canon | Kieran McManus Freelance Photographer

This week I have been in Amsterdam to cover the Europa League final between Benfica and Chelsea. The week started by travelling from Brighton to cover their play-off semi final 2nd leg and then from there I would drive on to Amsterdam. Following a long struggle getting out of the Brighton car park I got to my hotel around 1am and managed to get some sleep before meeting fellow BPi photographer Matt West who was travelling with me at 8.30am who had travelled down from the North with Matt, Simon and Chris. Having not driven abroad for 5 years I was a bit worried about remembering which way to go around a roundabout but having safely negotiated the Channel Tunnel it wasn’t long before we were in Belgium enjoying a freshly made panini at a motorway service station…much nicer than the crap I’m used to seeing at Hilton Park services on the M6.

We got to the stadium nice and early…collected accreditation and parking pass and then headed to the photographers room to catch up with those who had arrived early. Then it was time to start working by covering both teams training sessions. The main talking point was John Terry, who had suffered a serious looking leg injury at Aston Villa last Saturday and whether or not he’d be fit to take part. We were all a bit surprised to see him come out with his team mates to take part and he then did a light 5 minute session by himself before realising he wasn’t going to be fit and he disappeared back down to the changing rooms. Knowing this was a story I rushed back to the wire room and got a few pictures sent before coming out to cover the rest of the session. Not much else happened and before we knew it we were leaving the stadium at 10pm, looking for somewhere to eat with a few others. Unfortunately everywhere around the stadium had just stopped serving food and so we headed to our hotel in Utrecht, a 20 minute drive from Amsterdam, before looking for a McDonalds which we ate in the car (very romantic).

Next morning we enjoyed a buffet breakfast before once again heading to the stadium early to try and get good spots for the match. Thankfully we were reasonably early and had good tickets meaning we should get good spots. Then it was the wait until the match started…plenty of time shooting general views of the stadium and trying to find interesting looking fans outside. When it came to UEFA handing out positions we managed to get the spots we had hoped for and all we could do now is pray the action happened where we were. Both me and Matt were lucky enough to borrow a couple pieces of kit (including a 14mm which would come in handy later in the evening) so were well equipped come kick off time. As the teams came out I spotted UEFA president Michel Platini with Benfica legend Eusebio and Dutch legend Johan Cruyff and I managed to shoot them at a time when they were sharing a joke which made for quite a nice picture.

The first half proved to be a bit rubbish with Benfica definitely the better side, despite neither side having any clear cut chances. The game sparked to life on 59 minutes when Fernando Torres rounded the Benfica keeper to open the scoring, before Oscar Cardozo levelled 10 minutes later through a penalty. His celebrations were muted though as he bizarrely went down with cramp. With the game nicely poised and the two teams evenly matched, it looked as though we’d be in for a late night with extra time and potentially penalties, but with 1 minute of added time left, Branislav Ivanovic rose to head a dramatic winner and run straight into the corner where Matt was placed. Rather than shoot a cele in the opposite corner I focused on the Chelsea bench and managed to get a few frames of the injured John Terry celebrating with his team mates. I managed to get these sent instantly before on the final whistle capturing the reactions of the jubilant Chelsea players.

It was then time to head to the half way line to shoot the trophy presentation, where me and Matt had decided that he would shoot it on a 70-200 whilst I would shoot tighter on the 400. This proved to work quite well as he ended up with completely different pictures from only a few feet away. After 5 minutes of Chelsea players posing for photos they ran for the away supporters where all 120 accredited photographers rushed to follow them. Having been sternly told by the UEFA officials not to go on the pitch we all stayed behind the advertising boards where Matt had a good position so I held back incase any of the players broke from the bunch and thankfully I was in a great position when Frank Lampard jumped over to get closer to celebrate in front of the away fans, where the 14mm Canon loaned me came in handy. A few more players including John Terry and Fernando Torres also did this and as they were leaving the pitch I managed to get a nice frame of managerial god Rafa Benitez giving the thumbs up after he silenced his critics by winning yet another European trophy.

