You wake up, you realize it’s Saturday and you smile, after a workout, a stop at a pub and a walk through unknown streets, you turn a corner and that’s it.
By Daniel Gray and photographer Alan McCredie for Nutmeg
You wake up and for a few seconds you think it’s one of those other mornings. The unhappy 345 or more in a year when you don’t move on to a game. It takes a few seconds to find out what day it is, who are you?, even, especially if Friday night was past. If there was a Friday, then it was Saturday. If it’s Saturday, the right man on Saturday, then he’s sacred. A day of worship. It’s even more enriching if your pilgrimage takes you to a new place. Turning around a pink corner and seeing a football box for the first time is a joy.
Happy as you are, don’t jump out of bed. You stay there for a few minutes, thinking about the day that comes, even the smiling sun comes out dazed. You think about the trip, the schedules, the things that can go wrong, the walk to the floor and the question of whether there will be a helpful pub along the way. However, too much idea can ruin this day’s most productive quality: the unbridled excitement of the new.
Public transport, preferably through exercise, is the most productive way to reach a football field you don’t know. Travelling by car brings too much frustration and distracting conversation, a whim that prevents you from going out the window. or exercise open our senses to the different, the meaningful and the new. They open our eyes, preparing them for later shows: that first look at the corner; See this specific green for the first time; The game itself.
You approach the town in the colors of the house, then you follow them vaguely like a chaotic personal detective. An ad seems to fall into. One quick pint, two if you’re okay, then let’s go. He swallows the last sigh and the glass lands with a dull noise. On the ground, those beers have more subtle senses and listen to delicate strings. position to take anything.
Hearts ‘ Ground Tynecastle (above), Firhill Stadium at Partick Thistle (centre left), Dundee United Tannadice Park (centre right) and Aberdeen Pittodrie Stadium.
The rhythms of the day are the same, the lyrics have changed, many are on the move, as at home. Hopefully, they walk, here, there and everywhere, but live the difference: in this foreign country, the colors of blouses that ooze under the jackets and the diversity of the jeans from blue to red, the accents leave other sounds and where yours flows. other names.
Everywhere, the streets you walk through seem to be covered with ambivalent citizens who don’t even care about living close to a lot. You rarely see looking out the window, watching the parade. The blinds are down, the curtains run; Gods, what sacrilege!The howls of street vendors of programs seem to increase speed as church bells pass quickly among parishioners.
And then you turn the corner, and it’s there.
Terrain du Montrose FC, Links Park.
The old ones are the best: a crouching slides at the end of a long row of apartments; a large stand that surrounds an orderly set of interwar townhouses; the external landscape blocked through a church of the other kind; a beautiful ruined football space located in the commercial scrub mount. The first view of the urban floor is obscured or distracted, which makes it more tempting. It has context. The outdoor terrain of the village makes things easier, kisses on the first date.
Look at Firhill, like a Spanish cigarette factory. Look at Ochilview, like a chapel on the island whose roof has been ripped off. Look at Stark’s Park, like a secret naval warfare machine. Look at Easter Road, a robot in a position to spread and eat Leith. Look at the raw good looks of the Dens Park Museum and the ambitious handshake of a Pittodrie welcome (and what thug would bring them both down?)
Terrain by Raith Rovers, Stark’s Park.
The corners in which they rotate, their scale on which they are stacked with double joy: this burst at first glance, then the exclusive beauty of those terrains. In his company, a general urban landscape becomes valuable and surreal. The call of a street makes it this way, much more sense Enrich the asphalt like nothing else.
Why were football field venues chosen, we may never know who saw the sites that would be dedicated?How long did it take for these corners to become sacred?Thinking from above, it is imaginable to believe that a pious architect throws terraces over the righteous.
But thinking too much is a suffocating tingling. You can think too much about madness. It’s the excitement that counts most, how goose bumps can still be felt after years of football. These patterns probably wouldn’t be yours, but there’s a flirtation in all of us.
Snapshot: Scenes and stories of the heart of Scottish football through Daniel Gray and Alan McCredie is through Arena Sport in partnership with Nutmeg.
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