Damiano Benzoni, Italian journalist and seasoned groundhopper, has written a wonderful book - an "emotive map of football in Berlin," a rich portrait of a city through the eyes of football. And when that city happens to be the German capital, torn by wars, shaped by the dvide between two Germanies and various migrant influences, the texture of such a book happens to be particularly interesting. The book, for now, is available only in Italien, so consider this an English language exclusive.

We also get an update on SC Freiburg's last season. And just to scare the right people away, an Austrian workers' song that dovetails wonderfully with Gabriel Kuhn's engaging portrait of a social democratic soccer utopia from Spring.

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Book website (Urbone Publishing)

Damiano Benzoni on X and Instagram

Biberstand Boys - Unioner im Haus (YouTube) - this is an anti-Union song, mind you!

Die Arbeiter von Wien - Austrian workers' song (YouTube), with English lyrics

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Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

Daniel and Romina are dear, longtime listeners of the podcast. Back in April, I sat down with them at their kitchen table in Stockholm to work out the story behind the many images that circulated online last season: a stunningly large mob of active supporters in fine voice home and away, tifo and all. This wasn't just one big game in a big stadium for the sake of a record. This was organic, homegrown, ultra-themed. At most European away games, the Bajen supporters outnumbered home fans. What gives, and why there, in Stockholm?

So what you are about to hear is a kitchen table conversation (recorded on my phone) with dear listeners, who happen to know a lot about this peculiar fanscene at Hammarby men and Hammarby women. There is enough shit happening in this world, and I hope that kitchen table with Daniel and Romina and their stories begins summer on a humble but hopeful note.

Thank you for being here, for listening, July is Summer break as always, we can connect on social media, and I will be back here in August again. Be well, and have a wonderful summer!

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIOS EPISODE:

Daniel and Romina on X, R&D on Tour

Hammarby Women's Support on Instagram

Hammarby's club anthem, with English subtitled (YouTube video)

Famous Hammarby tifo after (!) the derby win vs. Djurgårdens IF (from 0:50 on, YouTube video)

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If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

With Ana Ascencao e Silva, Eva Lotta Bohle, Andy Payne, Alex Kirby, Paul Reidy, Wayne Gamble, Christopher Hylland - on their club's or cause's season, what happened since we talked, and what the outlook is like at the moment. Plus, each guest picked one song - well, except Eva Lotta, who picked two.

Union St. Gill, Arminia Bielefeld, West Ham, Rayo Vallecano, Leeds United, Argentina

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

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If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

Fort Wayne is a city of around 260,00 in the very east of the northern half of Indiana. Like many mid-sized midwestern cities, it has been shaped by the industrialization of the late 19th century,  immigration waves from Western, Central and Southeastern Europe until the 1920s and from the rest of the world today,  deindustrialization after World War 2, the decline of urban America as well as revitalization more recently. 

It also has a soccer club, founded by German immigrants for the “Promotion of Soccer Football and German Culture” in 1927. And unlike many other semi-professional or pre-professional teams, Fort Wayne SC is a proper members-owned club, with members well beyond German immigrants now, and legally a Non-Profit. It’s not just that this story is interesting - it’s also pretty well documented. FWSC has some history minded folks out there. I talked to one of them, Dan Kruse, who also happens to be the club’s president. The club appeared on my radar because they play my hometown team Goshen City FC, new to the Midwest Premier League, on the 31st. So before a longer conversation with Dan Kruse, I also got a quick word from Goshen City FC’s boss, Henrique Eichelberger, about new life in a new league, and the outlook for this season.

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Fort Wayne SC 1927

Goshen City FC

 Midwest Premier League

Underrated Eurovisions Songs:

Abor and Tynna (Germany) - Baller

Erika Vikman (Finland) - Ich Komme (live video from the arena, because… flying giant mic and things)

Laura Thorn (Luxembourg) - La Poupée Monte Le Son 

Lucio Corsi (Italy) - Volevo Essere un Duro

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.

