Dr Mark Turner

Senior Lecturer

Sport Sociology

My profile

Biography

Dr Mark Turner is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Sociology within the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences and Institute of Sport. 

Mark joined MMU in 2023, having spent 11 years at Southampton Solent University from 2011-23, and 2 years at Edgehill University from 2009-11. He was awarded his undergraduate degree from Lancaster University and his postgraduate degree from the University of Brighton. Mark is also a research fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Mark is a leading international scholar examining the management policies of fans in football stadiums in England and Wales over the past 30-years. His PhD, awarded without corrections, is the most comprehensive study undertaken into the football supporter social movement; ‘Safe Standing’. He is a member of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority’s Academic Advisory Board and has been consulted as part of the UK Government’s review into the football stadia all-seating legislation. In 2022, he co-authored two pieces of written evidence for the Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport’s Select Committee on ‘Safety at Sporting Events’.

Mark’s monograph, to be published with Routledge, on ‘The Safe Standing Movement in Football’ will be available in September 2023. 

A co-convenor of the British Sociological Association’s Leisure and Recreation Study Group, and member of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport and the Football Collective, Mark continues to work with a number of organisations including the Football Supporters Association and Football Supporters Europe. He has written a number of pieces for local, national, and international media outlets to discuss issues relating to football supporters’ rights’, and their movements for greater transparency, justice, governance, and sustainability in football. 

Interests and expertise

Mark has more than twelve years’ experience of teaching across a wide range of subjects and disciplines at undergraduate and postgraduate level. His expertise focuses on the application of sociological theory to the study of sport, leisure, and coaching and development, and understanding the socio-cultural-historical-political issues and ideologies of these disciplines. Mark is specifically interested in the application of relational sociology to the study of social networks, social movements, and activism, within different sport, leisure, and coaching and development contexts. His work often cross pollinates ideas from sociology, political science, and cultural studies, to understand the impacts of events on the regulatory practices of those involved in the event planning and management of sport crowds and consumption. 

Get in touch

0161 247 5241
1.02 Institute of Sport
Monday 13:00-15:00

Impact

Evidence

Mark has submitted evidence to two government inquiries: the DCMS’ Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry into the Safety at Sporting events, and DCMS Inquiry into Safe Standing at Football Matches. His work has been cited in UK government commissioned CFE report into Standing at Football. 

Invited Speeches

The Future of Football Conference. 2023. Westminster Insights. 31 October. IStructE, London. 

European Football Fans Congress. 2023. Supporter Engagement Panel. 22 June. Manchester.

Dissemination of research through event planning and organisation

Co-convenor of one-day stakeholder conference, National Football Museum, Manchester: ‘Crowd Disorder at Sports Events Post-Pandemic’: July 2022.

Co-convenor of 1st Critical Football Futures Reading Group annual conference: ‘Future of Football: Mapping Progress and Alternatives’. Solent University. June 2022.

Conference Organising Committee Member Leisure Studies Association (Annual Conference) ‘Leisure Identities, Health, and Wellbeing. July 2021.

Lead conference organiser. British Sociological Association’s Leisure and Recreation Study Group (Annual Conference) ‘Leisure for All: Formulating Right to Leisure as a Radical Demand for Democratic Citizenship. Events (britsoc.co.uk) Lead Conference Organiser. January 2021.

Networks

Member of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority’s Academic Advisory Body.

Member of the Football Supporters Association Academic Partnership 

Member of the Football Collective 

Projects

Papers in progress

Turner, M. & Fitzpatrick, D. 2024. Shocks, discursive turns, and critical junctures: supporter rights and democracy in English football post-pandemic

Turner, M. 2024. Cultural Trauma and Social Movements. 

Research grants

Awarded

2023. British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant ‘Exploring brokerage in democratic social movements: a sociological analysis of the Supporter Liaison Officer (SLO) network in English football’. Award being applied for (£) 8,596. Co-Investigator. 

In application

2023. Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) New Investigator Grant: ‘Football, intergenerationality, and place-based community connectedness in post-industrial English towns’.  Award being applied for (£) 300,000. Principal Investigator.

In preparation

2024. ESRC responsive mode two. ‘The future of youth political participation and engagement in football supporter social movements in England. Award being applied for (£) 600,000. Principal-Investigator.

Teaching

Subject areas

Qualitative research methodologies; relational sociology; sport, media and culture; social issues in sport and exercise; social networks in community sport, political economy of the UK.

Teaching

Current Issues in Sport (Distance Learning)

Issues in Community Sport (Distance Learning)

Sport, Media and Culture

Sporting Events

Social Issues in Sport 

Supervision

Mark’s research continues his original interest in social movements and social justice but develops this to examine under-researched and under-theorised cases in sport, health, leisure, wellbeing, and consumption. He is particularly interested in the application of relational sociology to football supporter-based social movements and the particular impacts of events and ruptures which shape the transformative dynamics of movements and the developing understanding by networked actors.

Mark is particularly interested in supervising undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral projects that focus on these areas, and the wider social and political origins of the neoliberal political economy of English and European football.

Research outputs

Journal Paper Publications

Turner, M. Tomlinson, A. & Demirbas, G. 2024. Leisure as a public good and a form of human/citizenship rights. Eds.  Special Issue: ‘Reclaiming the right to leisure.’  Annals of Leisure Research.

