Event Report: The origins and evolution of professional football clubs

On 22nd and 23rd June 2023, the Soccer Mad Boffins were in London to attend a British Academy of Management (BAM) sponsored event at Birkbeck, in University of London's City campus.

The two day event featured eight academic papers as well as a key note by Richard McDermott, company secretary at the Football Association (and Birkbeck graduate).

Our own paper was on the early years of the FA, but others focussed on football clubs in England, Scotland and Brazil, sustainability, regulation, and more. The common approach was to examine the way that club football has evolved, using historical or longitudinal studies.

Special thanks to the BAM Business & Management History Special Interest Group, and to our friends at Birkbeck especially Sean Hamil and Professor Geoff Walters who helped to organise the event with us, and to everyone who chaired sessions.

Here are some photos of our presentation:

Award Winning Paper!!!

We were delighted to win the prestigious "best development paper" of the 'Management & Business History' track at the 2021 British Academy of Management (BAM) Annual Conference.

We presented our paper 'Evolution of Public Services: UK Leisure Centres in the Late 20th Century' which built upon the presentation given to the University of Reading ROSES seminar series in August.

We hope to develop this paper into a chapter for publication in a forthcoming book about the evolution of public services, to be published by Emerald in the 'frontiers of management history' book series.

Reflections on the 2018 Soccer Mad Boffins Conference Tour

What a summer! Amazing weather, a fantastic World Cup, and a veritable plethora of Soccer Mad Boffins public talks and academic lectures to fill in the time we weren't watching England progress to the semi-finals.  Here is a recap and reflection as we remember it...




June 1st 'England 1966, USA 1994 and the World Cup: Thoughts on populism, the popular and public indifference' 

Populism and the Leisure Spectacle: A BSA Leisure & Recreation Study Group Workshop 

Venue: University of Bath

This British Sociological Association workshop combined contemporary history with event management, cultural studies and theory with studies of national cases, the binding theme being the whys and wherefores of the populist profile of particular sport and leisure practices and cultural formations.

The event included presentations and panels discussion with experts also including Professor Alan Tomlinson, author/academic/broadcaster David Goldblatt, Michael Willams, and Brian Clift.

Soccer Mad Boffins' Alex Gillett opened the day with a consideration of the 1966 football World Cup finals tournament, hosted and won by England. Drawing upon his work with co-author Kevin Tennant he presented data on the almost serendipitous way in which the British government lent financial support to the event, the disappointment of those English regions beyond London for whom the anticipated tourist bonanza was a washout if not disaster, and the small scale of commercialisation of the product that nevertheless hinted at the later, media-generated and sponsor-based global commodity that the World Cup has become. The broader context was informed by Flyvbjerg’s four sublimes of the mega-project, to which Alex and Kevin’s research has brought an ethnographic and qualitative dimension as applied to the study of event history and business history. These themes and approaches stimulated lively discussion on just how we understand contemporary history and the lived meanings of iconic cultural moments in our past. He also looked at how the 1994 World Cup in the United States sought, through targeted marketing strategies aimed at both established and potential audiences, to popularize the game in the crowded US market dominated by the Big 4 (American Football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey).

June 12th 'The Business of World Cup Football'

co-presented with Greg Dyke (former Chairman of the Football Association)

Venue: York Festival of Ideas, The King's Manor, York

It was our great honour to co-present this event with Greg Dyke, which was attended by a large enthusiastic audience on a warm summer's evening.  We began by presenting from our research of the 1966 and 1994 FIFA World Cups contextualising it with information about more recent and future events, such as Brazil, Russia, Qatar and USA 2026.  Then followed a round table discussion chaired by Greg, who then reflected on his own experiences of being FA Chairman and Director General of the BBC.  The audience posed some excellent questions which we were delighted to answer and everyone enjoyed hearing Greg's views on football and its broader social impact as well as the business side. There were some predictions of England's likely performance in the World Cup which were superseded by Gareth Southgate and his team's performance in Russia!   Two days after the presentation, the 2018 World Cup kicked off. To tie-in with the event our podcast on the story of football was released and we hope to participate in the Festival of Ideas in 2019 - watch this space!  


June 20th 'Project Managing and Marketing the Soccer World Cup: 1966 and 1994'

Aston Organizational History Workshop

Venue: Aston Business School 

A few days after the World Cup kicked off we contributed to this workshop organized by Professor Stephanie Decker, Head of Research at Aston Business School.  This was a great venue because of its links to the 1966 World Cup and the event included several presentations covering a range of organizational history topics from manufacturing to finance.  We must add the catering was excellent - the samosas and cake were particularly enjoyable.  Over the course of one hour we presented findings from our paper accepted for the International Journal of the History of Sport as well as findings from our Project Management Journal paper and book Foundations of Managing Sporting Events.  Our research was very well received and we look forward to returning to Aston at the BAM2019 Conference where we will further develop the theme of our Special Interest Group, Management and Business History.



