GLORY: EXPLORERS OF THE BEAUTIFUL GAME BEAUTIFULLY DOCUMENTED

Business, Culture & Lifestyle, Feature, Sport, Travel
C.S

August 19, 2023

“It has been an incredible journey, and what we’ve managed to achieve and create from nothing, it has been nothing short of madness, to be honest.”

FOOTBALL CULTURE TRAVEL

Glory uncovers the stories, moments, and memories in football that need to be told. It gives a voice to the people who have made our game beautiful and deserve to be heard.

For me, Glory defines what football should be about. It preserves the integrity and fabric of what our game was built on, the game I have grown up with and the one I fell truly, madly, and deeply in love with.

In 2016, Ipswich Town supporter Lee Nash, and Ryan Mason, set out to create a football magazine that documented the beautiful game, by travelling the world in search of alternative football cultures in the most remote, exotic, or unusual destinations.

Glory is now a team of award designers, writers, and photographers who explore a world beyond the money and monopolies of modern-day football to find the true essence and romanticism of a game that was made for the people by the people.

What is that that makes Glory special? It’s different. Each issue is beautifully designed, curated, and crafted, and it feels like you’re holding something special – a genuine collector’s item.

It is a voyage of different countries, cities, and teams and takes you on an adventure through the past, present, and future. It is an exploration that unearths untold stories, meets cult heroes, and delves into the heart of places like Kosovo, Cagliari, Seville, and beyond. It is football, travel, and culture in a way that hasn’t been done before.

“Glory was and to this day remains a passion project that one day I hope can become a legacy,” explains Glory’s Creative Director, Lee Nash. “Something that I could tell my grandchildren about. Maybe when I’m retired, I can sit back and look through old issues and smile at the memories we made.”

The first-ever issue of Glory in 2016 took in the incredible rise of Faroese football and looked beneath the surface of Europe’s remotest league.

“We did a bit of research at the time and we found that the Faroe Islands was the best-supported domestic league in the world because 40% of their population went to football games.

“It’s a tiny set of islands, but that kind of ratio was huge. So, we decided to try and make the Faroe Islands our first issue.”

Glory introduced a completely different way of looking at football, and was at the forefront of the football culture movement we see now.

The Faroe Island’s issue captured the incredible scenery of a fascinating country, highlighting the sheer beauty and landscape of some of the most isolated football pitches in the world. It invited us into the world of cult goalkeeping hero Jens Martin Knudsen, as well as taking us to meet Skansin – a group of die-hard supporters bringing a new dimension to the Faroe Islands’ international games.

It was during this trip to the Faroes that Lee realised this idea he and Ryan had conceived was now actually happening. It was no longer a dream. As surreal as it was, he now had to put together his first-ever football magazine.

“I’m a big believer in ‘Fake it till you make it,” Lee tells us. “When we first started, we didn’t have press cards, we really didn’t know what we do.

“I mean, I’m not a photographer, but I was standing there in the Faroe Islands as an official UEFA photographer and I had no idea what I was doing.

“I remember standing there and thinking, ‘We’re really doing this.’ It was a real pinch-me moment. To be honest, even now eight years on I still can’t believe it.”

As football around the world emerges for a new season, the tabloids and mainstream media for the most part will be awash with stories of billionaire owners, disgruntled fans, playboy players, and managers facing the sack. The ugly side of the game that tarnishes its beauty. Beyond that though is Glory, where the real heart of football lies. And as long as we have that, we’ll always have the game we love.

It was an absolute pleasure to sit down with Lee Nash, as we looked back at the very beginnings of Glory and the stories he has made along the way.

IT’S THESE STORIES THAT MAKE FOOTBALL THE GAME WE KNOW AND LOVE

I used to work at an agency in Norwich alongside an account manager, called Ryan Mason who did photography on the side.

I remember one night sitting at home, and Ryan put on Facebook that he was thinking about setting up a football magazine with a real travel slant, and asked ‘Who was interested?’

I was the first one to come back to him and afterwards, I knew there were a few other colleagues who were kicking themselves as they were also really keen.

We sat down together and started putting together a few ideas. At that time there weren’t many independent football titles like there are now like. We’ve seen a real explosion in the last couple of years.

We were getting a little bit disillusioned by just how disposable football journalism was becoming. In the digital age you’re flicking through stuff, you’re not taking it in, and we wanted to create something that just had some real longevity.