Turner, M. Richards, J. & Lawrence, S. 2024. Leisure and fan activism: exploring new cases and contexts in men and women’s professional sport. Eds.  International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure. 7(1): 1-6.

Turner, M. 2024. “Legalize Safe Standing” in English Football: Complicating the Collective and Individual Dimensions of Social Movement Activism. Sociology of Sport Journal. 41(1): 81-89.

Turner, M. and Lee Ludvigsen, J.A. 2024. Generations, events, and social movement legacies: unpacking social change in English football (1980-2023). British Journal of Sociology. 75(1): 93-107.

Turner, M. & Millward, P. 2024. Social Movement Ruptures and Legacies: unpacking the early sedimentation of the anti-European Super League movement in English football. Sociology. 58(2): 489-506.

Turner, M. & Lee Ludvigsen, J.A. 2023. Safety and Security Battles: Unpacking the Players and Arenas of the Safe Standing movement in English Football (1989-2022). Sociological Research Online. Published online 17 July. 

Webber, D. & Turner, M. 2023. Standing Here: Rituals, Rights, and the Radical Democratisation of Football Spectatorship. Annals of Leisure Research. Published online 13 Feb 2023.

Turner, M. & Lee Ludvigsen, J.A. 2023. Theorising surveillance and social spacing through football: the fan-opticon and beyond. Sociology Compass. 17(2): 1-14.

Turner, M. 2022. The Safe Standing movement in English football: mobilising across the political and discursive fields of contention. Current Sociology. 70(7): 1048-1065.

Turner, M. 2021. The Safe Standing movement: vectors in the post-Hillsborough timescape of English football. The Sociological Review. 69(2): 348-364.

Turner, M. 2021. ‘We are the vocal minority’: The Safe Standing Movement and Breaking Down the State in English Football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 56(7): 963.980.

Turner, M. 2017. Modern English Football Fandom and Hyperreal, ‘Safe’, ‘All-seater’ Stadia: Examining the Contemporary Football Stage. Soccer and Society. 18(1): 121-131.

Turner, M. 2014. From local heroism to global celebrity stardom: A critical reflection of the social cultural and political changes in British football culture from the 1950s to the formation of the premier league.’ Soccer and Society, 15(5) pp. 751-760.

Turner, M. 2013. Modern ‘live’ football: moving from the panopticon gaze to the performative, virtual and carnivalesque. Sport in Society. 16(1): 85-93.

Turner, M. 2012. From ‘pats on the back to dummy sucking: a critique of the changing social, cultural and political significance of football goal celebrations. Soccer and Society. 13(1): 1-18.

Special Issue Editor

‘Leisure for All: Formulating Right to Leisure as a Radical Demand for Democratic Citizenship.’ Special Issue: Annals of Leisure Research. Co-editor with Emeritus Professor Alan Tomlinson and Dr Gokben Demirbas. 2023.

‘Leisure and Fan Activism.’ Special Issue: International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure. Co-editor with Dr Jessica Richards and Dr Stefan Lawrence. 2023

Monograph

Turner, M. 2023. The Safe Standing Movement in Football: Fan Networks, Tactics, and Mobilisations. Critical Research in Football. Routledge.

Edited Book

Turner, M. & Ludvigsen, J. 2024. Social Control and Disorder in Football: Responses, Regulation, Rupture. Routledge. Forthcoming. 1 August, 

Turner, M. & Ludvigsen, J. 2024. Societal Dynamics of Athletes and Fan-based Activism: Collective Behaviour and Social Movements through Sport. Amsterdam University Press. 1 November.

Turner, M. & Ludvigsen, J. 2024. Deconstructing the Role of Generations in Social Movements: Time, Events, and Legacies. Routledge. 1 December. 

Book Chapter Publications

Turner, M. 2024. Sport, Fan Activism and Eventful Sociology: Events, Ruptures, and the Dynamics of Social Movements. The Case of Safe Standing in English Football. Routledge Handbook of Sport, Leisure, and Social Justice. London. Routledge.

Turner, M. 2017. ‘Football without fans is nothing’: Contemporary Fan Protests and Resistance Communities in the Premier League Era. In Elliott, R. (Ed) The English Premier League: A socio-cultural analysis. London: Routledge.

Turner, M. 2016. From local heroism to global celebrity stardom: a critical reflection on the social, cultural, and political changes in British football culture from the 1950’s to the formation of the Premier League, in Bandyopadhyay, K. ed. Legacies of Great Men in World Soccer: Heroes, Icons, Legends. London: Routledge.

Turner, M. 2014. Football Fandom in Late Modernity: Alternative Spaces and Places of Consumption, in Fletcher, T., Dashper, K. and McCullough, N. (Eds) Sports Events, Society and Culture. Oxford: Taylor and Francis.

Turner, M. 2013. English Football Goal Celebrations within a Global Context in Waine, A and Naglo, K (Eds) On and off the field: Football culture in England and Germany. Berlin: Springer.

Press and media

Mark has provided an analysis of contemporary debates on the social and political economy of football including, Safe Standing; The European Super League; Football Fan Social Movements; and The Sociology of Football Goal Celebrations, for a wide range of media sources, notably: The Conversation; When Saturday Comes; Al Jazeera; Deutsche Welle; The Athletic; Caviar Magazine.