Thesis topic related to Soccer?

What subject? History English? or anything?

 

Cause you could definitely do something Business Law related with the Bosman Ruling

 

What do you find interesting about soccer? Figure that point out and go from there. Cheers, David

 

Re: hooliganism.

There's a lot. Probably too much.

Off the top of my head, I can think of American writer Bill Buford's "Among the Thugs", Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch" and a few other books you can find at, say, bigsoccer.com's store. Hooliganism in England itself was, as I'm sure you know, a huge problem until there were attempts to change the game's market (middle-class and family vs. working class) and the stadia (no more terraces, vastly improved security, etc.) I'm sure the English would hate to hear this, but it's become more Americanized.

They feel they have cleaned up the game incredibly. But during it's heyday, it was a topic that generated a great deal of scholarly writing in England. One I recall was a geography study that correlated pitch invasions with the selling off of clubs from communities to corporations and posed the theory that hooliganism was an attempt to regain the "territory" in the stadia when the club members (i.e., young toughs) realized they didn't own the clubs anymore.

There are still problems of course, especially outside of England -- Turkey, Africa, Argentina, etc. If I were you, I'd limit to a very particular segment of hooliganism -- comparing it to American sports, the demonization in the US media, the actions taken by the English to clean up the game, the nature of sectional fighting, etc. Buford's read is good, if dated, because it's actually about "mob mentality" as opposed to soccer. That's just the place where he could really experience it. Good luck.

 

So much has been written on hooliganism... 99% of it is ************ that is written by people who have a million phd's (or sumtin like that) in ************************ting all over the place but no clue when it comes to the topic at hand.

But it's the easiest way to go, definitely. I guess that's why so much BS has been written about it in the past

 

Check out this article
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...selm=akeis8$1hfe48$1@ID-116622.news.dfncis.de

 

To be frank, that's a pretty shoddy thesis statement. Do you mean to suggest that violence on the field is the result of violence among fans?! I think that's simply not the case. Furthermore, few people would consider soccer an inherently violent sport--relatively speaking.

What soccer could REALLY use is some POSITIVE image management. American sports writers are constantly panning the game. Since you're a fan, why not be an ambassador for the game? You could PROMOTE soccer by writing a paper with a positive spin.

 

Good article. However, for Jerlon's purposes, I think it is important to point out that this article has little or nothing to do with soccer in the United States--an important distinction to make if you're writing a paper to be read by an American audience.

 

Same here. You are gonna find that extremely hard to prove because it isn't true.

 

Jerlon, since your assignment allows you the freedom to write about whatever you'd like, make it easy on yourself--you don't have to necessarily "prove" anything!

Here are some ideas that I hope will help:

1. Consider what you enjoy most about soccer, then elaborate.

2. Compare and contrast, soccer vs (American) football.

3. In the US, soccer is the perennial 'next big thing'. Why, in your opinion, is this true and why does this never come to fruition?

4. Tell the story of how the USMNT shocked the world by reaching 2002 World Cup quarterfinals for the first time since the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay.

Good luck!

 

And to prove it you can quote Billie-Joe Redneck who said: "They have a World Cup for soccer??!!"

 

Its not really close to what others are saying but here are a few that wouldn't bury you with background and you could give a decent account of in 10-20 pgs

1. looking at how structural changes in the way US Soccer develops players (club,ODP, college vs P-40, Super Y, etc) affected the development of MLS and of the Nats program. Look at shifts in age breakdown, career trajectories of players, et al.

2. American soccer fan culture as a mixture of indigenous fans and Euro/latin immigrants. I didn't notice if you're near an MLS city but a study of membership and influence of 1 or 2 fan groups could be interesting in terms of cultural integration. Most of the guys at the heads of the fan clubs are on BS and would probably be at least a little willing to cooperate and help.

3. If you want to do something more closely related to English, you could do something contrasting the symbollic use of soccer in 2+ works of fiction. The obvious first that comes to mind is Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. Maybe with that S. American book of poetry that came out recently and was excerpted in the December issue of Harpers' Monthly whose name escapes me...soccer as metaphor for life, relationship between fan and club proxy for father-son bond etc.

If you do choose the hooli topic, check out Gary Armstrong's (Sheffield lad and Anthropology PhD.) book Football Hooligans. Its the better of several academic accounts of Brit. hooly culture that I've read.
Good luck

 

don't write about hooliganism

 

Compare and contrast NASL and MLS. Different periods in time, different cultural expectations, different business models, different short term results, different long term results (hopefully). Not very sexy but should be fairly easy to crank out.

Or, go local. Why is Rochester perceived as such a soccer city? Compare a microcosm to the US as a whole over a certain time period. If your teacher might not get soccer in general a regional connection might spur interest and you could do first person accounts which are more interesting for you and look much more impressive.

 

Maybe violence on the field can incite agression on the stands (contributing to potential violence) but it's certainly not the other way around.

You might think of something about the way that football can make people ecstatic one day and make them fail to see any meaning in life the other.

But in your case, writting about MLS or US football (soccer) in general could be a good idea.