100 Weeks of Scotland: Perth | Peterhead | Aberdeen
Week Thirty
Like so many, I have been a football fan since I was a child. The fact that I am from from Perth obviously means St Johnstone are my team. Despite this, and alongside a lifelong series of disappointments from the Scotland national team, I am almost as enthusiastic as I was when I was 11 (not quite though, as just holding a Kenny Dalglish Panini sticker back then would make me hyper-ventilate).
In all the years of supporting St Johnstone we have won precisely zero major honours (a League Challenge Cup win and the glory of the Forfarshire Cup are pleasant diversions but are no more than competitions for also-rans). I look at teams like Celtic and Rangers and wonder if winning another League Cup really matters that much to them. It would be nice to find out though…
Advertisement
Hide Ad
It is the lower leagues, the smaller teams, the older grounds that interest me the most. In some ways what happens on the pitch is secondary to the events that take place before and after the game. The ceremony of football and the architecture of the game are what interest me the most. The thrill when walking to the ground on a freezing night, where the first glimpse of the floodlights will always quicken the blood.
So my images this week are from Perth, Peterhead, Cowdenbeath and Aberdeen. They show the periphery of the game, what to me make it so special. From the ramshackle club shop at Station Park, Cowdenbeath (easily one of my favourite grounds) through the pies and pitch invasions of Perth, to the clean angles of Peterhead and the rapidly disappearing floodlight pylons of Aberdeen this is a selection of what matters to me about football, and what has kept my interest for all the years since I first stood on a floodlit terrace watching St Johnstone battle it out against Dundee.
We won. 3-2.
About
Alan McCredie began the ‘one hundred weeks of scotland’ website in October last year, and it will conclude in Autumn 2014. McCredie’s goal is to chronicle two years of Scottish life in the run-up to the independence referendum.
McCredie says ‘one hundred weeks...’ is intended to show all sides of the country over the next two years. On the site, he says: “Whatever the result of the vote Scotland will be a different country afterward. These images will show a snapshot of the country in the run up to the referendum.
“The photos will be of all aspects of Scottish culture - politics, art, social issues, sport and anything else that catches the eye.”
You can follow the project at www.100weeksofscotland.com. You can also follow Alan on Twitter.
• All pictures (c) Alan McCredie/ 100 weeks of Scotland