This Is Our Game

You know when you're in a football city. The murals, the billboards, the graffiti, the colours on the bars and pubs. No two football cities are the same. That cross on the club badge, commemorating a 1st century fisherman martyr (Ajax). The 'cemetery' of graves dedicated to the club's league rivals (Napoli). The guttural roar of fans chanting 'Aupa Athletic, aupa Euskal Herria!' - a fierce declaration of Basque pride and identity, echoing through San Mamés like a battle cry (Bilbao). In a world of increasing corporate and homogenous sport, football cities preserve culture and exhibit the particular and the unique with glorious passion. Fandom in a football city is for everyone: for boys and girls, for elderly men and the infirm; for the fashionable, the outcasts and the hopeless: it gives their days meaning and clarity - it can unite divided cities and divide the otherwise united. This work is a celebration of these unique fan cultures.