Palace To Parks

Greg Coleman, London, England

As part of Goal Click London, in partnership with adidas, Greg Coleman took photos of youth in the context of both professional and grassroots football.

The image of the young Palace chap, I had actually spotted him among the crowd as I was approaching the huge set of stairs that lead to the Wembley Park station. As I got closer I noticed that the potential for a shot I had seen was looking even more promising as we were under a bridge and the walls were red. He was a cool kid. I was drawn to the colours mainly and the painting on his face, it all worked so well. I then had a brief chat with the boy and I took the picture, shook his hand and moved on! 

The image with the girl was actually shot from the drivers seat in my car. I was actually leaving this park with the intention to find football in another part of London. I noticed a bunch of kids heading toward the football pitches. Suddenly, and I have no idea why, they all began running towards the pitch on the passenger side of my car. But this girl didn’t even take any notice, and continued to head towards a different set of pitches. She put the ball on the floor and lightly kicked it toward the pitches. I could see she was more interested in playing her own football and not anybody else’s, which I thought was pretty cool and empowering for a young female who was only one 1 out of about 12 young lads. Either that or she had somewhere else to be!