'Why I love photographing Bradford's real, authentic people'

"The best asset of Bradford is its people - real, authentic people [and] Sunday league football represents that in a way."

For decades John Bolloten has captured working class communities, both in the city he has called home for 43 years and across the world as a documentary photographer.

His latest project is grassroots in name and nature.

Despite photographing heroin and crack cocaine addicts, football hooligans in Eastern Europe and bare-knuckle fighters, he believes his time spent with Bradford Sunday league team Red Lion FC forms some of his "roughest and rawest" work yet.

Bolloten spent two years photographing the "notorious" side attached to the pub of the same name in Manchester Road, made up of players predominantly from the BD6 and BD12 areas, which include neighbourhoods like Wibsey and Wyke.

"Red Lion did have a reputation and at one point they were suspended from the league for six weeks," he recalls from the comfort of his home a short distance from where the team played their home matches at Emsley Rec, as it is known locally.

"A lot of the time in Sunday league it doesn't have the discipline of the elite game, it's working-class culture, it can be undisciplined.

"It's just as passionate as the elite game and just as dramatic.

"It's not uncommon for arguments to break out, or worse."

Bolloten, a former substance misuse worker at Bradford Council, set out to capture that passion and drama with his unfiltered lens.

"It was very important to me not just to make propaganda or something that was sanitised, I wanted to show it as it really is," he said.

Those photos, which will feature in an 88-page book to be released next month, are not merely just about football, but according to Bolloten, a reflection of working-class culture.

"I'm interested in real, ordinary people," he said

"When I'm not working on particular projects you will often just find me walking about Bradford or Bradford city centre just documenting life as it is."

"Bradford has got so many great things, so much about it," adds Bolloten, who has titled his book Ciggies, Spliffs and Footie in honour of what he calls the "Sunday league breakfast".

"[But] the best asset of Bradford is its people - real, authentic people."

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