ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the development of football supporter cultures in Norway. Supporter cultures are an integral part of the match atmosphere. In European football, the dawn of activist supporter cultures has been evident since the late 1980s. While these supporters make up a numerical minority, they are influential in defining the norms of support, and they oppose certain trends in modern, commercial football, which are regarded as a threat to “traditional” football cultures. By contrast, modern supporter culture in Norway developed parallel to, and was part of, the modernisation and commercialisation of the game from the early 1990s. These processes are analysed on the basis of empirical data on Norwegian supporter groups, international comparisons and conceptual distinctions. The analysis highlights three issues. First, the development of supporter cultures and the gradual transformation from English-inspired to Latin-inspired forms of support, second, the new football rituals that emerged with the new supporter cultures, and third, how the values integral to supporter cultures may provoke supporter activism. Further, we highlight the construction of local football identities in Norway since 1990, expressed within the complex interplay of influences from a variety of supporter practices in the global world of football.
