Volunteering in community sport organizations: Implications for social capital

Abstract

Local sports clubs are an important component of the formal and informal social networks that underpin the creation, development and maintenance of social capital. Local community based sport clubs provide opportunities for community members to come together on a regular basis to play, facilitate and watch sport as well as enabling club members to participate and engage in the wider social networks that are connected through various formal and informal mechanisms to sport. The term community sport organisations (CSOs) is a collective terms used in this chapter to describe local sport clubs which have been variously labelled as voluntary sport organisations, amateur sport clubs, community amateur sport clubs and grassroots sport organisations.