Sticking Together

Keep your eyes peeled and you will notice a new phenomenon of global football culture sweeping the streets.

- Matt Johnson

If I were to say “I’m fascinated by football stickers” I’m sure that most people would assume that I was talking about Panini. The enticing possibility of finally seeing Welsh internationals in Panini packets may have proved too difficult to resist last summer but that was only a passing infatuation. My fascination lies with the kind of football stickers that fans apply to street furniture.

You may have seen the unmistakable signs: a splodge of colour on a lamppost, a forlorn piece of faded paper on a drainpipe, the remnants of adhesive on the back of a road sign. The stickers are definitely there because I’ve lost count of the clubs I’ve seen represented.

I saw my first on a bus timetable at the Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet in 2006, referring to two Polish clubs as a “Band of Brothers”. Within a decade stickers appeared to be everywhere. A hobby with artistic pretensions came to mind so I began photographing them. I started a Tumblr site and briefly considered an aspirational biography: “Stickers on Street Furniture. Mixed Media. This continuous work takes the juxtaposition created when the radical self exists within commodified public space and projects it onto the mind of the viewer. The viewer is then forced to question 21st century assumptions.” I opted for: “The exciting world of stickers on street furniture!”

I scan as I walk so can spot the right sort of small coloured shape at 30 paces. It doesn’t matter whether I see an exquisitely designed creation or a weather-faded expression of club loyalty, they all count.