Marseille is, of course, well-known in the football world for its glamorous club Olympique de Marseille - often simply called OM - with its galaxy of star names, its display cabinets stuffed full of trophies and its famous Vélodrome stadium which is being refurbished in time for the Euro 2016 tournament, largely with public money. But there is another, more diverse, side to football in Marseille, which has a total of 112 different clubs, 13,776 registered players and 60 stadia of varying size and condition. This is also the place where one of France's footballing greats Zinedine Zidane was born and honed his skills as a boy, a city where, in housing estates ravaged by poverty and drug-dealing, people play football for pleasure, to fit in, to make something of themselves or simply because there is nothing else to do. And as these striking images from French photographer Patrick Artinian show, people in Marseille are often forced to play football wherever they can find some space.
