Report: York Festival of Ideas 2026

 

On Saturday 6th June we had the great pleasure to host North East subculture hero Robert Nicholls (lead singer of Shrug, editor of England's longest-running football club fanzine 'Fly Me to The Moon' and internet message board, and sport heritage/history/archaeology practitioner to name just a few things from his varied career).

The audience was treated to Rob's knowlegeable (and at times amusing) take on football stadiums, heritage projects, and the real and virtual spaces and places that help to define football.

The 30 minute presentation was followed by a further 30 minutes of audience questions, which led to some finer details and humorous anecdotes, and afterwards attendees had the opportunity to take home samples of Rob's football zine.

This event was back-to-back with another presentation by our Uni of York colleague Jess Hargreaves, all about the use of statistics in modern football. Two very different angles on 'the people's game' but together made for a highly interesting couple of hours.

Thank you to Rob and to the Festival Team for excellent organisation and hospitality. See you again!

Interesting location for a 'socially distanced' meeting

The Covid pandemic has had a significant effect on the ability of fans to attend soccer games, and resultantly a significant effect on clubs' finances, a topic in the news in recent weeks (campaign to help football and its 'grass roots' ).

Similarly, the need for social distancing extends to other activities at clubs and their grounds, as I (Alex) found out last week.

A meeting with the Commercial Manager of York City FC was conducted not in the office, or even in the Boardroom. Rather, we met pitch-side, sat on the managers dugout/subs bench (and wearing face masks).

We talked about our research on football supporters (segmenting soccer fans by 'value'), football finance and history (Journal of Management History article) and project management (Dynamic sublimes ).  We also talked about York City FC's development of a new stadium.

We also discussed exciting opportunities for research, teaching, and other opportunities between our university work and the football club. Watch this space for more details.