We can’t play with them, but we can play for them’: fathers uniting in grief through football

Jones, Kerry; Murphy, Sam and Robb, Martin (2024). We can’t play with them, but we can play for them’: fathers uniting in grief through football. In: Jones, Kerry and Robb, Martin eds. Men and Loss. New Perspectives on Bereavement, Grief and Masculinity. London: Routledge.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003333999-17

Abstract

This chapter presents the findings from a study conducted with fathers who had experienced the loss of a child following miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death and who had joined Sands United footballs team whose aim is to support bereaved fathers and make it possible for them to memorialise their child.
Interviews conducted with fathers suggests that these men seek unique ways to continue a bond with their baby and one which is visible and present on the football pitch. In so doing, the research outlined in this chapter challenges the social norms to which grieving men have been traditionally bound according to dominant cultural and social expectations around ‘being stoic and ‘ manly.’
Indeed, the fathers accounts demonstrate that men’s feelings of grief can find expression within the context of a supportive and shared activity. Within these supportive spaces, men can make the invisible, tangible by declaring their identity as a father, and by playing in matches dedicated to their children and from which they are able to derive a source of belonging not found elsewhere.

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