That Was The Week That Was,
May 19–25, 2025

Dear all,

It may have caught your attention that last year, the Swedish sport social science community celebrated 50 years of scholarly research into any and all aspects of sport and society. The Forum was in no way abashed about excessively publicizing this jubilee, having played a considerable part in the celebrations, to wit, by being instrumental in the publication and promotion of a huge celebratory anthology, edited by Tomas Peterson, and made available – in Swedish – here.

In order to reach a wider readership for this history of Swedish sports research, we have now reached an agreement with the 38 scholars behind the 25 contributions to publish English translations of each chapter on idrottsforum.org as a series of articles, commencing after the summer recess – open access, as per usual for this publication.

This week is special in the Swedish context, Ascension Day on Thursday 29 is a public holiday, and the subsequent Friday is known a klämdag, literally squeeze day, which means that the work week for many employees in this country ends on Wednesday. That may well be the case at idrottsforum.org as well, we’ll have to see how it plays out.

Last week the following few items were published on idrottsforum.org (see below; language and publication dates, YYMMDD, in brackets). Click on the red headings to go to content. Utilize the Google Translate service to turn Scandinavian language pages into (some sort of) English.

And remember, if you’re not already hooked up to one of the social media outlets that we utilize, for now they are Facebook, LinkedIn and X, you’re missing quite a lot of information from idrottsforum.org that never appears on the website. So, if that is the case, check out, by clicking on the names, our Facebook, LinkedIn and X accounts.

Have a great week,
Kjell Eriksson
Editor

Book Reviews

New study of risks within football and fandom in Europe

Against the backdrop of the recent and renewed political and policy interest in the safety and security in European football contexts, Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen produces an updated empirical but theoretically informed account of how insecurities in football have been responded to in his book Insecurities in European Football and Supporter Cultures (Routledge). Eivind Skille is largely positive to the author’s efforts; impressed by the theoretical groundwork and appreciative of the empirical studies, but he would have liked to see an elevated analysis and a further elaborated conclusion. (Review in English, published 250520.)

Pioneer study of Scottish surfing – a modern classic

In Surfing and Modernity in the North of Scotland (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), Matthew McDowell discusses the existence and evolution of surfing in the north of Scotland. But this is also a history of the region itself, examining the possibilities and limits of surfing, sport, and other activities. In her review, sociology professor and surf scholar Kristin Lawler notes that the author is not himself a surfer and thus will not let us know how it feels to surf a reef break like Thurso, but his classic community study in sociology fills a massive gap in the surf literature concerning Scotland. (Review in English, published 250522.)

New Issues of Scholarly Journals

(We’re currently reviewing this service, since it’s a rather time-consuming undertaking. In the meanwhile we’re presenting some of the journals in line with the Forum’s core mission.)

• Sport in Society, Volume 28, 2025, Issue 2 (250519)
• The Physical Educator, Vol. 82, 2025, No. 2 (250519)
• Soccer & Society, Volume 26, 2025, Issue 4 | Soccer’s growth and development in schools in Europe: A history | Special issue, edited by Conor Curran (250521)
• Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Volume 19, 2025, Issue 2 (250521)

News items (calls for papers, vacancies, etc.)

• Call for Papers | 5th World Association for Sport Management (WASM) Conference 2026 | Cape Town, South Africa, March 3–6, 2026. Call ends May 30, 2025