Elliott Franks is an award winning photojournalist, his work encompasses news, politics, performing arts & portraiture; during his 23 year career Elliott has had many thousands of images published in newspapers & magazines in the UK and around the world. Working as a press photographer means that no two days are ever the same & often things happen that are least expected, this is the story of one of those days. We asked Elliott to share his experiences of working on Euros 2020 cup final day.
Sunday 11th July 2021 started off like most other Sunday mornings, my alarm went off at 0615, I got up and dressed and made my way to Oxford Circus to cover arrivals at the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in Langham Place. The main guest that morning was Nadhim Zahawi who was then the Minister for Vaccine deployment. Only two photographers turned up that morning as it was the day of the Euros 2020 Cup Final at Wembley that had been postponed for a year due to Covid, the other photographers went to Wembley. We photographed Zahawi being interviewed by Trevor Phillips on Sunday on Sky TV remotely outside Broadcasting House, then I decided to walk down towards Piccadilly Circus. England fans had travelled from around the country to London, many had been up all night, some were quite drunk but mostly in good spirits. I encountered small groups of England fans as I walked down Regent Street and then around Piccadilly Circus, they were all happy to pose for pictures, one group decided to spray beer over me and my cameras, but I guess that’s an occupational hazard when photographing drunk England fans on the street. As Trafalgar Square had become an official Fan Zone Leicester Square was really the only pedestrianised area for fans to congregate and there were already hundreds in the square between Burger King and Global Radio, mostly outside The Odeon - fans were playing football, dancing and just standing around talking, many were drinking and you could feel that the atmosphere was becoming quite intense. I walked around taking candid photos of whatever action I witnessed, there was an air of excitement and anticipation that England might actually win the final, after taking a set of pictures I would go and sit in the relatively calm area in the centre of Leicester Square by the William Shakespeare fountain where I edited and filed images to the newspapers. I repeated this three times, as I was sitting there I could see that it was getting much busier, more fans were arriving in the square and they were also becoming more animated, they had started throwing barriers, bottles, beer cans and trees, even though you could feel that their behaviour was starting to deteriorate the atmosphere was still quite good, many were drunk but happy and it felt like history was being made around you. It was now 11.45am and I spotted some pink smoke from a flare and moved closer to see what was going on and to take some photos, then realising that a fan was holding a lit flare between his naked buttock cheeks and his mates were standing around filming his antics. I was the only photographer present and I managed to take a few pictures, you do see some quite bizarre things in central London, so I honestly didn’t think that this was anything too out of the ordinary. The square was now too busy to safely sit down and edit so I walked to Pret in Trafalgar Square and started my final edit. When reviewing the images I felt that the flare picture might be slightly too explicit for the newspapers to publish but I liked the image and wanted to share it so I decided that Twitter was the best platform and tweeted the picture using as many Euros related hashtags as I could find. My tweet was sent from Pret and it quickly went viral, with about 230K impressions, it was my most liked and retweeted picture ever. Facebook & Instagram were banning it for community guidelines violations often suspending accounts for between 2 and 30 days, including some high profile celebrity accounts!
Twitter is designed to allow tweets to be re-tweeted and liked and then the originator of the content will always be able to view the analytics related to their tweet but sadly when an image like this goes viral many people think it's completely okay to screen dump the image and then to use it uncredited in their own tweet or other social media post, that is actually theft of a copyrighted image. I believe that more needs to be done to educate people on this issue.
I first had an inkling that the image was on it's way to becoming popular after I left Pret and noticed quite a few 'likes' on my Twitter account, it was being shared and talked about by sports commentators, celebrities, politicians but especially by comedians!
David Schneider tweeted:
and David Baddiel tweeted:
The Times columnist Caitlin Moran wrote about him on 15th July 2021
Flare Up The Bum Man
Oh, Flare Up The Bum Man! During a week in which male, England football fans racked up a lot of bad will, you were a shining beacon to us all — and that beacon was located, proudly, up your bum.
For those who are not across the phenomenon of Flare Up The Bum Man, he is the bold football devotee whose pre-match preparation on Sunday afternoon involved going to Leicester Square, presumably quite drunk, and then inserting, in front of a wildly cheering audience, a flaming red distress flare into what we might term “nature’s candlestick holder”.
For many this was the highlight of the day: the People’s Red Arrows, if you will; a piece of street theatre that evoked “30 years of hurt” in the most physical way possible. In it I saw all manner of evocations of English history — for was this not a bold retelling of the myth of the Sword in the Stone? If you squinted a bit? Whoever pulled the flare from the bum might well be the next true King of England.
This was my original Tweet
It didn't take long before the image was turned into all sorts of memes...
Most British newspapers used it as the theme of their cartoons...this was in The Guardian...
The Daily Star used the picture on it’s front page on 14th July - by now we knew the identity of ‘Arse Flare Man’ he was Charlie Perry a roofer from Sunbury on Thames who had drunk 20 pints of cider and had allegedly been snorting cocaine, he later managed to bribe his way into Wembley Stadium to watch the final match live. "How it started...and How it's going" seemed to sum up the mood of the nation.
The Sun used it on their front page the following day 15th July - apparently their reporters found him and paid him £11,000 for an interview! They splashed with JACKASS !
The story was gaining traction and other pictures were being used in most of the newspapers by now - The Daily Mirror & Daily Star plus LadBible:
The picture has been featured twice on Channel 4’s The Last Leg TV show, it has also been featured on many other TV programmes including GMTV, BBC Breakfast and on Australian TV.
It was featured in Canada’s National Post newspaper on the 17th July - they used a more conservative version of the image!
18th July pictures were used in Sunday Times, Star on Sunday & The Observer articles
28th July it was back in The Daily Star
Travel journalist David Whitely tweeted the picture in December during the party at No 10 controversy
The Daily Mail wrote a piece about him and also mentioned another fan Wembley doing the same thing who was photographed by Martyn Wheatley
So as you can imagine it was quite a journey, when you work independently as a freelance press photographer the media outlets will contact you directly (as opposed to via an agency) so every day I was being emailed & phoned by newspapers, magazines and television stations around the world. The picture was used in Italy, France, Sweden, America, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Greece, Portugal and more, but I think the funniest moment was when it was flashed on Channel 4's The Last Leg who turned it into a major theme of the show. Each time the picture is sold you have to generate invoices and sign contracts, perhaps that's a side of the job that most other 'agency' photographers don't have to think about. It is quite a thrill when an image that you have created goes viral, your adrenalin starts pumping, it has now been seen by millions of people around the world and has become the image that I will always be the most known for, whether that is a good or bad thing I'm not sure but either way you really feel a sense of achievement when an image that you are responsible for creating has become so famous.
www.elliottfranks.com
elliottfranks@gmail.com
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