Staff profile

Martin is the current Head of the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences. He is a sociologist and spent his early career in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester before moving to Durham University in 2004. He completed his Ph.D. examining the careers of professional footballers in 2003, which was subsequently published as a book in 2006, The work of professional football: A labour of love? This early research was motivated by a desire to improve the working conditions for all professional athletes, a desire that remains a driving force behind his ongoing research ambitions. Martin has maintained his longstanding research interests connected with the problems associated with work and careers in professional sport, but his more recent focus has concerned the inter-connections among family life, issues of work-life balance, and mental health.

Martin has undertaken research for various sporting organisations including the Professional Footballers’ Association, The Football Association, The Football Foundation and the Racing Foundation. He was recently awarded funding by the British Academy for a project examining the complexity of the public and private lives of professional athletes, illuminating how a public sporting figure status can gradually contaminate the ‘private’ person.

Martin serves on the Editorial Board for Qualitative Research into Sport, Exercise and Health.

Research Interests

• Professional athletes’ lived experiences
• Work, identity and wellbeing
• Space, place and mental health

PhD Students

Martin welcomes applications from potential PhD students interested in (i) the work and careers of professional and elite athletes, with a particular focus on how athlete lifestyles can impact on mental health; (ii) celebrity and its impact on the working lives of athletes; and (iii) issues of risk, pain and injury in sport and physical activity, something about which he has a longstanding academic interest. 

• Healthy Communities

• The effects of public recognition on the private selves of high profile athletes

Chapter in book

• Roderick, M. & Gibbons, B. (2014). ‘To thine own self be true’ Sports work, mental illness and the problem of authenticity. In Health and Elite Sport. Is High Performance Sport a Healthy Pursuit?. Baker, J., Safai, P. & Fraser-Thomas, J. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 149-162.
• Poulton, E. & Roderick, M. (2008). Introducing Sport in Films. In Sport in Films. Poulton, E. & Roderick, M. London: Routledge. xviii-xxvii.

Edited book

• Poulton, E. & Roderick, M. (2008). Sport in Films. London: Routledge.

Journal Article

• Hickey, Colm & Roderick, Martin (2022). When jokes aren’t funny: banter and abuse in the everyday work environments of professional football. European Sport Management Quarterly 1.
• Hickey, Colm & Roderick, Martin (2022). Career transitions from the English Premier League: Cooling out the mark with possible selves. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 101269022211421.
• Roderick, M.J. & Allen Collinson, J. (2020). ‘I just want to be left alone’ novel sociological insights into dramaturgical demands on professional athletes. Sociology of Sport Journal 37(2): 108-116.
• Roderick, Martin, Smith, Andy & Potrac, Paul (2017). The Sociology of Sports Work, Emotions and Mental Health: Scoping the Field and Future Directions. Sociology of Sport Journal 34(2): 99-107.
• Hickey, Colm & Roderick, Martin (2017). The Presentation of Possible Selves in Everyday Life: The Management of Identity Among Transitioning Professional Athletes. Sociology of Sport Journal 34(3): 270-280.
• Roderick, M. & Schumacker, J. (2017). ‘The whole week comes down to the team sheet’ a footballer’s view of insecure work. Work, employment and society 31(1): 166-174.
• Manley, A., Roderick, M. & Parker, A. (2016). Disciplinary Mechanisms and the Discourse of Identity: The Creation of ‘Silence’ in an Elite Sports Academy. Culture and Organization 22(3): 221-244.
• Roderick, M. (2014). From identification to dis-identification: case studies of job loss in professional football. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 6(2): 143-160.
• Landale, S. & Roderick, M. (2014). Recovery from addiction and the potential role of sport: Using a life-course theory to study change. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 49(3-4): 468-484.
• Roderick, MJ (2012). An Unpaid Labor of Love: Professional footballers, family life and the problem of job relocation. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 36(3): 317-338.
• Roderick, MJ (2012). Domestic Moves: An exploration of intra-national labour mobility in the working lives of professional footballers. International Review for the Sociology of Sport
• Manley, A., Palmer, C. & Roderick, M. (2012). Disciplinary Power, the Oligopticon and Rhizomatic Surveillance in Elite Sports Academies. Surveillance & Society 10(3/4): 303-319.
• McKay, J. & Roderick, M.J. (2010). "Lay Down Sally": Media Narratives of Failure in Australian Sport. Journal of Australian Studies 34(3): 295-315.