Hans van der Meer
Goalkeepers
From the fields of European amateur football

Football is part of our European culture and football grounds are part of our landscape; you find them in every country, city, town, village… To tell that story Dutch photographer Hans van der Meer started from 1995 on to take pictures at lower league matches, that show the world beyond as well as the game itself. First in The Netherlands, resulting in his famous books Dutch Fields (1998), and after that across Europe followed by the book European Fields (2006). The ability to casually capture the local environment became the most important factor in his choice of which matches to attend. This selection of landscapes featuring only a goalkeeper comes from his complete archive from 1995 to 2012 and includes 19 European countries.

Hans van der Meer: »Framing the scenery from a fixed and often elevated vantagepoint, half of the time the players had moved to the other end of the pitch. The remaining goalkeepers seemed to be standing on an empty stage, waiting for the other actors to come their way again. That image was always somehow irresistible; one I had to take. Bringing together a selection of these landscapes with isolated goalkeepers is a tribute to all these remote places where amateur players live their dreams, far away from the Champions League.

English edition by FW Books, Amsterdam