From the Stands

When my mum passed away my brother and I spent quite some time going through her things. Never an easy thing to do but to be honest, I was grateful to share this time with my brother to remember my mum and what she meant to us both. 

Memories, locked within so many different everyday things like my mums scarf – the smell took me back to when I would get a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek, the smell of her scarf filling my nostrils. Smells, like some many other things we often take for granted, can carry powerful memories that can bring a smile, a laugh, a tear and many other emotions to the surface.

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My mum was a hoarder of things – artwork, for example from my children and of photographs of the family. Boxes and boxes of faded, folded, torn, worn black and white photos and prints with that sixties and seventies faded chromatic colour all stacked on top of each other and pushed together in no particular order. 

There were some powerful memories, plenty of tears and a longing for those days to come back to fill our childhood home with the bustle of life as we knew it. Of course, time must move on but with the faded photos I found myself easily slipping back in time, a wedding, christening, Christmas, birthday and New Year’s Eve party all captured and preserved in faded colours of those dog eared and worn images.

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We all have significant life events captured in a catalogue of photos, many stored away and rarely seen. But now with technology as it is, photos are easy to take but still not so easily remembered. Sharing a blurred photo taken on your phone through social media doesn’t have the same excitement we had waiting for the prints to be developed at the local chemist. If only to realise that they were all too dark, blurred or everyone’s heads were cut out of the frame. I’m sure we all have some of those in a box in the loft. 

I liken my photography to capturing moments in time, everyday moments that tell a story, filled with emotion that would otherwise be lost. Or just a series of images that record how things change or have changed. This is what I try to do through my photography and it’s been great to develop my skill to be able to capture the world around me one click at a time.

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Going to the matches and using my camera to record the match day experience is part of my attempt to record the everyday so that is serves as a valuable memory of the past. The joy of a goal and a win, the low of a defeat and frustration, sometimes angrily expressed at the players and the manager. Capturing these moments against the backdrop of the match serve as a valuable reminder of how we invest our passion for West Ham United that has been passed down from generations or picked up for the first time within us and the people we know.

I’m interested in people and their stories, fans who have come to West Ham through their own personal journeys. By the time we settle in front of the screen, or singing out ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’ arms held aloft as the players come out into the pitch, we are locked into the emotion of the game. We are part of a family and the connection we feel fuels our passion and builds the excitement. 

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We arrive at that point in time holding our history within us and all the life events that have lead us to that moment. In our dedication we wear a favourite scarf, carry a lucky charm, have our match day rituals and sing as hard as we can as if this will inspire the team to victory.

I want to tell those stories that people have inside them, share and preserve them for others to experience. It seems that despite it being so easy to record our lives through our phones, the speed of social media takes us further away from the memories themselves. So many photos and videos of our lives that we don’t really stop to talk about amongst the likes and shares on Facebook.

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From The Stands is an Idea I have been working on for a while and I want to be able to capture some of those moments in time that tell a story that will be enriched with the memories of fans. I want to match some of those memories to key moments in the history of the club, so that history comes to life. Personal stories and recollections that we can relate to but help create a living history of the family to whom we all feel a part of in some way.

I met a 92 year old Hammer as I was putting my photos up for a little exhibition at Canary Wharf Idea Store and he was telling me about how he managed to get in to see the World Cup Final at Wembley in 1966 without a ticket. It reminded me of the times I used to slip into the Boleyn Ground once the matches had started as the security would open the large gates a nudge and let fans into the ground for a couple of quid. 

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These memories can be passed down but when matched with a visual reminder, bound to moments we all share or can relate to, they become powerful and timeless. They become part of a history to which we all can feel some belonging to.

If you’d like to be part of project this please let me know. I know there are people with very different, diverse and varied experiences that would serve as a wonderful history of our club seen through the eyes of fans. At those times when we get frustrated with the club and the players it’s worth remembering why we are here, why we support the club and what it means to us and those who we share that with.

