Gods of the Astro: Part one
Welcome to the underground scene that is the beating heart & soul of the game we all love…

Words:
James BirdImages:
Gods of the Astro is a week-long investigation into the strangers across the United Kingdom who come together to play football every morning, afternoon, and night. These aren’t your 7-a-side post-work commitments or your Sunday League sloggers, these are groups of people who choose to play football with whoever else is up for a game. It’s like a secret society, but with goal celebrations instead of dodgy handshakes. We’ve split this feature in five parts, here’s part one…
How do you stop thinking about everything? How do you make your mind take a pause from the whirring and the worries and the asking questions? So many questions. Why did I say that last night? Where am I going with my job? How on earth am I going to ever pay off my student loan and my tax and where does the money from my pension actually go? When do I class myself as grown up? Can AI do all of this better than me?
I’ve realised the only time this happens is when I play football. When I play football, I absolutely do not think of anything else. I do not think about my bills or the condensation in my house; I do not think about how happy my brother and my parents are; I do not think about global injustice or work or home. When I play football, I only think about football. I think about getting to the ball first; I think about trying to open up my body with my first touch; I think about playing a teammate into space, I think about scoring goals, I think about using every part of my underused body to do something briefly beautiful.
When I play football, I think I might be in that magical place between waking and sleeping.
And away from the Premier League, the money, the lack of checks and balances, the disparity. Somewhere away from the orchestra of mud and damp kits and snapping ankles of Sunday league. Somewhere even slightly removed from your weekly seven-a-side team is a magical place where this happens in its purest form.
Every night, across the country, organised football matches are happening between complete strangers. Through sector leaders like Footy Addicts, who have been developing their product since 2013, through to individuals starting WhatsApp groups and growing them player by player and initiatives such as Terrible Football—founded for people who want to play but don’t think there is a game that exists for them—there is a secret world where football is organised for anyone who wants it.

To explain how this world works, Footy Addicts is the simplest model. Fancy a game with no commitment? Open the site or app, type in what time and what city you’d like to play, and up come the results. ‘Five spaces at Paradise Park at 7pm’, ‘Two spaces at Powerleague Liverpool at 5pm’, ‘Eleven spaces at Lordswood High, Birmingham’. Pay your fee, not much at all, and arrive at a green and gleaming world with footballs, bibs, and other people looking for a game at a time that suits them. It’s Uber for football matches, Tinder for finding teammates, Deliveroo for filling yourself with goals instead of grease.
It’s here where a forty-year-old veteran centre half from Northampton turns up and forms a defensive bond with a twenty-year-old attacking midfielder from Venezuela who’s never played before. It’s here where a 30-year-old who’s moved from Cornwall to London and doesn’t know anyone finds a group of people also looking to make connections with others. It’s here where people working shifts overnight find a game kicking off at a suitable time to get stuck in. It’s here where people find their place to not think about anything else.
So, with photographer Jon, videographer Tom, and Art Director Alex, we jumped into a car to find them.
THE TESCO BAG CARRIER

In the car on the way to Liverpool, Alex and I explain to Tom that things happen when Jon is involved. You’ll see him, and within thirty seconds, he’ll be saying, “LAD, honestly, you’ll never guess what just happened.” And the thing that has happened? You will never guess it.
We arrive at Jericho Lane football pitches, just across from the River Mersey as it turns from grey blue to deep black with the sun going down, and meet Jon in the car park. It’s 6pm, and it’s your classic astro pitch affair. Leisure centre entrance, big floodlights making your sweaty armpits glisten, shouts of GIVE AND GO filtering through the fences. There are a couple of five-a-side games going on across a quarter of a pitch, some kids scoring bangers with their dad on the unused other half, and a training session for some young girls down the side.
Luke turns up with a cotton beanie pulled down to his eyebrows, a Tesco carrier bag for life swinging at his hip, and a thick moustache that says he may well have read MUNDIAL before. And then it happens.