This essay examines archiving football culture as a radical and necessary act. Far from nostalgia, archiving is approached as a critical practice that questions who is remembered, who is forgotten, and how football’s history is constructed. By engaging with photographs, analogue artefacts and overlooked visual traces, the article analyses how archives shape understandings of football beyond the pitch.

Drawing on examples from women’s football, supporters’ culture, garments and early photographic practices, the essay shows how football’s meanings are embedded in materials, gestures and everyday objects. These archives reveal social hierarchies, cultural identities and political tensions that are often absent from dominant narratives.

Ultimately, archiving is positioned as a tool for constructing new truths about football’s past and present. In a context of digital acceleration and cultural amnesia, preserving and reactivating analogue material restores visibility to marginalised histories and reframes football as a plural, global and deeply social phenomenon.

Originally published in SEASON Zine, Issue 11, Truth or Dare (2025), featuring Naomi Girma on the cover.

Share LinkedIn, X, WhatsApp, Bluesky