Two years after the 1998 publication of the book Dutch Fields the alternative football magazine JOHAN was founded in The Netherlands. They offered me a regular double-page spread at the back of their magazine. Every month I presented a different European location. I was later invited by European Photography institutions to photograph amateur footbaal in their regions.

‘As far away as possible from the Champions League’ was the phrase I used to try and explain my project to officials at regional football association all over Europe. I hoped it would help create a picture in their mind of the kind of football and the kind of ground I was looking for - the passionate football of less talented players in the lower leagues, in a setting miles away from packed stands and roof covered stadiums. In the minds and hearts of these amateur players in all those villages, the stadiums are not far away at all. Everywhere in Europe teams walk on the pitch to line up at the centre-circle and they wave at an imaginary crowd in an imaginary stand, even though their audience is often no more than two men and a dog. That is proof enough of the powerful mechanism that nobody can take away from us: our imagination. And for me that is exactly where football and photography come together.

The book European Fields, The Landscape of Lower Leaue Football was published in spring 2006 by SteidlMack in London. It has a hardback edition and appeared as paperback edition in 5 different languages (See also under 'books')

The exhibition took of at museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam in 2006 and has been traveling since. For more information see Paradox.nl