Roger Mayne: 'Football'

Roger Mayne is one of the most significant and influential photographers in British history. His images captured the poverty and hardship of inner city life in West London in the late 1950s with a rare and touching sensitivity and tenderness. The people he photographed – especially the children – are full of joy, fun, energy and life. And they are absolutely obsessed with football.

OOF Gallery’s winter 2025 exhibition is the first ever show dedicated to the portrayal of football in Roger Mayne’s work, featuring original prints of some of his most notable and iconic photographs. 

The game (and here it is a game, not a sport) appears over and over in his photography: kids in shorts dive to save wild shots on hard concrete, leap into the sky to head the ball to a mate, dribble down the middle of the road. These are images of kids at play, doing what they do best. It's children living totally free, expressing themselves, even in unimaginably deprived circumstances. They are photographs of joy against the odds. 

Much of Mayne’s most important work has football at its heart. Through his eyes, it represents something we all seem to eventually forget: the simple ecstasy of youth.