BLOG # 16

Here is a photograph I came across by chance. It intrigues me, so ordinary, yet so careful. I looked and looked again, a moment caught by a lifetime of photography. You can almost see the twinkle in the subjects eyes, or so it seems. His enthusiasm in another kickoff. The tension, the foreboding, the thrill.

What can we learn by looking ? An ordinary photograph, local news. A Saturday afternoon of football. A field sculpted out of a hill, a natural arena. A vertiginous path leading to a single line of spectators intent on the kickoff. The referee has blasted his whistle, the players respond, caught in a moment of dispatch.

But then, a more elderly man, hardly dressed for football, is about to make contact with the ball. A kickoff ? Why dressed like that, who, when, where ?
A working man’s suit, a muffler and a Di cap. The players with thigh length shorts, shorts always seem dependent on fashion. Heavy leather boots. The kit reminds me of Stanley Matthews, so the 1950s?

Who? A locally known man, a celebrity, an expert ? Clearly he knows what he’s doing, he has some sort of experience. A physical knowledge of how to approach a ball. Look at the angle of his body as he prepares, the attentive eye, the arm balancing. He has done this before. The other players seem to accept this situation, this individual. A special moment?

Look to at the photograph itself, the exact moment caught for us. Right place, right time. 90% of a of a photographers skill. The composition, a strong diagonal accentuates the forward motion. Even the telegraph pole aids the composition, so upright. A strong active line, all caught in a moment of the photographers instinct and knowledge. Our photographer knows what she/he is doing, she/he has done this before.

And at that moment of kickoff he was transported. Time stood still for Billy. The smell of new cut grass, the pristine whitewashed lines. The ball as solid as a cannonball. Boots, heavy, rigid leather, the oaths, the wooden rattles (whatever happened to them) A steady stream of acrid, sweet piss flowing past ranks of assorted footwear. The toilets an impossible scrum away. The cigarette smoke gently rising in hundreds of spirals to meet the looming Manchester fog. The pride and the passion.The throng. Man after man, it was always men, and then of course boys. Standing, standing, as far as Billy could see. He feels the adulation, the recognition. An ordinary working man from an ordinary Welsh mining village elevated to Sainthood. Sainthood though only as long as he continues to score or assist the craved goals. 80,000 United fans, a complete whole, a community.

Has he missed all this? Maybe. In truth he was never properly appreciated by those that really owned him. Not the fans but the bosses, the club owners. They never ever gave him his worth, much like the mine owners of his early years. Never paid properly for his genius.

But to feel it again, that would be something. As a consolation; a celebrity kickoff for the local Chirk football team.

A shrill sharp rasp of the referees whistle.

Billy kicks off the match.

The celebrity Billy Meredith. The photographer Geoff Charles. The situation Dyffrin Ceiriog, Chirk, North-Eastern Wales. 1950.

William Henry Meredith, Billy, 1874 to 1958, was a Welsh professional footballer. He was considered one of the early superstars of football due to his performances, notably for Manchester City, Manchester United and Wales.

He spent eight years working in the mines in Chirk, a small mining town in Denbighshire, playing local football before being signed up for the professional game. Billy was able to avoid injury throughout his career, despite the extremely physical nature of the game during this period. This was due in part to his extraordinary balance and agility, which allowed him to avoid clumsy challenges, and the toughness he had built up from spending his adolescence working in coal mining.

A determined, outspoken Welshman, he had a lasting impact on the game in his advocacy for ‘player power’, contributing to the creation of what is now the Professional Footballers Association.

He played in at least 1,500 games during his 34 years playing career – an average of over 40 games per season and played until he was nearly 50 !

Despite being one of the most famous and popular players of the Edwardian heyday of football, Meredith was close to poverty when he died in 1958.

Geoff Charles worked as a photojournalist in Wales from the 1930s to the 1970s, he is remembered primarily as a chronicle of life in rural, Welsh speaking Wales. His contribution to Welsh photography is unique. His approach was characterised by both an innate talent and an empathy for his subjects. Today his archive of 120,000 negatives is one of the treasures of the National Library of Wales

Having trained as a journalist and worked as a reporter, he was always aware of the story behind a picture. He had his pet subjects especially trains, cars and agriculture, but his main asset in his job was an insatiable curiosity about people, especially the people of Wales

He travelled everywhere across Wales, seemed to know everyone and certainly photographed everything. And eye for the detail of ordinary life and a vast record of a threatened culture.

Geoff Charles: Wales and the Borders . Published by Y Lolfa. a wonderful collection of black-and-white photographs taken by Geoff Charles