The People's Game

Sport in East Germany is commonly associated with the systematic doping that helped to make the country an Olympic superpower. Football played little part in this controversial story. Yet as a hugely popular activity that was deeply entwined in the social fabric it exerted an influence that few institutions or pursuits could match. The People''s Game examines the history of football from the interrelated perspectives of star players fans and ordinary citizens who played for fun. Using archival sources and interviews it reveals football''s fluid role in preserving and challenging communist hegemony. By repeatedly emphasising that GDR football was part of an international story for example through analysis of the 1974 World Cup finals Alan McDougall shows how sport transcended the Iron Curtain. Through a study of the mass protests against the Stasi team BFC during the 1980s he reveals football''s role in foreshadowing the downfall of communism.