‘Reimagining rugby league’ and performative masculinities: the politics of rugby league fan spaces in Northern England

Rugby league has been witnessing changes that could decentre its perception as a sport played and followed by ‘hard gritty men’ in mill towns and (ex)-mining communities in Northern England. In this exploratory study, we offer a snapshot into English rugby league terraces and interrogate whether the stereotypes of rugby league as a sport that has struggled to reinvent its northern, (de)-industrial, white, working-class, and (hetero)-masculine image still hold true. We found that rugby league remains predominantly white and working class. Nonetheless, we also found that there are incremental changes taking place whereby there is more diversity in terms of fans’ gender and age, but not their ethnicity. We observed signs of decreasing homophobia yet instances of heteronormativity being reinforced; the performance of diverse masculinities by men fans that, at times, shifted within a short period of time; and humour utilised to police ‘acceptable’ forms of masculinity and to connect fans and players with one another. We argue that rugby league must do more to contend with the changes taking place within the game itself as well as with wider shifting notions of masculinity, race, and whiteness which could potentially disconcert its relationship to its traditional communities.