‘You can rent it for a while,but it is our house’: Sports fans’ experience of returning ‘home’ to a new multipurpose stadium

Abstract

Understanding how stadium landscapes are constructed and used, how their elements relate to the broader local fan community is to understand a good deal about the culture, values and concerns of the people who use it. Yet, despite the unique role sports stadiums have in facilitating a memorable match-day experience, theorising this space remains underdeveloped. This research investigates contemporary stadium design and use from a fan perspective by examining the factors that enhance and inhibit the experience in a newly built multipurpose and shared stadium space. The research illustrates how transitioning to a new stadium involves a complex paradox between old traditions and new spaces. This paper has two objectives. First, it explores how the fans of an Australian rugby league team reimagine the concept of ‘home’ in a newly built multipurpose and multi-tenanted stadium. Second, the paper explores how this sense of home and, by extension, belonging was amplified by the club’s ‘dressing’ of the stadium. We argue that in the resettlement of fans, the use of symbols and rituals provides a scaffold for supporters to build an emotional connection to a new stadium, whilst also understanding that they, too, are active in the process of reimaging the stadium space.

Keywords

fandom localism sport geography stadiums temporality

Introduction

I do not wish to suggest that we simply ‘add geography and stir’; rather I insist that the social and the spatial are so thoroughly imbued with each other’s presence that their analytical separation quickly becomes a misleading exercise (Cresswell, 1996: 11).

Understanding how stadium landscapes are constructed and used, how their elements relate to the broader local fan community is to understand a good deal about the culture, values and concerns of the people who use it (Raitz, 1987). Yet despite the unique role sports stadiums play in shaping and creating memorable match-day experiences, theorising this space remains underdeveloped within sports scholarship (Wise and Kohe, 2020). This research explores contemporary stadium design and use from a fan perspective, by examining the factors that enhance and inhibit the match-day experience in a newly built multipurpose and shared stadium space. Situated within the field of the sociology of sport, we adopt a socio-spatial approach to understand how stadiums can reflect wider transformations of urban space more generally (Gaffney, 2008: 165). This responds to the call by a field of academics for sociological research to engage more deeply with debates centred on the complex interplay between space, power and identity within the sporting context (Van-Ingen, 2003; see also Gaffney, 2008, 2010; Koch, 2017; Shobe, 2008; Wise, 2016). Our research suggests that transitioning to a new stadium involves a complex paradox between old traditions and new spaces. This paper has two objectives. First, it explores how the fans of an Australian rugby league team reimagine the concept of ‘home’ in a newly built stadium. Second, it explores how this sense of belonging was amplified by the club’s ‘dressing’ of the stadium. We argue that in the resettlement of fans, the use of symbols and rituals provides a scaffold for supporters to build an emotional connection to a new stadium, whilst also understanding that they too are active in the process of reimaging the space.

On a Monday in April 2019, nearly 30,000 people attended the first match at Parramatta Stadium, signifying a new chapter in the history of the Parramatta Eels. Founded in 1947, the Parramatta Eels Rugby League Club (hereafter Parramatta Eels) are an Australian rugby league team located in a city of Western Sydney, Australia. The Parramatta region is culturally diverse, with a large population that is shaped by the presence of Indigenous Australians and successive waves of immigration. At the time of this study, the Parramatta Eels had not only returned to the physical site of their traditional home stadium, but to a newly built, multipurpose facility. Although they are considered the stadium’s main tenants, the Parramatta Eels share the space with four other teams in the same rugby league competition, as well as other professional sport leagues and various community and cultural festivals. Therefore, the importance of Parramatta Eels fans reimaging the newly built stadium and the conservation of the club’s history remained imperative to the match-day experience being a success. This setting became the backdrop to exploring the multifaceted and complex interactions between fans and their new space. Data for the study has been generated from 85 hours of participant observations and 20 in-depth interviews with fans. This multi-method approach enabled the researchers to identify not only how fans interacted with physical and social spaces in-situ, but also the ways in which the fans used and understood them.

