The Flying Stars of Sierra Leone

Yara El-Shaboury

Interviews

2021-12-01

When Todd Antony learned about the Salone Flying Stars Amputee Football Organisation, he knew that they would be the feature of his next photo series.

"My personal projects have focused around little known groups or subcultures dotted around the world — ordinary people that lead extraordinary lives in their own way. People who have got an inspirational story to tell."

The award-winning photographer, who has been in the business for about 16 years, started his personal projects as a way to mentally progress in between his commissioned work. "Personal projects allow me to express myself more, allow me to try new things, and experiment without the pressures of an ad job."

Antony's projects have covered a range of stories, from people in movie costumes working for tips just off the Las Vegas Strip and a cheerleading squad living in a retirement community to truck decorators in Japan and Cholitas and Indigenous Aymara women in Bolivia.

When researching for his next personal project, The Flying Stars hit all the requirements. "Visually, I could see the way to make it really interesting and unique, which is something I'm always trying to do. It's not just a case of going somewhere, taking photos documentary style, and then leaving," he said. "There are so many images in the world these days that we need to try and do something to elevate them out of the ordinary and grab people's attention with them. And then, obviously, their story is just incredible. So it was an instantaneous 'Yes, I've got to go do this.'"

The Salone Flying Stars are a community-based organisation that has focused on helping victims of the Sierra Leone Civil War competitively play football throughout the country and the rest of Africa whilst simultaneously building a space where they can overcome the adversity they have and continue to face. 

The Flying Stars Amputee Football Organisation has worked to support the footballers in bettering their quality of life by creating jobs and giving them access to proper education and training in several job fields. 

With six single-leg amputee football teams across Sierra Leone, including a women's team, the Flying Stars have become officially affiliated with the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA), The Ministry of Sport and The Ministry of Social Welfare Gender & Children's Affairs. 

"They've had a lot of international news media, doing general sort of reportage stories on them where it's obviously just a journalist or photographer going, taking a few snaps and then sort of leaving again. Whereas all the projects I've done, I've approached as if there is a pre-production phase, with a lot of the work done before I even get into the country. So it's a much slower, more deliberate process than somewhat of what reportage photography would be. And I have to try to make sure they understand that that's what's going to be. It's not just going to be the guy hanging around taking some photographs. It's going to be a much more deliberate, time-consuming process." 

The evidence of the preparation and the time Antony spent getting to know his subjects are in the photos themselves. The first subject in the collection is Umaru Sandi, who captains the Flying Stars team in the city of Bo.

Sandi, who is also the main subject of Antony's short film, had his photos taken at dusk. He is surrounded by flames engulfing the land behind him, an idea that was a spur of the moment decision based on what Sandi told Antony about his life. 

"The first day I met him, I went to the amputee village down the end of a dirt road and spent the afternoon just hanging out asking questions, talking, meeting his family and looking at the landscape around the place as well. The camera stayed in the car the whole time. Having that time to hang out with them and just chat is really, really important," he said. 

"While we were talking, I saw the fields around the village, and some were smouldering with smoke, and I was like 'What's going on over there?' And because the wet season was coming up, what they do is they slash down small sections of the bush, burn it which returns the nutrients back into the soil right in time for the wet season to come along." 

"I started thinking about how all of the amputees got their amputations during the Civil War through landmines, bullets, and machetes from the rebel attacks. And so I thought that sort of had a nice balance in the fact that visually it's a thing that's happening there in preparation for the wet season, but also the fact that the flames allude to the Civil War itself. I thought it was a nice metaphor for the war and that visually it would be a very, very striking image." 

Sandi was only five years old when the rebels attacked his village, forcing them to run into the surrounding bush, where they hid for days on end. In the midst of a cross-fire, shrapnel tore into Sandi's foot. He made it to a government hospital only to find the staff and resources stretched way beyond their limit. When his leg started to rot, the decision was made to amputate. 

Antony also got the opportunity to go down to Lumley Beach in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, to photograph some of the other players and watch them train. 

"It's quite incredible. The temperature was around the low 30s, and, as a large Muslim population, a lot of them were fasting for Ramadan. The speed at which they run is outrageous. They really do fling themselves along the pitch, and the cameras can barely keep up. When they go into a tackle, there's no holding back. You hear sort of the clash of the crutches and also because they're playing on these red earth pitches, which have got so many stones, so you hear the scraping noise of the feet going into as well. From an audio point of view, it's very visceral, you can hear a lot of sounds, and it becomes a very audio-centric experience as much as it is a visual one. They're impressive to watch, to say the least."

There was very minimal direction in terms of what they could and couldn't do in front of the camera when it came to shooting them. For Antony, it was all about capturing photos of how they naturally felt comfortable.

While each of the players may be physically doing something different in the photo (some are playing with a ball, some are simply looking dead into the camera), all the images are similar in that they look surreal, and with the colours of the sunsetting fading to make a somewhat calm and peaceful backdrop. 

"When the sun gets down a little bit lower, you start getting these lovely little hues happening in the sky. And I wanted to use the beach because it takes away the distracting visual cues. You can shoot them on a football pitch or in the city, but it's just not quite the same. I wanted to take away a lot of the distractions so that you're concentrating purely on them."

In between shots, the players were able to share their stories, and one that really resonated with Antony was Osman Turay's. "He said that he was about six when he got the amputation. The rebels attacked their village, and whilst he was on his mum's back, a bullet went through his leg. After that, the rest of his family were captured and rounded up into a house, and the house was burnt down with all of them inside. I was walking up the beach afterwards, with my iPhone dictating what he said to me so I could attach it to the story, and I was really struggling to keep my shit together quite frankly." 

Turay being only six years old, wasn't a shock. A lot of the footballers were so young during the Civil War. "One thing that's quite strange is that because most of them were very young when [the amputation] happened, a lot of them don't necessarily vividly remember the day. What they're reciting to you is what their parents or their grandparents have told them happened. So there's actually this weird detachment when they're telling you the story. Like you're getting really emotionally choked up, but they are retelling a story that in their mind is almost not theirs. It's quite strange when they're so emotionally passive about what they're reciting to you."

When asked what he wanted people to take away from this project, Antony said it was most important to understand that while the footballers have been through incredible amounts of hardships, they hold no ill will or resentment. 

"Most of them are in their mid-20s now and have experienced more in their lives than any of us will ever come close to in terms of overcoming adversity. But they go along with life, and their outlook on life is very positive. They are all incredibly happy people. I think people view Africa in a slightly predetermined way. It's always either documentaries or photographs, which show us the harder, darker side of it. We obviously need to see that, but we're given a diet of only that. We see Hollywood movies that are all shot with a brown filter across them, and everything looks dusty, which is almost the opposite of what it really is. You've got this vibrant, bright green forest with this beautiful rich red earth. So I was very conscious of not depicting things in that dark way." 

"I wanted to elevate these players to a level that we're used to seeing Western athletes being elevated to. I wanted to show these phenomenal footballers. Because that's what they are." 

Todd Antony has set up a GoFundMe page to help raise money to provide every Flying Stars player with new sets of crutches and spare ferrules (the hard rubber feet on the bottom of the crutches). You can donate here

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