This article examines how the empirical study of football fans can inform contemporary debates in critical audience research, particularly around issues of pleasure and cultural citizenship. In January 2003, West Ham United signs Lee Bowyer; a controversial move, given the accusations of racism surrounding the player. Although football is often championed as a potent arena for debate and negotiation in cultural politics, Web-based responses to Bowyer among West Hamfans demonstrate how these issues can be subordinated within essentially conservative discourses of belonging. This is due, in part, to structural similarities between fandom and populism, stressing negative modes of identification and desire to return to a mythic past. Consequently, pleasure and politics coexist but do not meet in a West Ham supporting vernacular that has little to say about racism.
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