Intergenerational (In) Securities in English Football Fandom: Locality, Loyalty and Legacy

The article advances scholarship on intergenerational space, insecurity and risk, by examining the ongoing transformation of English football fandom as an apposite case study of the emergent uncertainties, and distrust in the generational timescape of British society. Despite significant changes in the finances, infrastructure and scale of the national sport over the past four decades, football stadia remain a key focal point for fan communities and inter alia distinct spaces of intergenerational connection. While research has examined the impacts of neoliberalism and globalisation on the culture of the English game, to date, no study has analysed how these processes relate to the intergenerational nature of football fandom. Addressing this gap, we interrogate how the key touchstones of fandom – the regular season ticket and established concessions for seniors and youths – have been ritualised through the intergenerational relations and social spaces of English stadia, providing a sense of ontological security for fans. Drawing on interviews with 21 fan activists from several English Premier League clubs who mobilised a new campaign (‘Stop Exploiting Loyalty’) opposing above inflation ticket price hikes and erosion of concessions in the 2024–25 season, we argue that fans’ collective emotions reveal a concern that new ticketing policies threaten to fracture the intergenerational bonds and futures of fandom as a predominantly localised cultural practice. We thus extend existing scholarship by introducing the relational-temporal role of intergenerationality and unpack the tensions, distrust and ruptures that putatively undermine the imagined intergenerational futures of football as a cultural tissue of English urban life.