Part 1 - 2021
This is my project that I call ‘We’re the Albion’, which I have created to display the incredible fan base of West Bromwich Albion, my lifelong football club. After the pandemic hit the country and people were forced to stay in their homes, the footballing pyramid was impacted from top to bottom, with games being postponed and fans not being able to attend live matches. After the return of normality, the importance of fans in football has never been recognised more than it is now. Due to this, I wanted to take portraits of the people who attend matches week in week out to support their local football club. I shot this entire project on the Mamiya RB67 PRO SD, as I felt by doing this I could make the project a lot more personal to me, the process of shooting on film requires a lot of care and attention.
Part 2 - 2023
Over the last few years, West Bromwich Albion has been facing difficulty with their ownership, with majority shareholder Guochuan Lai taking money out of the club and causing uncertainty over the future of the football club since taking control in 2016. After being a stable Premier League club for 8 years, they were relegated to the Championship in 2018, with a slow decline following this, with the club achieving their lowest league finish for almost two decades in the 2021/22 Championship season. Supporters club Action For Albion have been organising peaceful protests over the last few months, starting with 'Shine a Light', where fans inside The Hawthorns would shine their torches on the 12th and 57th minutes of the game, relating to the money owed to the club, accompanied by anti ownership chants. In March 2023, Action For Albion arranged 'March in March', in which fans were asked to march to the stadium before the home fixture against Huddersfield Town. I photographed this event to bring attention to the issues surrounding my football club, in order to hopefully force a sale of the club.
Thank you to Hannah Baldwin for assisting this shoot.
