Page 159 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

148 • Sport, Media and Society

a ball; a woman participating in London’s Notting Hill carnival; a picture of mur-
dered teenager Stephen Lawrence’s parents seated in front of his portrait; stacks of

flowers laid in front Diana Prince of Wales house after her death; Nelson Mandela;
a video of the Spice Girls; rowers Matthew Pinsent and Sir Steve Redgrave; and stu-
dents working on a computer. Across are displays from ‘A Fan’s Life’. The displays

offer no explanation of the significance of the objects and images, and the visitor
must supply his or her own interpretation of the depicted events and issues. There
are, however, recurring themes that resonate with particular versions of the story of
the English fan throughout the exhibit, including seating, ticket prices, ruffi ans and
hooligans, safety, stadia or playing fields and commercialisation. Along the bottom

of the display, a banner with pictures of England fans throughout history runs the
entire length of the ‘A Fan’s Life’ exhibit.
The 1990s section includes a range of images and objects. A sky blue board
displays a quotation from author Nick Hornby: ‘televised football has become like
music. It’s on all the time and you can tune in or not. And most of it isn’t any good’.
There is no reference to the fact that Hornby wrote the book Fever Pitch, which
portrays events in the life of a dedicated Arsenal fan. Also on the board are pictures
of the SkySports Blimp, a Sky Dish and a photograph of a group of fans, one of
whom is wearing an England shirt, with expressions of tension and excitement as
they watch a televised match. In contrast to ‘The Big Picture’, the images are not
framed but positioned unevenly on the board, with the edges of the blimp and the
Sky Dish cut off. A glass display cabinet has a blue seat from Deepdale, which is
labelled as ‘typical to those used in all seater stadiums’. The historical link to the
tradition of standing in the terraces that ended in most grounds after the Hillsborough
disaster is not explained here. Next to the seat is a large photograph of a bride and
groom walking across a football pitch. A picture of a modern stadium illustrates the

floodlights, huge green pitch, large seating capacity, partial roof, massive crowds and
security at a Premier League night game. In one corner, there is a darkened picture
of a football crowd, some of whom are raising their hands in a Nazi-style salute,
with the date ‘15/02/95’ in large letters across the top. Again, there is no description

or explanation, even though the photograph refers to a specific historical event and
makes intertextual reference to connections between football’s history and far Right
politics.
The exhibition creates a preferred meaning that implies more than just a reporting
of events. For example, there is an ambivalence towards the ‘modernisation of foot-
ball’: a picture of empty stadium seats is overlaid with the following quotation:

The heart and soul of British football, going way back to when the game emerged
from the grimy backstreets of the Industrial Revolution, is being ripped out and
the clubs don’t care . . . the clubs could see money coming in from better ‘clientele’
and they did not stand in the way of progress. Leicester City Fanzine, The Fox.