Putting the city on the map: a social history of football in Trabzon to 1967

Abstract

This study, exploring the social history of football in Trabzon, seeks the roots of the identification of the city with football in the period before the establishment of the city club Trabzonspor. Unlike the popular history accounts of sport in Trabzon, this thessis analyzes the development of football in the city by taking into account other social and economic dynamics. The thesis argues that the social meaning of football as a middle-class activity before the 1950s and as a popular mass sport after the 1950s for Trabzon has possessed a persistent character. In line with this, it is argued that the social function attributed to the game is closely bound up with the socio-economic position of Trabzon. Football, since its early inception in the 1920s, has been a means of the cultural expression of the city at the national level. Trabzon as a city experiencing a sharp decline in its former preeminence has instrumentalized football to restore its hurt “civic pride”. Therefore, football did not only functioned just as a sport, a game or a recreational activity, but it also acquired an important role of carrying the city onto the national agenda. In this context, this study aims to shed light both on the history of football in Trabzon and on the history of the city itsef.