We were big fans of magazines like Cereal. They were a huge influence on us at the time. Just the way that they shot stuff, the composition of the actual magazine itself, and how they used photography to tell 1000 words.

So we thought, this could really work for football, and how about if we themed every issue on a different country or a different city?

No one was doing this at this time, and nobody was owning the football, travel space. So, we thought great! we’ve got a concept. Now we need a destination. So we did a bit of research. And we found that the Faroe Islands was the best-supported domestic league in the world because 40% of their population at that time went to football games.

It’s a tiny set of islands, but that kind of ratio was huge. So, we decided to try and make the Faroe Islands our first issue.

What came next was a stroke of luck. We reached out to the Faroe Tourist Board, and we explained our concept, and what it is we were trying to do.

As luck would have it, the Head of the Tourist Board at the time was a guy called Levi Hanssen who happened to be a footballer who played for the national side.

He completely got what we were trying to do and he said, ‘You know what, guys, I love the concept we will pay for you to come over.’

They sorted out accommodation, they sorted out a hire car for us, and lined up interviews with the captain of the national team and their top goal scorer.

Within about six weeks of conceiving the idea, we found ourselves pitch-side at an official UEFA qualifier against Romania.

The whole thing moved so quickly, It was absolutely crazy. We had never run a magazine before, so you’ve got me as a creative director and you’ve got Ryan as a photographer and we were roaming around the Island chatting to fans trying to get as much content as possible. We actually ended up becoming really good friends with their Ultra Group, Skansin, who we still keep in touch with to this day.

When we got back to the UK, we had all this content, we had some ridiculously good images that Ryan had shot, and we had lots of interviews and tapes from various people that we were chatting to. But we didn’t have a writer, and we didn’t even have a name for the magazine.

The game we went to against Romania was in October, but we didn’t launch the issue until March, because it took us that long to come up with a name, get a real aesthetic for the magazine and get a writer on board.

Once we secured a writer, we then had to try and brief him and get him to almost write as if he was there himself. So the first issue was a real eye-opener for us. But it was really exciting because it was the very start of our journey.

Once we had published the first issue of Glory, it became easier, because we had a physical product that we could send to Football Associations and Tourists Boards and say, ‘This is what we do.’

We’re different from your usual football magazines, mainly because we try to uncover stories that not everyone is writing about.

I’m not interested in talking about the Premier League or the elite clubs or league players, because they’re so well-documented across the world.

We are all about chatting to the random Faroese footballer who happens to have a day job and how this somehow fits into his life. It’s these stories which help make football the game we know and love.

THIS IS WHAT WE WANTED GLORY TO BE ABOUT

The Second issue was Kosovo, and that was a really important one for us to make because they were FIFA’s newest affiliated side. And having been through the atrocities of war, It was a change of pace for us.

We ended up spending a week or so in Kosovo, but also had to travel to Albania for the first game because the stadium wasn’t ready for their first official qualifiers.

We actually nearly ended up getting killed by this driver they’d put us with. He was overtaking everything and everyone, and we were fearing for our life.

When we got to the stadium, we ingratiated ourselves with the fans, and the ultra groups, and when you looked around the stadium there were people in floods of tears. They had been waiting for this moment. It meant so much to them to be recognised as a nation.

That was a special moment. This is exactly why we started this journey, for moments like that. This is what we wanted Glory to be all about. That is when it really felt like Glory was properly born.

GETTING UNDER THE SKIN OF THE PLACES WE VISIT

The launch of our Sardinia issue, which is our latest one, was probably the quickest-ever turnaround. We managed to pull that around in about four weeks. Designing and writing it, mainly through our Head of Copy, Andrew Lawn, who has written 70% of it.

We also brought in some amazing contributors from our roster of talent. So we have a lot of writers, we have a lot of illustrators, we also have two or three photographers that depending on the trip, we bring with us. it’s a real team effort.

When we get to a destination, we will try to get as much content as we possibly can. When we were in Portugal, we were interviewing back to back. I think we interviewed about eight or nine people in a day. It was Roberto Martinez followed by the likes of Pauleta, so it’s really full on.

A lot of work also happens before the trip, because you’re doing so much research, writing interview questions, and trying to think of stuff that people haven’t asked before. You’re really trying to get under the skin of the places you’re visiting and bring it to life.

Once we get back, it’s then very much a case of looking at what we’ve got and are there any interviews that we couldn’t capture while we were out there?

