The Chosen Few

Just a game? This intriguing visual title looks deep into the underbelly of football (soccer) fandom, featuring a vast photographic archive of fans' graffiti and street art captured by a pioneering ‘graffitologist’. At the intersection of the street and sport we find themes of the day: how racial, ethnic, and class tensions play out in visual culture. On the fringe of sports culture are the Ultras, the football fans whose pyrotechnics, chants, wildly creative stunts, and hooliganism are infamous. Using selections from his archive containing hundreds of photographs of Ultras' street art and graffiti, including everything from elaborate murals to stickers to “scratchitto” incisions and spray-paint duels, award-winning author Mitja Velikonja introduces readers to the visual iconography of a fascinating underworld. The Ultra subculture is built by “no-bodys,” the anonymous (primarily) men whose attachments to their teams, specifically in Europe and post-socialist states, sometimes cross the lines into nationalist sentiments and militaristic “Blood and Soil” extremism. After examining general themes and trends in street art and tifo club graffiti, Velikonja embarks on a case study of fans from his native Slovenia and touches on the roles of neighboring football fans in the Balkan Wars. He continues with an analysis of political and socially progressive graffiti, local trends and circumstances, as well as its role in the United States. As he peels back layers of misinformation and misrepresentation, he cues our understanding of factional mindsets within histories of political instability, arguing for dissensus being a critical element to democracies. In the end, we understand that while always under siege, the ultra-fans require nothing less than fidelity and devotion, but precisely to what can be determined — it's anyone's game to call. The author leads graffiti “tours” and teaches the study of graffiti to his university classes at home and abroad (Yale and NYU in the United States, the Netherlands, Russia, Croatia etc.). Provides an analytical framework for visual analysis of ideological markers, both common and uncommon, so readers come away from the book able to see their own cultural landscapes in new ways. The author encourages a new generation of subcultural visual anthropologists and cultural studies enthusiasts to seriously study every manner of expression and decoration that connotes “belongingness” to a subcultural group. Readers learn of the importance of graffiti and street art as cultural activities of dissensus and protest within functional democracies. Compares historical sports graffiti to American examples of protest graffiti and street art from the tumultuous Trump era. The author argues that factions created by “us vs them” mentalities harness division for pleasure in the culture of sport, and that this is a rich source of human connection. However, in times of political instability and within certain contexts, we come to understand the dangers of symbologies used to differentiate factions if they (as some Ultras do) associate their “turf” with current or past nationalisms in real political terms. Provides a window and complex way to understand the nature of factions and fans, and at the same time, is a critical look at claims by fans (and by extension, other people) who use “jokes” and memes to make extreme views seem less harmless. Provides interesting and vital facts about extremist groups and militants in Europe recruiting youth and others from football fan terraces. Passionate and engaging, the author is from Slovenia and lived close to the 1990s’ wars in the Balkans, so when he writes about political divisions from this time and place, he is speaking from having seen in his region the factional violence and its devastation on culture. It is by no means a detached analysis.