From the Sport Ground to the Refreshment Area: Soccer Practice and the Social Control of the Paris Region during the Interwar Period

As the symbolic space of modern sport, the stadium is on the verge of becoming a predominant research subject for work on sport in the field of social science. The monumental and spectacular dimensions of sports structures, together with their political exploitation and ideology, are the focus of attention in current research. This paper aims to take a different look, moving away from the historical view of spectacular structures towards places of amateur practice, in order to demonstrate, through the example of football, how spaces for sport participated in implementing a system of social control that served the interests of social and political authorities in France during the interwar period.