It’s Nice to Know You’re Here by Conrad Tracy

It’s Nice to Know You’re Here…

Port Vale is the football club that I support. I am tied to the club emotionally, socially, and culturally. They are my club. Growing up in North Staffordshire there’s a good chance you will support one of the two teams within the Potteries conurbation. I ended up supporting the one that plays in black and white, in the ‘Mother Town’ of Burslem. 

The images that I made of the supporters of ‘The Vale’ during the mid ‘90’s capture a sense of both the socio-cultural and football zeitgeist of the time, and provide an important insight into the historically embedded relationship between people, place and space. 

Working class culture is intrinsically woven into the fabric of football, like the stripes in a hand knitted bar scarf. Being a football supporter is more than 90 minutes of unconditional support for your team. It’s about family and friends, camaraderie, belonging and a shared sense of hope, joy, and often disappointment. It's about the bonds that provide a real and meaningful sense of community, and the images in this book hopefully document a little piece of my, and many others, relationship with it. 

It’s Nice to Know You’re Here hopes to welcome those who have never had the joy of a wet Tuesday evening at a lower league football ground, and remind those that have, that despite what happens on the pitch, we still have each other. 

Conrad Tracy

Biography:

Conrad Tracy is a Documentary Photographer and Academic, bought up in North Staffordshire, but now living in Bournemouth, Dorset.

Professionally Conrad has freelanced for many editorial clients, including The Observer Magazine and the Saturday and Sunday Times Magazines, while also seeing his work published in a variety of publications, including, most recently NPLH Magazine.

Conrad’s documentary work has been exhibited nationally over the last 20 years, including at Derby Photography Festival and as part of a group exhibition, run by Philosophy Football, at The Royal Festival Hall. Most recently he has held a solo exhibition at the Parkside Gallery Birmingham, titled Sometimes Antisocial, Always Antifascist, which explored the alternative fan culture of Hamburg’s FC Sankt Pauli. 

Conrad continues to make personal work, which broadly looks at masculinity, class and culture, which has clearly been influenced by his own lived experience.

As Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Commercial Photography course, at the Arts University Bournemouth (AUB), Conrad has written and developed an internationally well-respected programme, and is proud to have supported the development and education of many successful photographers and creatives who are now established within their own right.

Within the Higher Education sector, Conrad is well respected, including being elected Chair of The Association for Photography in Higher Education (APHE) between 2011-14 and being honoured by the Royal Photographic Society in 2013 for Outstanding Achievements/Sustained

Contribution in Photographic Education. Additionally, Conrad chaired the War on Want Photography Award- Document as well as Co-curating the International Student Photography Exhibition as part of New York Photography Festival.