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(2010)
’You’re not fit to wear the shirt’: towards a cultural sociology of the football
shirt.
In Ebert, N, Watkins, S, & Velayutham, S (Eds.) Social Causes, Private
Lives: Proceedings of The Australian Sociological Association Conference
2010.
The Australian Sociological Association, Australia, pp. 1-12.

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 1

‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’:

towards a cultural sociology of the football shirt

Gavin Kendall
Queensland University of Technology

Nick Osbaldiston
University of Melbourne

Abstract
The world of football is a matter of life and death for many of its fans, and has also attracted
much sociological attention. Much of this scholarly work focuses on issues such as deviance,
identity, globalisation and commodification (Elias and Dunning 1986; Giulianotti and Robertson
2009). More recently, there has been some evidence of a cultural approach to football and to the
football shirt (Benzecry 2008). In this paper, we seek to develop this trend by examining the
football shirt as a totem, and by understanding it as inserted into circuits of the sacred and the
profane, and the authentic and the inauthentic. Through examples such as shirt throwing, badge
kissing, shirt swapping and supporters‟ efforts to construct alternative, protest strips, we show
that the football shirt is deeply embedded in narratives of authenticity, sacredness and
profaneness. In doing so, we aim to represent football as a rich cultural practice, which involves
secular rituals and performances.

Keywords: ritual, sacred, profane, football, sport, cultural sociology

Introduction: from politics, violence, globalisation and commodification to culture

Across the world, association football, or soccer, is one of the most keenly followed sporting or
cultural spectacles, whether „directly‟ through match attendance, through television broadcasts of
games to an ever-growing global audience, or through the other mass media which produce
 2

copious analyses of the game, and mountains of gossip and rumour about players, managers,
owners, directors, referees and other officials. While in the European and South American
heartlands of the beautiful game, the national and local press will devote large percentages of
their coverage to football, there are also many publications which take football as their sole
focus. Football, of course, has already attracted considerable sociological interest, especially in
terms of two areas of inquiry: first, above all inaugurated by Eric Dunning, scholarship has
focused on hooliganism and violence, as well as the attendant issue of masculine identity (e.g.
Elias and Dunning 1986); second, there has been a political sociological interest in the
globalisation and commodification of the game (e.g. Giulianotti and Robertson 2009). To a lesser
extent, there has been a third, cultural studies-inspired, set of analyses of the game and its
meaning in terms of fashion and celebrity (e.g. Cashmore 2002), but this work has tended to an
analysis which emphasises the globalisation of celebrity and the commodification of the game
through its increasing popularity with the middle-classes, for example in the period after the
1990 World Cup. Benzecry‟s (2008) important paper provides an interesting bridge from these
more established analyses of football to the realm of cultural sociology; in his analysis of the
Boca Juniors‟ football shirt, much of his attention is drawn to processes of globalisation and
commodification, yet he is also alert to the importance of what we might call Durkheimian or
cultural concerns – the shirt as a totem, the rituals and superstitions of the game, and the way in
which objects stitch together social life (see also Molotch 2003; Knorr-Cetina 1997). These, too,
are our concerns, as we seek to build a cultural sociology of the football shirt, where deep
narratives and codes such as purity, the sacred, the authentic and the impure, pollution and the
profane are analysed as decisive social constructs.

Cultural sociology has shown these cultural narratives at work in many domains, including
punishment (Smith 2008), technology (Alexander 1998), secular pilgrimages (West 2008), sites
of national mythology (Riley 2008) and everyday self-help activity (Rossati 2009). In this paper,
we follow this line of inquiry by proposing that the constructs of the authentic as the sacred and
the inauthentic as the polluted/profane help guide the analysis of one of the most important sites
of cultural practice for supporters, the football shirt. From the manufacture and acquisition of the
shirt through to its use by players and fans alike, we argue that authenticity –not just of the object
but also of the self – is a vital category of analysis.
 3

The Authentic and the Sacred

The problem of authenticity has long been a concern of the philosophers. From Rousseau‟s
(1953[1781]) confessions of the flesh through to more recent scholars such as Taylor (1991),
arguments continue to rage about what „true‟ authenticity is, especially in connection to the self.
Sociology‟s role within this debate has been marginal, but its contributions have been important.
Simmel (1997[1903]), Weber (1978[1925]) and Durkheim (1984[1893]) all expressed concern
over the loss of subjective authenticity under the malign influence of industrialization and/or
capitalism. Benjamin (2008[1936]) provides a canonical example of this approach in his
discussion of the reproduction of art in the mechanical age. More recently, through the work of
scholars such as Vannini and Williams (2009a) and Lindholm (2008), authenticity has become
central to sociological and anthropological analyses of work, lifestyle and relationships.
However, unlike in philosophy, the concept is grounded in these emerging sociologies as a social
construct, one emptied of meaning except through cultural narratives, myths and collective
imaginations. For instance:
Authenticity is not so much a state of being as it is the objectification of a
process of representation, that is, it refers to a set of qualities that people in a
particular time and place have come to agree represent an ideal or exemplar. As
culture changes – and with it, tastes, beliefs, values, and practices – so too do
definitions of what constitutes the authentic (Vannini and Williams 2009b: 3).

