Out on the road for Advent – in memory of Graham
This Advent season, we’re very happy that Graham’s wife Andrea has provided us with 24 booths (ticket booths and football benches) from his legacy so that each day we can take you to a different booth on our social media channels.
To those of you who have read our fifth anniversary fanzine, this is the sequel of the “booth photo gallery”.
Andrea has not only selected beautiful photos which Graham took, she also spent some time with Carmen talking about Graham (see interview below).
Graham remains unforgettable!
IN MEMORY OF GRAHAM BOOTH
”When I wake up in the morning, I’m happy.
Happy that I get to live another day.“
(Graham)
When Andrea speaks about Graham, it’s heartwarming. “He was incredibly funny. He always made me laugh, was keen to learn, showed a genuine interest in everything that was happening in the world, he had a strong sense of justice and he was a massive animal lover. He always made sure there was plenty of bird food on our balcony. In the morning, he’d sit on the sofa with his espresso and watch the birds have breakfast, pointing out the different species. He loved nature and being outdoors. He’d say with his English accent ‘Ich gehe explorieren!’ (I go exploring)”, Andrea remembers.
Andrea and Graham got to know and love each other in the summer of 2005. Graham was from England; however, he had been living and working in Germany for a number of years. “Football really was one of his key interests. I suppose with being English that’s part of your DNA. He and his schoolmate Bryan went to football from when they were nippers”, Andrea says.
Graham grew up in Romford, East London. His home team was Romford FC, and for much of his life his heart belonged to Leyton Orient.
“When we got together, he was a Leyton Orient supporter through and through, the O’s meant everything to him, it was ‘Orient, Orient, Orient’ constantly”, Andrea smiles. “I liked how someone could develop such a great passion. I remember my first visit to Brisbane Road with Graham to watch Leyton Orient play. It was in winter and it was freezing. I was so cold but couldn’t take my eyes off the match. All I could think was ‘Wow they are SO fast!’ It was a big difference to what I had seen in Germany up to that point.”
In Germany, Graham followed VfB Fichte Bielefeld, a team with left-leaning supporters near the place he lived at the time. He preferred small grounds. The sport itself was the centre of his attention and to be as close to the action as possible. Andrea joined him a couple of times and speaks enthusiastically of the brilliant community. There were flags and banners, there was chanting – sometimes throughout the entire match.
Players and supporters were very close, they greeted each other with a handshake and often went to away games on the team bus. It was then that Graham often wore a bright red t-shirt saying “You are my Soner“. Soner Dayangan was a forward playing for Fichte Bielefeld and the supporters would sing the t-shirt slogan to the tune of “You are my sunshine“. Andrea still keeps the t-shirt, even if the print has almost entirely disappeared, it is a very special keepsake.
They lived in Bückeburg from 2010 to 2016 where Graham followed the local VfL until he decided that Arminia Hannover and their supporters were more his cup of tea. Regular visits to the famous Lahmannhügel followed and when they both moved back to Hanover, Graham continued to support “die Blauen”.
Graham’s particular football passion was „groundspotting”. “Outside of match times, he would walk the entire pitch – or venue, if the ground was closed”, Andrea explains. “He insisted on calling it groundspotting, not groundhopping, as he was literally sitting with his laptop searching for football grounds on Google Maps. Saturdays were dedicated to football, he’d be on the sofa after breakfast, legs on the coffee table, computer on his lap with a ridiculous number of open windows in his browser”, Andrea laughs. “He followed matches in England, all kinds of European and non-European leagues, Germany of course and then there would always be a page showing Google Maps and there’d be him trying to spot a ground he hadn’t visited before. If something looked like a sports venue in the aerial view, he’d zoom in to find out what it was, whether it belonged to a sports team, if it was a general playing field or a football pitch and if so which team was playing. This is how his groundspotting tours started!”
Graham would always make sure to plan the order of the grounds he was visiting in a way that meant the least logistical effort. He’d then set his alarm to one hour before sunrise, he’d get ready and would drive off into the rising sun, his printed groundspotting tour next to him on the passenger seat. Sometimes a tour would have 20 grounds, sometimes he’d spread a tour over several days. Once arrived, he’d follow a specific system of his own making. He’d walk the entire pitch along the sidelines, taking photos from certain angles plus any special features including ticket booths and benches of which there are hundreds of photos on his laptop”, Andrea says.
Graham documented his groundspotting tours in real-time on Twitter (@RomfordReject) and on his blog where you can still read them. In addition, everything was documented precisely in Excel files such as name of the tour, number of grounds, total distance and expected duration.
During Covid he increased the number of his tours to almost daily. At sunrise on 30th March 2022 he started the groundspotting tour from which he would not return. It was Graham’s last tour. He died suddenly and unexpectedly at ground number three.
In July/August Andrea set out to continue this groundspotting tour and explains: “It felt like an urge to complete the unfinished tour. I’m the one who can do it in his name so completing my husband’s tour was an important milestone for me.”
Andrea started with ground number three separately “because I already knew it wouldn’t be easy. I left a bunch of red roses and Graham’s Romford Reject sticker where it happened.
A few days later I continued the tour with the remaining grounds and posted on Graham’s Twitter account: ’16 grounds. Tour completed. We did it together.‘”
Graham’s groundspotting tours are still available on his account and his blog. To keep both is important to Andrea. “This is his legacy. I could never delete it, it would feel like him dying a second time.”
Graham Booth (1972 – 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS
Words: Carmen Mayer
Images: Graham and Andrea Booth