Supported by Darlington Borough Council

We're grateful for the financial assistance of Northern Arts' lottery funding.

Around 1,200 photographs were taken over four months for the Farewell to Feethams project. More than a dozen photographers were involved, some amateur, others semi-professional. Working in small groups or individually they took pictures in and around the ground, behind the scenes, on match days and when the stadium was empty. There was a "hit list" of suggested areas around the ground to capture different scenes, but photographers were also left to their own devices and imaginations.

The best work is being exhibited, but Darlington Supporters' Trust will keep the negatives of all the images taken, which will form a new archive. Many old photographs have been lost or destroyed and very little exists of the club or Feethams before the 1960s.

Meet the photographers

A WINNING TEAM: The Farewell to Feethams photographers, as taken on the launch night at the Arts Centre - by Darlington chairman George Reynolds!.

JIM LYCETT is chairman of Darlington Camera Club, is also with the Castle Group of Photographers and a member of Darlington media group. Now a semi-retired academic, Jim has exhibited work in Darlington before. His commissions include the Riverside stadium at Middlesborough FC and a series of his recent landscape images were chosen for Darlington borough council's 2002 calendar.

Jim has been managing the project for the Camera Club. He'd never been to a professional football match before starting work on Farewell to Feethams. "There was a real cross section of people, of all ages, who'd come along to enjoy the football. There were PA announcements at the start, saying we were there, the club bent over backwards and the fans were very helpful. They actually wanted to pose for us, which isn't quite what we wanted! As a camera club, we welcomed this project with open arms, it was a great opportunity."

ADRIAN WINTLE is a 27-year-old IT officer at a college. Farewell to Feethams was a new challenge. Although he'd been to football matches before when he lived in Gillingham, his photography often means operating alone, with close-up work involving flowers and butterflies. "This was a new experience for me. Normally my subjects don't move very much or at all but I did find some mushrooms growing out of the stairs in the West Stand, although I didn't have the right lens with me!" Visiting fans had kicked away the offending fungii by the time of the next visit.

DON GILES, a retired electricity board manager, caught the football bug a little at Feethams, having never been before. "I've never been a great football fan, but having gone to a some of the matches, I found it quite rewarding. What you see on the TV, you think it's going to be all trouble and violence, but it was very friendly and family-orientated."

Although most of his photography before had been industrial and city scapes, Don was keen to capture the human side of Feethams, rather than the stadium itself. "What really interested me was the people, the raw emotion, the passion and how they'd rise up as one. The supporters hardly noticed we were there, they were so engaged in the games." Don, whose recently moved back to Darlington after working in Scotland for 30 years, said Feethams seemed to have changed little since he used to visit the cricket club for cycling meets. "The two football grounds in Edinburgh where we lived were very much in the centre of the city, one in quite a hard-pressed area. But Feethams was very different, a very pleasant setting, with that entrance and walk around the cricket pitch."

The only football match RON GRAINGER had ever been to before was at Feethams, back in the late 1940s on Boxing Day. "They were stuffed with Christmas pud' and just stood about. The ball was in the air the whole time, it was rubbish and I got home and thought 'I'm not going to bother with that again' And he kept his word, until the Farewell to Feethams project! At 72, Ron, a retired engineer, has incredibly been with Darlington Camera Club since 1949. "This is the biggest thing we've been involved in as a group. The photographs I've seen, I think it's gone very well. You don't really see them properly as 10x8s until they're at full size and ready and there were a couple of shots I was pleased with."

He did once get a flea in his ear when he knocked on the dressing room doors before a game, although one photo he managed captures the scene wonderfully - Darlington winger Richard Hodgson wearing the towel of the club he supported as a boy, Sunderland, while to the left is an abandoned tatics board. "I work in portraiture and landscape mainly. We had a lot to get through in a short time and sometimes the weather took its toll. I'd really love to go back and take some more photos. "

Apart from a new stand, a roof on the North Terrace and oh, floodlights, there were other changes since 1946. "There's a lot more down there now than I remember, and probably the language is worse! Probably the golden age was during the War when they had guest players, stationed at Catterick. But I'd like to think there's some hope, it would be good to see some youngsters get a chance and be the future. The new stadium is fantastic and I wish them all the luck."

ALLAN HALL had only recently joined the Camera Club before the Feethams project began: "It came together very quickly and considering the restricted time we had, the quality didn't deteriorate," he said. "If we'd had the chance, it would have been better to have started earlier. I'd love to do it again - this time from the very start of a season."

