ABSTRACT
The paper explores the relationship between football and the military in contemporary Britain. This is situated within longstanding cultural and historical templates. It is based on observations conducted mainly in 2014 and incorporates visual data (photographs) within the analysis. The primary focus is on English professional football and ranges from the 2014 FA Cup Final to more local manifestations of the link between football and the military at Bolton Wanderers and Carlisle United. There has been a recent intensification of the traditional links between football, the military, the monarchy and the Established church, which embody a new form of nationalism. This chapter dates the initial change to the Falklands War in 1982 and reveals how the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have intensified this pattern. Underlying the analysis is a complex and subtle conceptual/theoretical issue thatr centres on how the phenomena examined are generally invisible. This reveals the power of the dominant ideological assumptions that underpin these developments.
