Pitch Invasion is a blog exploring soccer (or football, if you prefer) 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, women’s football, photography and the political and economic aspects of the sport.

Based in Chicago, we rely on around a dozen regular contributors covering the sport 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.

In 2009, we won the Gold in the Web Awards awarded by When Saturday Comes magazine in England, and we were currently nominated for Best Blog in the United States Soccer Federation annual awards. In February 2010, Pitch Invasion was named one of the top 50 Sports Business Blogs by First & Goal.

Editor

Pitch Invasion is edited by Tom Dunmore, currently a graduate student and freelance writer based in Chicago. 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 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

Associate Editor

Richard Whittall is our weekend editor. Baroque countertenor Whittall writes on football and one or two other things in Toronto at A More Splendid Life. He was the Runner-up in the 2008 Guardian Big Blogger Competition, and was nominated for Best Premier League blog by EPL Talk, so he’s kind of a big deal.

Regular Contributors

• Gary Andrews, our resident expert on British football.
• Andrew Guest is an academic social scientist and soccer addict living in Portland, Oregon.  Having worked (and played) in Malawi and Angola, he has a particular interest in Africa.  He can be contacted at drewguest (at) hotmail.com.
• Jennifer Doyle, of the outstanding soccer culture blog From A Left Wing.
• Bill Turianski, creator of beautiful maps at Bill’s Sports Maps.
• Egan Richardson, of the best blog on Nordic football, the Nordic Football Blog.
• Alex Usher, our learned book reviewer in-chief.
• Vanda Wilcox, our Rome-based expert on Italian football, residing at Spangly Princess
• Peter Wilt our Wednesday columnist is the President of the Milwaukee Wave, and former President of the Chicago Fire and the Chicago Red Stars.

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.