Built heritage or lost nostalgia: Israeli fans and the conservation of sports venues

Abstract

ABSTRACT Public campaigns aimed at preventing the demolition of sports venues represent a recent trend to recognise them as legitimate expressions of local sports culture. This article focuses on analysing what fans feel about these sports venues and the need to preserve them. Its main goal is to examine this growing phenomenon, which could affect modern preservation trends and the built heritage of sports. Focusing on the Israeli context, the article includes qualitative analysis of fans’ internet feedback expressing their attitudes towards preservation of sports facilities compared to preserving buildings associated with other cultural pursuits. It also features a series of interviews with fans and analysis of articles published in sports sections of newspapers, journals and sports blogs. The qualitative analysis shows that fans attribute five heritage values to sports venues as well as assign them historical community importance, and they do so consciously but primarily unconsciously. Thus, the primary obstacle to the decision to preserve sports venues is not the degree of emotional significance of these places for fans. Rather it is the absence of broad social recognition of the heritage of sports in Israel or of the possible advantages these buildings offer as a tangible expression of this heritage.