• PITCH, IMPERFECT

I’ve spent three years photographing a grassroots football team from Tbilisi, Georgia. Which resulted in this awkward attempt at showing what it’s like to be a woman footballer in the land where people only care about the men’s game.

Wabi-sabi. That’s what the Japanese call it when something is so flawed it loops right round into beauty. Sadly, “beautiful” isn’t the first word that springs to mind when you try to describe women’s league football in Georgia.

In this little documentary series I go backstage at FC Kvartali — a grassroots club from Tbilisi competing in the top division of a country where most people couldn’t give a wabi-sabi about women’s football.

Football for football’s sake

Most of the clubs you’ll see mentioned in this series quite possibly won’t survive another five years — Kvartali included. Yet these are some of the last places where the game is still played purely for the love of it. Football for football’s sake. It’s unglamorous, unpolished, raw, and absolutely imperfect — as imperfect as true perfection can possibly get.

In this day and age everyone is trying to teach us how to watch football, how to think about the game – “rest defence this” and “inverted full-backs that” — but something important gets lost in translation between the language of the media and punditry and the language of your average Janes and Joes who turn up, week in, week out, to support their local club. We’re not here to talk about xG or how hard it is to break down the out-of-possession 4-4-2. We’re here to answer one question: how does it make you feel? Not the fucking formation. Not the trophies. The game itself. What does watching football actually do to you? And before you shout “utter woke nonsense” back at me, just ask yourself that. We’ll come back to it. Later.

This is a love story

At some point midway through the project I came to the realisation that this entire thing might not even be about football at all. This is a love story. A quiet tale about doing what you believe in even when the cost is prohibitively high; about expecting no rewards, no shout-outs — because, c’mon, you know. But also about injuries and pain, shite pitches in the middle of nowhere, always getting lost and sometimes getting found, dreaming big but staying happy with what you get, being scared shitless and still ploughing on. Mostly people-watching. And dogs. Of course there have to be dogs.

“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”

— Marv Levy

Season 2023

Given the crazy pace of modern living, it’s not particularly surprising that 2023 can feel like ancient history to some — myself included. Looking back with misty-eyed nostalgia at the shots from nearly three years ago made me realise one thing: I used to be quite shite at photography. Now, however, having become marginally better and self-centred enough to make this entire intro about myself, I’d like you to join me and review the 2023 season together. It’s been a minute.