I had the pleasure of meeting Stuart Roy Clarke recently, a resident of Cumbria and a successful author and photographer.
His images of football through the decades – and the vast majority don’t involve pitch action – have provided a sharp insight of what the game means to millions of people.
He has provided Cumbria Crack with three of his favourite pictures and I thought it was too good an opportunity not to ask him a few questions on his life and career.
Stuart, can you tell us how your interest in both photography and football started?
I began The Homes of Football as an opus, a long-term thing, maybe 10 years in the making. I so, so, so wanted to do it. I had my subject. It was mine.
This was in 1989 on the back of the Hillsborough disaster, we were waiting for the Lord Justice Taylor Report which would in part inform us of the direction of travel.
I ‘argued’ (and others on my behalf) that I could tell the human story, in photographs. The Football Trust – which was empowered to carry out the Report / committing monies – had really only presented the case for new slabs of concrete, new stands, whole new grounds. People were more awkward still.
You are based in Cumbria, was that through choice or was it for specific work/family reasons?
That same year 1989, instead of moving into Whitehall or Central London, where the money and power was, I headed to the Lake District to continue living there (I had first come in 1985 and then gone back south to work for Time out magazine and whatever else came my way).
In the subsequent years, all my decisions to make my ‘power’ base The Lake District proved to be inspirational. Or happy fluke. For a start my role in football (freelance) was to be for the whole of the UK, which included Scotland. So geographically I was NOT actually in the middle of nowhere. Rather ‘in the middle’.
In your early work you went round thousands of grounds specialising in pictures of ordinary supporters rather than so much the action. Where did the idea come from?
I woke up in 1989 with the words Homes of Football on my lips. I called everything I was up to, in football, ‘Homes of…’
There was already so much interest and commissioning of sports photography, centred on action + players + managers + sackings, but I was clear that at the centre of my portraits would be the fans, the grounds, the culture of the game.
It has often been said that when a penalty is being taken “Clarkie will have his back to the action, looking at the fans”.
Indeed the Sun official football photographer (I literally hate The Sun) whilst being interviewed by the BBC at a match at Wigan, whilst I was in with the fans, says ’Stuart always gets to the emotional centre of the thing; In fact he photographs the WHOLE thing”. Thank you Sun photographer. Despite your paper.
I was very clear, that as well as photographing ordinary supporters in a way that made them very special (whilst always using film and never using Photoshop) I would try appealing to the every other person who was NOT that interested in the game. As well as appealing to the captive audience.
Football I kept claiming was “our national pastime.” Warts and all.
In all your visits did you develop an affection for one or more of the clubs, and a special affinity with particular fans?
I grew up with Watford (my first hero manager was Ken Furphy from Workington) and was THE first person to meet Graham Taylor when in 1977 Elton John drove him down to Hertfordshire where I grew up, to take up his role.
He would transform the club and football. With Elton’s help. Football seemed magical to me, as well as grey and rooted, and everything (because of Watford) seemed possible. It still does.
I won’t be drawn into conversations and debates about which is THE home of football; rather I enjoy talks, books, exhibitions, lists about all the homes of football.
Of course Workington is THE home of football to a person who supports Workington Reds. Rightly.
My favourite clubs, and I have 1,001 favourites, are 1. Carlisle United 2. Watford 3. Brentford 4. Burnley 5. Barrow 6. Nottingham Forest 7. Workington 8. Queen of the South 9. Queen Of the South 10. Chelsea Women FC … my favourite players (when I was growing up were George Best and Stewart McNab Adam Scullion) …yet by the summer of 2022 my favourite players are Ella Toone and Alessia Russoe and Owen Moxon.
Your first book in 1996 was The Homes of Football which has subsequently morphed into exhibitions around the country. How did that evolve?
A guy who designed the post office stamps requested we did a book together. It was overdue as I had been having exhibitions around the country since 1991 in Burnley, in Barrow, in Leeds (95 more were to follow over the course of 15 years) and by the end of 1996, partly buoyed by the success of that first book and ‘classic’ attendance-record-busting exhibitions at Carlisle Tullie House and Edinburgh City Art Centre, I was looking at either Keswick or Ambleside as a site for a permanent Homes of Football.
Me and Nisha and Sarah stood on street corners asking people. And three month later I was IN, at Ambleside.
There was a semi-permanent exhibition in Ambleside for 14 years, have you ever held one in other parts of the county or have you any plans to?
