A fairytale narrative for community sport? Exploring the politics of sport social enterprise

Abstract

A fairytale narrative for community sport? Exploring the politics of sport social enterprise With voluntary sports clubs operating within competitive leisure markets and local governments responding to austerity by transferring sport 'assets' to community groups, such organisations are encouraged to become social enterprises. Driven by 'can do' social entrepreneurs embracing 'Robin Hood' business models that take from affluent groups to subsidise the disadvantaged, they apparently deliver innovative solutions to deep-rooted social problems. Such fairytale narratives (Ziegler, 2009) are increasingly popular in Scotland with its culture of humanist values (Roy et al, 2015) and reputation as a 'happening place' for social policy innovation (Mooney & Poole, 2004). Using case study material from an award-winning football social enterprise, this paper outlines how time spent in the deprived community establishing local needs and ownership aided its success. Also, recruiting local youth workers, developing authentic partnerships, creating a safe and non-judgemental environment, and the leadership team's business acumen and social compassion combined to create a positive 'ripple effect' beyond that possible from classblind sport provision (Coalter, 2013). However, 'win win' social enterprise rhetoric ignores stresses caused from meeting loan repayments and the moral dilemmas from inevitable trade-offs between social and business goals. The organisation's 'nonestablishment' nature is partially undermined by emphasising local poverty of aspiration and the psychological thinking within Dweck's 'Growth Mindset' and Duckworth's 'Grit' research. The resulting focus on individual effort and learning from failure chimes with neoliberal establishment thinking (Jones, 2014), ignoring how widening societal inequality and politics causes local problems and the need for structural changes to deliver wider social impact.

From social activism to active socialization: The evolution of football ideology in community‐owned football clubs

“…Given this rationale, the work adopts an interpretive, inductive approach with an emphasis on the collation of subjective accounts. The work builds on recent qualitative explorations into SE (Bradford et al, 2018; Meltzer et al, 2018; Sutton, McEachern, & Kane, 2018), and SE and sport (Reid, 2017). Ultimately, these methods offer “flexibility in questioning and the opportunity to direct the conversation to draw out experiences, while maintaining consistency over the concepts discussed” (Sutton et al, 2018, p. 332).…”

“…There has been the desire to create a collective, differentiated identity that challenges football's traditional, financial, and societal models, with overt, self‐initiated campaigns to promote football idealism and modern moralities. Such idealism has seen fans take ownership of their clubs, as well as developing new clubs with an emphasis on creating “assets of community value” (Kiernan & Porter, 2014, p. 850), moral ownership (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2013), as well as the creation of inclusive non‐judgmental environments (Reid, 2017). As might be expected, given football's transition, these clubs have been a source of significant empirical evaluation.…”

“…As might be expected, given football's transition, these clubs have been a source of significant empirical evaluation. However, there has been a tendency to explore them through various managerial lenses (Anagnostopoulos, Byers, & Kolyperas, 2017; Reid, 2017) and to study their impact on the pillars of SE. These pillars have been identified as wellbeing, mental health enhancement, and support (Henderson, O'Hara, Thornicroft, & Webber, 2014) and community education.…”

“…What we do know about children and football is embedded in player connections (Funk & James, 2001; Thomson & Williams, 2014), parental influence (Kolbe & James, 2000), and its impact on health (Parnell, Stratton, Drust, & Richardson, 2013). In addition, the literature indicates that football foundation programs can provide care for children through sporting participation, with this integration providing them with the foundation to overcome disadvantages (Reid, 2017) and marginalization (Sherry & Strybosch, 2012). However, a review of the literature indicates that nothing is known about how these clubs, “borne out of opposition to the commercialization of the modern fan experience” (Kiernan, 2017, p. 880), impact on child fans attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs about the game and the community.…”

Watching the pennies and the people – how volunteer-led sport facilities have transformed services for local communities

“…Finally, there has been limited research specifically into the small trusts, which have emerged largely to save individual facilities from closure in response to budget cuts of local government since 2010 (Findlay- King et al 2018). This has included: the transfer of a local authority swimming pool in 1990 and it's re-opening under community trust leadership (Fenwick and Gibbon, 2015); two studies of grass-roots based takeover of sport facilities, a multi-sport facility which transferred from a large leisure trust in 2011 (Reid, 2016) and a football focused facility which became a social enterprise in 2014 (Reid, 2017). In all cases, similarly to the large trusts, service improvements were identified and a change in management culture.…”