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The most commonly expressed theme of the bullying act, across all of the participants, was abuse and intimidation. This theme was in accordance with Olewus' (1993) classic definition of bullying but provides a greater range on the myriad of different abusive behaviours within which participants at times reflected consistent and contrasting accounts. One of the main areas of consensus was verbal abuse, as Charlie commented:

I think in football it would be mainly verbal kind of stuff. I can't really think of much kind of mental kind of stuff or physical. I think mainly it would be verbal… Sometimes he can be on your case, if you're looking overweight, he can be "listen you're too fat, you need to lose weight."

The verbal aspect of Charlie's account was confirmed by various participants, including most explicitly and categorically by James, "Oh

99 everything you 'shithouse'… 'Weak as piss', 'fatty' all the words as yeah bullying words." Interestingly this contrasts bullying research in sport with older, intercollegiate participants (see Kerr et al., 2016). On the other hand it is consistent with research focusing on younger age participants (Mattey et al., 2014), whereby players reported a significant verbal element to this abuse. Football's culture of verbal chastisement, which the participants may have accepted since being young players, may explain this as well as wider workplace findings which stated that verbal bullying is often legitimised in highly masculine team environments (Alexander et al., 2011; A. Parker, 2006). The body image element of this verbal abuse was comparable with previous research within both PE and participant level sports domains, suggesting that this may be something which may identify the bullying act (Mattey et al., 2014; Peterson et al., 2012). Yet the points raised by Charlie on a lack of mental and physical abuse were more divergent at times with other participants.

For other players the mental abuse element was more significant. This may be a reflection of findings from similarly aged participants both inside and outside of sport (Kerr et al., 2016; P. K. Smith, 2016):

I think a lot of bullying is like in football, could be mentally breaking someone down, so constantly shouting at them or constantly criticising. But like I'm not sure if there's a, like a physical sort of bullying from what I think cos there's not much like fighting with teammates, not much people getting hurt, it's more just constantly sort of breaking people down. (Rob).

Interestingly, in the case of mental abuse this was heavily contextualised to the football environment as Ed added, "so I think a lot of it is, the mental side of football, that's what bullying's aimed at, trying to get in people's heads." Perhaps most significantly of all these contextual statements, was the reason why this mental abuse operates in football:

‘Cos I think mental bullies, people can get away. ‘Cos like if you went into the changing room and knocked people down, straight away you'd get in trouble but if you constantly chipped away at your teammate, constantly said things that's like…football you should deal with that criticism. (Rob).

The salient point from this account was that the football context permits this type of bullying, compared to physical types of abuse. This was similar to

100 findings with coaches in grassroots football, where emotional abuse and bullying were reported as some of the most prevalent forms of overall abuse (Brackenridge et al., 2005). In contrast to this the perpetrators in the present study were often seen as fellow players, corroborating findings about the institutionalised nature of the professional football environment. These particular accounts contrast classic definitions of bullying, as physical abuse is not seen to be a factor in the football context.

The physical aspect of abuse exposed a great degree of diversification in the participants' views. Some players were consistent with the belief this was not a significant element of the bullying act within football and the context may in part explain this:

Maybe related to being at a football club, it's banter going too far, there's no real physical bullying and stuff like that compared to other walks of life cos you know you're in the spotlight. So, it's mainly just banter going too far. (Lenny).

Lenny's account was interesting on two levels. Firstly, the language used about "banter going too far" symbolised the institutional celebration of this process in football, yet revealed some of the negative aspects of this behaviour discussed in the 'Banter and Teasing' theme (see Appendix F). Secondly the ability expressed by Lenny, for players to modify their behaviour to avoid physical abuse on the one hand sounded essentially positive. On the other, it suggested a darker self-regulatory set of behaviours, where players confine these actions to the institutionalised closed, segregated environment offered by the professional football club, which is free from the media's attention, to conduct other forms of bullying (Gearing, 1999; A. Parker & Manley, 2016). In contrast to the views expressed on mental abuse, these requirements of the football environment served as a barrier to prevent physical bullying. This differentiated these participants from Olewus' (1993) classic view on bullying, as well as parts of the literature in sport, which stressed the importance of physical actions making up part of bullying behaviour (Brackenridge, 2010; Brackenridge et al., 2005; Pitchford et al., 2004). It should be noted that this previous research has been focused more towards children and therefore the sense from the participants that the physical nature of bullying is lessened, may be reflective of the shift away from physical bullying found with adolescents (P. K. Smith, 2016). More specifically the confusion that young children

101 have between bullying and aggression, as well as the preference towards more indirect and relational bullying in adolescence, may explain why adult footballers do not conceptualise physical abuse as a key factor in bullying.