June 22nd Poster Presentation: 'Using Archival Research in University Teaching'

Venue: University of York Teaching and Learning Conference 

We made our first ever poster presentation on home turf at the University of York Teaching and Learning Conference.  Our poster was about archival research in teaching and served as an excellent warm-up for our appearance at the BAM 2018 annual conference.  See below!



July 9th - 13th Critical Acclaim for Soccer Mad Boffins!

With the World Cup well under way we were able to compare our predictions to reality which created some fun on this blog with several articles which went viral and even caught the attention of Soccernomics author Stefan Szymanski who described it as 'a teachable moment'.

This blog was also considered worthy of archiving by the British Library in the  UK Web Archive, which preserves specially selected websites that represent different aspects of UK heritage on the web, as well as important global events.



July 12th - 13th Management History Research Group workshop 

Venue: Riddle's Court, 322 Lawnmarket in Edinburgh

Arriving in Edinburgh we had the pleasure of watching England crash out of the World Cup in the semi-final in a pub full of Scotland supporters! A traditional Scottish deep fried supper helped ease the pain. The MHRG was a major success and the venue was fantastic as this photo depicts.  Our paper developed the poster presentation about using archives and was well received by a prestigious panel of professors.




September 4th-6th 'Management and Business History Track' of the British Academy of Management Annual Conference

Venue: University of the West of England, Bristol

The start of September took us to the historic port town home of Triphop, Banksy and the British aircraft industry. We opened the conference with a dinner in the former Bristol Stock Exchange, now an Indian restaurant. The ornate surroundings complimented the excellent meal. On the first day of activities we delivered a Professional Development Workshop on publishing academic books, drawing on our experience and expertise as editors of the Emerald series Frontiers of Management History. We met many impressive and creative new authors and hope to work with at least some of them soon. On Day 2 we presented a full paper version of our work previously presented at the MHRG and University of York poster session (see above).  By now we had used the constructive feedback to craft a developed paper which we hoped to publish.  Our thanks to the esteemed audience for all their comments and suggestions.  In our roles as Special Interest Group committee members we were also involved in chairing sessions and mentoring early career academics and we thoroughly enjoy contributing to the development of our academic field.  The main conference dinner was held at Aerospace Bristol where we got to walk through Concorde and enjoy the Concorde museum then enjoy a selection of wines and food courses at a table situated underneath the aircraft, whilst listening to Jonathan Dimbleby perform an on-the-couch interview with Micheal Eavis the promoter of Glastonbury Festival.  We were pleased that BAM brought a bit of aeronautic and creative industry business histories to the heart of its conference!

British Academy of Management 2018 Paper Submission Now Open!

The British Academy of Management (BAM) is the UK's premier management studies conference, attracting scholars from a broad sweep of management sub-disciplines, from supply chain management to strategy!

Kevin has been organizing the British Academy of Management' (BAM) Management and Business History Track, which focuses on promoting Management and Business History work of theoretical importance to the BAM audience, since 2011.  Last year Alex joined him, along with Roy Edwards from the University of Southampton and Joe Lane from LSE, to establish a BAM Special Interest Group for Management and Business History which will continue to help promote the best of Management and Business History to the BAM audience.  

The British Academy of Management's 2018 Conference will take place at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK, from 4-6 September 2018.  This year's conference theme is Driving Productivity in Uncertain and Challenging Times.  Paper submission is now open until the 28th February.

The Management and Business History Track will run again this year, in addition to the SIG which is in its second successful year.  We encourage all theoretically motivated submissions in the broad management and business history field.  This year we particularly look to encourage the submission of workshops and symposia around a broad theme, as well as Full (5-7,000 word) and Developmental paper submissions (1-2,000 word).  Submissions from PhD students are also welcome, and we also encourage PhD students to apply to participate in the BAM Doctoral Symposium.  Please note that those submitting papers are also expected to contribute to the paper review process.

Papers on management history in sport are, of course welcome! 

The track CfP is as follows:

BAM Management and Business History Track 2018

This track aims to encourage the growing number of management and business historians who work in business schools and social science departments to engage in constructive debate with a wide range of management scholars. The 2018 conference theme, ‘Driving Productivity in uncertain and challenging times’, is an ideal opportunity to explore the value of historical study for management research. Histories of organizations, industries and institutions give us the opportunity to understand how managers have responded to uncertain and challenging times in the past, whether it be through war, economic crisis, scandal or other disruptions to their activities. Inspired by Fayol, Ford and Taylor managers also attempted to boost productivity, often with mixed results. In this track we specialize in chronologically or longitudinally motivated research. We welcome papers, symposia or workshop proposals either using new and innovative methodologies, or applying archival methodology to a new disciplinary context. We are also interested in context specific papers using more traditional historical methodology but which take innovative approaches to relate their findings to wider social science concerns. In addition, we appreciate papers dealing with the legacy of uncertainty in the past in business and management more generally, and how it has influenced the diversity of experience in present day businesses, regions and communities.

