Yet while Davis had set out to discover something new, he had inadvertently captured the final days of an old, now bygone era of English football. In 1992, the 22 teams of the First Division unanimously split away from the EFL to form the Premier League, which ultimately sparked a new, globalised era marked by lucrative television deals and the eye-watering sums of money changing hands that are associated with the elite level of the game today.
Those fans found at the grounds would soon change as well. “I caught football before the big money men came in and took over, commercialisation and all ticket prices going up,” Davis says. One shot sees fans queuing up with the box office, with a sign reading: “Away supporters £4.50”. For comparison, away tickets are currently capped at £30, while home tickets are usually found in the region of £45-£60, but can jump to more £100-plus depending on the team.
“I realised a lot of the photographs I was taking in ’91 were of a lot of young people at the football, which is different now – a lot of working class people can’t afford to go to the main football grounds now,” he continues. “Originally, football was working class, and music was working class – punk, mod, skinheads, rastas – we were all out of that working class culture. Once you have the Premier League, the TV money and overseas investors coming in, all of a sudden a lot of working class people are feeling pushed out financially – so there’s a constant friction between these forces.”
Going to the Match by Richard Davis is published by Lower Block
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