As a teamsport, football provides a great opportunity to experience collective identities. Adopting Bourdieu’s field theory, the essay claims that the soaring popularity of football in Hungary towards the end of the 19th century was due to the symbolic content the game offered. As the bases of the sports clubs were clearly identifiable social groups, therefore, their conflicts depicted social oppositions. The study depicts the organization of the field of football, the characteristic features and types of the conflicts, and the changes of them as well.

full text in Sic Itur ad Astra 62. (2011)