If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

Gabriel Kuhn is an Austrian writer and researcher who works for the Central Organization of Swedish Workers - and sat for an in-person interview (he has been on before when we talked about his wonderful book Soccer vs the State in 2023.) In this episode, we time travel to "red Vienna"  in the 1920s, to talk about how antifascism, organized workers' sports, the professionalization of soccer and sobriety intersected then, and what promise they can hold for the present. Our baseline is the life of Viennese Social Democratic leader Julius Deutsch, an edited collection of whose writings Gabriel has published with a comprehensive introduction by himself. 

British historian Richard Crockett recently wrote the seminal Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created The Modern World. He argues that the Vienna before everyone fled, first from the Austrian fascists and then from the Nazis, the “Red” Vienna, governed by the Social Democrats, was a kind of a laboratory for the modern world. From psychoanalysis to Reaganomics, from Hollywood Westerns to fitted kitchens - this city, Crockett says, made the modern world. That is also the time period, in which a separate workers football association and a workers football league saw the light of day in Austria, an alternative to the rapidly professionalizing other Austrian league, and Austrian football association. 

Working class organizers and politicians saw not just the recreational value of soccer, and watching soccer. They also saw its social, organizational, ethical and prophetic value. First, another football became possible - to make clear that another world was possible, too. 

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Gabriel’s website, with more on the Julius Deutsch book and other books here

PM Press, book website for the book

 Gabriel Kuhn interview on Julius Deutsch in Jacobin Magazine

TAPoF Episode 44, on Hakoah Vienna, Austria’s first professional champion in 1925

Richard Crockett, Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World

Matthias Marschik, “Wir Spielen nicht zum Vergnügen:” Arbeiterfussball

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.

If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

This is the second part of a two-part episode - the first part is here, episode 54, from March 31.

We will start at FC St. Pauli, now in the German Bundesliga, at the club’s museum which has very active researchers, and we’ll end at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and the bigger question of what right remembering looks like in professional soccer - and what it can look like. We will take that journey with no less than 3 guests: Celina Albertz, a researcher and also in the curating team of the FC St. Pauli Museum; Sönke Goldbeck, Board chair and director of the museum, and Felipe Tobar, Assistant Professor in the Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management Department at Clemson Universit in South Carolina and founder of the Football Studies youtube channel. He is also the mastermind of a new documentary on public memory and football, which we will also talk about.

Part 1  is mostly concernedwith the research on the famous St. Pauli matchday song "Das Herz von St. Pauli" ("The Heart of St. Pauli"), and the discussion started by Celina's research into the composer, lyricist and performer of that song. Part 2 funnels out from there to larger questions of soccer, research and remembering, and features Felipe more heavily.

If you want to know more about FC St. Pauli and what makes the club special, especially to this podcast, listen in to episode 26, from 2023, when I talked with two social workers that are employed by the club. Felipe Tobar has also been here before, he has talked about his work and research in episode 31, last february.

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Das Herz von St. Pauli sung in the Millerntor Stadium (YouTube video)

Deutsche Welle report on the song and its roots, with Celina's research

FC St. Pauli Museum

Felipe Tobar's documentary, "The Match That not Every Club Wants to Play" (YouTube, Football Studies channel)

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.

If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

This is the first part of a two-part episode.

We will start at FC St. Pauli, now in the German Bundesliga, at the club’s museum which has very active researchers, and we’ll end at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and the bigger question of what right remembering looks like in professional soccer - and what it can look like. We will take that journey with no less than 3 guests: Celina Albertz, a researcher and also in the curating team of the FC St. Pauli Museum; Sönke Goldbeck, Board chair and director of the museum, and Felipe Tobar, Assistant Professor in the Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management Department at Clemson Universit in South Carolina and founder of the Football Studies youtube channel. He is also the mastermind of a new documentary on public memory and football, which we will also talk about.

Part 1  is mostly concernedwith the research on the famous St. Pauli matchday song "Das Herz von St. Pauli" ("The Heart of St. Pauli"), and the discussion started by Celina's research into the composer, lyricist and performer of that song. Part 2 funnels out from there to larger questions of soccer, research and remembering, and features Felipe more heavily.

If you want to know more about FC St. Pauli and what makes the club special, especially to this podcast, listen in to episode 26, from 2023, when I talked with two social workers that are employed by the club. Felipe Tobar has also been here before, he has talked about his work and research in episode 31, last february.

