Micropolitical Workings in Semi-Professional Football

Abstract

This paper seeks to illuminate the micropolitical strategies that Gavin (a pseudonym) used in an attempt to persuade the players, the assistant coach, and the chairman at Erewhon City Football (soccer) Club to “buy into” his coaching program and methods. Data for the study were collected through in-depth, semistructured interviews, and a reflective log relating to those interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim with the subsequent transcripts being subject to a process of inductive analysis. Ball’s (1987) micropolitical perspective, Kelchtermans’ and Ballet’s (2002a, 2002b) work on micropolitical literacy, and Goffman’s (1959) writings on the presentation of the self, are used to make theoretical sense of the specific strategies used by Gavin in an attempt to persuade the players to see the merits of his coaching.

‘Handshakes, BBQs, and bullets’: self-interest, shame and regret in football coaching

“…For Schofield (2003 then, vagueness possesses a generative potential where novel activity can be engaged and experimented with. For some, of course, this is not a particularly new perspective (see for example, Potrac & Jones, 2009a, 2009bHemmestad, Jones, & Standal, 2011;Jones et al, 2011), although as evidenced by the above-cited work, it seems to garner only limited engagement. An underlying purpose of this article, therefore, is to build on the paucity of previous related work in order to construct an ever-more credible case for coaching as a dynamic, contested and political activity.…”

“…Jones, 2006;Potrac & Jones, 2009a, 2009bDenison, 2007) the influence and reach of such work remain questionable. This was most recently brought home during an invited conference presentation (Potrac, 2012) where my talk on coaching's political underbelly was somewhat challenged in terms of being unrealistic and overly negative.…”

“…Buchanan & Badham, 2004;Hoyle & Wallace, 2005), little attention has been given to the ways in which relationships between coaches may also be typified by competition as well as co-operation. Indeed, we know little about the ways in which collegiality between coaches may be influenced by their individual motivations, goals, fears and wishes to create desired working conditions, protect them when necessary, and generally keep a job (Potrac & Jones, 2009a, 2009b.…”

From identification to dis-identification: case studies of job loss in professional football

“…Job mobility is a key turning point for players-as-workers who were prompted to talk about geographical workplace movement, how such transitions came about, and meanings attached to repeated employer change. A key sensitising concept to guide interviews was 'lifeworld' orientation; thus, questions were formulated such that player orientations to work were revealed, exposing contexts in which the micro-political and structural power relationships manifestly shape institutionalised frames of reference and associated forms of workplace behaviour (Potrac and Jones, 2009). …”

Rethinking the factuality of ‘contextual’ factors in an ethnomethodological mode: towards a reflexive understanding of action-context dynamism in the theorization of coaching

“…In a similar vein to Lyle's model, Young, Jemczyk, Brophy and Côté (2009) It is thus widely acknowledged in contemporary literature that coaching, as a social practice, is dynamic, contexted and complex, and that fully satisfactory models of the contexts of coaching remain elusive (Cushion, 2007;Jones & Wallace, 2005;Potrac & Jones, 2009;M. Smith & Cushion, 2006).…”