从兰开夏郡到伦敦，从南安普顿到谢菲尔德，球迷们分享他们的足球故事，以及主客场支持英格兰对他们意味着什么。     

 

Sally Barton 是一位艺术家和摄影师，她将女性美学和英国民间传说融入到她以足球为中心的艺术中。 

 

集体欢乐

 我叫莎莉·巴顿，今年 25 岁。我来自谢菲尔德，但现在住在伦敦。我是一名艺术家和摄影师，在马刺队体育场的 OOF 画廊工作室工作。我试图通过我的艺术捕捉足球文化的精髓，同时将足球美学女性化。

 

自 2018 年开始在切尔西艺术学院学习以来，足球一直是我工作的一个关键主题。在谢菲尔德这座足球之城长大，足球是一种生活方式、一种文化、一种语言。 

 

观看英格兰比赛一直是家庭生活的重要组成部分，比赛总是在我们家里进行。我记得我的祖父会通过广播收听比赛。 

 

当我搬到伦敦时，我常常把看足球作为一种感觉宾至如归和寻找社区的方式。这些想法激发了我的实践。

Markers of time passing

 

I remember my first England shirt, it was that classic red Umbro 2004-06 away kit. I found one at a car-boot sale a few years ago and had to buy it. I have photos of me as a kid wearing it, styled with a crown, my nan’s jewellery and Sheffield Wednesday socks. I seemed to always be feminising my experience of the game. I might try and recreate the look this summer. 

 

Ian Wright is my all-time favourite player, and then Saka! I just think they are angels. I could watch that video of Wrighty and his teacher reuniting every day. I also have a soft spot for Pickford. 

 

The 2008 World Cup was the most memorable tournament for me. I was 18, just finished school and it was a long hot summer before I started university. I worked at a cafe and would watch the games on my phone, or when I was not working, on the big screen in Sheffield city centre. I was even in Berlin for a game and watched it on a screen at the Brandenburg Gate. There was such a buzz that year - even my friends who did not watch football were excited. 

 

For me, the tournaments are a way of spending time with friends. I am excited to watch EURO 2024 with mates either at home or in the pub.

 

I‘m all about that collective joy and sense of community. It’s truly a magical feeling when everyone is united in backing the boys.

 

The ritual of supporting England makes it so special. How so many of us have watched the team since we were young, in all its different forms? 

 

It’s intergenerational as well, my grandad can still recite stats from the 60s. The big tournaments are markers of time passing and they can make a time in your life so memorable.

Giovanna

 

During my second year of uni, I lived off Holloway Road, by the Arsenal Stadium. I loved matchdays and they reminded me of being home. A few doors down from me was a lady called Giovanna, who was quite famous in the area for her hand-knitted Arsenal jumper. She would stand outside her door in the jumper on matchdays, chain-smoking. One day I asked if I could take her photograph, and she let me take some portraits. The photos were then published in the Arsenal fanzine, Poison Lasagna. I found a community online of Arsenal fans who were also creatives and it got me more and more into the game. 

 

After graduating, I worked at OOF Gallery and Magazine, which is connected to the Spurs’ Stadium. They curate shows about the intersection between art and football. I am now a studio holder there. 

 

Of course, I have to support Sheffield Wednesday, that is a given. But I am jammy and have friends with Arsenal season tickets, so it is fun to catch the games with them. I also love going to watch the BWSL too! 

Focal point commission

 

I’ve been commissioned by English Heritage and Photoworks, to photograph the Nine Ladies Stone Circle in Derbyshire. It is a bronze age stone circle cared for by English Heritage. For the commission, I worked with students at two primary schools because I wanted to centre their relationship to the landscape and reimagine the historic site as a playground. This involved running creative workshops at the stone circle, and inevitably hours of playing football there. I’m interested in the fact that stone circles were places of ritual in ancient Britain and now football grounds are instead. Many of the kids I worked with saw the green space at the Nine Ladies as a football pitch, not a historic site. I loved that. 

 

I also had this idea to make a shrine at a local football ground called Redmires Fields, so I wrapped an entire goalpost with ribbon. I wanted to think of football pitches as a place of ritual while combining them with the aesthetics of British folklore. 

Feminising footballWomen’s EUROs