Petra Tabarelli

📩 Contact (email)  

Archivist • Historian • Author

I’m keen in writing articles and being interviewed for radio and television and being on stage.

 

 

 

Affiliation

Head of the local archive of Bingen on the Rhine.

Appointed member of the German Academy of Football Culture.  

 

 

Main Research Interest

 

Nostalgia studies • Heritage Tourism • Cultural Memory

 

English Nostalgia (Englishness), especially in Midsomer Murders

 

There is a county that doesn’t exist. And yet we return to it – again and again. Midsomer is more than just the setting of a long-running crime series. It’s a landscape of longing, a world made of hedgerows, teasets and silences too neat to be innocent.

 

It started with me collecting the references in the series to English history and blogging about them. At the same time, I created a complete chronological overview of historical events in Midsomer County that are mentioned in the series. There are more than you might think and they are all online at MidsomerMurdersHistory.org.

 

(Please note: This is an unofficial fan site. I am not affiliated with Bentley Productions, ITV or any of the actors.)

 

This led to my interest in nostalgia studies and heritage tourism, with reference to England - and of course to Midsomer Murders in particular. There will be more about this here soon.  

 

You can also hear me in the superfan quiz on the official Midsomer Murders Mayhem podcast in episode 6: "Murder on St Malley's Day", episode 13: "The Ballad of Midsomer County", and episode 15: "The Dark Rider".

 

 

 

Former Research Interest: Football Historian

 

As an independent football historian, I combined my passions with history. As an international football rules pundit I worked with the highest football rules institution, the International Football Association Board (History project - I have nothing to do with the latest rule changes).

 

Over the last few years, my website "Nachspielzeiten" has collected numerous German and English-language articles on the history of football rules and refereeing. I have worked also with DFB, Der Kicker, Deutschlandfunk, Rasenfunk, ZDF/TerraX and other TV stations (SAT.1, SWR, HR), the British Society of Sports History, Soccerex and others.  

 

 

Publications

 

So far, they concern local history and football history.

Among other things, I researched a Jewish German football official who was erased from football history during the Nazi era - successfully. Until my biography of Simon Rosenberger, he was completely unknown for several decades - yet he was one of the most important officials and journalists in young German football history throughout his life.

 

• Short Biography in English: Simon Rosenberger. A forgotten pioneer (Football Makes History)
• Biography in German: Petra Tabarelli: Simon Rosenberger, der vergessene Fußballpionier (= Jüdische Miniaturen). Berlin 2022.
• Article in the large volume on the history of the sports magazine “Kicker” under National Socialism with other Jewish sports journalists: Jüdische Sportjournalist*innen und -journalisten beim Kicker – Willy Meisl, Stella Bloch, Ludwig Isenburger, Simon Rosenberger. In: Einig, Furchtlos, Treu. Der Kicker im Nationalsozialismus - eine Aufarbeitung. Die Werkstatt: Göttingen 2022.
• Long Read in German: Simon Rosenberger. Jüdischer Fußballfunktionär und Fußballjournalist (1885-1931) (Rheinische Geschichte)

 

Be kind. Be brave. Be true.