There is a common perception that football and alcohol go hand in hand and that players and fans routinely engage in excessive and irresponsible drinking. In Australia, this is manifest in the stereotypical ‘Pissed Aussie Rules fan’. Following research with Australian Rules football fans in South Australia, we identified three categories of fans according to their (non)engagement with alcohol: Drinkers, Non-Drinkers and Deferrers. Deferrers were selfidentified drinkers who separated alcohol consumption from spectating, for fear of ‘contamination’. Our identification of counter-stereotypic ways in which fans engage with alcohol (or not) challenges the assumptive worlds in which popular commentary on football and drinking operates. This was, to our knowledge, the first ethnography of drinking behaviour amongst Australian Rules football fans. It demonstrates the advantage of using ethnographic research techniques to understand the relationship between identity and consumption.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Human Society
Research Group:	Sociology
Research Field:	Sociology not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Culture and Society
Objective Group:	Sport, exercise and recreation
Objective Field:	Organised sports
UTAS Author:	Palmer, C (Professor Catherine Palmer)
ID Code:	84901
Year Published:	2011
Web of Science® Times Cited:	10
Deposited By:	School of Social Sciences
Deposited On:	2013-06-05
Last Modified:	2015-02-11
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