The universal sadness of lost footballs
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The story of one Twitter account obsessed with love, loss, football and indie music
If you’ve ever risked submersion when using a big stick to fish out a football from a pond, or felt the hopelessness that is watching your World Cup ball loop into the miserable next-door neighbour’s garden, then you’ll appreciate @lostfootballs.
Set up by 43-year-old Matt Lutz, this Twitter account (with a sister account on Instagram) captures the universal sadness of discarded, burst or irretrievable footballs.
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Matt had the idea one morning while out walking the dog.
“I noticed this football sitting lost in the park behind our house," he tells me. "I took a photo and posted it on Twitter. Loads of people responded to tell me how sad they thought it looked.”
“My brother is a sports journalist. He retweeted the image and it picked up from there. Within two or three days, we had 500-600 followers and people suddenly started sending photographs to me." He now gets regularly tagged in other people's posts.
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Matt emphasises the poignancy of the scenes by setting them to sad lyrics from (mostly) late nineties and early noughties lad rock anthems.
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Eighteen months ago, Matt asked his friend Adam to help maintain the account.
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“We befriended each other on Twitter and got to discussing the Blues (Birmingham City),” Adam tells me, “Then we got a season ticket sat together and we’ve been best friends ever since.”
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“We’ve had them sent in from all over the world - Thailand, all over Europe, Central America. Every continent apart from Antarctica, I think. That’s the goal I guess,” Matt explains.
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“There’s always a story behind every ball isn’t there?" Matt says. "Often it’s like, ‘How on earth did that get there? How did it get up that tree or on top of that fence?’”
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There’s also something quite universal about the anguish of losing a football. Matt remembers kicking his new Mitre Delta into Moseley Pond as a lad.
“My Dad had to get up at 7am the next morning and wade into the pond to get it,” he tells me.
Lost Footballs is by no means the only account online that does this, but perhaps what makes Matt and Adam’s account unique are the lyrics they post with each picture.
“It’s mostly indie music from the late nineties or early 2000s,” Matt explains. “We’re both ex-ravers as well, so we throw some dance tunes in too. I’d say our followers are mostly people like us – football fans who like a bit of indie and a bit of dance.”
“It’s just loads of versions of us,” adds Adam.
They’ve also attracted the attention of some of their heroes, including ex-professional footballers and musicians.
“We’ve been sent photos by band members from Los Campesinos and The Coral!” Matthew tells me.
“One of the Undertones followed us too. That was a bit of a moment for us. And there are a few ex-footballers who follow us too, including Paul Lake – a former Manchester City midfielder who was going to be the next big thing before injury kicked in. If you’re a fan of early Championship Manager, he was a big deal in that.”
What are their favourite photos?
“We got sent this photo of a ball outside a church,” Matt tells me, “There’s this statue and the ball is wedged between his shoulder and his head. It’s a beautiful shot.”
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Adam chooses one from Birmingham City’s St Andrew’s stadium.
“There’s a great shot of the top of one of the stands,” he tells me, “You can see all these balls stacked up there. There’s quite a few. Probably a good indication of the team’s quality...”
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“And there’s this beautiful one where you can see the snow falling really crisply,” he remembers.
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Then there’s what Matthew calls 'the Holy Grail' of lost football photos – the ball-stuck-on-top-of-a-bus-stop photograph.
“I was looking for one of those for ages,” Matthew tells me. “It got sent to us by a bloke from Newcastle – where they call a 99p flyaway a ‘penny floater’.”
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When I ask them if they have any plans to do anything else with the pictures, they both tell me that it would be great to see them end up in some kind of arty coffee-table book. For now, it seems like they’ve got a lot on their hands.
“It becomes quite an obsession,” Matthew tells me, “You find yourself looking for them all the time and thinking of song lyrics that would work. My daughter thinks I’m very sad.”
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