After a full week's competition June 16, 2006
After a full week’s competition, as per my wallchart planners concensus, Brazil and England are still en route to the Final. Or at least one of them is. They will surely meet in the semi-final. Italy I had down to get to the Final. Switzerland, Ukraine and Australia were the only countries I was preparing to be wrong about : that any or all three of them might do better than I anticipated. How are they doing…?
I have been to a match everday from the opening onward. I have seen many more matches on big screens in the Fans Fest areas of various cities and even more on television. The Germans are proving great hosts. They have taken the opportunity to make “make friends” ahead of showing how well organised they can be. This do this cleaning up in the morning , AFTER the fans of all countries including their own have had a good time. This shows some imagination. What Germany may well have been lacking in recent times is imagination.
On the pitch thay are no great shakes. If England get them in the knockout round, England shall surely win. England have been superb, pacing themselves against the cruellest heat within the stadium. As disappointed as tv fans may be, the matches are not played on tv but in searing heat.
WHAT MAKES A WORLD CUP PHOTOGRAPHER? HOW DID I GET HERE??
I live in the very north of England, almost on the border of Scotland. This is the English Lake District and in my eyes England’s very best. Northumbria , next door, is surely England’s second best spot – and a very good second. Where I live is rural with a few small towns close by and bigger ones 60kilometres or more away. Manchester and Newcastle are the nearest internationally-famous cities.
It’s here in Ambleside I have my gallery : “The Homes of Football at Ambleisde”, currently being rebranded “Football Photography & The World”. It’s around here mostly that I work, and play, when I am not abroad photographing. I live alone. Sometimes I have visitors. Often, Sally my personal assistant stays over as she can’t decide whether to move up here yet. Houses are expensive and in short supply. It’s a preservation area (few new buildings allowed). Mobile phones struggle to work amidst the mountains. I get tv from all over the World via (Sky) satellite. And there’s the internet which in itself gives us the world.. There’s not many football pitches and teams around here, as there are comparatively few people. So I have my own pitch in the garden. Occasionally we stage international matches… a bit like the World Cup!
