York Festival of Ideas 2024: Rediscovering Lost Football Grounds and Terraces with Dr Tosh Warwick

On Sunday 9th June 2024, we presented at York Festival of Ideas, University of York, with Dr Tosh Warwick of Sheffield University on the topic 'rediscovering lost football grounds and terraces.'

A packed room heard Tosh present a short slide show about his research on the topic and announce his new book, that he is currently researching.

Alex and Kevin then began a panel conversation by asking Tosh a couple of questions, before opening to the questioning to the attendees.  All three of us then answered questions relating to football in England and Scotland, the business of football, Barcelona's new stadium development, and Darlington's infamous Reynolds Arena. 

After the event we joined Tosh for a pizza in York city centre and were joined by Rob Nichols, editor of Middlesbrough FC fanzine 'Fly Me To The Moon' who also attended the event.

Alex, Tosh and Kevin

The previous day was notable for an interview with Kevin on BBC Radio York to promote the event at which he discussed what to expect and answered questions from DJ Freya Cox, famous for appearing on the 2021 edition of Great British Bake-Off, about her home town teams of Scarborough and their stadium history.

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.