Back row standing · 1907–1924
The Eleven
The team photograph — the oldest ritual in the game and the one that never changed. Arms folded, back row standing, the ball on the ground in front with the year painted on it. Barnsley to Geneva, 1907 to 1924.
The pieces in The Eleven
Unknown photographer · 1909
A Yorkshire Eleven, 1909
Back row standing, front row seated, ball on the ground with the season painted on it.
The pose outlasted the moustaches, the boots, and the century.
Unknown photographer · 1910
A Market-Town Eleven, 1910–11
The whole pyramid’s foundation — a small-town side, photographed as carefully as any champion.
The game is made of the four hundred clubs that are not famous.
Unknown photographer · 1907
A Haarlem Eleven, 1907
The Dutch game at the water’s edge — the oldest continental club photograph in the house.
A sport travels as a rulebook and a pose.
Unknown photographer · 1920
A Saint-Ouen Eleven, 1920
The working-class club of the Paris north, in the first season after the war.
French football’s heartland was the ring of workshops.
Unknown photographer · 1920
A Geneva Eleven, 1920
A panoramic team plate nearly three times as wide as it is tall — the whole club, ground included.
A portrait not of people but of a Sunday.
Agence Rol · 1921
The France Eleven, Parc des Princes, 1921
A national side at the Parc — the eleven that had to be assembled from a country still learning.
Every football country has this photograph in its past.
Unknown photographer · 1924
A Marseille Eleven, 1924
The south of France at the Stade Élisabeth — a port city’s club, up in Paris.
Football came ashore in the ports, and they never gave it back.
Agence Rol · 1922
A Player, 1922
The single-figure studio portrait — a footballer photographed the way an actor was.
Someone decided a player was worth a portrait.