Westby, M. and Wilson, J.P. (2022) Historical firsts and superlatives: public engagement versus historical accuracy in association football. Soccer & Society, 24 (1). pp. 123-137. ISSN 1466-0970
Abstract
Statistics, data, fun facts, trivia, miscellanies, firsts, lasts, onlys, nevers and other superlatives are almost indispensable ingredients in football media and are consumed voraciously by the general public. In this paper, we examine how firsts and other superlatives enable the bounded rationality of humans to make greater sense of the large and growing volume of football data. This perspective is contrasted with that of ‘professional’ historians who describe the complexity of history yet at the same time, within the context of historiography, frequently make use of narratives and beginnings. Parallel instances to these football dilemmas are identified in scientific arenas, museums, social identity and historical significance. It is argued that this division between popular ‘amateur’ historians and ‘professional’ historians is inevitable but that there is potential to engage people more deeply within football history thereby increasing their understanding and enjoyment of the game.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
Keywords: | Historical firsts; historiography; football; superlatives; sport |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 Sep 2022 10:31 |
Last Modified: | 12 Jul 2024 09:44 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/14660970.2022.2113136 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:190630 |
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Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0