No Ball Games
The changing landscape of modern football and it’s connection to local communities…
Publication & Exhibitions
No Ball Games is a series of landscapes exploring the sites of former football grounds and examines the corporatisation of football as a symbol of the corporatisation of much of society over the last 40 years or so.
The influx of money into football has had an enormous effect on the game and, it could be argued, many positive effects. It has also had an enormous impact on community: who can go to the games as ticket prices rise, who can live near the grounds as housing is redeveloped, how has the football club, once the focus of the community just been transformed into yet another generator of income for wealthy club owners. How has that impacted on the social function around notions of community. Is this new high flying, internationally monied football world simply part of a wider net transfer of wealth from ordinary folk to large corporate entities and their shareholders?
No Ball Games is football as a microcosm of society. It’s not all bad of course - some old grounds were terrible death traps but amongst the glamour of the premier league, the clearing of the old terraced housing and the rise of the executive apartments with their sometimes poignant, sometimes sad little relics of former glories (Goalmoth Close, sky blue safety flooring or a supermarket clock in the form of a ball) something at the heart of community may have been lost.