Theoretically anchored in symbolic interactionism and socio-spatial theory this paper argues that the space of the stadium does not just exist but is actively produced by (and through) fan interaction and engagement (Edensor, 2015; see also Wise, 2014, 2016). Wise describes how stadiums have multiple layers of representations and meanings, where through social interaction fan identities are staged and performed (Wise, 2014: 222). Whilst traditional suburban sports stadiums have permanent signifiers and symbols that immediately anchor fans in stadium spaces through history and tradition, multipurpose and shared stadiums must instead rely on temporal dressings. These momentary measures are largely underpinned by technology and include coloured lighting through LED banners, sounds and signage/symbols around the stadium. However, as home-team fans make their way out of a multipurpose stadium so too does the clubs’ occupation of the space on the understanding that these symbolic markers are tied only to a particular sporting event. Indeed, a fan could return the next week to find their ‘home’ stadium dressed for another club or cultural event making the temporality of multipurpose stadiums a challenging landscape to navigate for fans and club tenants alike.

A changing sporting landscape

When sport fans reflect on and talk about their team’s home ground, emotions relating to belonging, ritual and local territory are often evoked (Serazio, 2012). Sports stadiums are unique spaces. They exhibit a socio-geographic character that is often emblematic of the fans’ community (Giulianotti, 1999b: 70). However, to date scholarship has typically overlooked the relationship between sports enthusiasts and stadium spaces (Richards and Parry, 2020; Van-Ingen, 2003; Wise and Kohe, 2020). There are of course notable exceptions, including the work of Bale (1993), whose book Sport, Space and the City has been credited with the development of sports geography as a discipline (Wise and Kohe, 2020; see also Giulianotti, 2005). Since this books’ publication, stadium spatial arrangements have been more closely examined, developing an interesting and growing body of research exploring the increasingly complex role these spaces play in the context of modern urban societies.

Bale’s (2003) work charts the development of modern sports from landscapes on common streets and fields with no spatial limits or boundaries to modern-day multipurpose stadiums. He describes multipurpose stadiums as ‘tradiums’ – a commercialised space enabling mass consumption. Building on Bale’s work, Giulianotti and Armstrong (2002: 233) explored stadiums within the context of English football, focusing on the commodification of sporting spaces and its impact on the ‘hooligan landscape’ (2002: 233). Through this construct they explore the historical, social and physical transformation of English football stadiums from the 1960s–1970s’ model of fan segregation to the present-day model of Close Circuit Television (CCTV) surveillance and how fans negotiate these tensions through self-regulation. They argue that changes to stadium design, as well as changes to the types of fans attending football matches have contributed to contested geographies (2002: 223). These arguments provide evidence of how stadium design elements and fans’ interaction with these elements serve to direct the socio-cultural meaning and response to the space. In turn, such responses have consequences for how fans are able to build an emotional connection with the stadium space.

However, despite the value in their historical approach, their analysis falls short due to the focus on the experiences of only one type of fan, the hypermasculine ‘hooligan fan’ (Spaaij, 2006) or in more modern terms, ‘the lads’ (King, 2002), ‘blades’ (Armstrong, 1998) or ‘carnival fan’ (Giulianotti, 1991, 1999a, b; Pearson, 2012). These fan types remain the conceptual yardsticks by which all other types of fans are measured, despite Redhead (1993: 5) arguing over two decades ago that football research needs to not merely concentrate on ‘football hooliganism and male posturing’. In the contemporary era of sports spectatorship there is more diversity in the types of fan attending live fixtures (Bale, 2000; Choluj et al., 2019; Crawford, 2004; Toffoletti and Mewett, 2012), which in turn influences their experiences, interpretations and interactions. Moreover, new generation stadiums place a stronger reliance on fans using digital technology inside stadiums as a means by which fans can interact and co-create the match-day experience (Can et al., 2011; Gibbons and Dixon, 2010; Hutchins, 2016; Ratten, 2019).

The anchors of sport: stadium objects and symbols

All sports fans are anchored in stadiums by symbols and objects, through the ‘sites, sights and senses of the stadium’ (Bale, 2003: 129; see also Edensor and Millington, 2010; Wise and Kohe, 2020) that account for a fan’s sensory experience (Bairner, 2012; see also Gaffney, 2008). The concept of objects remains a fundamental pillar in symbolic interactionism by taking the form of physical, social or abstract objects (Blumer, 1969). Physical objects are described as being ‘things’ such as pubs, a certain seat in the stadium, or a Parramatta Eels replica shirt. A social object on the other hand, consists of relationships, such as the interaction between a fan and other social actors (e.g. other fans, stewards, club officials) who attend Parramatta Stadium on match day. Finally, abstract objects refer to the ideas and moral principles that guide an individual’s behaviour within a group or social setting. This could include fan loyalty to their club, understanding of the behavioural expectations in relation to a social environment such as a pub, and/or beliefs about authentic types of fandom.

