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MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY

MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY. 9. CASE STUDY I: THE OLD GUARD. Key figures. Bill Shankly: Scot, w-class, player and manager, renowned for wit and rhetoric (e.g. ‘Football isn’t a matter of life and death – it’s more important than that’)

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MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY

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  1. MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY 9. CASE STUDY I: THE OLD GUARD

  2. Key figures • Bill Shankly: Scot, w-class, player and manager, renowned for wit and rhetoric (e.g. ‘Football isn’t a matter of life and death – it’s more important than that’) • Brian Clough: from NE England, w-class, player and manager, charisma and wit, a ‘flawed genius’ (suffered alcohol abuse – chose to manage the ‘Damned United’) • George Best, Kevin Keegan, later Paul Gascoigne: northern w-class heroes

  3. Celebrity / identity theory re: Best • ‘Celebrity a genre of representation, a discursive effect; a commodity [to be traded]…a cultural formation’ (Turner 2004: 9) • Best as problematic icon of Irish national identity (assoc. with Northern Irish Protestantism / loyalism / unionism) • Best as first media-made sports star related to postmodern concept of spectacle

  4. Best as local hero / national telestar • Coverage of Best as a public figure marries local boy narrative with stellar image • ‘This boy from Cregagh was superb’ (Belfast Telegraph, 30/4/64) • ‘Thin-faced Beatle…a boy amongst men…[the Irish] were right about George Best, their human telestar, their major means of communication’ (Daily Express, 2/3/1964)

  5. Best as media celebrity • Works as BBC TV pundit for from 1966 • TV advertising (sausages to after shave) • Ghost writing Daily Express column • Fashion modelling and football boots • Ireland Saturday Night serialised his life in 6 weekly parts 1966 (alongside feature interviews with each Beatle – prior to being dubbed 5th Beatle)

  6. Best as ‘spectacular’ brand name • George Best tea towel manufacture in NI • Flybe Airline Leeds to Belfast names one of its fleet of planes after Best • George Best Belfast City Airport • ‘To go beyond the texts to the contexts in which they are produced, consumed, and used, using media spectacles to illuminate their historical and cultural situations’ (Kellner, 2003: 29)

  7. Airport signage

  8. Summary issues • Complexity of celebrity/sports, compounded in contemporary history • Best’s ‘fame fuelled primarily by TV’ (Whannel 2002: 111) • The business of being ‘blessed’: Ulster Presbyterianism and Best’s celebrity • Importance of non-metropolitan TV and other media sources to construct Best

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