Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

A narrative of decline dominates the ageing process in the Global North. This is reflected in policy imperatives for older people to engage in physical activity to curb, even cure, the ‘problem’ of ageing, which risks sustaining and elevating anti-ageing discourses. Yet, little is known about how older people, via their leisure pursuits, can offer a more affirmative reading of getting old/er. This study draws upon 65 interviews with older people who play walking football in the UK to disturb problematic stereotypes and perceptions of ageing. I elaborate upon this with regards to two dominant typecasts of ageing: decline and isolation/loneliness. I demonstrate how older people herald their engagement with walking football as keeping them ‘active’, and how it involves being alongside others through practices of interdependence. A more adverse account of ageing was evident in people’s fears about the prospect of not participating in walking football as they grew older. However, fellow players who were older than them, and still engaged with the sport, offered them a positively imagined future. To conclude, I consider how the experiences of older walking footballers sit within ‘third age’ understandings; their participation, in turn, allows them to foster a more affirmative and progressive account of the ageing process. However, I simultaneously exercise caution about reproducing narrow, sentimental understandings of ageing that dismiss the structural barriers to ‘good health’ in old/er age.