‘I found out the hard way’: micro-political workings in professional football

Thompson, Andrew, Potrac, Paul and Jones, Robyn (2015) ‘I found out the hard way’: micro-political workings in professional football. Sport, Education and Society, 20 (8). pp. 976-994. ISSN 1357-3322

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Abstract

This paper examines the micro-political experiences of Adam (a pseudonym), a newly appointed fitness coach at a Football Association Premier League club, in his search for acceptance by senior colleagues. Data were collected through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, before being subject to a process of inductive analysis. Goffman's writings on impression management and stigma, Kelchtermans's micro-political perspective and Garfinkel's notion of status degradation are primarily utilised to make the sense of Adam's perceptions and actions. The findings point to the value of developing coaches’ micro-political understandings, and of including their formal facilitation within given professional preparation programmes. Doing so, it is argued, would better equip coaches for the problematic realities of their practice.

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