‘The boots will be on the coffin!’: multiple meanings of ageing for older people playing walking football

Thomas, Gareth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4959-2337 2024. ‘The boots will be on the coffin!’: multiple meanings of ageing for older people playing walking football. Ageing & Society 10.1017/S0144686X24000254

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Abstract

A narrative of decline dominates the ageing process in the Global North. At the same time, older people have shared more positive stories of ageing, particularly with respect to their leisure practices. I explore this tension by drawing on an interview-based study with people playing walking football in the United Kingdom. My contention is that older people express multiple meanings of later-life that disturb deficit-focused cultural scripts of ageing, albeit in ways that can be fraught with tensions and contradictions. First, I explore how older people cultivate an alternate identity departing from assumptions of loneliness and degradation, with walking football providing an opportunity to develop friendships and a sense of belonging. Second, older people emphasise their own (good) health and the embodied demands of walking football, yet in doing so, can reinforce ageist discourses by distinguishing themselves from the inactive and isolated (older) other. Third, older people reflect on their current and future involvement in walking football in positive ways. However, through attending to the temporal character of their experiences, I show how, whilst older people express a desire to continue participation, this is threatened by the realities of their ageing bodies in ways that align with deficit framings of later-life. I conclude by calling for recognising the multiplicity of older people’s experiences and exercising caution about reproducing over-simplistic and sweeping celebrations of ageing.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0144-686X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	19 March 2024
Date of Acceptance:	18 March 2024
Last Modified:	24 Apr 2024 13:26
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/167349

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