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Das Herz von St. Pauli sung in the Millerntor Stadium (YouTube video)

Deutsche Welle report on the song and its roots, with Celina's research

FC St. Pauli Museum

Felipe Tobar's documentary, "The Match That not Every Club Wants to Play" (YouTube, Football Studies channel)

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.

If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

If you are in England on the nice Spring weekend of March 22nd, I hope you didn’t book the trip to see a Premier League game. Because there are none. It’s a dreaded national team break again. But on the other hand, that weekend may also be one of the best to soak in English football culture, because it’s the Annual “Non-League Day," an annual, grassroots-led spotlight on non-professional football in England, a chance for those clubs to "promote the importance of affordable volunteer-led community football,"  for fans who don’t follow the big clubs across the country to show support for their local amateur side - and a chance for the educated soccer fan to look into the bottom of the English league pyramid, and find there is a lot of vibrancy, passion and sacrifices there. 

Today, in preparation, we are highlighting that day and the work and volunteers surrounding it, with James Doe, who founded the Non League Day in 2010 as a kind of social media experiment, and has overseen its growth to something that is now supported by the Premier League and Football League clubs, MPs, celebrities, media organisations, charities and most importantly the non-league clubs themselves

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Non-League Day website

NLD on X and Instagram

The English Football League System explained on Wikipedia

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.

If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

Note: This is an unusual episode, in reaction to the events unfolding Thursday and Friday, with little time to edit or the usual setup. All sounds fine and is audible, but not as nice as usual. My apologies!

Back last Summer, many Premier League clubs announced they would change, or do away with, "concession tickets" for seniors and youth, as well as a price hike on season tickets. Resistance formed at many clubs, but at West Ham, it seemed particularly organized, creative and social media savvy. In August, I talked with Alex, a chief initiator of the #SaveOurConcessions campaign online and on matchdays, home and away, as well as with Andy Payne of Hammers United and now the club's fan advisory board about their strategy to fight back. I predicted a "Fall storm." In recent weeks, not only did Liverpool announce a price freeze, West Ham restored all concessions and also froze season tickets. Seemingly out of nowhere, right before a home game. To Andy and Alex of course, the change is the result of months of hard work. This is a look behind the curtain at how a Premier League club makes bad business decisions, how fans mobilize, and how pragmatism and solidarity, creativity and activism make a difference for local fans even in the most glitzy league in the world.

Unfortunately, the counter-example of today's fan activism omnibus episode comes from Chicago, where the Chicago Red Stars of the National Women's Soccer League changed their name to "Stars" without any organized protests by an otherwise fairly organized fanscene. One lone voice from Chicago was willing to speak on the record about why that might be. 

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Hammers United website, incl. press releases and statements by the group as the protests went on (full disclosure, I signed)

The club's statement, with some background from Hammers United on their website

"Save Our Concessions" initial petition, with over 20,000 signatures

"Black Bubble Protest" by West Ham fans away at Crystal palace (X, video)

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.

If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

There is a lot to say about Argentina and football that we are not saying today. There is a lot about Argentina and football that we are saying today. We’re even saying things about saying things about football in Argentina: Christopher Hylland joins me, an English author and educator with a Latin American past and a Norwegian present. His football-centric travel report Tears at La Bombonera is out since 2021, and he has just published a second one, a unique journey to the land where linguistics and football meet. The book is called Dame Bola: A Journey Through the Language of Argentinian Football. First, however, we discuss what is going on in Argentinian politics and football today, under the presidency of Javier Milei who is fulfilling his campaign promises to put a libertarian chainsaw to the Argentinian state and economy. Part of the flurry of reforms was a presidential decree to allow privatization in Argentinian football and turn clubs into limited liability companies, open to investors. This could be a historic change to what a sports, or soccer, club IS in Argentina. (There are some parallels to when Raphael Molter was here and we talked about 50+1 in Germany, and you know from other episodes as well that I really care about the role clubs can play in the community. Clubs, not companies.)

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Christopher Hylland on Milei's push to privatize (Substack, Free)

Christopher Hylland on Instagram and Bluesky

Dame Bola website

Dame Bola reviewed on Cultured Football

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.

If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind

Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/