Adopting Blumer’s (1969) approach throughout, this paper denotes that individuals create their own social reality through collective and individual action, but that reality is ultimately guided by internalised beliefs about the group’s physical, social and abstract objects. As key concepts, they assist in explaining how fans experienced a different reality on match day, despite at times sharing the same physical space. Objects are considered fluid and the meanings attached to them mediated and under constant negotiation. For this reason, objects have no intrinsic meaning. An adequate explanation of behaviour is contingent upon learning the significance people assign to the objects that make up their world, and how they act on the basis of these meanings (Blumer, 1969; Goffman, 1959). Therefore, the nuances of physical, social, and abstract objects remain constantly changing and adapting to social and cultural influences.

Several authors have discussed the value of adopting a spatial approach to further enrich our understanding of the relationship between these objects, sport and identity. The stadium is positioned within this research at the foreground, allowing an understanding of how these objects are situated and experienced by fans on match day. For example, Gaffney (2008) in his research on stadiums in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, described how the stadium remains a cauldron of culture and collective history with which fans have a deep emotional connection. Various sport scholars have therefore turned to Tuan’s (1961) popular concept of topophillia, described as the deep affection towards a particular space, to discuss the unique relationship sports fans have with a sports stadium (see Bale, 2000; Giulianotti, 2005; Wise, 2014, 2016). These scholars all agree that sports fans’ topophilic relationships to sports stadiums helps to articulate how they interpret the material environment in culturally rich, particularised ways (Giulianotti, 2005: 126). We seek to build from these insights and contend that for Parramatta Eels fans the stadium and the spaces that surround it are physically and socially constructed, rather than a void or ‘empty stage’ on which actors perform their fandom (Edensor and Millington, 2010; Wise, 2016).

The concept of a ‘stage’ features prominently in the work of Goffman (1959) who explored the spatial through his concept of ‘setting’. He contextualises social interactions as taking place on a metaphorical stage, where ‘those who use a particular setting as part of their performance cannot begin their act until they have bought themselves to the appropriate place and must terminate their performance when they leave’ (Goffman, 1959: 22). We contend that Parramatta Eels fans internalise their fandom in a temporal and spatial manner, which is activated on match day (Goffman, 1959; see also Stryker, 1980). Goffman describes how the meaning of space is mediated through physical objects such as ‘furniture, decor, physical layout, and other background items which supply the scenery and stage props for the spate of human action played out before, within, or upon it’ (1959: 22). Drawing from Goffman’s insights, Rapoport (1982: 15) notes how the physical environment is used by an individual in their presentation of self, but also, in establishing group identity. This insight is useful for understanding the collective nature of sports fans in the sport-stadium setting. A sentiment shared by Silke Steets, who reflects on how the significance of the built environment involves a process of shared meanings and symbols where over time people are able to make sense of their world, or as she describes ‘to read it’ (Steets, 2016: 97). This suggests that stadiums space is produced, not given, and relies not just on a shared set of values binding individuals together, but the collective management of space through social interaction (Rapoport, 1982; Shobe, 2008; Wise, 2016). Spaces that fans pass through or engage with are connected to specific norms and practices, where characteristics of local cultural, gender and other social constructs become materialised.

Such an understanding becomes relevant because for many fans across the world what was once their local suburban sports stadium has been transformed into a larger multipurpose stadium to accommodate broader stakeholder and commercial interests. For example, English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur recently opened their new £1 billion stadium, described as ‘a world class sports and entertainment destination’ (Populous Architecture, 2019). Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium houses not just the football team, but also a microbrewery, Sky Walk experience, restaurant, crèche, family lounge and hydrotherapy pool. It is anticipated in the coming years a hotel and an extreme sports facility will be integrated with commercial and residential properties into the stadium precinct. These developments have been promoted by public officials and sporting organisations alike as having tremendous financial and non-financial benefits to the community. However, the growing body of research on sports-fan experience suggests that those who interact most with these spaces are beginning to mobilise their voices, raising concerns that these new developments are far removed from the traditional values with which their football team resonates (Gillooly et al., 2020; Hutchins, 2016; Pomfret and Wilson, 2019).