Allan, 39, specialises in sports photography, but mainly motor sport at the Croft-on-Tees circuit. "It's one thing having a football coming towards you, a car is something else - there wasn't quite the same insurance involved! I'd been to Feethams a couple of times before, but never to take photographs. I tended to work in one of the corners, so I could move around a bit. There were some moments when you could feel the excitement. The Luton match (a late comeback for Darlo to win 3-2)- the light had gone, we'd just put our cameras away and the noise from the crowd, you could really feel it. My favourite shot was perhaps one of the opposition goalkeeper at I think the last match, a night game,, standing on his own with absolutely nothing round him. He was completely out there on his own, not a person in sight.(Evocative but not a completely unknown sight at Feethams, I tell him..!)"

BOB RAFFERTY has plenty of experience taking pictures of football fans - but in his old job as police photographer. He was a regular at Ayresome Park, with part of his job picking out football hooligans in the 1970s and 80s. "Let's just say I had some interesting times following Middlesbrough!" said Bob. "I remember a time I think against Wigan, some fans were throwing themselves at the fence to get at us. So this was the first time I'd been to Feethams or to games not associated with work, and what a difference! It was really friendly, a real family atmosphere, in the East Stand and in the Tin Shed. It's really improved, there's obviously still a small hard core and there's still something attached to the Hartlepool game but Feethams was like the pre-hooligan days - like going back to the '50s or 60s."

Bob, who was after photos of characters and the crowds, said fans were always coming up for a chat. "I used a long lens so I could capture people more naturally, catching them unawares. There were some really nice shots of fathers talking to sons for example." The retired detective sergeant, who also served as a scenes of crimes officer with experience of murder scenes for 14 years, has been with the Camera Club for a year, but has also exhibited with Northern Exposure and is a member of the Castle Group of photographers.

"I thoroughly enjoyed my job but it's nice to get out and photograph for pleasure. The project's worked well, it's a bit of history in the making. I can't ever see Darlington coming back to Feethams and it's something to take to the new stadium. People in 30 or 40 years time will be able to look at the photos and say, 'Oh, so that was Feethams.'It's part of our history."

TONY McLEAN, 46, was born and brought up within shouting distance of Feethams in Victoria Road. "You could see the ground from the window in the flat," he said. "I remember finding a 10 bob note once by one of the kiosks - it bought us all a few sweets!" Tony though hadn't been to Feethams for about 30 years. "I went down a lot until I was a teenager. The Tinshed hadn't changed a great deal and the West Stand is just the same and the smell was the same - the Bovril. When I was 12 or 13, I remember a girl with ginger hair getting hit with a bottle, so at least that's changed."

Tony's photos include Mabel Neil and her son David in the programme hut - Mabel, who's 80, has been a Feethams regular for 55 years and selling programmes for at least 15 years. "We became quite used to having our photograph taken!" said David. Tony has also been involved in the project as a member of Darlington Media Group, he's also been involved in printing and framing for the exhibition.

BERNARD GARNER normally works with colour slides, so this meant a return to monochrome for him. It was his first visit to Feethams and was another surprised by the friendliness in the crowd. "I tried to get a feel of the ground from the outside. Then inside I was trying to capture the elation in the crowd, that moment when they'd scored a goal. But you've got to be quick or it's gone. Then I was down at the wrong end, so all I had was the opposition scoring - not quite what I had in mind! One of my favouries, there was a shot of two ball boys, I liked that one."

ROBERT ELLIOTT, a civil servant, was another first time visitor to Feethams. His match-day photographs included scenes that fans wouldn't necessarily see - including first aiders and security briefings, as well as capturing the essence of what a traditional stadium was about.

"There were certain images, like the programme sellers' hut as you walk through the entrance- people with tales to tell. I suppose you wouldn't get something quite like that in some new stadiums. Who knows in the future they may even sell them in coin-operated machines. I also took photos of the hot dog stall, even the decimal prices - in a few years time we might have the euro and it could be part of history, I suppose not everyone might think of that. I'd like to go back again and get some more shots in fact. There are things like the carving, where people have put their intitials in the back of some of the old seats in the West Stand."

His visits included night matches, although photographers weren't allowed to use flashes. "That's no problem for me, I don't like using a flash. I just use a fast film. In any case, it draws attention to yourself. But when I went in February, with the floodlights and in drizzle, it was very atmospheric."

PAUL and JANICE WOODHOUSE are a husband and wife team who run a photography business in the town. "Because of the shop, we didn't have a lot of time - Saturday's and even evenings weren't always convenient, so I wish I had more pictures," said Paul. "I'm a landscape photographer more than anything, particularly in places like the Lakes. I suppose a football ground is part of the urban landscape. I took photographs of fans coming into the ground and also the stadium when it was empty, which was a bit eerie really. I hadn't been to Feethams for a long time. It had changed, there was more segregation than in the old days - the crowd were all over the place and used to change ends at half time. You've got the new Calsberg Stand, but then the stand opposite, which looks just the same as it always did."

Janice, whose work includes landscapes and portraits, said of the project: "I'd never been involved with anything like this before in photography. I got to an evening match about an hour before kick off, but I'd nearly run out of film just after the match kicked off! One photograph I liked was of a little boy before the crowds really arrived, looking a bit sad waiting for people to come in and for things to start."

