penn,Damon Berridge
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X16682784
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Football and the Military in

Contemporary Britain:

An Exploration of

Invisible Nationalism

Roger Penn

1

and Damon Berridge

2

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between football (soccer) and the military in

Britain to explore how ‘‘invisible nationalism’’ has evolved. Here, invisible nation-

alism refers to the phenomena by which the presence of the military at major British

sporting events is both highly visual and has been rendered culturally and politically

invisible: It is hidden ‘‘in plain sight.’’ We applied the conceptual framework asso-

ciated with the ‘‘Annales’’ School of structuralist history to explore how the inex-

tricable links between football, the military, the monarchy, and established church

have influenced the evolution of invisible nationalism. We conducted ethnographic

fieldwork, including observations, interviews, and focus groups, and also analyzed

visual data. These comprised television broadcasts of national sporting events and

figures taken at English football clubs. We conclude that the power of the dominant

metanarratives of British nationalism serves to render these phenomena invisible to

most spectators, especially those who consume football via television.

Keywords

football, military, Britain, nationalism, visual data

1

Queen’s University, Belfast, United Kingdom

2

Swansea University Medical School, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, United Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Roger Penn, Queen’s University, Belfast, United Kingdom.

Email: r.penn@qub.ac.uk

Armed Forces & Society

2018, Vol. 44(1) 116-138

ªThe Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X16682784

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This article examines the relationship between association football (soccer) and the

military in contemporary Britain. The study is situated within the broad trajectory of

the oscillating relationship between popular attitudes and the military in Britain over

the last 400 years. The analysis of the current conjuncture explores this relationship

empirically in relation to football at both the national and the local level. The

interpretation is supported in part with visual data and involves the application of

the notion of ‘‘invisible nationalism.’’

There has been considerable variation in popular attitudes in Britain toward the

military over the last 400 years or so. From the 17th century onward, there has been

a persistent hostility among the British populace to the notion of a ‘‘standing

army’’ (i.e., a permanent army under the direct control of the monarch; Christie,

1982). Reliance for national defense was placed primarily upon naval supremacy

(Robson, 1957). Nevertheless, in the 18th century, as the British Empire emerged

globally, recruitment to the navy was often forced using the institution of ‘‘press

ganging’’ sailors at the main Channel ports in the south of England (Bromley &

Ryan, 1970).

Britain’s post–Napoleonic Empire was rooted in overwhelming global naval

superiority (Best, 1982). There remained popular hostility toward the army such

that by 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, Britain possessed a very small

army (Beloff, 1984). Indeed, unlike the other major powers in Europe like Germany,

France, Russia, and Austria–Hungary, Britain did not rely on mass conscription prior

to the outbreak of hostilities. The two World Wars in the 20th century witnessed

widespread (almost universal) conscription (Parker, 1979). At the end of both wars,

there was a strong reaction against military values involving the growth of both

internationalism and pacifism, especially among those on the left of the political

spectrum. By the 1960s, military values and, pari passu, the military itself were

generally unpopular in Britain (Forster, 2012; Marwick, 1988). However, over

recent decades, there has been a concerted effort by successive British Governments,

as well as by the military itself, to promote the armed services and to legitimize the

near-permanent state of war.

This has been evident across a wide range of contexts. In 2006, the Government

initiated Veteran’s Day at the instigation of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer,

Gordon Brown, to recognize the contribution of British veterans. This was changed

to Armed Forces Day in 2009 and has involved a burgeoning array of events that

involve and celebrate the three armed services. There has also been a growth of links

between the military and the educational system. Cadet Forces have been expanded

in state schools, and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has funded ‘‘military ethos’’

projects in schools to the tune of £45 million since 2011. The MoD has provided

teaching resources to help promote the armed forces (MoD, 2014) and, in addition,

has created a program designed to channel ex-service personnel into the teaching

profession through the ‘‘Troops to Teachers’’ scheme. There have also been exam-

ples of secondary school academies being funded by defense-related companies,

most notably BAe Systems’s sponsorship of Furness Academy in Cumbria.

Penn and Berridge 117