Sunday league football runs on the commitment of mates. Turning up, getting changed, pulling on the same shirt and going through it together. The pitches are imperfect, the facilities functional, and the pint afterwards is on regardless of the result. In Andy McNeil’s photographs of The Gun FC, those familiar rituals become a personal record of friendship and the game.
Playing in the Camden Sunday Football League on Hackney Marshes, The Gun are part of a landscape synonymous with grassroots football. A mecca for the Sunday game, the Marshes and neighbouring Mabley Green accommodate 82 pitches across football, rugby and cricket. For the players gathering there each weekend, that reputation comes down to something much closer to home: their team, their mates and another match.
Originally from Liverpool and now based in London, McNeil is a creative project manager, film graduate and lifelong Evertonian. His photographs of The Gun grew out of his own return to playing after a 14-year gap. Injuries interrupted that comeback, but taking a camera along gave him another way to stay involved. Working with 35mm and medium-format film, he began documenting the lads around him.
The resulting series takes in the changing rooms, the pitches and the time spent together around the match. These are photographs made by someone who belongs to the group, with an affection for the everyday details that give Sunday football its character.
Lower Block: How did returning to football with The Gun FC turn into a photographic project?
Andy McNeil: These are photos I’ve taken over the last few years playing for The Gun. I had a gap of about 14 years between my last game for East Villa in Liverpool and my first for The Gun. When I started playing again, my body wasn’t really conditioned to it, which meant a lot of injuries.
When I couldn’t play, I’d bring my 35mm or medium-format camera and take some pictures of the lads. I wanted to take more photos day to day, and footy felt like the perfect place: a load of mates going through the emotions every Sunday and then having a pint regardless of what happened on the pitch.
LB: Which photograph best sums up that time together?
AM: I think the one taken outside the Marshes Centre. We’d all meet there and catch up against the backdrop of the building before going into the changies.
LB: How did your interest in photography develop, and what appeals to you about shooting film?
AM: I studied film at uni, so I was always that way inclined. I got my first camera during uni and slowly started taking it more seriously, to the point of buying a medium-format camera. Now I develop and scan my own negatives at home.
The idea of having a singular, one-of-a-kind photo is magical to me. Nine times out of ten, you’re the only person in history to have taken that photo, and now it’s immortalised in time.
LB: Whose work has influenced the way you look at people and places?
AM: Absolutely loads. I’m a massive fan of Lewis Khan, Theo Cottle, Jazz Grant, Joakim Moller, Sam Gregg, Peter Hou, Eve Roefs and Keerthana Kunnath.
Also Rob Bremner and Tom Wood, who photographed Liverpool in the ’80s, as well as Chris Killip’s work in the north. There’s also a photographer called @hanadiabdhalim whose street photography is unreal.
LB: What does grassroots football offer you as a subject?
AM: The photography and videography output of professional clubs is often so sanitised and removed from the community it’s supposed to represent. It’s refreshing seeing photos of football at grassroots level, where that purity and love for the game is undeniable.
My mate Aiden Herron has been on a dream job following Sunderland around Europe and photographing the fans. That’s what it’s all about: putting the fans and community at the forefront of a club’s commissioning and identity.
LB: You’ve spoken about the community around The Gun. Was that sense of belonging also what first connected you to Everton?
AM: I think the collective misery amongst Evertonians is the first real feeling I can remember as a football fan. I was too young to properly understand that aspect of it, but I understood how much Everton meant to the people around me. That sense of community kind of transcended the football, because Everton were even worse back then.
I’ve supported them my whole life, unfortunately. The club means everything to me, but it also makes me miserable 24/7. When I was in the womb, I remember thinking to myself, “Please God, not Everton.”
I’m an Evertonian because of my uncle, who watched us win almost everything in the ’80s. I ask him basically every weekend, “Why did you do this to me?”
I loved the away days. I remember West Ham away at the Boleyn Ground, when Leighton Baines scored two free kicks. I think it was Lukaku’s debut as well.
I was halfway through uni and couldn’t get to many matches, so I felt a bit disconnected from it all. My uncle managed to get two tickets through a mate.
I still find it difficult to articulate the feelings from that day, but I left the ground even more in love with Everton. It was exactly what I needed. It was Bobby Martinez’s first season, so there was a real sense of excitement about things to come.
LB: And Baines was already a favourite of yours?
AM: Leighton Baines has always been my Everton idol. I’m left-footed and have always played left-back or left centre-back, so I was drawn to him because of that. I’m 100 per cent certain he could still do a job at the Hill Dicky.
LB: What are you working on next, and are you open to commissions?
AM: Just some personal projects at the minute, but I’m open to commissions.
Photography by Andy McNeil. Follow @awe.mc. For commissions and enquiries, contact andrewmcneil94@gmail.com.
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