Richard Mills

Ph.D. Modern History; University of East Anglia (2013)

Richard Mills completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia, where he joined the School of History as Lecturer in Modern European History in 2012. His 2018 monograph, The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia: Sport, Nationalism and the State was awarded the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize for Sport History. In 2019, the Zagreb-based publisher Profil Knjiga released a Croatian edition, Nogomet i politika u Jugoslaviji: Sport, nacionalizam i država.

Elsewhere, Richard has published widely on the history of sport and football, both in the former Yugoslavia and the United Kingdom. His research has appeared in Nationalities Papers, Europe-Asia Studies, the International Journal of the History of Sport, Sport in History, History: The Journal of the Historical Association, and Sport in Society. He has also contributed to When Saturday Comes, The New European, History Workshop Online, Soccer History, and The Conversation.

He has been interviewed by, or had his work featured by, media outlets internationally, including Jutarnji list, Slobodna Dalmacija, Večernji list, and Nacional (Croatia), Telegraf.rs, and Novi magazin (Serbia), Deutsche Welle, Deutschlandfunk, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Neues Deutschland (Germany), Dnevni list (Bosnia), Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), Radio Študent (Slovenia), The Indian Express (India), BBC World Service, BBC Radio Norfolk, BBC Radio Berkshire, OutsideWrite Podcast, Eastern Daily Press, and East Anglian Daily Times (UK), El Confidencial and Jot Down (Spain), and Vice and Jacobin (USA).

Richard convenes undergraduate modules on 'Communism and Nationalism in Yugoslavia', 'Twentieth Century Sport History', and 'The Cold War: A New History'.

• The history of football and its interaction with politics, nationalism and conflict
• Transnational sport history 
• Socialist Yugoslavia and its successor states
• Nationalism and state construction
• Cold War sport
• Urban history

Dr Mills is interested in supervising undergraduate, MA, and research students in the areas of southeast European history, nationalism and state construction, twentieth century socialism, and the history of sport.

Select Conference Activity:

"The Marshal Tito Cup - Yugoslavia's 'Dearest Trophy'", European Sport in 100 Objects, 25th International Congress of the European Committee for Sports History (CESH), National University of Physical Education and Sports (UNEFS), Bucharest, Romania, September 2022

"Plummeting Down the Andes: The Ignominious End to Hajduk Split’s Politically Charged South American Tour of 1931", Les Quatrièmes Rencontres d’Etudes Balkaniques: Balkans connectés, MuCEM, Marseilles, France, June-July 2022

"‘Burn the Flag!’ – Contestation, Modification, and Destruction in the Football Stadiums of the Former Yugoslavia", Colloque: QU’EST-CE QU’UN DRAPEAU? SOCIO-HISTOIRE DU DÉVOILEMENT POLITIQUE (19E-21E SIÈCLES), University of Western Brittany, Brest, France, November 2021

"Kicking Off in the 'New World': Football, Crises, and Interwar Yugoslav-Latin American Relations", Lord Aberdare Keynote Lecture, British Society of Sports History, St. Mary's University, London, UK, August 2021

"The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia: Sport, Nationalism and the State", Keynote Speech, Football and Politics in Central-Eastern Europe Research Network, University of Warsaw, Poland, January 2019

"'Like Jules Verne's Fantasies': South Slav Footballers, South American Tours, and Yugoslav Politics in the 1930s", Global Yugoslavia, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, November 2018

"Visiting 'Our Slavic Brothers' - Football Club Tours and Soviet-Yugoslav Relations in the Turbulent Cold War Years", The Game of the Peoples? Historical Perspectives on Football in Russia, German Historical Institute, Moscow, Russia, June 2018 

"On the Rocks – Lower League Football and the Internal Complexities of Socialist Yugoslavia in the 1950s", ASEEES (Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) Annual Convention, Chicago, USA, November 2017

"'The Pitch itself was No-Man's Land': Siege, Zeljeznicar Football Club and the Grbavica Stadium", BASEES (British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies), Cambridge, UK, April 2016

"Cold War Football: Soviet Defence and Yugoslav Attack Following the Tito-Stalin Split of 1948", ICCEES (International Council for Central and East European Studies) 9th World Congress, Makuhari, Japan, August 2015

