On Wednesday 3rd March 2010, the England football squad faced ‘three times in a row’ African champions Egypt, in a friendly at the newly built Wembley football stadium in London. I purchased four tickets for the game because I wanted the experience to see the national team play at its new stadium and to witness this ‘emotional and loud’ atmosphere in which has been stereotyped with our country and the game.
After purchasing the tickets in early February, no one could write the speculation in which surrounded the game on this cold March night. Bleeding with off field controversy and stories, the atmosphere of the game was different to what I normally expect it would be. With the captain stripped of the armband, the left back involved in a major tabloid influenced affair, a striker tagged as the ‘best in the world’ and the most famous face in football on the bench, the pre match atmosphere was filled with excitement and expectation.
I took my camera to the game and hoped to capture emotions of fans, players and emotions that surrounded the game before and during. Not particularly knowing what to expect as this was my first experience watching my country at football, I had a strange feeling however that I would be able to capture emotions like no other. Emotions of uniqueness and to their own, stills that are only capture that time and that place.
With the stadium only being born in recent years, the first initial reaction in approaching it is its size and capacity being over shadowed by a gleaming and beautiful arch that protects the stadium and is fast becoming a convention to its portrait.
You walk in and you are struck with a feeling of ‘wow’. A stadium that is fit to hold 90,000 and that has already been the location for some emotional and memorable football moments. You were now at the scene of a ‘moment’ waiting to happen.
We attended the stadium at an early point, the gates have been open about 20 minutes and we had found our seat, it was time to patrol the stadium and see what I could capture.
As I circulated the remarkable stadium, I found myself looking for fans that tell a story, in which you could smile at and create a novel for. Fans of excitement, stereotype and who create an excellent portrait.
One of the first images I took was the one of the old lady and what appears to be her son. She is seating down, clearly has a problem with moving while being designed to look patriotic for her country. While her son stands next to her, restrained from moving away but still expressing his excitement with being in the stadium for the match.
I then approached the Egyptian supporters. I immediately came across one particular character in which fascinated me. The gent in the Burberry scarf, large hat and enthusiastic waving flag. He had an appeal about him that struck a chord. He was not an athlete judging by his physique. He was a fan. A fan of passion, lust and love for his home country. I just think he alone makes the photos of the scene interesting. Ignoring his apparent family next to him and absorbing the atmosphere and tempo of the cheering, encouraging and lust for the Egypt football team.
Another character in which I came approach of was a girl that had a Chinese ethnic about her. However, she had the England emblem painted on her cheek. She is most likely as English as me, but because she does not share the ‘stereotype’ English appearance, it was like breaking the ‘fourth wall’ for me. If you take away the English badge and ask anyone where they think this girl is from, they most likely wont say England, but because she has an England badge on her cheek branding her a England supporter, you think twice. I just thought it was very interesting and a possible representation on Britain’s cultural movement today.
When kick off was near, the stadiums attendance rapidly multiplied until there were 80,000 plus supporters watching the same game and events as me. A statistic that is very scary when you think of that it in that perspective. I have one unique perspective on the game, however the person next to me has another, and the man next to him as a different view and so on. But with an 8pm kick off, at 7:55pm the teams were out and ready to sing their national anthems. What was very nice to find when we first arrived at our seats is that we were going to be part of one of two 20,000 man made St George’s flags manipulated by the crowd behind each goal. I have seen this on television before and on several adverts such as Budweiser but being part of it was something else, which was the prized ‘moment’ of being at Wembley. The images below show a spectacular perspective of my view, both the flag opposite and the flag in which I was part of. You see the emotions and unity of so many different people from different lives joining together to create one flag, one brand and one identity. That’s what Wembley was about. It was more than a football match. It was individuals coming together to form one, a nation of unity, passion, lust and support.
Daniel Booker, Lens Media 