For the Sardinia issue, we couldn’t see Gianfranco Zola while we were out there because he just wasn’t on the islands. But we managed to chat with him when we got back.

From a design point of view, I’m one of those creatives who only likes designing and starting to design when all the pieces are in place.

Once I have all the illustrations through, I’ve got all the copy, and photography, and then I’ll start to put it together.

Sometimes I can design the whole thing in a weekend. Sometimes it will take me two to three weeks of fannying around.

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO NOT MAKE IT LOOK BEAUTIFUL

With the Scotland issue, it was the 150th anniversary of the Scottish FA. So when we first started talking to them then it was probably six months in advance, knowing full well that this anniversary was coming up.

What that enabled us to do was to visit Scotland, about four or five times, because geography isn’t an issue, when it’s more or less on your doorstep.

We had that rare luxury of building content over a number of months. We sent a photographer to the women’s Scottish Cup final to capture some great images, and from there we were up and down a few times.

Photographer, Harry Groom took his drone and did a bit of a tour with it, capturing some stunning pitches and landscapes. You forget how many unreal landscapes Scotland has.

The Scottish FA were brilliant as well. There is quite a lot that they contributed to the content plan. We will always pull together what we believe would make great content, mainly through research, and scouring fans forums.

Then we will work really closely with Heads of Football Associations, brands, or football clubs to uncover those stories that people may not be aware of.

We’re really good friends with Nutmeg magazine, and they actually launched pretty much the same time as us. So we’ve always kept an eye out for each other.

We’ve always been on the other end of the phone to give each other a bit of advice. And they’d said with the Scotland issue that there were some stories in there that they hadn’t even been aware of which was brilliant.

It was an amazing issue to make, and it was a brilliant one to design personally, purely because of the stunning landscapes.

We’ve been to some countries where we’ve not been as blessed with that, and where it’s much more brutal and the stadiums aren’t as picturesque.

When we went to Switzerland, there were a lot of stadiums built above supermarkets. And it’s a lot more challenging to try and make that look beautiful, whereas in somewhere like Scotland, it’s impossible not to make it look beautiful.

GLORY TO ME IS A BIT OF LEGACY

I would say that every single place we’ve been has always thrown up something new and different that we didn’t know about the country.

I mean, Glory is actually a very selfish project because we get to travel the world, to some incredible places.

I’ve always wanted to create something that when I’m 65, 70, and I’ve retired, I can show to my grandkids. So Glory to me is a bit of legacy, with some amazing memories attached to each issue.

My personal highlight will always be the first issue we ever did because it was the first and it was a real voyage of discovery. As I said, we didn’t even have a name when we first started, we didn’t have a writer, and we had no idea what to expect. That time and the whole experience will always be a great memory.

Our Qatar issue was without a doubt our most controversial one, but it was also a huge highlight for me. We got to work with the World Cup committee and see some of the stadiums being built, as well as interviewing Xavi and Samuel Eto. These were huge moments that I will never forget.

One of the absolute highlights of that trip was interviewing Bora Milutinović. What an incredible person. So eccentric and he had unbelievable stories from his time managing eight different national teams.

He brought us back to his apartment, and we ended up playing chess with him, which was definitely a surreal moment.

It has also been great interviewing cult players. As part of our Norway issue, we sat down with Erik Thorstvedt and he had some brilliant stories about playing with Paul Gascoigne, sharing a dressing with him, and having Terry Venables as a manager.

He told us that it wasn’t Gazza who was the clown of Spurs, but Steve Sedgley, who he said was an absolute nutter.

Erik had his nose flattened during a game and afterward when they were travelling back home on the coach he was using tissues to try and stem the bleeding. Anyway, he was surrounded by all these bloody tissues, and Gazza had dared Steve to start eating them, which he of course proceeded to do. Unreal.

While we were in Norway we also got to interview John Arne Rise, who was brilliant. I absolutely loved that.

One of the things we have been really keen to highlight is the women’s game, and in Norway, we also interviewed Caroline Graham Hansen, one of the greatest female footballers in the world who plays for Barcelona.

We also spoke to Hege Riise, who is deemed as the best-ever Norwegian football, and Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian Football Federation. That issue in particular was really important for us because we’re doing all we can to shine a light on the women’s game.

San Diego was another massive highlight. It was the first time we’d really done anything in America. We had nearly worked with the USL Championship on an issue, where the plan was to explore and document teams across the East and West Coast.