I will be sharing my photos and the stories of fans through a regular printed zine during the season and the first edition is out now, which contains photos of the exhibition.

I also publish my photos on my Instagram account: http://www.instagram.com/from_thestands/

And I also publish my photos on WestHamTillIDie blog: https://www.westhamtillidie.com/authors/dawudmarsh/posts

Dawud 

From The Stands Exhibition

Canary Wharf Exhibition Poster

I grew up playing football with my friends on the small green field in front of our house.  I played from the early morning until it was too dark to even see the ball. We threw our coats down as goals, waited for someone to bring a ball, divided ourselves up into teams and played. 

The rules were harsh, flexible, biased, unfair, argued over, non-existent and often left in shreds somewhere behind the goals as we battled with our friends in games that seemed to last forever. Goals were disputed, tackles that started fights were not easily forgotten, injuries proudly worn behind blooded shirts and jeans and trainers battered and muddied until they could barely hold themselves together.

In blustering winds, torrential rain, snow storms, blistering sun, freezing cold, grey days and early nights we played our hearts out, wore ourselves ragged until we fell exhausted on the floor barely able to muster the energy to talk. But talk we did about the wonder goal, the game saving tackle, the perfect pass and the tactics that came straight from the matches we saw on the tv. 

We compared our skills with the best – we were Mervyn Day diving right to make a save, Bobby Moore completing one of his trademark tackles, sending the ball wide to Trevor Brooking, making a run down the wing to whip a cross in for Clyde Best or Geoff Hurst to take on a defender and score!!!!!!

Those were the days that filled our younger years and built a passion for a game that we play in a different way now as we watch critically from the stands. The passion, the joy, the nerves, the anger, frustration, applause, boos and singing as we make the same runs down the wing, check ourselves as we dribble past one player, another and then cross ……. 

“I’m forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air,

They fly so high, nearly reach the sky,

Then like my dreams they fade and die…”

We compare the players to ourselves – we are there on the pitch, shouting at our team mates, we are cutting up the chalk on the wing, sprawling on the grass – hey ref, com’on! What a pass!!!! Whose side are you on ref? What a goal!!!!! You don’t deserve to wear the shirt!!! I can play better any day! How did he miss that? If I was the manager I would …. I could have scored that easy! The stadium fades away and we are standing on the torn up green as a kid, standing over the ball eyeing up a free kick that could win us the FA Cup.

As an amateur photographer and West Ham season ticket holder my passion for the game has inspired me to record thehome matches from when we were based at the Boleyn Ground through to London Stadium. The exhibition focuses on the fans, those who grew up with their own memories of following and playing football as kids and now who stand together, as a family united in our support for our team. 

We all have our own unique stories and diverse reasons why we support our team, from memories of time with our father as a kid, because we were brought up to support West Ham, from a visit that brought us as if by fate to open our hearts to the Hammers, or loyalty for our local team. Our bond is not dependent on results – however much some results can hurt, not on who wears the claret and blue – players come and go, but on a sense of family and the people we meet who sit next to us, who talk to us on the journey to the ground, we recognise the passion, the knot of love and the colours worn with pride. 

This is a work in progress and the people I have met along the way have filled me with pride for their journey, respect for their commitment and shared role in a family that rises as one to sing and cheer on our team. 

Dawud Marsh

Dawud Marsh

I am a photographer born, living and working in East London.

I am also a West Ham United fan and I am a season ticket holder at the London Stadium.

The idea for From The Stands came from talking to people about their memories of supporting West Ham United and about documenting the changes and challenges we face as supporters of our team.

I am interested in using this blog as a means of capturing fans memories, especially from the past, looking at why we are West Ham United fans, how we came to the club and what supporting our team means to us.

It is an organic project that I hope will grow over the years to become a focus point for people to share their memories and the various highs and lows of being a football fan.

Dawud Marsh