This was all a bit unexpected, wasn't it?!

Being in a country that’s going through a lockdown because of a pandemic is something that I never truly thought I’d be doing, and I’m sure most of you feel the same. Most of our concerns from a month or so ago seem trivial. I long for the days where I was trying to work out if I could make the last train home from Sheffield after an away game, or which football ground I was going to visit next. Or which country I’d be visiting and which game I’d be trying to go to.

The speed in which our entire lives have changed is something that I’ve found increasingly unsettling — the fact that social distancing has become commonplace and the bits of fan culture that made football the way it was have been replaced by Twitter arguments and speculation. Who’s going to win the title, will anyone get relegated? Does it even matter? Why did we spend so much time aggressively, passionately and vehemently putting our all into a sport that can be decimated in less than a month?

Unprecedented is a word that we’ve got used to hearing, but the truth is this situation is unprecedented. Some of the things that I loved about going to football — travelling to grounds, hugging a complete stranger next to you, the roar of thousands of fans — are gone. And we don’t know when they’re coming back. I know for sure I won’t be visiting any new grounds for a while. For someone whose work relies on capturing the emptiness of grounds, the fact that every ground has sat empty and will do for a while makes me feel uneasy. The purpose of some sports stadiums has changed, its spaces being repurposed to assist with the effort against the virus.

A short few weeks ago I was feeling the anticipation of going to Manchester City v Real Madrid, a game that since City’s incredible win at the Bernabéu I couldn’t wait for. Football was my life — a large part of my practice as a photographer, my academic life and a huge chunk of my leisure time was spent on it. For it to be removed so aggressively and quickly is something that I still can’t get my head around.

Despite all this, I know that one day we will be back. Maybe it’ll be different, maybe we’ll have different priorities and we’ll be able to forge a new game full of understanding, sincerity and fairness. Maybe we’ll be able to create a new normal, one that works for the fans and community as well as the players and clubs. We’ll be singing louder than ever, never again taking for granted standing in the freezing cold watching a slow 0-0. I’ll be photographing new grounds again, taking in every little detail of the stands and the immaculately cared for pitch. I’ll be complaining about that cross, that bit of defending and definitely VAR. God, I even miss VAR.