There is so much fan culture across these smaller teams in the USL, and it would have been great, but then COVID hit and we had to pull everything.

Fast forward a couple of years and our contact with the USL had moved across to San Diego Loyal and he loved what we did. He told us that they were doing a lot of really exciting things in San Diego and wanted us to come over and document it.

San Diego remains one of our favourite places we visited. The culture, the amazing food, some great neighbourhoods, and obviously with the beaches, everything was ticking the box.

On top of that, we got to interview Landon Donovan, arguably the USA’s greatest-ever player, and we spoke with introduce Shannon MacMillan who was a really important player in their success in 99 when the US won the Women’s World Cup.

There were all of these amazing stories, but while we were out there, the club folded, so it was it was really bittersweet.

We went out to document what we thought was this incredible club and we got to meet all their fan groups, the locals, the loyals and the Hispanic community. To them It wasn’t soccer, it was football.

The passion we saw whilst we were out there was as good as anywhere we’ve been in Europe. There was a real authenticity to it. San Diego will always remain a huge highlight for us.

Kosovo as I mentioned was unforgettable. As was visiting Finland. We witnessed Finland’s qualification for their first-ever major tournament.

When the full-time whistle sounded at the end of the game, there was a huge pitch invasion, and we found ourselves amongst it all, with grown men crying because it meant so much to them. These were all pinch-me moments.

I THINK WHAT FOOTBALL TRULY MEANS TO PEOPLE, YOU’LL FIND EVERYWHERE ACROSS THE LOWER LEAGUES

I think the US gets a lot of unfair criticism about their game. That was one of our big reasons for going out there, to learn more about how they approach the game and then make our own judgment on it. What we found is that they are really progressive and doing a lot of exciting stuff.

There are lots of teams cropping up all over the country and they’re building it the right way, fans first. To be honest, there are a lot of English clubs in particular that could look towards America and what they’re doing.

I think fans and clubs are getting further and further apart, certainly in the UK, because the Premier League is awash with money and greed

One of the reasons why I support Ipswich is because I love being part of an underdog scene, and seeing our rise from League One up to the Premier League, has been great.

But then once you’re in the Premier League it becomes all about money again, where everybody is trying to make a quick buck because it’s so cutthroat. It’s a vicious circle.

I think what football truly means to people, you will find everywhere across the lower leagues. That is where there are so many incredible stories to tell.

THERE WAS A GENUINE PASSION FOR FOOTBALL

We always knew we were going to get criticism for our Qatar issue. We were prepared for that because their human rights record is terrible.

We wanted to witness first-hand what Qatar was like and also learn what people living in Qatar thought of the World Cup coming to the country. It was the one story that nobody was talking about.

This was not a nation geared up for tourism. Well, it certainly wasn’t when we were there. I think they were hoping that the legacy of the World Cup would kick-start that.

There was a genuine passion for football, it’s just absorbed differently. In the UK where we would go to a pub and watch the football, they might go to a stadium, but often they may not sit in the stands. instead, they might sit in a room within the stadium in a circle with the game on and they’ll discuss it that way.

Culturally it’s very, very different. We have visited a lot of European nations, so it was interesting to learn about a completely different culture.

We saw an Asian Champions League Game whilst we were there and the atmosphere was brilliant. We also went to a Cup game which was the equivalent of the Carabao Cup and there were about 300 people there.

We saw kids playing football in the park, and they’ve had a league since the early 70s. So, as I say there is a passion and interest there. But they are probably about 50, 60, 70 years behind where we are.

I have to say though, they are some of the most hospitable people I’ve ever met, they were so friendly.

There was an accusation about how women don’t have the same rights as men, and how they’re asked to go to different areas in the stadium. That might be true, but actually, a lot of the Project Managers on some of these incredible stadiums were women.

So there were a lot of women in high positions who were integral to the success and infrastructure of the World Cup. So that was really interesting.

The stadiums themselves were incredible. It was also the greenest-ever World Cup because of the footprint.

I actually went to the World Cup as a fan. We had gone out initially to Qatar in February just before COVID hit, so to go back and see everything finished and see fans descending on it was quite something.

It was also interesting to see people getting to grips with the culture. I think everyone was very respectful though.

Myself and my brother-in-law just soaked up as much of the atmosphere as we could. We were dancing and singing with fans from all over the world and you think 24 nations all within a single city, you’ll never get that again in a World Cup. So we loved that.

