As we near the end of July, it’s a good time to reflect on what has been a busy pre-season as a football photographer for me so far.
Regular readers or YouTube viewers will know that I’m club photographer at Tranmere Rovers. Being a photographer of pro football club is always interesting, and pre-season is probably one of the most enjoyable periods of the year. Here’s why.
Why pre-season as a football photographer is great
If you’ve ever played sports yourself, you will appreciate the freshness and optimism of returning for a new season of training. I only played amateur football myself, but I certainly experienced it. As a photographer, and also a lifelong Tranmere fan, it’s great to be involved and see some key pre-season moments from the other side of the camera.
Almost every pre-season brings change, but even by usual standards, 2026 has been a very significant one. A new manager and a new coaching staff has arrived, and with a huge amount of players leaving, a lot of work was needed to be done to bring in new talent ahead of the kick-off on 1st August.
As a photographer, that freshness is evident. The first pre-season training session I photographed was during the heatwave which has seared much of the UK this summer. It was a great opportunity to get some shots of the players going through their paces with blue sky behind them, not to mention new EFL match balls, new training kit and of course the new management and coaching team to photograph.
A player takes on fluids during a hot pre-season training session
Pre-season photography tasks
It’s not just training that you cover as a club photographer, but also, I am fortunate to be able to access the pre-season friendlies, including those played ‘behind-closed-doors’. The first one of this summer was also at the training ground and on an incredibly hot day. The team played in the new training kit rather than the new playing kit, but it looked great.
Tranmere in pre-season friendly action wearing their training kit
Talking of new kit, one of my first jobs of pre-season was a photoshoot for the new home and away kits, as well as the refreshed third kit. The marketing team at Tranmere always deliver great ideas for these shoots (big shout out to Hannah). This year, the decision was made to photograph the kit at Wirral Transport Museum.
Sadly, the council closed the museum to the public a couple of years ago, hopefully it will reopen. It has some incredible old buses and trams, lovingly restored and kept in immaculate condition. It provided a fascinating backdrop for the shoot, and the little boy in me loved having free reign to go wherever, on and off any of the trams or buses I wanted to explore and chose which ones to shoot on or in front of.
There were four first team players present. A challenging location in some ways, a lack of lights on my part – well, lack of highly-capable lights – but overall, a great shoot, and for once I didn’t hate the results. I think as a photographer, we are all our own biggest critics?
At the time of writing, the away kit hasn’t yet been revealed, so here’s some photos of the home kit – not to mention the buses!
Next up, the annual Open Day at the team’s stadium, Prenton Park. This is an opportunity for supporters to come in, meet players and staff, buy new kit and have a stroll around many areas of the stadium. It’s a great day, and another hot one – I think it peaked at 28 degrees centigrade. As a photographer, you’re looking to capture fans enjoying their day; interacting with players, buying new kit, etc.
A first friendly match at the stadium followed a week later, an opportunity to photograph more trialists who were with the club. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t share any photos of trialists unless told otherwise – it’s common across football that clubs try not to name trialists, probably primarily to avoid alerting the attention of rival clubs, perhaps.
However, this game was a little different. The key difference was that fans were allowed in.
A fairly high-profile player had been linked with Rovers and was playing this game as a trialist, while a few of the other trialists were also fairly easy to identify for fans of lower league football in England, and so the club named the team and included all trialists names in full. This meant that I was free to capture and share shots of all of them.
There was another friendly game behind-closed-doors at the training ground the following week, more trialists on show and more pics that will probably never see the light of day unless the players sign for the club permanently.
But, what of that high-profile trialist? Well, that was a player called Tom Ince, an attacking midfielder who had just left Championship club Watford – two levels above Tranmere. He has played the vast majority of his career at that level and is also the son of a former England player.
Ince subsequently agreed to sign for Rovers and so that gave me an opportunity to do the brief photoshoot for his arrival, which is always exciting.
Photographing new signing Tom Ince
Kick-off approaching
As I type this blog, we are just a few days away from Tranmere starting their season with an Carabao Cup Preliminary Round game at home to Rochdale. This competition only had a preliminary round for the first time last season, but has again required it this year also – it’s a direct result of so many English teams qualifying for European football. That means they don’t enter the Carabao Cup until Round Three, and thus the competition needs to balance out the early rounds by losing two clubs before Round 1!
So, the two sides who finished lowest (without being relegated) in League Two last season – which is Tranmere and Newport – are drawn to play the two clubs who were promoted to League Two from the National League – York and Rochdale.
Tranmere were drawn at home to Rochdale, victory would set up a first round proper tie at Bradford City the following Saturday before the league campaign kicks-off a week later again.
So, after a nice summer of free Saturdays, catching up on DIY and BBQs, the World Cup and extensive sunshine, the football season is most definitely back this weekend. I’ll be cleaning the cameras and lenses in the next couple of days and setting up the laptop for Saturday.
My 14th season as a football photographer has arrived.