"Uses of Language as a Signifier of Ethnic Difference in Yugoslav Football Culture", AATSEEL (American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages) Annual Conference, Vancouver, Canada, January 2015

"Football under Siege - The Wartime Game in Bosnia and Hercegovina, 1992-1996", ASEEES (Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) Annual Convention, Boston, USA, November 2013

"Football Supporters' Groups, Sports Magazines and the Beginning of the End for Socialist Yugoslavia, 1986-1991", BASEES (British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies) / ICCEES (International Council for Central and East European Studies) European Congress, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, UK, April 2013

"Ideological Promotion and Nationalist Suppression: Club Football and the Creation of Socialist Yugoslavia, 1945-1991", Annual Convention of NASSH (North American Society for Sports History), University of California, USA, June 2012

"Fighters, Footballers and Nation Builders: Wartime Football in the Serb-held Territories of the Former Yugoslavia, 1991-1996", Nations and Nationalism Workshop, Scientific Network for the Research of East European Sport History, Prague, Czech Republic, June 2012

"The Role of Football in the Construction and Destruction of Socialist Yugoslavia: 1945-1992", History Research Seminar Series, School of Humanities, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, April 2012

"'It all broke down in the Maksimir': To what extent did a legendary football stadium riot contribute to the destruction of Yugoslavia?", Seminar Series at the History Faculty, University of Oxford, UK, May 2011

"'It all broke down in the Maksimir': To what extent did a legendary football stadium riot contribute to the destruction of Yugoslavia?", Annual Convention of NASSH (North American Society for Sports History), University of Texas, USA, May 2011

"FK Vojvodina, 'Red Firm' and the Repercussions of the Yogurt Revolution: 1988-1991", Annual Conference of BASEES (British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies), Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, UK, April 2011

Level 4:

Introduction to Modern History

The Age of Extremes

Level 5:

The Cold War: A New History (Module Organiser)

Level 6:

Communism and Nationalism in Yugoslavia (Module Organiser)

Twentieth Century Sport History (Module Organiser)

MA:

Nationalism and Violence in the Twentieth Century (Module Organiser)

Historical Research Skills

Specialist Reading Tutorials: Cleansing the City

Postgraduate:

Methodologies

Recent Supervision (Selection)

Undergraduate Dissertations

• Exclusion in English Football: Racism, Gender and Sexuality
• Cold War East Anglia: Nuclear Weapons and Public Experience
• British Media Representations of Josip Broz Tito
• Superpower Intervention and State Development in the Horn of Africa
• Stadium Design and the Hillsborough Disaster
• Lord Harris, Bombay Cricket and the "Civilising Mission", 1890-1895
• Lowestoft Town FC: A Century on the Edge of Professional Football

MA Theses

• The Origins of the Paralympic Games
• The Changing Nature of British Newspaper Coverage of Anglo-German Football Matches, 1954-1996
• British Print Media Representations of Serbia, 1999-2004
• Population Decline in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Hercegovina
• Football, Fans and the State in East Germany

PhD Topics

• Hardcore Ljubljana - DIY Hardcore Punk in Slovenia during the 1980s
• Building a Multi-Ethnic Army in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Dr Mills has peer-reviewed manuscripts for European History Quarterly, Contemporary European History, Journal of Cold War Studies, International Journal of the History of Sport, Nations and Nationalism, History, Nationalities Papers, Sport History Review, Suedosteuropa, Journal of Genocide Studies, European Studies in Sports History, Soccer and Society, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Greater European Journal, Sport in History, Problems of Post-Communism, Patterns of Prejudice, Politics & Policy, Istoriya - History Journal, I.B. Tauris, Peter Lang, and Palgrave Macmillan.
• He has delivered lectures for the FIFA International Master Degree in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport.
• Mills was consulted for the 2022 FIFA+ documentary film, Croatia: Defining a Nation, directed by Louis Myles.
• Since 2010 he has contributed articles on the former Yugoslavia to the British football magazine When Saturday Comes. He has also contributed to The New European, TheConversation.com, History Workshop Online, and Soccer History.
• He has been interviewed by a wide range of media organisations in the United Kingdom, the USA, Germany, Serbia, and Croatia.