TERRA is a collection of stories from the places where football lives, and a reflection of how we believe change happens. We don’t start by asking fans to think about climate; we start with football itself — the people, communities, rituals and places they already care about — and build from there.
Football doesn't just live in stadiums. The game also lives on Hackney Marshes, where thousands of grassroots players have descended on East London for almost a century. It lives on a cage pitch in Casablanca, on a dusty field in the shadow of a mountain in Northern Pakistan, and in a makeshift pitch in the Brazilian rainforest.
Football is grounded in community, and in the places where communities come together. That's where the game lives. But those places are under real threat.
And when extreme weather, flooding, or toxic air wipes out a game, it's not just ninety minutes that's lost. It's seeing your friends. It's your weekly run-out. It's the thing that gets you out of your head for a couple of hours.
The stories in this first issue of TERRA — a free zine brought to you by Where Football Lives — are unapologetically grassroots, but they point to something universal: defending where football lives from extreme weather isn't about keeping football's machinery running. It's a genuine act of cultural preservation.