Mr Rhys Davies

* During this presentation, we will be explaining to you what Collective Effervescence is, the history around it and we will be giving you some examples of it..

  * A simple example of Collective Effervescence is at a football match when the crowd celebrates a goal, as this is a group of people doing the same thing at the same time and it’s all spontaneous, so no-one knows its going to happen.

  * A good example of this is at the end of the last football season, where Man City had to beat QPR to win the Premier league. They found themselves 2-1 down with 2 minutes left of the game and managed to pull it back to 2-2 on the 90th minute. Then in the 3rd minute out of 5 of added time, Man City managed to get a winner. No-one would have seen this coming. A finish to the premier league season like this will probably never happen again. The crowd’s reaction to the 3rd goal sums up Collective Effervescent, because as I said earlier, the goal was a spontaneous event and no-one was expecting it, and pretty much everyone didn’t expect it to happen! There were approximately 58,000 fans celebrating the goal collectively.

  * Here is a short video clip which shows this goal, pay attention to the crowd, players, managers and staff to see their reaction when the goal is scored.

  * Durkheim’s definition of sacred includes all things that a community collectively holds.
  * Durkheim claims that sport functions as a social equivalent of religion.
      * The collective awe could link to the fans who watch the sport
      * The sacred space in which the teams play, is the stadium or sporting arena – sacred site, which people collectively worship (cheer on their team)
      * The sacred symbols could include a clubs logo’s, clothing and hymns (national anthem) [continues]

Read full essay