Out of Grounds, A Substack
What is Out of Grounds?
At the moment, it’s two dudes and an Instagram account, but at the core, it’s two football fans who are intrigued and obsessed with everything surrounding the clubs of world football. We are interested in finding out how and why a football club can facilitate and display a city or region’s civic pride. Each club tells a story of its locale and those are the stories we crave to understand and contextualize into our understanding of the game. Unlike Naples or Glasgow, not every club is culturally intertwined into the fabric of a city, but we believe that when you understand things beyond the pitch, you can truly appreciate what football is and what it means to over a billion people globally.
1. Why a substack?
While approaching four years of Out of Grounds as a concept, it’s time to expand beyond just posting on Instagram and use our passions to highlight and discuss topics that interest us throughout the global game. It has always been the goal to write about football at some capacity and the time has come. We want to highlight clubs and see what cool/relevant shit we can learn in the hope that we, or you, can know and apply however or whenever you catch a match in an unfamiliar place. While we have our own ideas for articles and such, we want to help those planning to travel, and get help from those who have already been. This is the second step in a huge staircase of goals.
2. Is this for you?
Whether you are a fan of one of the best teams in the world, or you just support your local club, we want to appeal through pieces aimed at understanding clubs through an inspection of its community. If we had to describe what we aim to cover it might be…. “a footballing investigation of a city through a sociological lens with a focus on Fan culture/travel/history/food/amongst other things.” I think that covers it. If it interests you, join us!
3. Post Examples
Due to the encompassing nature of football, the topics can fluctuate from short travel articles introducing a club and its region, to medium ones about how one should go to San Sebastián to see Real Sociedad because of its density of Michelin starred restaurants, or even long ones about how the former Yugoslavia would have had a slew of top international honors, as well as explaining/contextualizing why its called the ‘FORMER Yugoslavia.’ We could discuss the logistics of getting to a ground, and how maybe staying in a closer neighborhood would be beneficial. Having been fans for awhile now, we will also look back at club legends, cult or otherwise. While there is a tendency to often look back at a clubs history, we will also take relevant moments into consideration of what results or reactions mean for the club and its communities. While the scope is wide, each piece will always be in the context of a football club.
4. Subscribe?
