How to Swarm: Researching Sounds of Football's Play

Abstract

This article considers how discussion of football sound is missing from critical discourse and proposes ways to research it, in order to admit it. In the article I attempt to communicate both by explanation and by deploying particular, absorbing properties of anecdote, conjecture and playfulness. Absorption, in reading, sounding and play, is of particular concern to this article and I aim to involve my reader in this, as much as elaborating ideas. I am concerned to find ways to understand that which has been poorly served-cannot be conveyed-by explanation alone, but must be felt in relation to forces of play in order to yield (to understanding). This paper aims to open more playing-space, the better to wrest more understanding.