This year we encourage cross-disciplinary papers and workshop submissions that link different Tracks, while the main conference theme ought to feature prominently in all submissions. As a group we are inherently multi-disciplinary and believe in the application of theory to historical analysis, and there is no single epistemology for approaching this. We aim to encourage theoretically orientated social science history with a clear relationship to present day debates in the management discipline.

Some theoretical and empirical examples of the genre of work that we seek to welcome include:

Maclean, M., Harvey, C. and Clegg, S.R., 2016. Conceptualizing historical organization studies. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), pp.609-632.

Cummings, S. and Bridgman, T., 2011. The relevant past: Why the history of management should be critical for our future. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 10(1), pp.77-93.

Edwards, R., 2010. Job analysis on the LMS: mechanisation and modernisation c. 1930–c. 1939. Accounting, Business & Financial History, 20(1), pp.91-105.

Mollan, S. and Tennent, K.D., 2015. International taxation and corporate strategy: evidence from British overseas business, circa 1900–1965. Business History, 57(7), pp.1054-1081.

Tennent, K.D. and Gillett, A.G., 2016. Foundations of Managing Sporting Events: Organising the 1966 FIFA World Cup. Routledge.

More details about this year's conference and venue can be found here goo.gl/nPZLe7 and you can find the paper submission website here goo.gl/V5VTwm.

We hope to see you at Bristol in September!

Soccer Mad Boffins USA - UK Summer Tour 2017: Highlights

Another summer and another maelstrom of exciting conference and guest lecture activity, taking in both sides of the Atlantic (and one side of the Pacific, too....see below).  Here are the highlights.

The summer tour began in July, on 'home' turf at a University of York open day.  Visitors were treated to an informative display about our research.  We also gave out free postcards featuring the Soccer Mad Boffins logo, and some awesome glossy mini-brochures detailing the key facts and findings from our research of the 1966 FIFA World Cup.  There was even a display copy of 'Foundations of Managing Sporting Events', courtesy of our publisher Routledge, for people to browse.

Later that month, Dr Kevin D. Tennent attended the world's most significant and strategically important business/management/ administration academic event, Academy of Management (AoM) Annual Conference, held this year in Atlanta, Georgia in the USA.  Yet more thanks to our publisher Routledge, 'Foundations of Managing Sporting Events' was again available for inspection, taking pride of place amongst flagship titles on their display.

September was notable for two significant Soccer Mad Boffins appearances. At the beginning of the month, we both attended the UK's most significant and strategically important business/management/administration studies academic event, the British Academy of Management's (BAM) Annual Conference, which was this year hosted by University of Warwick.  

This year was particularly eventful for us because it was the inaugural year of the Business & Management Special Interest Group (SIG), for which we are both founding members of the committee.  Holding the first AGM was a big moment for us and testament to all of the hard work that Kevin in particular has put into building up the profile of business and management history at BAM over the years.  We were also able to attend the SIG Chair's meeting and it puts us in an influential place to champion history amongst the business/management/administration research community.

Of course as well as hosting and attending meetings and chairing sessions, we also presented our own research - this year a working paper that we have written about the historic and contemporary contribution of referees to soccer's governing institutions.  We hope to have more news about this exciting stream of research soon.

To cap-off such a productive summer we had the great honor of being invited by one of the world's leading experts, Professor Ray Levitt, to present to Stanford University's Center for Global Projects our research on the FIFA World Cup 1966.  This was undertaken as a webinar: We used internet technology to broadcast our presentation from Soccer Mad Boffin Headquarters in The University of York, on the East side of England in the UK, to Stanford University in California, on the West Coast of the USA.  

There was an 8 hour time zone gap between GMT (UK time) and Pacific Time (California) meaning that whilst the audience enjoyed an early afternoon lecture with the California sunshine outside, we were by contrast working at night with the rain lashing down on our windows. Perhaps next time we will take the airplane and appear 'in person'!

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience of presenting to Stanford's academics and graduate and postgraduate students who attended, and particularly the Q&A which followed our presentation. We hope to do it again soon!

The paper that we presented has already been accepted for publication in a forthcoming Special Issue of the Project Management Journal (TM) and we will of course provide more details about the publication date when we have them.

Soccer-mad-boffins help to launch BAM SIG!

