‘“Poppies in the field”: The spectacularisation of military remembrance in British football’

A nascent body of research has emerged in recent years that examines the politics of military remembrance in the UK. These studies are often situated in wider debates on the growing militarisation of popular culture in the contemporary post-9/11 era. Yet, despite the scholarly attention on the militarisation thesis, there have been few attempts to understand the growing links between association football and the military in the UK. To date, no research study has sought to explain, as well as document, this changing relationship. This chapter addresses this gap in the existing literature. Employing the concept of spectacle, the chapter provides a theoretically informed and empirically grounded account of how and why football stadia have emerged as prominent sites of military commemoration and memorialisation in the last decade.