How football stadiums become classrooms

University of Brighton Sport Management BSc(Hons) students are being provided with a unique opportunity to get involved in major football events thanks to lecturer Mark Perryman‘s ‘day job’.

Students were given the opportunity to work at Euro 2022 (the one the Lionnesses won), as well as past and future event including men’s and women’s England football internationals, FA and Carabao Cup Finals and the Championship play-offs.

Mark said: “I teach on the Sport Management degree ‘sport event’s module and contextual modules on the Sport Journalism degree.  But my ‘day job’ is organising crowd displays, for amongst others the late Queen, Take That and Bruce Springsteen, Champions League Finals, UNICEF, Six Nations, ATP Finals and more.”

Students are invited to apply and become part of making the crowd displays happen and are paid for at the same rate as the rest of the event crew. It’s hard work but an invaluable introduction to the sport events and provides invaluable work experience alongside as their learning environment changes from the classroom to Wembley, Old Trafford, Stanford Bridge, Leicester City to name but a few.

Most recently students were part of creating crowd displays as Brighton and Hove Albion FC took on AS Roma at the Amex stadium which is right on the doorstep of our Falmer campus. The display was a huge success but sadly the final result for Brighton wasn’t…

Mark added: “It’s great to be able to actively connect my workplace, stadiums, to the classroom. The tales of how these come about, the process of activating them, what they tell us about (post) modern fan culture certainly livens up my teaching but getting students involved and seeing for themselves is a really important aspect.”

Next up is to create a fans’ St George display for the two England games at Wembley, the Women’s League Cup Final for Chelsea and West Ham for the Europa League quarters.

It’s definitely a timetable with a difference for these incredibly fortunate group of Brighton students.

Learn more about studying sport and exercise at Brighton.