WENDY RICHARDSON had been to Feethams before, but was more used to watching Wilf Mannion and George Hardwick at Middlesbrough. Retired after working in education and the arts, Wendy also paints. Her approach on her two visits to Feethams was taking along colour and black and white cameras and"taking fun pictures..I never win prizes." . "I wasn't really interested in the ground, it was the people," she said.. "Supporters were happy to have their photos taken, I'd say "you look lovely, can I have a photo?" and then I'd also take one a bit later when they weren't looking and perhaps weren't so lovely! I liked the anticipation, people's faces when they were waiting for something to happen. Also the stewards, the security people, ball boys, the kids serving the hot dogs, people just getting on with their jobs."

NICK BLAKE was something of an odd man out - as a season ticket holder and a member of Darlington Supporters' Trust, but not the Camera Club, he was very familiar with Feethams. A keen photographer, he asked to join the project, but while some of the non-football fans enthusiastically took pictures of action on the pitch, Nick looked elsewhere. "I went for a few more obscure angles, images that were a little bit out of the ordinary, rather than football-orientated." One of Nick's photographs is of a figure peering through a fence at the Polam Lane end. "It was my daughter Beth. We'd gone down before the match and she went up to the gate to have a look at what was going on - I told her to stay where she was and I took the photo."

There were also "guest" photographers MALCOLM NOBLE and KATHRYN MOUNCEY, who both contributed pictures - Kathryn, a retired professional photographer was passing close to Feethams and captured the shot of the match in progress at Darlington Cricket Club. Malcolm, a freelance photographer and part-time lecturer, started following Darlington when his brother Alan, now club president, became vice chairman at the end of the 1980s. "I will be sad when we leave which is why I started to photograph and document the particular things that this ground holds dear to many people," said Malcolm, a regular with his son. For the exhibition, he contributed a photograph of the main "Twin Towers" entrance, which was chosen over a wide variety.

Words by Steve Duffy

Other credits

DIGITAL DARKROOM:
Paul Dillon
Jim Lycett

PHOTOGRAPHIC DARKROOM:
Jim Lycett
Tony McLean

Technical specifications

FILM STOCK: FUJI Neopan 1600 processed Pyrogallol (PMK)
PAPER STOCK: ILFORD MGIV FB Archived Selenium and
PERMAJET Oyster UV protected
MOUNTED: Daler Acid Free Conservation Board

Project overview

By Jim Lycett, chairman of Darlington Camera Club

The project, an exhibition of 40 fine art monochrome photographs, was conceived to coincide with the departure of Darlington FC from Feethams, to a new purpose built stadium on the outskirts of the town.

The initial task was to gather 10 photographers together to form a shooting team. Such was the response, the original number of 10 grew to a staggering 15 photographers drawn from the Darlington Camera Club, Darlington Media Group and the Castle Group of Photographers.

Even with this number, there was still the room to invite two guest photographers.

From the outset the project was marked with enthusiasm, and considered a personal challenge to all. Many of the photographers had never visited a professional football match prior to the project.

The project demanded a new style of image to convey the emotions, recollections and memories, and to commemorate this local ground, thus, monochrome images were considered to be appropriate.

One of the immediate challenges was to obtain high quality images in near zero light conditions during the winter afternoon and evening games. For this, a very fast film, Fuji Neopan 1600 film was selected and used throughout the project. Using Pyro developer (PMK), an organic 19th century development technique, large grain associated with fast film was minimised by the tanning effect of the developer.

All images seen in the exhibition have been printed conventionally on fibre-based paper, selenium toned, stretch dried on glass and suspended on acid free conservation board.

Photographers were given a shooting schedule, but a free hand regarding the types of shot to be taken. The only criterion to be adopted was that the majority of shots should have some recognisable Feethams content. After all the entire exhibition is to celebrate Feethams. At times difficult decisions had to be made, particularly during a game, when the football crowd became excited. So easy was it to get carried away with home team euphoria that concentration fell away from crowd reaction shots and centred on activities on the field!

Some 1,200 hundred images were taken during the project, with approximately 400 selected for possible inclusion. This was further reduced by careful selection to 40 final images.

Without doubt all photographers taking part, enjoyed participating in the project and learned a tremendous amount about shooting and composing on the move - and football!!

The photographs featured on this page include"TIME LAPSE: The 1960 floodlight pylon and the 1997 East Stand on the Feethams skyline. Photographer: Jim Lycett. Sponsored by Oerlikon Welding." The evocative floodlit image of the back of the North Terrace SHED SOME LIGHT was also taken by Jim Lycett. The other two photographs, of the groundsman marking the pitch and of a queue at the programme hut, are in the archive, but don't feature in the main exhibition. E-mail us at darlotrust@hotmail.com