For example, when exploring Manchester City’s transition from Maine Road to the SportsCity, Edensor and Millington described a feeling of ‘placelessness’ amongst the local fans (2010). Concerns for the conservation of home-ground tradition is also reflected in Church and Penny’s (2013) research on Arsenal Football Club move from Highbury to Emirates in 2007. Their research explored why certain physical objects were relocated and/or recreated in the new Emirates stadium. These objects included a 2.6-metre diameter clock that stood above the Clock End terrace at Highbury, and the use of marble similar to the one that decorated an art deco façade on the East Stand at Highbury (Church and Penny, 2013: 826). Although the objects have been rehomed at the new Emirates stadium, Church and Penny (2013) argue that their meaning remains vibrant and has enabled fans of Arsenal to anchor them physically and culturally, transferring the sense of tradition to the new stadium (see also Rapopport, 1982). This practice of relocating material artefacts demonstrates how stadium spaces are not static but can also be fluid and negotiated. Whilst stadiums accommodate fans’ ‘shared focus on the game and the collective rituals of signing and movement’ (Edensor, 2015: 85), we argue that to advance the field of sports geography, an understanding of how fans are able to reimagine themselves in new sport stadiums must be considered. This paper aims to unpack these issues, specifically focusing on how fans can mediate social meanings and understandings of their sports team’s local culture through objects (Rapoport, 1982).

Methodology

The objectives of this research were to examine how fans perceived and experienced the new Parramatta Stadium. We also sought to explore the ways in which Parramatta Eels fans identify with themselves and others through spatial locations on match day. A flexible research design and methodology was required to provide a framework for interpreting how participants use their whereabouts on match day to symbolise and reinforce a sense of collectiveness. Accordingly, data was collected at every home game of the Parramatta Eels opening season at Parramatta Stadium, covering the period from April 2019 through to August 2019. A total of 85 hours of observations took place at various locations in and around the stadium. These included the walking route from the main public transport hubs, the stadium precinct, as well as various sections inside the stadium (e.g. food outlets, bars, viewing locations). Participant observation remains a popular and well-suited method to research on sports fans, putting researchers in the best position to witness match-day phenomena (see Cottingham, 2012; Pearson, 2012; Veal and Darcy, 2014).

In order to participate in the match-day experience, the researchers completed fieldwork notes once they had returned home, usually on the night of the match. Often they would use mobile phone applications to record ‘buzz words’, or what Bernard (2006: 389) refers to as ‘jotting notes’, during observations. These notes would later act as trigger material to assist in recalling specific observations. During the initial stages, the researchers also collected photographic images and various posters and flyers that were distributed to fans on match day. This collection culminated in fieldwork notebooks resembling a scrapbook containing drawings, photos and fieldwork notes. This approach mirrors that of Taussig’s (2011) where he describes in his innovative book I Swear I Saw This, the value of drawings and the illustration of the ‘raw material’ that researchers interact with. In adopting this approach, the data was captured in a way that situated ourselves and the field as interconnected and coexistent (Hastrupt, 1992 in Crotty, 1998: 135).

In addition to the observational data, 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews were held with fans of Parramatta Eels. The sample included 12 males and eight females, and a relatively even spread among age groups. Three fans were aged between 18–25 years, four aged 25–35 years, four between 35–45 years, four between 45–55 years, and five were over 55 years of age. The interviews enabled a deeper and richer understanding of the fans feelings towards the stadium. The interview participants that have taken part in this study are all match day going fans who had attended the new stadium. In this way, we subscribed to purposeful sampling, where suitable participants were sought out to discover, understand and gain insight about a particular phenomenon (Merriam, 1998). Participants were recruited via an online fan forum with the interviews taking place at the Parramatta Eels Leagues Club. The interviews lasted approximately one hour in duration and were recorded with consent and on the condition of anonymity. As such, pseudonyms have been used throughout this paper.

