Good Thoughts About Soccer and Space
A friend pointed me to a brief but fascinating argument for the relationship between the soccer pitch and urbanism (an older and more developed bit here). I haven't thought about it long enough to really have anything coherent to add, but I thought I might quote a brief passage:
The whole landscape became transformed into game-space. Houses, agriculture, sites of worship lost their everyday meaning and became an abstract terrain whose qualities impact the possibilities of game play.
It picks up some of the things (here or here) I'd been writing about after the European Championships, though not exactly.
His work suggests a certain theme: The way in which the space of a court or a pitch or a field was initially marked off, designated, or delineated. Thinking briefly about basketball, there's the whole very American tradition of basketball hoops in the front driveway, and the hundreds of different house rules that spring up around those specific places. An earlier generation might have talked about sandlots (something I only know from watching The Sandlot), but with a similar end in mind. Again, it's nothing I have very well thought out, but I think it's worth thinking about.
(Thanks to Jordan for the tip - hope Malaysia is treating you well)
The whole landscape became transformed into game-space. Houses, agriculture, sites of worship lost their everyday meaning and became an abstract terrain whose qualities impact the possibilities of game play.
It picks up some of the things (here or here) I'd been writing about after the European Championships, though not exactly.
His work suggests a certain theme: The way in which the space of a court or a pitch or a field was initially marked off, designated, or delineated. Thinking briefly about basketball, there's the whole very American tradition of basketball hoops in the front driveway, and the hundreds of different house rules that spring up around those specific places. An earlier generation might have talked about sandlots (something I only know from watching The Sandlot), but with a similar end in mind. Again, it's nothing I have very well thought out, but I think it's worth thinking about.
(Thanks to Jordan for the tip - hope Malaysia is treating you well)
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