Southern-Transylvania—Further Faces of the Extended Phenomenon

Abstract

The present chapter presents the main results of the ethnographic research carried out in Southern-Transylvania in order to find further forms of football gatherings and to test the validity of the conclusions based on the case studies carried out in Eastern- and Central Transylvania. The chapter focuses on the cases of Alba Iulia, Galda, Ighiu and other larger industrial cities like Deva and Hunedoara. The chapter examines the way in which Southern-Transylvanian average football fans organised themselves in order to watch the forbidden football matches and found proper places in order to catch the Yugoslavian television broadcast with home-made antennas. The chapter describes how the rooters organised around the Roman Catholic Church tried to consume football using the high tower of the episcopal cathedral as an antenna and the patterns in which they commuted to the higher mountains in order to set up football gatherings. The chapter concludes that the forbidden football strengthened the local identity and empowered community solidarity and eventually gave opportunity to express dissatisfaction toward the socialist political order and oppressive dictatorship. The phenomenon was widespread in Southern-Transylvania, also, which shoes once again the power of football as mobilising factor during harsh times and opportunity to construct alternative and free social spaces.