The data was transcribed verbatim, and subject to thematic analysis in line with Braun and Clarke’s, (2006) model. This approach involves the process of active immersion, from which themes are systematically identified and codified into a thematic map (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 87). Once the themes were refined and analysed, the researchers combined the data sets (observation and semi-structured interviews) and employed triangulation to enhance the validity and reliability of the findings (Flick, 2004). The findings from the analysis revealed a range of ways fans ‘reimagined’ the new stadium space to satisfy their lust for ‘home’. The results suggest that these strong, affective responses to the space were an outcome of fans’ co-produced meanings elicited from a complex interaction with its objects.

Lusting for the local: the return home

For sports fans, the route to their home stadium is often embedded in family history and traditions. It is formed in the well-worn footsteps of parents, family members, or close friends. The return to Parramatta Stadium after playing three years at another older multipurpose stadium nearly half an hour away, yielded interesting insights into how Parramatta fans reimaged their sporting identity. Sports fans articulating an emotional attachment to their home stadium within sport sociology is not an unusual finding (Cottingham, 2012; Crawford, 2004; Schäfer and Roose, 2010). However, how this emotional connection is created, facilitated and maintained has been underexplored. Those who prescribe to writing in the tradition of symbolic interactionism generally agree that communal life remains anchored in social collaboration where the meanings people give to social reality are negotiated using objects and symbols (Goffman, 1959; Mead, 1934; Stryker, 1980). Our research found that a shared understanding of symbols, objects and rituals enabled fans to reimagine the new stadium space as familiar, eliciting a sense of home and belonging in a relatively short period of time.

The resettlement back in the Parramatta region was overwhelmingly welcomed, with fans commenting on feeling connected to the site, and by extension, the sporting club and other fans. Through the use of shared physical objects (club clothing, colours, songs) and the social aspect of being in a sport-crowd setting meant Parramatta Eels fans felt a sense of immediate familiarity. According to Blumer (1969), individuals generally define situations such as these though common understandings that have been developed through previous interactions. This idea was advanced by Carbaugh (1996: 54) who described how sports supporters ‘learn how to be fans’ at American college basketball games through observing the behaviour and conduct of others. One of the benefits in this approach is that the analysis shifts from an individual conception of fandom to one that is learnt by observation over time. Whilst Bale (2000) described that the loss or change of a home stadium is akin to loosing part of oneself, our research found that Parramatta Eel’s fans used previous encounters to forge a sense of community and identity in the new space. For this reason, the newly rebuilt stadium did not hinder, for the majority of fans, its home-like atmosphere.

I feel like I’m just in my backyard. Like I walk through the ground and I know everyone, it’s got a sense of familiarity, is a throw word to use but it’s just familiar to me. It’s a comfort zone, it’s home. (Tegan, 25–35)

Several fans remarked how being built on the physical site of the clubs’ former home ground evoked a sense of ‘coming home’. This is despite the new stadium bearing no physical resemblance to the old one. Our research suggests that although stadium spaces are often conceived as an abstract geometry (distance, size, volume) ‘detached from material form and cultural interpretation’ (Hillier and Hanson, 1984), some Parramatta Eels fans reimagined the new stadium as a familiar place. This situates our research within the humanistic approach, mostly that of Tuan (1977), who emphasises the importance of human experience in understanding the relationship people have with places and geographical environments. For Parramatta Eels fans this involved a process of connecting past victories and memories from the old stadium to the new one, where a sense of ‘one’s own place’ in the stadium was only realised through an active process of self-reflection (Steets, 2016: 104). For these fans, the space of the stadium does not just exist as a physical site, but rather remains embedded in layers of meaning drawn from their previous experiences at the old stadium (Wise, 2016). The club also utilised common sporting rituals (such as a flag waving and a giant flag unveiling) to draw synergies and further amplify the connection between the past and present.

Rows of young men and women hand out ‘welcome home’ flags to Parramatta fans as they walk through the gate into the stadium for the first time. . . as we go to take our seats a large group of Eels members walk out of the tunnel onto the field for a ‘flag unveiling’. It is a huge flag that says ‘blue and gold army’. We have been told that this [flag unveiling ceremony by members] happened when they opened the previous stadium on this specific site over 30 years go! (Fieldwork Note: 22/4/2019 v. West Tigers)

However, while many fans felt an instant connection with the new stadium, others interpreted how the passage of time would foster their connection with Parramatta’s new home. For example, one participant used the analogy of purchasing and moving into a new family home to explain how he felt of the transition.

