It is my intent to create a body of work which makes a statement about a football and culture we do not see within the mass media where we are actively sold objects and lifestyles ready to consume in order to present our future selves to the world as successful. My work will illustrate ‘the experience’ of the game in different places encompassing the key themes of people, places and objects.

To date, I have produced a portfolio that encompasses people who are emotionally invested in the game taking a sense of identity from it, while others impose their ideologies to produce an evolving message of ‘football culture’. Objects and environments that hint at a participatory culture and create a sense of identity, they are well used but in some cases unloved and invisible. Raising questions about the stories that may precede them. Such an approach represented by Borge (2012) who argues.

“Maybe activist photography begins at the point that a photographer thinks beyond the photograph, or when the photograph is not the end, rather a means to a solution even if the solution is nebulous.”

Although the contextual framing of Borge is relevant. This project is not an attack on the high profile game. It is a poetic response of tradition and shifting ideologies of the place community football has in the 21st century. 

At the early stages of this project the expectation was the discovery of traditional football clubs with local spectators and volunteers, in some cases this was accurate however I discovered a progressive football club with a non partisan ethos and chant about not eating meat. The club was a meeting place for like minded people determined to do something different. At present, the photographs that have been made allude to a ‘nebulous solution’ with inclusion, tolerance and community via the spectacle of a football match being the messages beyond the photographs. 

Borge, M (2012)Photography as Activism,Images for Social Change.London, Focal Press.