Football without fans does not bear thinking about.
We all had to accept no supporters in stadiums during those dark days of Covid, but that did not mean those fans weren’t still out there, savouring every twist and turn, agonising over every dropped point.
It’s those supporters that breathe life into clubs at both ends of the spectrum, and Zak Water’s brilliant photo book Life’s A Ball 90s, throws the spotlight on some of football’s more dedicated followers.
Waters and Ivor Baddiel came up with the idea of tracking them down in the 1990s. The advent of the Premier League and return of European competition, coupled with seemingly live TV coverage every night, meant football was getting a major facelift. Fans embraced the revamp, some going to extreme lengths to show off their support.
Having come together as a photographer / writer combo for Total Football magazine, Waters and Baddiel, brother of Three Lions’ David, were there to document it, travelling the length and breadth of the country in search of some of the more wacky picture stories behind the scenes.
That was after they were the centre of attention themselves, during the England Scotland clash of Euro 96, which they covered for the magazine in a remote Orkney Islands hotel bar.
Two hundred kilted Scottish fans had warmed up watching a pre match re run of Braveheart and didn’t take too kindly to the English pressmen trying to record their reaction to the game, nor to Ivor’s England shirt, pelting the pair with empty beer cans before carrying Ivor outside seemingly intent on not just setting fire to a Cross of St George flag that suddenly materialised, but also drenching the pair in recycled McEwans Export.
All ended well, though, as this most remote of Tartan Armies cracked up laughing, applauded the pair for not giving in to their intimidation, then had a whip round to pay for the beers for the rest of a long boozy evening.
Soccer AM’s Helen Chamberlain, a Torquay United fan, writes the foreword and talks lovingly of her club, and their then madcap chairman Mike Bateson who insisted on always being accompanied by his ventriloquist’s puppet, Algernon, who sat in on all the club’s transfer deals as well as once head butting an irate fan.
That sets the scene for the rest of the first part of the book, where we meet the likes of David Burnley, who changed his surname from Beeston to Burnley as a sign of allegiance when Burnley were relegated in the 1970s, and who has a daughter Clarette, as in “claret and blue”. She was so nearly Christened Clarette Ann Balou but her mother thought it sounded too much like a character from Jungle Book.
Or there’s Diane Anderson of Nottingham. A Forest fan, who lives with a life size cardboard cut out of Stuart Pearce who she talked to each match day, obviously, as well as rubbing him down each week in either Dettol or Tiger Balm, when injured, to ease his muscles.
Zac pictured her polishing Psycho’s boots.
The first half of the book is packed with similar picture stories. The Arsenal fan who cuts home and away shirts vertically in half, then wears the different strips sewn together; or the man in the van West Ham fan whose van as well as painted in the Hammers’ colours is also covered in the names of favourite players.
The second half of the book continues to applaud the supporters behind the scenes, but now tells a different story.
Not so much about individual clubs and their most loyal of supporters, but more about lovers of the game itself, those prepared to travel all over, seeing different games at different grounds, as close together as possible, in as short a time as possible.
One such group was the Groundhoppers. Photographed in the 1990s, Groundhoppers would aim to take in as many matches as possible over an Easter weekend, attracting like minded fans from all over England, as well as one occasion, Holland, with two Dutch supporters even wearing clogs to go to the matches.
The pictures are fascinating, documenting groups on tour as they take in a host of non league and lower league matches, complete with the obligatory one man and his dog, and another one man answering the call of nature.
It’s a picture story that will resonate with every fan of non league or lower league football. Poor conditions, deteriorating facilities, peeling paintwork. But supporters there showing their support.
These pictures capture the other end of the scale. A world away from The Hammers and The Gunners and the Psycho Forest fan from the first half, the fans featured in the second half play just a vital role in the well being of the game.
It takes all sorts.
And Life’s A Ball 90s by Zac Waters and Ivor Baddiel proves the point.
Life’s A Ball 90s is available to buy now from Fistful of Books.
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