If you move into a new home it’s not home until you get that couch and that TV and you know you associate things, you know, whether it’s your kid being born or whatever. So you know, will it become home? Absolutely it will. . . and it will be great home. (Frank, 55+)

The new stadium therefore remains connected to specific social norms and practices where the local culture of the region remains congregated and expressed. This was also evident through the emotional bonds and nostalgic memories of past games discussed by participants, which were strongly associated with the stadium being their home ground. In light of these very positive memories, the new stadium for Parramatta Eels fans was a space where they believed that equally positive memories would be created in the future. In many instances these recollections came with a strong emotive component that was associated with a desire to connect to the new stadium and the people within it.

I have memories of my day taking my sibling and I to the game. . . I love [it], because Parramatta stadium was always the stadium I went to so there’s always wonderful memories there. . . the new stadium is great, it’s just what we needed. (Karen, 45–55)

A sense of belonging and community has always been an important part of the attraction of being a sports fan (Crawford, 2004). Crawford discussed the importance of fans believing that they possess a shared sense of identity – that they are all fans together, following and supporting a common cause, in many ways an ‘imagined community’ (2004: 53). Anderson (1983) used the concept of ‘imagined community’ to refer to members of the same community sharing an imagined sense of self, and as an approach to identity has been extensively applied to comprehending football fans. Probably the most compelling understanding of this sense of community linked to sports fans can be found in the work of King (2001: 709) who contends that socially diverse individuals at sports matches ‘come to recognise each other and form relations with each other. . . a common identity between them is established and the group comes into being’.

However, whilst the inherent dynamics of group membership involve similarity and commonality, they also require a level of difference to distinguish themselves from other groups. An unexpected outcome of this research was revealed when Parramatta Eels fans discussed other teams sharing ‘their’ new stadium. Whilst participants acknowledged that the stadium was not theirs alone, this did not hinder their sense of ownership of the space. In fact, by having a strong emotional connection to the stadium, and already feeling a sense of home, many of their attitudes were quite territorial. This was observed most acutely when a rival rugby league team referred to Parramatta Stadium as ‘their jungle’ in their marketing campaign.

Oh my god, ‘our jungle’ what a joke. It’s hilarious. It’s clearly not their home ground. I feel bad for them. They have four home grounds. . . I’m like ‘piss off’. I’m pretty sure we did and will do a better job filling it up. (Tegan, 25–35)

I think it is funny the Tigers coming out and saying it is our jungle too. No it’s not. You might play here, but it is not. . . we own it. You can rent it for a while, but it is our house. Kind of like renting a room to a distant cousin, you know what I mean. (Tom, 35–45)

This sharing of Parramatta Stadium with fans of other sports clubs was considered as ‘perceptual renting’. In this way, they were willing to ‘rent’ the space to the other team for the duration of the game but this did not mean this competing club could claim any sense of ownership. Some participants went so far as to refer to the stadium as being their ‘fortress’ partly driven by those memories that unite them to the location and thus the desire to ‘defend’ their home against other teams. These abstract objects can be further explained through the use of Cohen’s (1985) concept of boundary maintenance. He argues that boundary maintenance is concerned not only with creating a sense of belonging from within, but emphasising difference from others (Cohen, 1985: 53). In this sense by ‘othering’ the other rugby league fans and dismissing their claim to the new stadium resulted in a stronger collective consciousness amongst Parramatta Eels fans.

‘Dressing the stadium’: modern or manufactured atmosphere?

In the contemporary era of multipurpose and multifunctional stadiums, sports clubs are now tasked with dressing stadiums to illicit a feeling of home amongst their fans. We have already explored how sports supporters reimagined the stadium through symbols and rituals to create a sense of home in a newly built stadium. This section of the paper extends this discussion to account for how the space of the stadium was dressed to amplify these emotions. As discussed by Wise (2016: 214), the space of the stadium is multifaceted, and consists of multiple layers of meaning. These will be shown to take on various forms, but through the use of well-known symbols and rituals that connect Parramatta fans to the new stadium. Similar to a theatre being dressed for a particular show, sports clubs utilise various techniques to set the scene in multipurpose stadiums. For theatre productions it is the costumes, lighting and props that are used by directors to set the historical period, as well as influence the mood of the audience (Cunningham, 1989: 12). Within a multipurpose sports stadium, techniques include the use of club colours and songs through lighting and sound, as well as creating a sense of belonging and togetherness through smartphone applications built specifically for use inside the stadium.

