It's nice to know you're here

It's nice to know you're here
by Conrad Tracy
A5/148mm x 210mm
44 pages
Saddle stitched / Risograph card cover

1ST PRINTING (SOLD OUT)
2ND PRINTING (SOLD OUT)

Port Vale is the football club that I support. I am tied to the club emotionally, socially, and culturally. They are my club. Growing up in North Staffordshire there’s a good chance you will support one of the two teams within the Potteries conurbation. I ended up supporting the one that plays in black and white, in the ‘Mother Town’ of Burslem. 
 
The images that I made of the supporters of ‘The Vale’ during the mid ‘90’s capture a sense of both the socio-cultural and football zeitgeist of the time, and provide an important insight into the historically embedded relationship between people, place and space. 
 
Working class culture is intrinsically woven into the fabric of football, like the stripes in a hand knitted bar scarf. Being a football supporter is more than 90 minutes of unconditional support for your team. It’s about family and friends, camaraderie, belonging and a shared sense of hope, joy, and often disappointment. It's about the bonds that provide a real and meaningful sense of community, and the images in this book hopefully document a little piece of my, and many others, relationship with it. 
  
It’s Nice to Know You’re Here hopes to welcome those who have never had the joy of a wet Tuesday evening at a lower league football ground, and remind those that have, that despite what happens on the pitch, we still have each other.