We had this massive English flag made and we ended up on Brazilian TV, we were on Qatari TV, we were on the front page of the BBC News, and BBC Sport website, and every journalist wanted to know what it really was like.

I think they were disappointed we were saying positive things about it because it was a genuinely positive experience for a fan.

I only have great things to say about Qatar from what I experienced. I do appreciate that my experience may be different to somebody from the LBGTQ community.

Their culture is different from ours. However, you only need to go back to 50s England where homosexuality was frowned upon.

So again, as I said earlier, it’s almost like Qatar is 50, 60, or 70 years behind culturally what is deemed acceptable in the Western world.

I think if a World Cup means that a spotlight is shone on a nation, which isn’t doing everything it should be doing but becomes a catalyst for change, then that hopefully can be a good thing.

IT’S A PASSION PROJECT AND WE LOVE WHAT WE DO SO MUCH

I think the hardest work for any magazine is not creating it but actually promoting it once it’s launched.

Keeping that momentum up is something we’re still terrible at. There are still nowhere near enough people who know about Glory and it’s something that will only get better when we are able to get a bigger team.

With the first couple of issues, we pretty much kept it to myself, a single photographer, and a single writer.

We quickly realised though that our issues became so much richer because of the external people we were bringing in, who also happened to be experts within a certain field.

For every single issue that we produce, we always have a native writer. So for our San Diego issue, we had somebody from the area and when we went to Norway, we worked with some Norwegian Journalists.

We will never learn everything we can within such a short space of time while we’re documenting a place, so having that expert knowledge of an area is so important.

Working smarter, and bringing in people with real expertise and proper insight has been absolutely key for us.

We have a few photographers, but we tend to change the photographer depending on the location.

If we’re going somewhere where it’s full of passion and blood and thunder, we might bring Theo McInnes, who’s amazing and just sticks a camera in people’s faces. He’ll get into the middle of an Ultras Group, he doesn’t care.

Whereas Ryan Mason is an incredible landscape photographer. His shots in the Faroe Islands and Hebrides in Scotland were superb and if we ever go to Iceland where there are stark landscapes, that would be more suited to him.

Each place and issue requires something different. If we ever did something with perhaps Athens Kallithea F.C. or Venezia who are both carving out a unique almost fashion-led club, we would again look to do something different there.

The biggest learning curve has been exactly that, every destination is different. We’re not hesitant or scared to bring in different people, who can really enhance Glory.

I think from a creative point of view anyone who has been reading Glory since the first issue would have seen that evolve as well.

There are a lot of challenges to running a magazine though. The cost of paper and printing has doubled since we started. Our unit cost when we first started was at least 50% less than it is now. Postage is going through the roof.

The Royal Mail Service is getting worse. So we’re getting more and more issues lost or damaged.

There is nothing that we can do about that other than apologise and send a replacement. But it all just kind of eats into everything. So it’s a genuine challenge.

Some of our favourite magazines have gone to the wall over the last few years because they just can’t sustain it. And as a publication that has zero advertising, the only other revenue we have is our white label jobs.

We have to run a really tight ship with Glory because margins are pretty much non-existent. It’s a passion project though, and we love what we do so much, and I hope that comes across in what we do.

GOING BACK TO OUR ROOTS

I have a wish list of places that I would love for us to visit. Central America or South America would be huge. Uruguay would be incredible, or somewhere like Costa Rica.

I’ve always fancied doing something in Asia. So South Korea would be brilliant, as would Japan. We have been really focused on Europe, so it would be great to look at other destinations like those.

We launched an African photozine, which was really exciting. We had a photographer go to the African Cup of Nations and he got some incredible photography. But I would love to really delve further into some of these African nations as well.

Morocco would be great. They had a brilliant World Cup and it would be interesting to learn more about their relationship with football.

Ivory Coast of course won the African Cup of Nations and was heavily documented in the photo zine, but it would be great to learn more about them as a nation. So doing something around African football would be amazing.

I would love to do more in America as well. Our next issue is actually going to be Philadelphia, and then the following issue is San Marino.

With the San Marino issue, it feels like we’re going back to our roots of where we first came from. Like the Faroe Islands, It’s documenting a team that everyone knows something about, but not a great deal.

You can’t fail to love them because they’re constantly getting smashed, but keep going. If you get San Marino or Andorra or someone like that in your group, you know that’s going to boost the goal difference. So, I’m really excited about how that one’s going to turn out