When I left Ambleside after 14 years, I was a bit done, and I had a daughter. New priorities. People to this day still urge me to return!
I have returned (to Cumbria) but I can’t see me doing something permanent with Homes of Football again. Books are an alternative.
I would like to curate a museum of photography…and once more I would claim that The Lake District is the centre of the universe – the right place/the only place – for doing this.
Although the emphasis is on ordinary fans in The Game there are a few famous faces in there and you will have met others. Who have been the most interesting on your travels?
Bobby Robson opened one of my shows and was so nervous when it came to it he kept driving around the block.
I said (whispered in his ear) YOU are the manager of England! He said he was out of his comfort zone. I said IT’S AN EXHIBITION THAT SETS OUT TO CAPTURE THE SOUL OF FOOTBALL…WHAT IS IT YOU DO?
When he started speaking about football, and my images, it all came together.
Graham Taylor was my favourite person in football and I have one, just one, regret in life – that I did not drive around England with him in a car, visiting all sorts of matches, at all levels, us two being filmed for television. A bit like The Trip. Or that fishing programme.
The Game was a collaboration between yourself and a friend John Williams. How did that come about?
John Williams was the guy who ‘discovered me’ and told The Football Trust I simply had to be deployed with my camera. John ran the Football Research Centre (including on Hooliganism) at Leicester University and was a font of knowledge. And still is.
He supports Liverpool and knows all about that photo I saw at Borough Park of Bill Shankly on his time off from being Workington manager, playing in a field with the locals, outjumping everyone to head the ball (he was very small in height to boot).
Whilst John and I are in our 60’s, I believe WE are as good as anyone to talk about the game. Yet no better than most fans talking about THEIR club.
I suppose an obvious question is do you go to a different game each week looking for “that” picture?
I have never lost my enthusiasm even for a second. There is no such thing as a boring game: I just concentrate on the fans and the tea ladies if the match is boring.
I hate flares and fireworks at football. And megaphones. If our fans want to sulk, then let them. It’s part of the English/British wit.
I think, in going to every single game, be it Carlisle CITY or Manchester City, that I will get the best of all possible pictures. That no one else will get. I don’t even have to think about it. I feel so natural at the football match/ground …I am in my element. My dad would be proud of me. John Williams is.
Are there any significant grounds in Britain that you haven’t visited and will be on your list for a visit?
I haven’t done a single match at Brighton’s ground. I missed the opening of Brentford’s new ground…now I feel I could sleep there at Brentford. I absolutely love it and want to go again and again.
I want to go to Queen Of The South’s new ground in 2042!
You portray your favourite pictures in The Game but have you a favourite’s favourite – and why?
My favourite for some years now is “Cry For Home” I took at Greenock Morton in 1995: a boy crying at the bus-stop, waiting for a bus that seemingly is never going to come. He should have surely foreseen this whilst celebrating the best day of his life in the ground, at the match, in the sun, beating Dunfermline the top team. It’s cold and wet now in the picture.
You were kind enough to give me a copy of The Game at Workington’s match on Saturday but presented in a Carlisle United bag. You saw the stick I got walking through the Tony Hopper Bar afterwards. Were you aware that there was so much hostility from Reds fans of a certain age towards Carlisle – and why?
I knew this could happen (would happen) and I set you up, giving you the book in a Carlisle United carrier bag.
When it happened I tried to shield you from the baying mob. I am so courageous and honourable.
Football, as with politics, and in a sense marriages, is about two opposing sides. It’s a tug of war. To have NO Conservatives left in office…sounds like a good idea but is not good for democracy nor raising the game of the other one. Carlisle need Workington (and Barrow). Vice-versa.
Just looking further afield. How do you think England will fare in the World Cup?
I feel most confident about the England Women team who leave my jaw dropped with their non-stop effort, skill, return, sportswomanship, humour…at Chelsea Women FC (employing me) the players stick around for an hour afterwards, on the pitch, covered in mud, doing selfies and signing everything.
England Men will make the last eight maybe the last four but the heat and the weight of expectation will do for them.
My REAL REAL hopes for England and for football as a whole is USA/Canada/Mexico World Cup 2026. England will beat USA in the Final.
I might even move there to Georgia USA (whilst continuing to live in Cumbria) mainly for the event. It’s my time.
2026 is also America’s time…USA is set to overtake Europe in ‘owning’ the game as early as 2026/2027/2028 given they have ditched popcorn for real suffering-for-their-teams…as we do. We have been the teachers.