BAM’s Management and Business History Track was restarted in 2011 by Kevin from with help from Dr Roy Edwards, of the University of Southampton, and John Wilson, now Pro-Vice Chancellor for Business and Law at Northumbria University. The track, which encourages scholars to engage with the historical study of management and business topics, has grown over the years and has also seen many successful PDW sessions associated with it. Now, the SIG is being launched with Dr Tennent and Dr Edwards acting as co-chairs, and joined by Alex as secretary and Joe Lane from LSE as treasurer. The SIG aims to continue the work of raising the profile of historical research within BAM and the wider Management Studies field, representing management historians working in UK business and management schools and working with other SIGs to help illustrate the potential of history as a research method. We also seek to encourage the use of history in teaching "mainstream" business and management disciplines and in particular the development of case studies based on archival material. Every field of management studies has a history and the potential to be researched from a historical perspective, and the SIG aims to bring scholars together from across BAM who have an interest in historical methods.

We presented a soccer-mad-boffins paper at BAM at Newcastle last year and will be submitting a paper this year.  The 2017 conference takes place at the University of Warwick between the 5th and 7th of September.  Both full (5-7,000 word) and developmental (1-2,000 word) papers as well as workshop submissions are welcome.  Find out more here https://www.bam.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info?id=3178 and the Management and Business History Track Call for Papers is reproduced below:

Reconnecting management research with the disciplines: shaping the research agenda for the social sciences (BAM 2017) 

This track aims to encourage management and business historians who work in business schools and social science departments to engage in constructive debate with a wide range of management scholars. The 2017 conference theme calls for management scholars to re-engage with social science disciplines. This provides an excellent opportunity for management historians to consider the role that history can play in influencing management knowledge and practice, as well as contributing to wider theory in the disciplines of economics, strategy, accounting, finance, law and sociology. In this track we specialise in chronologically or longitudinally motivated research. This year we particularly welcome papers relating to the economic or social history of business or management, or applying archival methodology to a new disciplinary context. We are also interested in context specific papers using more traditional historical methodology but which take innovative approaches to relate their findings to wider social science concerns.

In the spirit of pluralism we also encourage cross-disciplinary papers and workshop submissions that link different Tracks, while the main conference theme ought to feature prominently in all submissions. As a group we are inherently multi-disciplinary and believe in the application of theory to historical analysis, and there is no single epistemology for approaching this. We aim to encourage theoretically orientated social science history with a clear relationship to present day debates in the management discipline.

Soccer Mad Boffins Summer Conference Activity: British Academy of Management Conference 2016, Newcastle

Having spent recent weeks/months being busy launching our new book, we realised it is now already November and that we've been a bit quiet on the blog lately.

So, better late than never, we thought now might be as good a time as any to provide a quick summary of our conference activities over the previous few months.

Following July's previously reported successful jaunt to the Management History Research Group's workshop in Sheffield (and the tie-in article that we wrote for Sheffield Star newspaper about that cities hosting of World Cup 1966 fixtures) in September we headed North, to the British Academy of Management's 2016 Annual Conference - this year hosted by Newcastle University Business School.

Our paper had received positive comments during the peer review process leading up to the conference and so we looked forward to presenting our work and discussing with other peers our research.

This year the business and management history track was particularly attended and there was a real buzz about the occasion - in attendance were a number of leading academics.  We had some really productive discussions afterwards, and also outside of the seminar room.  Thanks to all who were there and who we spoke to.   It is very encouraging to see our work garnering interest from such esteemed colleagues!

We also had a space on the 'Meet the Authors' desk where our book had a display. This was a really fun thing to do and we hope to participate in more of these at conferences in future. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and spoke to us, picked up a flyer, or had a look at the sample copy of the book.

All in all a really outstanding conference. We'll be back!

Information about next years BAM conference, which will be held at Warwick, is here.

Soccer Mad Boffins Summer World Tour

Following our success at the University of York CEGBI/CSWL summer conference (see previous post) - we have in recent weeks also had our research on referees discussed in the 'Uses of the Past: History and Memory of Organizations' Professional Development Workshop at the Academy of Management (AoM) in Vancouver, Canada.  Here we discussed the ethnographic character of the archives generated by referees as they travelled around the world, and how we can use them to document the development of refereeing as a profession.  Vancouver is of course fresh from hosting the final of the FIFA Women's World Cup and FIFA signs were still on display!  Kevin also visited the Olympic Village from the 2010 Winter Olympics, perhaps one of the better legacy sites from an Olympics. This is the second Olympic venue visited by a Soccer Mad Boffin this year.  Alex visited the Barcelona Olympic Venue and village in January.

Next month we will be attending the Management and Business History Track at the British Academy of Management (BAM) in Portsmouth, where we will discuss the findings from our 1966 FIFA World Cup Project. We are working on bigger plans for outputs from this, so watch this space!