‘We are red, white and blue, we are Catholic, why aren't you?'

Abstract

The Bad Blue Boys (BBB), a group of young Australian-born men of Croatian parentage, use soccer support as a means of displaying nationalistic allegiance to their ancestral homeland, though the performance of ethnicity occurs across a range of different cultural, social and religious sites. This display and expression of Croatianness is indicative of a unique collective social identity constructed by the young men within the BBB subculture, which is promulgated in their reverence for, and devotion to, soccer. This chapter examines a particular aspect of that subcultural expression – religion – and explores how the BBB incorporate their ‘devotion’ to Roman Catholicism into football support. Whilst religious commitment is not strictly central to soccer fandom, the role of the Roman Catholic Church in providing a means by which the BBB can distinguish themselves from their athletic rivals is important. At the same time, religious spaces, as well as sporting locales, are critical learning sites where Croatian ethnicity is rehearsed, performed and, in the case of the BBB, aggressively communicated to rival fans typically from differing ethnic backgrounds. Theoretically, the chapter draws on the French sociologist Michel Maffesoli's idea of the neo-tribe, in order to explain the BBB in terms of a postmodern grouping, exhibiting an affectual commitment to subcultural life.2 As such their approach to religion cannot be considered in traditional terms, and, indeed, it can be seen that their particular expression of religion is indicative of the happy confusion between the sacred and profane that typifies postmodern life.