Late last year LG launched a Photography community website called Loop.
Working under the ethos of “Your moments. Shared” the site aims to celebrate photography and give users the opportunity to showcase and share their best photos with a community of like-minded enthusiasts as well as their friends and family.

As an ongoing reward for the Loop community, LG is running regular competitions for the best photographs uploaded, as voted for by members and, as an extra dimension to the competition, members are competing against a Pro Sports Photographer as part of Loop’s ‘Pro V Joe’ challenge, where users images are voted on alongside pictures taken by professional photographers like Nathan Gallagher. The Pro’s shots are submitted anonymously to avoid any favouritism and add excitement to the competition.

The theme for the current competition is Football and each month the £1,000 prize goes to the person who takes the most memorable or relevant football related image. Photos can be of on the pitch action or pitch-side and crowd reactions, player portraits from big league games or a friendly game of 5-a-side. They can be a glamourised look at the beautiful game or a shared personal joy, such as a recent winner, who showed off his one and only football trophy!

With this in mind, I got in touch with some football bloggers, to see what they thought of the competition and of the idea of trying to find definitive Football photos. One of the first to get back to me was Scott from Manchester United blog The Republik of Mancunia who put it to his readers. The response was pretty much unanimous:

something from the busby babes.
shows our history and that we are more than a football club, we are a way of life

This was their chosen image and Scott explained why it resonates so much with them

Sir Matt Busby was a pioneer in European football, leading Manchester United in to European competition against the wishes of the FA, before other English clubs dared to do the same. In 1958, our Busby Babes were looking good on the continent as well as at home, on course for a league and European Cup double. That dream came to an end though, with an air crash in Munich leaving our great manager on deaths door and eight of our players coming home in coffins. It was devastating for the club and the city, but forever they would be remembered, The Flowers of Manchester.

10 years after the Munich Air Disaster, Sir Matt Busby had rebuilt his team and United were lifting the European Cup, the first English club to do so. Another 40 years after that, Sir Alex Ferguson lead the club to their third European Cup win.

This picture was taken in anticipation of that moment in Moscow, with the fans remembering the 50th anniversary of Munich three months before the 2008 final.

Photo by REUTERS/Darren Staples

If you’ve got your own piece of football history, or photo that tells a story (they are supposed to be worth a 1,000 words after all!) then you can add them to Loop for your chance to win £1,000 in the monthly draw. Like the Mancunians’ decision, it’s voted for by the community so make sure you get your photo tagged and out there!
And if you’re a fan of the Busby Babes and all things red army (United not Soviet, obviously!), check out The Republik.