From this view, the authentic operates much like the sacred for Durkheim (1995[1912]), as it can
only be located within particular temporal and spatial configurations (see also Levi-Strauss
1966). This relates not just to objects, but also to conceptualisations of what and how an
authentic self looks, acts and importantly, feels. Critical to this discussion is where the market
begins and ends in the collective perception of the authentic, as Lindholm (2008: 57) argues
here:
It (the authentic) also means that there is the new possibility of purchasing an
objectified identity space that is different from and more expressing and
convincing than whatever already exists. And so consumption has become a
 4

way to clutch at the chimera of a genuine and compelling reality that always
slips out of reach because there is always another, potentially even more
satisfying and convincing reality up for sale.

Despite this rather cynical reflection, redolent of the Frankfurt school (cf. Marcuse 1964; Fromm
1956), Lindholm (2008: 141) later confesses that we should „take seriously‟ the contemporary
seekers of the authentic (following Durkheim‟s (1995[1912]) call to consider religion as more
than an illusion). In this paper we take a similar path. Authenticity in the football jersey is a
social/cultural construct, but one that should be considered as real and with deep meaning for the
lives into which it is embedded.

The Totemic Power of the Shirt

The shirt‟s sacrality and deep cultural meaning among football fans is exemplified when social
order is broken. One particular event connected to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is worth
recounting. Hossam Ghaly, a Tottenham player, was substituted by the team‟s manager, Martin
Jol, during a game in 2007. His response to this was to throw his shirt at the manager and walk
out of the stadium. News reports of this incident were legion, and indicated that as Ghaly
completed this ritual of disappointment and disgust, he was jeered by the crowd, who shouted
„you‟re not fit to wear the shirt‟ (The Daily Mail 2007, para. 7). Comments on this incident
further reflect the profane quality of this symbolic gesture from the player, with fans suggesting
that Ghaly should „respect‟ the shirt more, because it is the supporters who stand behind it both
socially and economically (The Daily Mail 2007, para. 14). The reaction of the supporters
reveals how deeply the shirt is embedded in the collective identity of the team and its fans. Like
the flag which stands as a sacred totem for nations (Durkheim 1995[1912]), the football shirt is
the totem for supporters and players alike. To burn a flag is profane. To throw a club shirt on the
ground is just as profane, so the chant directed at Ghaly is a fan‟s favourite when the players
have let them down – especially in situations where their effort and commitment can be
questioned. To be beaten by a clearly superior team will not evoke this chant; it is reserved for
moments of social disgrace and for times when the players seem to forget that they represent
„more than a club‟, to evoke FC Barcelona‟s motto. For example, the Arsenal manager Arsène
 5

Wenger realised this was the harshest accusation he could level at his players to snap them out of
their lethargy and motivate them to win the game:
A seething Wenger told his players they were „not fit to wear the Arsenal shirt‟ after
seeing the hosts [sc. Liverpool] capitalise on a listless first-half performance (Daily
Mail 2009a).

Wenger gambled with this insult – he could easily have alienated and „lost‟ his players – but he
was rewarded with a 2-1 win, as his players responded to the jibe, and turned a 1-0 deficit into
victory.

Similarly, Paul Robinson lambasted his West Bromwich Albion team-mates:

There are a few out there who need to wear the shirt with a little bit more pride and
passion and commit themselves to this club a bit more.

I would like to see a bit more passion and commitment. I think we have lacked that. I
am not afraid to say it. It shouldn't bother me to say it.

I think a few more players should stand up and come out and say it themselves, that
they should be more committed to the club and they should be fighting for the cause a
bit more (Daily Mail 2009b).

Manchester City fans levelled the ultimate insult at their players after a cup defeat to Blackburn
Rovers:
The fans‟ verdict was simple: "You're not fit to wear the shirt!" chanted 7,000 City
supporters as they watched Blackburn Rovers dump their side out of the FA Cup (BBC
2007).

