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Home and Away: The Grounding of New Football Teams in Perth, Western Australia

2002; Wiley; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1835-9310.2002.tb00209.x

1835-9310

Roy Jones,

Urban Planning and Governance

Metropolitan sporting, and particularly football, competitions were established in all of Australia's colonial state capital cities about a century ago. Typically, they were comprised of teams from and were supported by the inhabitants of working‐class, inner suburbs. These competitions were the primary foci of Australians' sporting interest and loyalty for almost a century. But, with the shift of public attention and private capital to national competitions, the former stadia of many local clubs have become redundant spaces in what are now gentrifying inner suburbs. Simultaneously new, and even old, national league teams have sought larger, more modern (near) city centre venues for their operations. In this context, two new national league teams in Perth—Fremantle Dockers and Perth Glory—have experienced considerable challenges in establishing both physical ‘homes’ and local identities. These have included both the supplanting of traditional local clubs and the placating of new kinds of inner suburban residents.