Ah, the nostalgic delights of playing fitba on the street. The volley into the gable end, the low toe poke that ricochets off the kerb, the wayward header that clatters down on the bonnet of an Austin Allegro and ends up flattening the prize-winning petunias in auld grouch McConnachie’s front garden?
Simple pleasures of a more simple time when ‘no ball games’ signs were blissfully ignored with nonchalant defiance in the spontaneous pursuit
of footballing fantasies and skint-knee recreations of Archie Gemmill’s World Cup jouk.
For Michael Kirkham, a Liverpool-based photographer, the echoes of the past are very much part of his present. His burgeoning project, Urban Goals, is an evocative meander through the sentimental and sombre relics of this beautiful game.
From crude goal posts painted on to the side of terraced houses or buildings to rusting frames and tattered nets that are choked and entangled by the weeds of despair and decay, Urban Goals documents the ghostly remnants of yore.
In an era when clubs, particularly in the money-soaked echelons of the English game, have moved so far from their traditional roots they may as well be based on the outer rings of Saturn, Kirkham’s collection vividly exposes the sense of wistful dislocation and desolation.
His home city of Liverpool may have provided the spark for his project but Glasgow has offered a fertile environment for his art, too. Amid the sprawl of the Dear Green Place there lurk plenty of stark and solemn monuments to a footballing land that time forgot.
“There are some very poignant images in Glasgow,” said Kirkham. “On one occasion when I visited the Toryglen area, they were tearing down tower blocks in the background.
“It was rather sad but for a photographer it was great because
you don’t often turn up and get that.
“Liverpool is the spiritual home of this project. It dwarfs everywhere else as there are so many urban goals around the place. But Glasgow does feel like it could be another home for it, too.
“These goals around the UK sit at odds with football, especially
in England. It’s a different game altogether. My dad and his generation travelled the whole of Europe with Liverpool but he’s quite disillusioned by football now.
“I feel this project has a universal appeal. There’s a nostalgic aspect and aesthetically they look quite intriguing. But the images also have undertones of class and society, of economics and underfunding. They are pretty simple but they stir the emotions.”
There are plenty of nooks and crannies for Kirkham to explore.
“I want to do Dundee, Edinburgh and Motherwell next,” he added.
“You could, in fact, travel the globe doing it.
“I don’t want to draw a line under it. Once I’ve done the UK, I may look into Germany, Spain, Holland or Italy. There has been interest.”
Kirkham has certainly piqued the interest of some of the communities he has investigated during his wanders along the streets, down the alleys and over the parklands of this wide and varied footballing landscape.
“People think I’m bonkers,” he said. “There are maybe cars parked in front of a goal painted on the side of a house and I’ll look around and ask people if it’s their car and if they could move it. They’ll say ‘you’re doing what and why?’
“I’ve walked a lot of miles and it’s taken me to places that are certainly not in the tour guide. It’s been an eye-opener and I’ve had a lot of preconceptions smashed, too.
“Coming from Liverpool there were often places you’d avoid like Leeds or Sheffield or Hull. Maybe I had prejudices against them? That sounds harsh but I’ve gone there and loved them, the places and the people.”
With Urban Goals, Kirkham has hit the target by shooting his images of
a very different ball game.
More information and pictures can be found at www.urbangoals.com
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