It is noteworthy that other players recorded quite conflicting and at times vivid views on physical abuse being a part of bullying. This may be explained by differences in generational influences as James recalled from his time as a young first team player, "And I mean like boot polish, beat up, stuff thrown at, 'what the fuck are you doing in here you little, you're not meant to be in here'." Later on the interview he furthered:

If they were bored (with) nothing to do, they would go and kidnap one of the younger lads from the changing room and I don’t know tape them up, boot polish him, stick him in a wheelie bin, for their amusement. Because they thought it was funny.

As the oldest participant, James mirrored the passive acceptance of physical punishment which was seen as part of players' apprenticeship (A. Parker, 2006; Pitchford et al., 2004). Equally this account may be reflective of the cultural acceptance of these behaviours, where acceptance of these authoritarian practices is essential to display a good professional's attitude (A. Parker, 1996, 2000b; A. Parker & Manley, 2016). For George who was a younger player within the study these issues remain but represent themselves less graphically:

"Yeah, maybe you've got the older bigger lad, then a little youth team player coming in the changing room every day. (They) probably would get a bit intimidated than if he was bullying he would push him around every day."

George added that the nature of this physical abuse would be concentrated to on-field behaviour rather than away from the field of play, "people'd go through the back of you, people would put a bad tackle in." This was not an isolated view as Ricky, expressed that a bully in football would "put their authority out there and they'll do whatever it takes and sometimes it goes too far and puts in a bad challenge on purpose and stuff like that." It would thus seem that physical bullying may be legitimised by some within professional football. This is unsurprising as an aggressive will to win is often craved in the players by managers and coaches (A. Parker, 2006) and therefore players may wish to display this through physical dominance.

102 The overall range of contrasting views on whether physical abuse is part of bullying in football, resulted in a certain amount of ambiguity around whether this is the case. Whether this is reflective of a change in attitudes is not completely clear: "but nowadays of course the youth team players don't have to do anything, so it's completely changed. But that was bullying a 100% bullying" (James). This account reflected the notion that even if signing up to some form of initiation may be seen as part of a 'voluntary' hazing practice in football, the effects are as harmful as bullying (Diamond et al., 2016). It also suggests that hazing and bullying may not be independent of each other and instead hazing practices may make up bullying behaviours in football (Kirby & Wintrup, 2002). Ultimately whilst hazing practices are seen as acceptable practices within the forced integrated and institutionalised nature of the football environment, players must take part in these ceremonies to avoid relational bullying.

An aspect of abuse and intimidation much more consistently reported amongst the participants was a relational form of ostracism, which was in line with the overall conceptualisation of bullying (Cook et al., 2010; Olewus, 1993; Williams & Guerra, 2007):

I've seen one case I've seen him make him stand in the shower, wouldn't let him into the changing room, wouldn’t let him listen to the team talk because he wanted to outcast him. So he made him stand in the shower. A grown man stood in the shower not allowed to stand in the changing room to listen." (James).

Making them feel like they're not wanted not cared about…Just not involving them in your banter or in activities you're doing away from the club and stuff like that and if they're being victimised (Lenny). In the case of these extracts they involved deliberate attempts from staff or players to exclude or isolate individuals and in the case of the latter, a reluctance on behalf of the victim to not expose them self to bullying behaviours. They also add depth to the relational aspect of bullying by highlighting examples of how this occurs. Similar to grassroots football (Brackenridge et al., 2005) this form of bullying carries a mentally abusive element. However, in contrast to this previous research, the perpetrators were often seen as fellow players rather than coaches, suggesting that this group may need more monitoring in the professional game.

103 Though the verbal, mental, physical and relational aspects of bullying received far more discussion, it is noteworthy to point to worrying comments revealed by a select group of participants (5 of 18) around racial abuse:

Like racism, Kick it Out in football we have these presentations, one week, one day everyone's really aware to it and like yeah there's nothing racist happening in the environment and then like next week we're back to normal. (Kevin).

In many ways this quote was the most concerning of all, in that it revealed educational policies around this type of bullying only had short-lived effects and it implied that racially abusive bullying for some was "normal." George's assertion added to this, "Like we said before religion wise or anything, your race. Just anything, they'd be the stereotypical what you'd be bullied for." As did Peter's, "I think you’re picking someone out as a victim, maybe the way they look, their appearance, where they've come from. Their nationality, their skin colour." Whilst not explicitly mentioned by the players, these findings may be explained by the predominance of white players on teams (A. Parker, 1996). This can result in non-white players being perceived as a potential masculine threat to the majority of young footballers, which adds to the troubling picture of sport being a site where racial stereotypes need to be upheld (A. Parker, 2006; Peguero & Williams, 2013). Overall these comments from players of different ethnicities, black in the case of Kevin and white in the case George and Peter, highlight that racist abuse potentially makes up part of bullying in football and it is not a view isolated to different groups. Seemingly, despite high profile educational programmes such as 'Kick It Out' (2016), there is still a prevalence of this behaviour within the game.