However, the shirt, though sacred, can be thrown away; if a player in the height of celebrating a
goal throws his shirt into the crowd, it is akin to a „gift‟ (Mauss 1974[1925]). The object given is
sacred, and the spontaneity of the gesture of giving – an unplanned, ecstatic moment of release –
underlines the power of the exchange. The player will invariably be yellow-carded for this
 6

gesture, and his punishment, which may be financial and/or lead to suspension or even a sending
off, is an extravagant refusal of common sense – almost a potlatch-like form of self-destruction.
We can interpret in similar ways other rituals where players, shirts and fans mix, where the
object of the shirt encodes social relationships. The kissing of the badge shows the home fans
that the player is not just a mercenary or „professional‟, but loves the shirt, and hence the club,
the fans, the home ground, and the whole sacred ensemble; while kissing the badge, or
extravagantly displaying the badge, in front of opposing supporters is taken as a gesture of war
and of bonds with the player‟s fans. The segregation of the fans into different sections of the
ground makes these gestures possible and even more powerful, because the celebrations and
badge-kissing, the pointing at shirts, or at names and numbers on the back of the shirt, can be
conducted in front of your fans or the opposition‟s fans. Likewise, yellow or red cards, and
ensuing financial penalties and suspensions, reinforce the gesture. These incidents garner huge
amounts of column inches, as for example when Manchester United‟s Gary Neville celebrated
and kissed the badge on his shirt in front of Liverpool supporters (BBC 2006) – having run a
long way to be sure he was right in front of Liverpool‟s supporters. There are many other
examples of the totemic power of the jersey; Benzecry (2008: 64) reminds us of the Argentinean
expression “he cannot handle the weight of the jersey” – the shirt‟s magical, totemic properties
can be too much for a player who does not have the strength to perform well while wearing it.

The shirt also features as a gift when it is exchanged at the end of the game by opposing players.
Usually, the exchange is between „opposites‟; a defender and the player he has marked exchange
shirts, for example. There is an iconic image of the England captain and central defender Bobby
Moore and the Brazilian forward Pelé stripped to the waist at the end of the England – Brazil
game in the 1970 World Cup, holding each other‟s shirt as they embrace. In exchanging the shirt
they bring the hostilities to an end, and show their appreciation for the skill of the other. The
image is pleasing because of the symmetry it evokes – the defender and the attacker, but also the
players widely regarded as the best in the world in their positions at that time – and because it
restates social order at the end of the game. It also gestures towards future games; both can
accept the result, even though Brazil have won 1-0, because if all goes well, the battle will be
resumed in the final and the game will be restaged (Brazil kept that side of the bargain, but
England could not get past West Germany in the quarter-finals). So even in defeat, Moore is
 7

pictured smiling broadly. This iconic image is, in football folklore, seen as the moment when
shirt-swapping became de rigeur. However, this gift-giving ritual between opposing
professionals is not always possible: Benzecry (2008: 63) tells of how Juan Romàn Riquelme of
Boca Juniors refused to exchange shirts with his friend Pablo Aimar of River Plate, because the
two Buenos Aires sides are such fierce enemies. In this case, the hostilities can never be ended,
and the gift exchange is not possible.

Resisting the Commodification of the Shirt

Of considerable interest in recent times is the manner in which the corporatisation of the football
jersey has in some instances resulted in a loss of the „aura‟ – to use Benjamin‟s (2008[1936])
terminology – of the shirt itself. Here, we cautiously extend and extrapolate upon Benjamin‟s
concept, which was originally used in a much more limited way to refer to works of art and
specific types of media. For example, the current Liverpool Football Club shirt carries a meaning
as a reflection of the current state of the club itself – a rich, privately-owned, elite organization
which ignores the wishes of the fans themselves. In response to this, supporters have begun
driving an „alternative‟ strip with the following aims:

1. It directs money away from the leeches at the top of the club
2. It helps to educate the less well informed
3. It should be good for generating publicity
There should be a couple of smaller benefits like everyone will agree it‟s the
best kit out there… And it should be cheaper than the original thieving
bastard kit too (Red and White KOP discussion forums 2010, para.1).

Of specific interest to us here is the way in which the shirt itself becomes a site of resistance due
to its aura/authentic appearance, which can then (these supporters hope) transmit a symbolic
message to the rest of the football world. However, what is also apparent is the manner in which
the shirt can reflect the profane or inauthentic through a symbolism which links the shirt back to
a political struggle between true fans and corporate elites.
 8

The alternative strip therefore becomes a site of significance for those Liverpool fans who claim
to be „loyal supporters‟ and subsequently the shirt needs to capture the aura of the authentic.
Discussions on this topic amongst Liverpool supporters reveal something sociologically
interesting. Often, the debate on how the shirt will look refers to the Supporter Ownership
Scheme (SOS), which aims to buy back Liverpool Football Club for the fans. Supporters of SOS
consider it vital to have some mention of this on the alternative strip as a way of spreading their
political message. However, of much more importance is the end result with the alternative strip
reflecting a time when the club, according to the supporters, had honour and significant value
amongst the collective. Thus, the „protest‟ Liverpool shirt is symbolic of the past with the sacred
emblem attached and a political message on the front that reads „standards compromised‟ (Red
and White KOP discussion forums 2010, para. 440).

