Football and the Community (OOD)

The opening of the American Express Community Stadium – the new home of Brighton and Hove Albion FC – in 2011 will provide a range of services and opportunities not only for the club and its supporters, but also for the various communities that live, work and study in its vicinity.

What the project hopes to achieve

The project partnership – comprising academics at the universities of Brighton and Sussex, Albion in the Community (AITC) and the Bridge Community Centre – seeks to examine how Brighton and Hove Albion FC, and its charitable trust, AITC, can work with local education partners to contribute to the creation of structures and services that will enable communities to become more resourced, healthy and productive, and their members to become more involved, engaged and powerful. The aim of the project is to organise a series of events (seminars and workshops) through which the partnership can develop a major proposal for funded research into the ways in which community education and sport partnerships can build participation, self-reliance and resilience at the local level. 

Specifically, we are interested in addressing questions such as: 

• How can the partners contribute towards creating attractive, safe and sustainable local neighbourhoods and environments that not only impact on the physical and emotional well-being of local residents, but also enable these areas to become spaces of business, education, creativity and innovation?
• What role can the partners play in addressing not only well-publicised health issues, but also psycho-social ones, such as the development of resilience – the capacity to cope with stress and adversity – both at individual and community levels?
• How can the new community stadium contribute to the formation of “new” football communities, especially those created through the inclusion of previously excluded groups?
• What contribution can the stadium make to the ‘reputational geography’ of east Brighton and to developing a sense of positive attachment to place by local citizens?   

Who the project will work with

Central to the project are existing and emerging collaborations between a variety of university and community partners. The former includes those involved in: research and HE teaching provision; local and regional social and economic engagement; continuing education; community, culture, sport and spatial research; and expertise in built environment, events management, arts and creativity. The latter includes practitioners and experts in: secondary and post-compulsory education and training; health education; social engagement and inclusion; project management; and access to, and use of, the community stadium as a venue for research and engagement activities.

How the project links to the idea of neighbourliness

Neighbourliness is at the core of the proposed project. It is fundamentally about fostering reciprocity (between community and HE, and between different parts of the local community), mutual respect (that all partners have an equal role to play in developing a strong, resilient community) and improving understanding about how each of the partners contributes to the overall aims outlined above. We therefore see the fostering of active and inclusive communities and citizenship as central to generating a reflexive understanding of what it is to be a good neighbour.

Project Partners

Prof. Neil Ravenscroft and Dr. Daniel Burdsey (University of Brighton)

Prof. Fred Gray and River Jones (University of Sussex)

Dr. Alan Sanders (Albion in the Community)

Bridge Community Centre (Moulsecoomb)