ABSTRACT

To reach immediately for a sporting metaphor, sport scholars have, in the last decade or so, picked up the social capital concept and run with it. There have been two edited collections (Collins et al. 2007; Nicholson and Hoye 2008) and a host of books and articles examining the subject. But why, beyond the general fascination with social capital seen elsewhere, has this particular interest in sport and social capital emerged? There are at least four reasons. First, perhaps superficially, there is the title and image of Bowling Alone (Putnam 2000). As Field (2003: 4) noted, ‘the picture of bowling lanes peopled by people playing on their own … neatly captured the idea of people’s steady disengagement from a common public life’. This vignette of the lone bowler, it has been argued, has coupled sport and social capital in the popular (and academic) consciousness (Nicholson and Hoye 2008). Second, there is the emphasis in much of the social capital literature on voluntary associations. This has led to a focus on sport, simply because sport organisations are often the largest part of a country’s voluntary sector (Bergsgard et al. 2007).