Soccer Game Ethnography

The setting I choose to do my ethnography assignment on was to observe an indoor soccer game in Yuba City. The arena where this indoor soccer game took place was named Champions Arena Indoor Soccer. This was not the first time I have been to this arena so I did have some background about the place before observing. One of my close friends was participating in the game so I figured it was a great idea to come support him and do my assignment. Although, I had been to this arena before and seen many soccer games before I have never played on an actual soccer team before. For the majority of my life, I played baseball. So for this assignment I wanted to observe the subculture of soccer and try to see if I can see similarities to the baseball environment.
There were fans, friends, family’s, brothers and sister all there to either enjoy a game or there to support. One of the interesting things I saw was the communication involved in the game from the players with their teammates, opponents and fans. Communication is a big factor when it comes to team organized sports. during the game I could hear players yell out off sides, penalty, or even who was covering who. However, there was on factor that did make this completely different from your regular high school soccer games. This arena served alcohol; in which, I believe that it allowed for some fans to yell un appropriate things to the players on the field in front of children. I have attended and participated in many baseball little league games and never have I heard so many cuss words during a game. even though, it was adults playing the game there were still children in the stands which made it unnecessary to say those words. Not only is it bad to say those words in front of kids but it also effects the players playing. I did notice one player get angry when someone in the stands yelled at him. The majority of those people yelling at the players were Mexican. After observing this soccer game, I came out with couple of questions to maybe help someone next time they observe a similar setting with a setting they are more accustomed too. One of those questions is, do you see differences in sub culture at a girl’s high school soccer game versus a male’s indoor soccer game? Another question I could ask would be, how much communication is involved with players and fans during a girl’s indoor soccer game? and the last question I have is, if there were a mixture of ethnicity’s in the building would fans still react the same towards the