Moving beyond Fan Typologies: the Impact of Social Integration on Team Loyalty in Football. Moving beyond Fan Typologies: the Impact of Social Integration on Team Loyalty in Football

The purpose of this paper is to develop detailed insight into loyalty among football fans of Hibernian FC, moving beyond typologies to a more socially grounded approach. Issues explored included patterns of consumption, distinctions between fan groups and antecedents of loyalty. The origins and development of the club are evaluated and consumer fanaticism, football fan loyalty, consumption behaviour and the sociological impact of fan communities are discussed. Data is collected using a variety of methods, including participant observation, in-depth interviews and analysis of websites and fan forums. Key findings relate to the impact of family and community influences on loyalty, initial experiences of developing associations with the club, through to the impact of socialisation and the lived experience of being a supporter. A supporter matrix is constructed as an portrayal of the loyalty found at the club. A range of theoretical implications are considered, and the matrix promoted as a tool for understanding loyalty in clubs with similar social structures and community connections. The originality of the paper lies in its ability to move beyond dichotomous and tiered approaches to understanding, as well as making contributions to theory by embedding the research socially.