Nottingham photographer Chris Olley has spent two years taking pictures of all 92 Football League grounds in England.
Olley took the black and white photographs on days when there were no matches taking place as he wanted to convey their starkness.
He said: “When football stadiums aren’t being used they have this redundant feeling about them. They sit there like an old ship.
“It was gruelling. I did seventy-five percent of it on a 250cc [motorbike].”
Living in Nottingham, in the centre of the country, had its advantages for Olley who regularly got up at the crack of dawn to travel to the grounds.
I [did] them in black and white because I didn’t want the team’s colours obscuring the stadiums
Photographer Chris Olley
He said: “I only stayed overnight in Reading, at my aunty’s in Blackpool and a Travelodge in South Wales. The rest of it I came home for.”
Chris is influenced by the German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, who are best known for their images of industrial buildings.
Their work and ideas are evident in Olley’s football ground work.
“[Their work] shows us things in life which appear to be mundane and it can show us that we can take things for granted,” he explained.
“I wanted to bring that into the photographs of the stadiums and try and exclude people, movement and colour.
