Cold hard data - it’s not normally visual, tangible, or interesting for the average person on the street. In this project we unearthed data that could help fight a problem plaguing football – racism. But applied it in an innovative way that the public couldn’t ignore, something the public could get behind and feel proud about. This is why Fabric of England is relevant for creative data.

When England lost to Italy in the final of the European Championships, racism in football reared its ugly head. Three black players who missed penalties – Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka & Jason Sancho – all receiving a torrent of racist abuse online. ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ are the UK’s reading anti-racism educational charity, so they needed to act. We know that England is celebrated for its rich diversity, and this is reflected across the national football team…but it has never been celebrated to its full extent.

The England team wouldn’t be what it is today without immigration, and after conducting research on the entire squad, we found almost every player had a story of migration – covering all corners of the globe from North America, the Caribbean, all the way to New Zealand.

We took this data and visualised it for the world to see. Introducing Fabric of England, a football shirt constructed from the national shirts of the 14 countries linked to the England squad. The patchwork quilt design acted as a visual infographic to raise awareness and educate people to the rich diversity that makes up the squad, and the nation as a whole.

The cultural roots of players like Raheem Sterling, Kyle Walker and Jadon Sancho have been well documented in the press and the media, but little did people know that from the 39 players that got England to the World Cup, almost all of them have a story of migration – spanning 14 countries. This information had never been fully brought to the world’s attention.

A deep dive of data gathering was conducted on each of the 39 players, unearthing roots from 14 nations - they included England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, USA, Canada, Jamacia, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Barbados, St Vincent & Grenadines, St Kitts & Nevis, Nigeria, and New Zealand.

After collecting the heritage data from all 39 players we needed to source the respective national football shirts.

Each shirt was analysed to ascertain the best and most recognisable section to be used, and each section then painstakingly proportionally sized to accurately correspond to the data.

Each piece acted as a visual infographic, bringing to life the number of players that were associated to each country. For instance, there were many players who had roots in Jamaica and Ireland, so those sections of the panels were biggest to reflect the representation, whereas countries like New Zealand, Guyana and the USA only have one player linked to them so make up the smallest sections of the shirt.

Each shirt was then marked out, cut, and then carefully stitched back together to form the iconic patchwork quilt design that made up the Fabric of England shirt.

‘Show Racism the Red Card’ exist to fight against racism in football, and educate children to the problem. They rely on exposure and presence within the arena of football, to ensure their message is heard loud and clear. Fabric of England was a showpiece that took the issue of racism within football into a new and compelling space – reframing the conversation in a new and visually arresting way. It led to a 500% spike in engagement across their social channels, and brought their message to millions of people around the world when used as a talking point during live coverage of the World Cup games.

In 2021, England played Italy in the European football championships. The game went down to penalties, where England went on to lose. 3 penalties by England were missed by black players – Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford & Bukayo Saka. After the game, racist abuse began to spread online targeting the 3 black players, with people trolling their Instagram pagers, spreading hate on Twitter, and even defacing the Marcus Rashford mural in his hometown.