ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Mountview Boys and Girls Football Club, a ‘schoolboys club’ based in Blanchardstown, the fastest growing area in the country, and one of the most ethnically diverse. The focus is on the Under-13 team composed of Irish (white) boys and boys of different African backgrounds (Congo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Sudan). Questions of access and the creation of rapport with adult and adolescent participants are addressed, together with the meaning of community and cultural belonging for immigrant boys. ‘Community’ emerges as a recurring facet of discourse of belonging among adult members of the football club and the local suburban area. The chapter further examines how boys of immigrant background construct notions of ‘belonging’. Participation in sport and membership in a youth football team can foster different forms of cultural belonging and masculinity, which are often not clearly articulated by the boys, but rather ‘performed’. The final part of the chapter examines the production of a video clip about a day in the life of the team, which, following an expressed request from the boys, was eventually uploaded onto YouTube.