The point of the alternative strip is to recapture the aura of authenticity that was lost in the
eventual commodification of the club and its subsequent economic decline. This is a form of
„collective nostalgia‟ (Davis 1979) for a time past whose values and norms (even if within the
imaginary) are sacralised against a profane contemporary time. This then forms the fundamental
basis for these supporters in rejecting the current football shirt in favour of an alternative strip
emblematic of yesteryear. Thus, the shirt in this example is a site for authenticity and
inauthenticity, sacred and profane. Further, it is an example of a modern secular battleground to
recapture the sacred essence of a collective identity. An industry has sprung up which caters to
these desires for authentic shirts, with fans able to buy shirts from previous eras. These shirts will
usually be stripped of advertising – and so they have a kind of „purity‟ to them, and hark back to
a golden age when football was not the plaything of large corporations and capricious
millionaires. These replica shirts will often commemorate a key moment in the team‟s history –
for example, the strip that England wore when they won the World Cup in 1966 was their red
away strip, and this colour has become even more iconic than the home white strip. Similarly,
fans are eager to buy and wear the replicas of strips worn when a major trophy was won.

A similar story of the rejection of corporatisation and commodification, and nostalgia for the
purity of the old days, is unfolding at Manchester United, where a long-running campaign
against the club‟s American owners, the Glazer family, has centred on the shirt and the club
 9

colours as a totemic expression of authenticity. The supporters of Manchester United distinguish

between the authentic club and the inauthentic owners, with the expression „Love United, Hate
Glazer‟ seen on flags and banners in the stadium. The expression has become the rallying call for
a kind of grass-roots protest group – LUHG (see LUHG 2010). Large numbers of Manchester
United fans have stopped wearing the club colours of red and white, and have moved
nostalgically to green and gold scarves. These scarves evoke Newton Heath, the team from
which the modern Manchester United emerged. Some fans are now starting to wear the „classic‟
1892 green and gold shirts rather than the red and white strip which the team wears. As with the
Liverpool shirts, a more authentic past is evoked by these shirts – a more innocent time when the
club and the supporters were one. The mainstream shirt is in some senses profaned by this move,
and the sacredness of the original, unsullied shirt is established.

Concluding Remarks

The shirt is an object which enables a number of social practices around football to make sense.
First, it functions as a gift, which can bond players and supporters – as when the player throws
his shirt to the crowd; or it can act as an expression of professional solidarity – as when two
players express their admiration for each other and declare hostilities over at the end of the game
through the ritual of swapping shirts. Second, it functions as a sacred object, rather like a
national flag. Players can be seen as being unworthy of the shirt, which comes to stand for all
that is good about the club. Consequently, their behaviour in relation to this totem is carefully
monitored. To kiss the badge on the shirt, for example, shows solidarity with the club and its
supporters, while to throw the shirt to the ground or otherwise disparage its value is to rupture
the social order. However, unlike a national flag, a shirt can be reconstituted and imaginatively
incorporated into social life, especially by fans. „Other‟ shirts – especially shirts which have
some claim to an even greater authenticity through some nostalgic appeal – can come to
substitute for shirts which come to be associated with the profane –because the club‟s owners (in
the cases of Liverpool and Manchester United) are seen as inauthentic, as „businessmen‟ who
merely wish to asset-strip the club, rather than as true supporters. The shirt becomes a
multivalent object for the fans, who can read it at a number of levels: they have a sense of
 10

authenticity, fuelled by a nostalgia for the true club; they can distinguish between versions of
shirts from different manufacturers and with different sponsors‟ logos, and will play on the
boundaries of sameness and difference, sometimes preferring to wear an obscure old kit, or an
away kit that may not be in the club‟s main colours. In this way, they display their expertise
about the club, and use it as a way of presenting themselves as deeply committed fans. The shirt
is not just seen at games or in football contexts, of course – it is worn socially (you can‟t walk
down a British high street without seeing men, women and children kitted out in the shirts of
their team). This innovative use of objects, and the complex ways in which such objects are
understood, provides a kind of skeleton upon which social relationships of a deep and lasting
kind are made: even though it may be regarded as a rather pathological attachment, there are
many football fans who have longer-lasting – and even emotionally-deeper relationships – with
their club than with any other humans.

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