The People's Game
Football, State and Society in East Germany

From star players to rioting fans, The People's Game examines how football shaped the history of communist East Germany.

Alan McDougall (Author)

9781107649712, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 October 2016

378 pages, 20 b/w illus. 1 map
22.8 x 15.1 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

'… represents an excellent example of research using football to illustrate the colourful ambiguities of everyday life in the GDR.' David Brentin, Central Europe Journal

Sport in East Germany is commonly associated with the systematic doping that helped to make the country an Olympic superpower. Football played little part in this controversial story. Yet, as a hugely popular activity that was deeply entwined in the social fabric, it exerted an influence that few institutions or pursuits could match. The People's Game examines the history of football from the interrelated perspectives of star players, fans, and ordinary citizens who played for fun. Using archival sources and interviews, it reveals football's fluid role in preserving and challenging communist hegemony. By repeatedly emphasising that GDR football was part of an international story, for example, through analysis of the 1974 World Cup finals, Alan McDougall shows how sport transcended the Iron Curtain. Through a study of the mass protests against the Stasi team, BFC, during the 1980s, he reveals football's role in foreshadowing the downfall of communism.

1. Introduction
2. Football reconstructed
Part I. Players: 3. Footballers' lives
4. The national team
5. Club football at home and away
6. Football and the Stasi
Part II. Fans: 7. Spectatorship in the Ulbricht era
8. Fan culture in the Honecker era
9. The 'wild East': hooliganism in the GDR
10. 'Crooked champions': the BFC problem
Part III. The People's Game: 11. Football and everyday life
12. Women's football
13. East plays West: amateur matches across the Iron Curtain
14. Football for all? The provision of facilities
15. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]