These familiar objects define and represent particular meanings and ideas about the values and ethos of the club amongst Parramatta Eels fans, but also to the wider rugby league community. The temporality of these stadiums requires sporting clubs to dress the stadium in ways which illicit a connection to the space and generate a ‘home’ atmosphere, but one in which can be altered or changed, at times on a weekly basis.

Walking into the ground today, we see a sea of blue and yellow. The giant LED banner with the Parramatta Eels logo on it catches the immediate eye. As you walk through the security checkpoint your eyes are drawn to stickers on the bottom of the stairs. They look permanent but I have already seen a few fans trying to peel them off. (Fieldwork Note: 22/4/2019 v. West Tigers)

However, whilst Parramatta Eels used logos and stickers around the stadium to establish a direct connection between the stadium and the team, for some fans there was a sense of discomfort of this temporality. This was experienced at the most extreme when discussion centred on the names of the four stands that frame the sporting field. In the previous stadium each of the stands were distinguished by a permanent painted banner that represented the name of a past Parramatta Eels player. However, in the new stadium these stands remain officially unnamed due to the variety of stakeholders who occupy the space. Whilst the club erected cloth banners with the former stand names, this only further enhanced the temporary nature of this fixture. For some fans this was problematic and hindered their ability to forge an emotional connection to the stadium.

Like my mate has had a real bugbear about the portable stand names. . . for my mate who sees it as like just Parramatta’s ground it’s a big bugbear for him. (Heath, 45–55)

This notion was also evident in the precinct area outside of the stadium. In instances where sports team are the only occupants, objects such as commemorative ‘legend’ walks and statues of former players are fixed and immortalised in time and place. These objects become the ‘aesthetic frill, the ritual and symbolism with which societies embellish their routine’ (Leach, 1954 in Cohen, 1985: 42). As well as creating a form of differentiation from other sporting teams, these objects also garnish a stadium and give it its unique localised flavour. For example, the English Premier League team Arsenal Football Club have a bronze statue of Thierry Henry at Emirates Stadium, Manchester United Football Club have the ‘United Trio’ of George Best, Dennis Law and Bobby Charlton at Old Trafford Stadium, and Everton Football Club have Dixie Dean who stands proudly at the entrance to their home stadium of Goodison Park. These statues represent the sine qua non of the sport fan community and are used by clubs to forge a direct link between past and present. Sports fans will often take photos with these statues, or use them as pivotal points on their match-day routine. For example, Everton Football Club fans are often seen dressing the Dixie Dean statue in a woollen bluenose jumper, beanie and scarf at Christmas time (Richards, 2016: 112).

Parramatta Eels attempted to replicate the use of statues at the new stadium. However, instead of the statue being fixed and a permanent depiction of a past player, what was created was a ‘living statue’, where fans became the objects of immortalisation.

Today there was a man who was completely painted in blue and gold standing on a box that said ‘Parramatta Eels’. He was mimicking a statue (like one you would find out the front of a stadium of a well-known player or legend of the club). He is copying fans actions; mostly the middle-aged men are engaged with him. (Fieldwork Note: 5/5/2019 v. St George Illawarra Dragons)

This became an important symbol for the Parramatta Eels fans and with such high visibility not only enhanced their sense of identity, but also, encouraged loyalty to the place of the new stadium. In a similar way, when creating atmosphere inside of the stadium the club utilised a phone application to create a feeling of togetherness, a feeling traditionally generated through fan-led engagements such as chanting and singing club songs (Edensor, 2015; Pearson, 2012). Once seated inside of the stadium, Parramatta Eels fans could log into the club’s app and join the ‘Eels lightshow’, where the light in their smart phone would automatically turn on.

