Pitch Invasion is a blog exploring football culture around the world. We aim to cover topics or perspectives missed by the mainstream media, with a focus on supporter culture, the history of football and the political and economic aspects of the sport.

We rely on around a dozen regular contributors covering football in North America, Italy, Japan, England, and beyond.

Our regular photo features draw on the work of over 300 photographers worldwide who have contributed to the Flickr Pitch Invasion pool.

Editorial

Pitch Invasion is edited by Tom Dunmore. Born in Brighton, Tom grew up as a supporter of Brighton and Hove Albion, starting going to games just in time to see them plummet to the bottom of the league in the 1990s and end up homeless, when the Goldstone Ground was demolished in 1997, a traumatic event for the club.

The name “Pitch Invasion” has its progeny from the Goldstone.  Tom’s first match at the Goldstone Ground in 1991 ended in a pitch invasion as Brighton fans joyously celebrated qualification for the Second Division playoffs, and the final matches at the Goldstone Ground before its demolition in 1997 were also marked by pitch invasions out of protest and anger. The wild variety of causes of pitch invasions across the world in football’s history — for celebration, for safety, out of aggression, for show, for protest — reflect many of the themes of football’s diverse culture, and hence gave the name to this website, founded in 2007.

Tom has lived in Chicago, Illinois since 2001, in graduate school at the University of Chicago. A former columnist for the defunct Chicago Sports Weekly, Tom is currently preparing an enclyopedia of soccer for Scarecrow Press.

Tom is now a rather too avid supporter of the Chicago Fire in Major League Soccer, currently serving as Vice-Chairman of the Independent Supporters’ Association for the Chicago Fire, Section 8 Chicago.

Follow Tom on Twitter @pitchinvasion or contact him via email at tom@pitchinvasion.net

Submissions

Pitch Invasion invites submissions on original topics on all aspects of football. Send inquiries to tom@pitchinvasion.net

Photo Credit

The Pitch Invasion masthead image is adapted with permission from a photograph by Josh Crockett. See the original image here on Flickr, and check out the rest of Josh’s photography.