"Passing Rhythms: Liverpool FC and the Transformation of Football" ed. by John Williams, Cathy Long, Stephen Hopkins

This book takes an original approach to the study of football by examining its links with other important popular culture forms, especially pop music, but also television and youth styles. In particular, however, it looks at the very special meaning of football in Liverpool.


Liverpool Football Club, in stark contrast to its competitors, remains locally owned, not a conglomerate or media business. Unlike its main rivals, the Liverpool club has been loathe to pursue global markets for merchandizing - though it attracts a huge fandom around the world - and its ambitions remain resolutely fixed on footballing success. No football club has ever had such an extended period of dominance in the English game, nor extended that dominance to Europe so effectively.

Many of the current crop of top young players are locally born and are a central feature of the city's nightlife, as well as national icons in pop/football/youth culture. But there are fears that the Club's great days have now passed. At the height of its powers in the 1980s, Liverpool FC was the site of two catastrophic crowd disasters, which effectively transformed the sport and added to wounding perceptions about the city's alleged sentimentality, fatalism and irreversible decline. The legacy of the Heysel and Hillsborough tragedies continues to shape the self-image of the Club and those who support it. A seething rivalry with nearby corporate giant Manchester United is a constant reminder of football's new order.

Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
1 Out of the Blue and into the Red: The Early Liverpool Years
2 Football and Religion: Merseyside and Glasgow
3 Bill Shankly and Liverpool
4 Passing Rhythms: The Modern Origins and Development of the Liverpool Way
5 Kopites, ‘Scallies’ and Liverpool Fan Cultures: Tales of Triumph and Disasters
6 From Barnes to Camara: Football, Identity and Racism in Liverpool
7 The Fall of Liverpool FC and the English Football 'Revolution'
8 Gerard Houllier and the New Liverpool 'Imaginary'
9 Sitting Pretty? Women and Football in Liverpool
10 Liverpool FC in the Global Football Age
Afterword: Hillsborough – Flowers and Wasted Words
Index