Bradford City marked this year’s Weeks of Action campaign by unveiling their ‘Being a Bantam’ photo exhibition, a series of photographs taken by Bradford fans with a learning disability.
The series of 25 photographs will be permanently displayed at the Coral Windows stadium and aims to explore the benefits of football fandom for learning disabled people, celebrating the diversity of football fandom and de-stigmatising learning disability.
The project is the idea of Dr Kris Southby, Research Officer in the School of Health and Community Studies at Leeds Beckett.
Dr Southby explained: “Many football clubs have a disability team, and so I approached several clubs’ community contacts and asked to be put into contact with players that were also fans of their club who would be interested in speaking about their experiences of going to games. I had a total of 15 participants, all with various types of learning disabilities. We spoke about being what a football fan meant to them and I attended games with them to experience what is was like first-hand. Some people with a learning disability can also struggle to fully explain their thoughts; so I decided to use photography in my research, getting them to take photos and then use these as prompts in conversations.”
The exhibition was unveiled on the 9th April at Bradford’s home game with Swindon Town where members of Bradford Disability Football Club and Swindon Town Community Foundation also took part in two special games played on the main pitch at half time as part of the club’s Weeks of Action celebrations.
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21.04.16