101 GCM

101GCM

« More Than a Century... The Heart Remains Green »

Some clubs are measured by the trophies they have won, while others are measured by the size of their supporters. Ghali Mascara, « Ghali Chabab Mascara » however, is measured by the memory carried by the people of the city from one generation to the next.

Over the years, these photographs have never been an attempt to document football matches, but rather the relationship between an entire city and its club. Since I photographed the elderly supporter “Hamid” in 2015, I realized that Ghali Mascara is more than just a football team—it is part of the city’s everyday identity. A man who has grown old, yet still wears the same colors he carried in his youth, with the initials GCM tattooed on his body, as if time had changed nothing but the passing of the years.

More than a decade later, I returned to document the celebrations marking the club’s centenary, followed by the celebrations of its 101st anniversary. The faces had changed, but the scene remained the same: young supporters raising flags, streets filled with chants, and fireworks illuminating the sky over Mascara. Between a photograph taken in 2015 and another in 2025, the essence of the story never changed; only the passion was passed from one generation to the next.

Founded in 1925,( Ghali Chabab Mascara )“GCM” Gallia Mascara lives far beyond the football pitch. It exists in the city’s everyday life, in the stories passed from fathers to their children, in the supporter who tattooed the club’s name on his body, in the child wearing the club’s jersey for the first time, and in the elderly fan who still returns to the stands after decades of unwavering loyalty.

These photographs are not about victories or defeats. They are about time—more than a century of devotion, and a city that continues to see Ghali Mascara as an inseparable part of its memory and identity.