One of Mark Leech’s first assignments as a sports photographer was when his agency sent him to Ipswich Town’s training ground to take photographs of the team for the club calendar. When he arrived he was telling the woman behind the front desk who he was and that he had been told everything was arranged.
“Then I heard this voice behind me,” he recalls. “’Edited by who?’ It was Bobby Robson. And he wasn’t happy. I said, ‘My editor arranged it.’ And he said, ‘I’m in charge here, I’m the fucking manager, and nobody set this up with me.’ He then took me to his office and ripped me off a strip. ‘You don’t know anything,’ he shouted at me. And he pointed to the picture on the wall behind his desk. ‘You’re not even a proper photographer. “This is a very bloody picture.” It was a shot of match action from a game a few weeks ago. ‘Don’t come here until you take a photo like this,’ he shouted at me. I was only 18 years old. I was so horrified that I didn’t have the courage to tell him that I had actually taken it. That was my picture.”
Considering Bobby Robson was manager at Ipswich from 1969 to 1982, it’s clear Leech has been taking pictures for some time. In fact, last October, he celebrated the 50th anniversary of the publication of his first photograph in a national newspaper. But here’s the thing: fifty years on, he’s still hard at work on the touchline, training his lenses on the action every weekend. More importantly, he still loves his job.
“I beat Luton against Burnley recently,” he says, sitting in the cafe in the north London office block where his studio is located. “Then when I got home my wife said to me: ‘Are you drinking?’ I said no. He said: ‘So why does he have that big smile on his face?’ The truth is, I loved being at the game. He said: ‘I wish I could make you as happy as taking pictures of Luton against Burnley.’
Coincidentally, his half-century of joy began in less than auspicious circumstances. In fact, it started with failure. He had applied for a job as a trainee football reporter at Hayters sports agency. However, he needed 5 O-levels and had only managed to pass two. Someone said there was a position opening at a photo agency, so he impressed them in the interview by knowing all the actors’ names in a large pile of untitled photos. Hired as a general apprentice, he worked in the darkroom during the week, up to his elbows in developing fluid, then stood on the touchlines of London stadiums on match days waiting to carry rolls of film from photographers back into the dark. room.
“I was crazy about football, I had the best view of the house and when I went for the first time, after about 20 minutes a photographer handed me a film. I stood there for a minute, then he said: ‘What are you waiting for?’ The game had barely progressed at all. And I had to leave to go to the darkroom. “Let me tell you, some of the strange men wandering around outside while the matches are going on have to be seen to be believed.”
After developing the film, he quickly went to Fleet Street, wandering around the sports desks of the newspapers trying to sell the best shots. It was a difficult apprenticeship; He was working six days a week for a weekly earnings of £12. But three months into the job, he decided to buy a Zenith camera, which cost him almost two weeks’ salary.
“I remember my father saying to me: ‘Why did you buy this? “You’ll never be able to take a decent photo,” he says. “I was really motivated to show him.”
And partly to prove his father wrong, he took the camera with him to a game at Highbury in the spring of 1974. He was behind the goal when Brian Kidd scored. But instead of shooting on goal, he followed Kidd as he headed to the North Bank to celebrate with the fans. There was a cop sitting there with his helmet next to him, and Kidd put it on, much to the admiration of the crowd. Leech took the photo and immediately headed to the darkroom, not forgetting to collect the film from the official photographer.
“I looked it up in the newspapers and it came up on four back pages. Nobody believed I bought this. “That gave me some faith.”
And recently, when Manchester City came to play at the Emirates, where Kidd is on City’s coaching staff, Leech introduced himself to the subject of his shot.
“He was very happy when I told him I bought it. He said he had this picture on the wall of his house, between a photo of him meeting the Pope and a photo of him meeting the Queen.”
It was a picture that propelled Leech into the world of elegance. Within a month he was sent to the European Cup final in Paris. And so began a career that resulted in seven World Cups and dozens of cup finals, glorious matches and ignominious defeats. He was, on the touchline, an eyewitness to some of the biggest, most historic events in the game. Diego Maradona was the only British photographer to win the award. Scudetto He was alongside Gazza at the dentist’s chair celebration in Naples at Euro ’96 and was there at the World Cup in Marseille in 1998 when England lined up to take penalties against Argentina.
“Glenn Hoddle had said before the game that he had a plan for penalties and then through my long lens I could see him huddled up before the penalty shoot-out saying ‘I need another one’ and David Batty saying ‘oh okay then’.”
Throughout all this, he was always looking for a different angle, an unconventional approach.
“People often ask me what is the best football photo ever taken, perhaps they expect me to say a photo of Maradona facing the Belgian defense at the 86th World Cup,” he says. “But actually this was one of Gerry Cranham’s heroics in the 1966 World Cup final. Immediately after Geoff Hurst scored his third goal, instead of scoring, Gerry turned and congratulated someone from the England bench. Among all the limbs, Alf Ramsey sits motionless on the bench. And it perfectly captures the ‘it should have been me’ look on Jimmy Greaves’ face.”
These days, Leech, who runs his own highly successful photo agency, is still searching for the perfect photo.
“The game is much faster and more skillful,” he says. “But the principles of a good painting are still exactly the same. “You still know you have one as soon as you press the button.” Although the principles remain the same, there is not much else left. Take the photo he took outside the Tottenham Hotspur stadium ahead of their recent match against Wolves.
“I saw this South Korean guy on a Son [Heung-min] shirt takes a selfie holding a portion of fish and chips. So I took a picture of it, and even as I took it I couldn’t help but think to myself: Imagine if you thought this was going to happen when you first started 50 years ago.