The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork done with the Bad Blue Boys (BBB), a group of young, male, Australian/Croatian soccer fans who reside in the western suburbs of Sydney. The group, which uses soccer support to parade a rugged nationalistic identity, is examined as an aggressive masculine youth subculture. Social practices indicative of misogyny and homophobia are outlined. The extent and manner of ethnic influence on these attitudes is addressed. The article follows Segal’s approach of looking at a form of masculinity specific to a group rather than an overarching or monolithic masculinity. The article concludes with a consideration of Elias’s concept of the “civilizing process” as developed in the work of Eric Dunning and his associates at the University of Leicester. This consideration is grounded in a comparison of their study of the Kingsley Lads with that of the BBB.
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