Every week the light show is becoming more and more popular. Comparing the amount of fans using the app has nearly doubled since the first game. It seems the club have been promoting the app on their social media accounts. Like a song that starts with a core group of supporters and then grows throughout the stadium, it seems the light show is doing something similar. (Fieldwork Note: 31/5/2019 v. South Sydney Rabbitohs)

An example of what Edensor (2015: 84) calls the ‘co-production of atmosphere’ this type of crowd engagement stretched beyond just one core group of supporters. In this way, it promoted instant inclusion for any fan in stadium atmosphere. Fan-created songs have long been considered as central to creating the ‘carnival’ inside of the stadium (Armstrong and Young, 1999; Giulianotti, 1999a; Pearson, 2012), however our research suggested that tapping into innovative digital technology can create a similar sense of belonging and crowd atmosphere. Whilst a significant amount of research has explored sports fans using mobile media to connect with their sport team or players (see (Ha et al., 2017; Hutchins, 2011), the experience of using purpose-built apps for fan engagement inside the stadium is less understood. Our research suggests that the light show created a spectacle that any fan could engage with. This collective action did not rely on knowledge of sporting rituals such as the traditional songs and chants that symbolise affiliation, but rather a more universal, non-partisan desire to be an active participant in the moment of the occasion.

Engagements such as these may become more popular inside new stadiums as sporting codes strive to become more accessible to all types of fans, thereby reducing reliance on the hyper-masculine fan to generate atmosphere through sound (see Armstrong and Young, 1999; Giulianotti, 1999a; King, 1997; Pearson, 2012). However, such engagements are reliant on ‘joint action’ (Blumer, 1969) where fans take account of each other through collective co-operation. As a result, it is possible that, for some fans, the use of such technology-based mechanisms within stadiums reflect how sport is being ‘reduced to ritzy glitzy hype, heavily commercialized with forced and ordered excitement’ (Beauchampe, 1986 in Bale, 1993: 129). However, our results largely suggested otherwise. The sense of (co-created) atmosphere within the new Parramatta Stadium provided fans a sense of ‘place’, anchored and amplified by the various objects that dressed the stadium.

Conclusion

Most notably over the past two decades, the physical configuration of sports stadiums has remained central to debates over the gentrification and commercialisation of sport culture globally. Multipurpose stadiums are replacing traditional suburban grounds at a staggering rate, often to strong and vocal criticism from fans and scholars alike (see Bale, 1993). This research aimed to explore the match-day routines and rituals performed by Parramatta Eels fans travelling to and inside their new multipurpose stadium. The theoretical framework drawn on to interpret the research findings focused on explaining how the meaning of match day for participants was created through social interaction with other fans and engagement with match-day objects and artefacts.

The use of symbolic interactionism became a tool to explain how fans used social communication with other fans to interpret group objects at the new stadium (Blumer, 1969; Goffman, 1959). These objects were endowed with social meanings, but these meanings remained tied to Parramatta Eels fans (Blumer, 1969). Given a core feature of being a sports fan is social engagement and interaction with other fans on match day (Crawford, 2004; King, 2000; Pearson, 2012; Spaaij, 2006) these objects enabled fans to anchor themselves and elicit a sense of home in their new stadium. We explained how particular locations within the stadium provided Parramatta Eels fans with an avenue to build a connection with the new stadium. Whilst fans relied on these spaces to engage in their expressions and manifestations of fan identity, the spaces that fans occupied on match day were not just instantly produced but were historically, culturally, and/or socially constituted. We argued that the use of technology by the club in ‘dressing the stadium’ enabled a wider range of fans to engage and create stadium atmosphere. This runs counter to the dominant narrative in sport fandom scholarship which relies on a small group of mostly male ‘core supporters’ (see Armstrong and Young, 1999; Giulianotti, 1999a; King, 1997; Pearson, 2012) to generate this atmosphere. However, this study researched one rugby league club, in one city, in one country. Therefore, it was designed specifically with the Parramatta fan community in mind and explored how they were able to create a sense of home on match day in their newly built, multipurpose stadium. We suggest that this paper provides a framework for scholars to explore this issue further.

Situated within a growing field of research that explores stadiums as important cultural landmarks, we argue this approach enables for the important relationship between sports, identity and place to be contextualised (Gaffney, 2008 see also Shobe, 2008; Wise, 2016). This study has shown that the relationship between sports fans and their stadium is one that is active and bedded in emotion. With the increasing move towards multipurpose sports stadiums, how a sports team and its fans can reimagine a new stadium space and build an emotional connection strong enough for fans to call it ‘home’ is worthy of deeper sociological inquiry.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: The authors received financial support for the research from Parramatta Eels Rugby League Club to undertake this research.

ORCID iD

Jessica Richards

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