Hans van der Meer
European Fields: The Landscape of Lower League Football
Van der Meer has applied his democratic viewpoint across the playing fields of Europe over the past decade, having travelled to every country with a significant history of the game. He began by focusing on sites within the Netherlands and in 1998 he published Dutch Fields, followed by a DVD, Flemish Fields, in 2000. His European odyssey has since taken him from small towns in the remote regions of Europe - from Bihariain in Romania to Björkö in Sweden, from Torp in Norway to Alcsóörs in Hungary, from Bartkowo in Poland to Beire in Portugal - and to the fringes of the major conurbations of Greece, Finland, England, France, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, Holland, Slovakia, Denmark, Ireland, Wales, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Spain and Italy.
These acute and subtle observations of the poetry and absurdity of human behaviour connect the game of football to the basic futility of the human condition. The small tragicomedies are dwarfed by the serenity and permanence of the natural or man-made world that surrounds them but in their pathos can be found the original passion and humanity of the game.