Knowing I had some decent stuff in the bag I rushed back to my laptop to wire what I had ASAP so that we had a good chance of competing with the big wire agencies who had techs sending their stuff. After making sure we’d sent all the relevant live images, it was 12.30am and time to start the long journey back to Bristol, this time with another passenger, my good friend Joe Meredith who had flown over the day of the game. We stopped for petrol just outside of Amsterdam where the petrol was considerably cheaper than over here and then it was the challenge of trying to stay awake for the journey home, which was made easier by the fact Joe was talking nonsense the whole way back. After a quick 30 minute nap, it was time to say goodbye to Matt who jumped back in with the others whilst waiting for the tunnel and before we knew it we were back on English soil and stuck in traffic on the M25. After a slight delay there we were on our way along the M4 and I dropped Joe off before arriving home at 11.40am, a mere 11 hours after leaving Amsterdam.

More of mine and Matt’s work from the final can be seen at www.backpageimages.com

Two weeks ago I was sent to photograph the Grand National Meeting at Aintree, Liverpool. Having covered the Cheltenham Festival 3 weeks prior, I was eager to see the comparisons between the two events as fellow photographers had told me to look forward to seeing some disgraceful behaviour on ‘Ladies Day’.

I had headed north the previous night as I was staying in Manchester with a fellow photographer who was covering all 3 days for the newspaper he works for, so I didn’t have to face a ridiculously early morning to drive to Liverpool. We arrived at Aintree and set up a spot in the photographers tent, then headed out to get our bearings around the course.

Whereas at Cheltenham you could quite easily shoot the horses jumping the last and then run to the winners enclosure, at Aintree that wouldn’t be possible so I was already putting together a plan of what to do come the main event on Saturday afternoon. The opening day came and went without anything really interesting happening and I left Aintree looking forward to the next morning and the highly anticipated ‘Ladies Day’

As we arrived on Day Two, it was already clear that this would be a completely different affair to Ladies Day at Cheltenham, and this was confirmed when the first set of “ladies” we photographed, who we later found out were from the MTV show ‘The Valleys’, exposed their bare bottoms. Fake tan and plenty of flesh was on show on a cold, windy day and as the day progressed many of the photographers chose to focus on this side of events rather than the horse racing. Despite in previous years many of the women having one too many and becoming a bit of a disgrace, it was a rather tame affair and apart from a few that were struggling, everyone was well behaved and in a fit state.

Like with Cheltenham’s Gold Cup, the whole event had been building up to the John Smith’s Grand National on Saturday afternoon. Known worldwide as one of the most famous events in the horse racing calendar, the event had been in the news during the build up due to the changes that had been made to the course to ensure the horse’s safety following a number of deaths over previous years. I spent the morning photographing the small number of celebrities, including Coleen Rooney, Sir Alex Ferguson and Katherine Jenkins, who performed the national anthem prior to the days racing.

It was then time to focus on the racing and it was soon time to get ready for the main event. I had decided to shoot the start of the race, run to the water jump and then to the finish line to capture as much of the race as possible, hoping for a big celebration as the winning jockey crossed the line. Everything was going to plan – the weather was lovely, I had managed to get some nice shots of the start, made it to the water jump where I had a good position then made it to the finish line with time to spare. Then as we saw the horses coming up the final straight, it became clear there was one horse clear of the rest - the 66/1 Auroras Encore, ridden by little known jockey Ryan Mania. With such an easy run to the finish, all us photographers followed him as he crossed the line, waiting and waiting for a celebration or at least a reaction of some kind…but nothing came, meaning it was just a bland shot of him crossing the line. We then assembled to photograph him celebrating following the race, and even then he seemed very reluctant to celebrate the biggest moment in his life, with only a few small fist punches towards us expectant photographers.

Knowing I had a lack of standout pictures, I headed back to wire what I had before trying to avoid getting caught in the 70,000 people leaving to head home. Although it was a great event to cover, I would say I preferred Cheltenham from a photographic point of view…despite the copious amounts of flesh on show at Aintree.

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Europa League Final – Amsterdam

Horse Racing – Grand National – Aintree