Soccer Against Fascism: A Guided Tour through Europe with Chris Lee

Today, I am talking to Chris Lee about the role that football and particularly football fans have played, and are playing in the fight against fascism on and off the field. Chris is from England, and runs the football culture blog “Outside Write.” He is an active groundhopper and has visited many historic stadiums across Europe. He does really good historical research, and his book “The Defiant: A History of Football Against Fascism” just came out in October. We spent half of our conversation on soccer’s role in the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s and footballing resistance. In the second half, we moved to what antifascist soccer and supporter culture looks like today, its challenges, what the regular consumer of soccer can do - and Chris gave out a few travel tips as well. I would enjoy your comments and questions via The Assistant Professor of Football on twitter.  Also: I would like to keep this space free of ads and paywalls. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. If you could leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice, that would be particularly helpful. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.HELPFUL LINKS for this episode:Chris Lee’s Outside Write project and podcastChris Lee, The Defiant: A History of Football against Fascism on Amazon John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian FootballTobias Jones, Ultra: The Underworld of Italian FootballClapton CFCDulwich Hamlet FCTennis Borussia BerlinFC St. Pauli fans abroad, from the New York TimesThe Gentleman UltraWhen Saturday ComesNEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/