ABOUT THE SERIES

I woke to my first jungle view on an overnight bus to Iguazu Falls, Argentina. As I whipped back the curtains in the early morning haze, a lorry load of freshly felled rainforest lumbered ahead of us. The sun and sky were a sodden blaze as moisture rose from a sultry slumber. Eager to catch this tropical/topical apparition I whipped out my camera and started clicking.

Shortly we slipped into a garage, behind lay an empty football pitch, beyond which lay a vast jungle wilderness. Typically the grass around the goalmouths had given way, though here they'd given way to a vivid ochre soil unlike anything I had seen before. Awe struck by the magnificence of the setting, I took a picture. After a brief moment and a change of drivers we pulled off to continue our journey... As we trundled on I began to think about the pitch and reviewed the image many times. As my thoughts wandered I declared to take more shots of football pitches. Something resonated within.

Perhaps a heady concoction of my top-deck vantage point, the novelty of my surroundings and the primitive instincts of a retired striker had got my mind ticking backwards; to my youth and my early memories as a team player on a field of dreams...

My first team, Kirton Kestrels, were inaugurated into a division of the South Suffolk Youth League when I was ten. I was pretty new to the game and my skills left somewhat to be desired, having yet to develop the sniper-like accuracy of my now-famed left foot. As a newly formed team, we suffered the usual teething issues and, as we began regularly losing 13-0, my motivation quickly became an obvious issue.

Playing away from home in the Suffolk countryside, I often caught myself distracted and daydreaming about the new landscapes that were attached to the pitch I'd found myself on. What's behind those trees? Where does that path leads? Bound by the white lines marked out around me I merely peered curiously, often at a crucial point and generally to the detriment of my fellow teammates. I probably felt my input wouldn't be consequential to the overall score and subsequently my stint in the back four of the Kestrels didn't last too long, despite Dad being the gaffer.

A few years later, having honed the aforementioned skills, I had a couple of prolific seasons for Woodbridge Youths as a striker. For a time, I had shackled my wanderlust on the pitch in favour of the adulation I would receive from my team (and the five or so people that turned up each week to support us). Clearly the switch of positions had a lot to do with my new-found enthusiasm. From defender to striker, the game had changed and now my eyes were firmly on the prize. Focusing on the goal posts and sticking the ball between them was far easier than tracking a striker, making a tackle or playing the offside trap. Far more rewarding too.

The rush of crowning a fluid move by hitting the back of the net was totally unrivalled. The simple joy of skilled teamwork, knocking around a ball over 8000 square yards was captivating. My focus was honed.

The glory however, was short-lived. A knee-injury struck, forcing me to hang up the boots. My brief dalliance with glory-filled football finished, I slipped into drink, drugs and all the other things that my childhood hero, Frank McAvennie, had done.

The odd occasion I returned to the field for a kick around; a 5-a-side evening or a charitable cameo role for Playford FC, was never enough to satisfy my hunger for the game I once enjoyed. Though I never lost my skill and have still enjoyed rattling the onion bag on 5-aside pitches with work colleagues, the feeling of competing, achieving and, of course, reverence, has never been matched.

A few years ago, I returned to the field proper by a token of chance. In what is quite likely to be my last ever competitive game and after a heavy night of red wine, I made up the 11th man for Playford once again. In the February drizzle, and with around a 7-year lack of match fitness, and about 20 minutes into the game I found myself clean through on goal.

Around 35 yards from goal, the keeper came early to close the angle leaving a huge gap between him and the posts. Instincitvely I teed up the perfect lob and reeled off, arms aloft, with the ball clearly heading for the onion bag once again. Revelling in my past and reliving my glory days I couldn't recall scoring a better goal. I had performed once again. King of the pitch. Whooping with glee and absorbed by the moment I turned back to see the ball strike the crossbar and bounce back out. As the home supporters jeered and laughed the keeper gathered the ball. Dispite my efforts for the rest of the game, my focus disappeared and despondency returned.

Now I am unsure where my focus lays. I guess it's somewhere between the posts and periphery. Mindful of the rush of success yet more interested about what lays beyond.

For me, this series of photos represent many things and only in compiling these shots and reviewing my own footballing legacy do I finally see why I have been drawn to take them.

When you're on the pitch and totally focused on the game, nothing exists but the goals. When you're mind's not on the game, beyond the pitch can be a huge distraction. These images go some way to juxtaposing this dichotomy.

Critical theorists could surmise the posts and pitch represent the challenge of achieving results within the socio/cultural defined boundaries. The sprawling landscapes represents the distraction of nature, our innate curiosity to explore beyond the confines set out before us. That's up to them.

Enough of the waffle, check out the pictures ...