Diosa Blanca and Real Madrid:: Sports celebrations and urban space

One of the most frequent topics analyzed by anthropologists studying the social and cultural expressions around football is the relation between the soccer teams and the cities where they are based. In this paper an introduction is presented to the uses, both symbolic and practical, of the urban space by the soccer hooligans in Madrid and other Spanish cities. Specifically it treats the controversial question of the seizure in the last decades of some elements of the urban heritage (monuments, squares, fountains, etc.) by huge concentration of hooligans celebrating the victories of their teams in the championships. The analysis of these "football parties" focuses on the various social agents playing a role in the definition of heritage and the possibilities of its public use