Amy Cole And Chesterfield's Presence At The 2026 Football Art Prize

Also included at the Millennium Gallery was an excellent video installation which showed a seemingly endless series of photos from across the world that showed evidence of football matches or related games being played in some unlikely places. From remote areas of the world to painted goalposts on walls, it shows that football's incredible influence can be found almost anywhere on the globe. I could have kept watching it for hours.

The shortlisted submission that really struck me the most though was created by Amy Cole. It's possibly the smallest creation out of all the works of art there, but a familiar sight caught my eye and grabbed my attention.

Amy's submission, titled 'Memorabilia', is an acrylic and oil painting of herself and her father (wearing a Spireites scarf and hat) on the front of an actual Chesterfield Football Club season ticket wallet. Hanging slightly loose from inside the wallet is a ticket for one of the season's individual home matches, while on the top right corner of the wallet itself is a sticker with 'Amy' written underneath the image of a ladybird in the style that you would see in a child's book.

The Spireites represented at the 2026 Football Art Prize! Wonderful.

I was able to get in touch with Amy about 'Memorabilia' and had the opportunity to ask her some questions regarding her shortlisted submission exclusively for The Spireite Herald:

Are you from Chesterfield? When did you first start supporting the Spireites and what are your earliest memories of following the club?

I live near Matlock and my first games were when the club did an offer, for every adult and child season ticket purchased you got an extra free child season ticket. That season my twin brother and I shared, each going to alternate games. From then on we have had one each! My favourite memories of the early days are definitely the 2007 Carling Cup run. It is a good job we savoured those wins, seeing as we have lost every league cup game since!

What inspired you to create 'Memorabilia'? What does this artwork mean to you and what would you like other people to take from it?

I wanted a piece that represented what I take from being a football fan. It is the memories made with my dad and brothers that makes it so special. I'm not sure if I'm alone in this feeling but I do look back fondly at some of the awful games too, some kind of character-building nostalgia maybe?

It was feelings of nostalgia that inspired me to use one of my old season ticket books as the canvas. They are such tactile little things, which are nothing like the cards and QR codes we have now.

From looking at your website, your work is usually centred around portraits of pets. Was 'Memorabilia' a different challenge for you as an artist to mix human portraiture with physical items?

It was definitely a challenge! I had quite a short timescale to actually paint the piece, mainly because it took me ages to find one of my books to paint on! I had no experience painting on plastic, so just went for it and hoped for the best, using gesso to prime the plastic like I would with the traditional wood panels I use for oil painting.

Another aspect which I would say was the most difficult was the size of the portrait. Portrait painting in miniature is a skill in its own right and for good reason! When painting in a much larger size getting a good likeness can be a matter of minute adjustments. In this scale, it really was tiny, I had to stock up on smaller paintbrushes!

Is football (or sport in general) a unique way of being able to tell stories through art? 'Memorabilia' appears to evoke strong emotional bonds and a sense of nostalgia.

The emotional bonds created from going to games together and the sense of nostalgia are exactly what I was going for, so it is great that it has translated. Throughout the artworks in the exhibition, they show an array of different stories through a whole host of different art mediums. Work has come from artists all around the world, as far afield as Bangladesh and Colombia.

How did it feel to be shortlisted for the 2026 Football Art Prize and know that your work would be included in the exhibition?

I was really pleased to be selected. I entered and got in to the last Football Art Prize four years ago and knew from seeing the longlisted works when I dropped my piece off in Sheffield and then the works that made it through to the final exhibition, that the standard was very high. Works that were technically very good did not make it through to shortlisting. Art is very subjective, and when entering juried exhibitions you do have to prepare to be disappointed!

This year 70 works were selected from over 900 entries from around the world, with pieces in an array of different mediums. If my maths is right, that means less than 8% of those who entered got in, so I count myself lucky!

Do you have any plans on creating further works of art that depict the Spireites or football in general?

If there is another Football Art Prize in four years time, you can count me in!

The 2026 Football Art Prize Exhibition comes to an end at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield on Sunday 13th September. However, the exhibition will then move to the National Football Museum in Manchester in which members of the public will be able to visit from November 2026 to February 2027.