Despite growing up in Manningham, just a stone’s throw from Valley Parade, Nudrat Afza had never set foot inside a football stadium until two friends invited her daughter Khadijah—for whom Afza is a full-time carer—to her very first Bradford City AFC match. Walking toward the stadium, Afza was struck by an almost magnetic pull; the sea of amber and claret supporters marching in unison felt like a deeply moving procession. Up the steps, roles reversed as Khadijah confidently led her mother by the hand to their seats.
Prepared for a sports culture dominated by men, Afza was instead astounded by the sheer number of vibrant, fiercely committed, and passionate women and girls cheering in the stands. They were every bit as emotionally invested in the drama of the pitch as their male counterparts. Afza knew instantly that she had to capture this raw, beautiful feminine energy.
Supported by funding from Arts Council England, the ‘City Girls’ collection spans approximately one hundred high-contrast photographs capturing the intense, collective heartbeat of Bradford’s female fans. The series was shot using a specialized wide-format Hasselblad XPan camera—traditionally reserved for panoramic architectural photography—generously gifted to Afza by the Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (‘The Full Monty’ & ‘Slumdog Millionaire’). By repurposing this cinematic camera to capture human emotion, ‘City Girls’ presents female football fandom not as a novelty, but as an essential, historic community pillar.
