This collection was first conceived of at a conference organised by Adam Brown to coincide with the Euro 96 European Football Championships in England in 1996. The conference, ‘Fanatics! Football and Popular Culture in Europe’, was held at the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture, Manchester Metropolitan University from 11–13 June 1996 and involved leading football academics from around the world. Whilst naturally much of the attention at the time was focused on the championships, the ‘on-field play’ at the conference put football fans centre stage, with over forty papers looking at the modern game. Selecting the most appropriate of these to be revised and included in this collection was not.
