Girl in a yellow Girls United London kit holding up the Rebel Girls Love the Game 2023 book
Two girls in Nike Made to Play bibs laughing together at a girls' football day in London
Girls United London players running past a pink Nike backdrop during a football session
Face painter adding a football design to a young player's cheek at a girls' football day
Two teammates leaning over a goal frame, laughing between drills
Line of polaroid portraits of young footballers pegged up at a girls' football day
Group of girls in light blue kit posing together at a girls' football day in London
Young footballer in profile with a football painted on her cheek

A Day of Girls' Football: Nike x Rebel Girls, London

Where a football day becomes a portrait session

This was one day in July 2023, in London, with girls from Girls United — part of the Nike x Rebel Girls programme that ran through the Women's World Cup. There were drills and small-sided games, but that isn't really what I came away with.

What I photographed was the girls. One holding up the Love the Game book like she'd won it. A football being painted onto a cheek, held very still. Two teammates folded over a goal frame, laughing at something off to the side. A line of polaroid portraits pegged up so everyone who came through could find herself on it. Kit that fits, a backdrop to run past, a photograph of your own small things, but they're the ones that tell a girl the day was built for her.

I shoot days like this the way I'd shoot a portrait session rather than a match: slowly, close in, waiting rather than chasing. The action is easy to get and mostly interchangeable. What isn't interchangeable is the face of someone realising she's the point of the whole thing. That's the frame I'm there for, and it usually happens when nothing much is going on.

The activation that ran around this day: the open-top bus, the target wall, the Paris leg is on its own page: brand activation photography for the Nike x Rebel Girls tour. More girls' and women's football in a grassroots under-15s match in north London and the Super 5 League, or across the sports photography portfolio.