ABOUT

Concept: Goal Diggers FC is a non profit grassroots club in Hackney for women and non binary players, founded by Fleur Cousens in 2015 and run by volunteers. I photographed a Saturday league fixture against South London WFC on a pitch so foggy you could not see the far touchline, which turned out to be a gift. A club like this one isn't selling the result, it's selling belonging, so that's what I set out to photograph.

Execution: The mist did the job a photographer usually has to do by hand. It flattened the background to nothing, separated the gold shirts from everything behind them, and softened everything past about twenty metres. Grassroots football is photographed from the touchline by default, so I spent most of this one low, at boot height, and behind the team rather than in front of it. Belonging is something you see from behind somebody's shoulder, not from the halfway line.

Results: A documentary set where the frames that carry it are not the tackles: the huddle before kick off, two players walking off arm in arm, and a pair of legs in orange boots with the goalmouth dissolving behind them.