1. Introduction; 2. Football reconstructed; Part I. Players: 3. Footballers' lives; 4. The national team; 5. Club football at home and away; 6. Football and the Stasi; Part II. Fans: 7. Spectatorship in the Ulbricht era; 8. Fan culture in the Honecker era; 9. The 'wild East': hooliganism in the GDR; 10. 'Crooked champions': the BFC problem; Part III. The People's Game: 11. Football and everyday life; 12. Women's football; 13. East plays West: amateur matches across the Iron Curtain; 14. Football for all? The provision of facilities; 15. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
From star players to rioting fans, The People's Game examines how football shaped the history of communist East Germany.
Alan McDougall is Associate Professor of Modern European History and European Studies at the University of Guelph.
'A lively and informative history of football in the GDR from the
bottom up. By employing Germany's most popular sport as a lens
through which to understand the complex workings of power and
people, everyday life and culture under the East German
dictatorship, McDougall masterfully demonstrates the value of sport
for the modern historian.' Kay Schiller, University of Durham
'Football may have played little part in making East Germany a
European sporting superpower but as Alan McDougall explains in this
splendid new book there was a voluntarist ethos to the game that
made it dynamic at both regional and national levels. Football
mattered because it was popular and it was popular because it
mattered. This is the best account of football behind the Iron
Curtain since Robert Edelman, written with clarity, style and wit.'
Tony Mason, De Montfort University
'If Olympic sport was the GDR's perfect child, football was its
unruly but ever popular sibling. In this extensively researched,
stylishly written and highly accessible survey, McDougall has
provided an English-speaking audience with its first full-scale
account of the people's game in East Germany. The result is an
excellent and essential contribution to our understanding of GDR
society and the peculiarities of football in the wider
transnational context of Cold War sport.' Christopher Young,
University of Cambridge
'… represents an excellent example of research using football to
illustrate the colourful ambiguities of everyday life in the GDR.'
David Brentin, Central Europe Journal
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
