Pilgrimages. British football culture through a different lens.

Words: Guirec Munier

Images: Guirec Munier

I'm not a nostalgic person. Well, only when it comes to football.

Sporting performances come and go, but the first emotions at the stadium and the birth of a sense of belonging spread their sweet venom again and again. Inveterate fan of Stade Rennais, my hometown club, my heart also beats to the rhythm of Albion.

My golden age, the football of yesterday that still resonates with me today, was between the early 90s and Arsenal's last game at Highbury. "Super Soccer" on the Super Nintendo, "Nevermind" on the CD player, the birth of the Premier League and Eric Cantona sweeping away everything in his path with his collar up.

©Guirec Munier/ Terrace Edition. Liverpool.

Then come the brothers Gallagher, the European confrontations of French clubs against Arsenal, the Umbro sweatshirt as a second skin and Arsène Who?.

On February 22, 1997, in a Stamford Bridge under construction, I discovered English football with my own eyes at the age of fifteen.

A slap.

©Guirec Munier/ Terrace Edition. Aston Villa FC.

What followed was a growing love for England, a string of matches in Highbury's East Stand, an England versus Argentina at the original Wembley Stadium, the wooden Stevenage Road Stand at Craven Cottage, the fallen soul of Green Street, The Lane, an adoration for Patrick Vieira, then the move to a soulless Emirates Stadium.

For several years, my iPhone has been used as a memory box and sometimes as a time machine. It immortalizes the designs of Archibald Leitch, the perpetual authenticity of the Anfield district, the last breaths of Goodison Park, the South Stand of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium facing the decrepitude of Hillsborough, the heavy atmosphere of block 19 of the Dockers Stand at The Den, the youthful ultras of Boundary Park on a Tuesday evening in December, the identity fervor of San Mamés, the blind love for Marcelo Bielsa, the fleeting encounter with Aaron Ramsdale, the pilgrimages to Avenell Road, the boiling European atmospheres at Roazhon Park (groundhoppers, come!), the away days, and what I perhaps like the most, the paths to the stadiums along the terraced houses.

British brothers, you don't realize how lucky you are. Cherish your specificities and fight to keep them!