GETTING INTO EUROPE

This book is an investigation into the identifications and stories told by football supporters about some ill-defined entity called Europe. The core aim is to consider whether the experiences of football fandom (and the ways in which these are recounted) may be developing identifications with Europe and whether this may legitimate the EU or assist in reducing intra-European xenophobia. So, the book is concerned with the consumption of football in English and European competitions, with more than one eye on fan perceptions of transnational developments in the sport and its possible socio- political resonance. The research is also centrally interested in the development of European identities, particularly in respect to the way Europe is consumed. It is concerned with the tensions of discourses which, on the one hand, present Europe as abstract and almost ill-definable and, on the other, with a Europe situated within everyday and lived practices.