Series
The Away End
Essays on the people who follow the game: the rooms where they gather, the matches they remember and the hours they keep.
3 essays · Jul 27 – Sep 5, 2026
- 01
Strange MeetingRay Oldenburg called them third places: the rooms where a society does its unofficial living. Football has built one of the largest networks of them on earth, filled with people who would never otherwise have met — and who still insist they only came for the match.Jul 27 · 10 min read - 02
Games in MemoryThere were no televisions, and most days there was no match, either. The men talked anyway, in yards across Gaborone, from the afternoon until the light went. The boy was at knee height. The banter went right over his head.Jul 27 · 12 min read - 03Measured in SleepIn Jakarta the Champions League kicks off at three in the morning. Eleven thousand registered Arsenal supporters live across a hundred Indonesian branches, and many of them will be awake for it. Nobody drifts into that. Every instance of it is a decision.Sep 5 · 8 min read