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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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More than a game
— the experience of being a professional footballer in Britain | | Author(s) | Brian Gearing |
| Journal title | Oral History, Spring 1997 |
| Pages | pp 63-70 |
| Keywords | Football ; Memory and Reminiscence ; Personality ; Preparation [retirement] ; Historical studies. |
| Annotation | The thesis of this article is that being a footballer is more than just being involved in a game; it involves certain values and practices which become part of one's identity, and which appears to be central to the identity of players: the "encompassing" effect of playing football for a living (and being part of a football club); the "emotionality" and excitement of football; and the sub-culture of male camaraderie. Such elements are generally absent from newspaper accounts and documentary evidence, but are revealed in the oral and written testimony of players. The author is a gerontologist with a lifelong interest in football. In this article he explores issues of ageing and retirement within the domain of professional football. In particular, he looks at how players cope with retirement, based on three biographical interviews with former players who retired from professional football in, respectively the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s. Part of a larger study using oral sources, the article relates the occupational culture of football to what footballers miss about the game, and concludes with some implications of how they may cope with retirement. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-980108246 A |
| Classmark | HTF: DB: DK: GA: HL * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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