Merlin Röhl:
Life with Everton

Football is photographed relentlessly, but usually from the outside. Life with Everton offers another vantage point: Merlin Röhl recording the people he works with and the city he is learning to call home. Written, photographed and curated by Röhl, it gathers his first Everton season into a personal visual diary. Book announcement

A cover from inside the coach

The cover photograph was taken through the team-coach window before the Chelsea match in March 2026. Outside are the supporters on Regent Road, with flags and blue smoke on the approach to Hill Dickinson Stadium. It is a photograph of Evertonians made by someone arriving to play for them. That reversal of the usual viewpoint gives the project its interest. Cover story

In the interview, Röhl explains how the foreground hand adds depth and establishes his position inside the team. He also describes preparing more carefully for another arrival, only to find the photographs less satisfying. It is a useful photographic observation: preparation matters, but it cannot order the light or recreate a feeling. Interview, 10:13

Learning to look

Röhl traces his interest partly to family photographs and describes taking a camera out while recovering from injury. The book moves between the dressing room and Liverpool's streets. He values the moments when teammates stop performing for the camera and simply get on with being themselves. Interview, 04:39 onwards

For a photographer, that is the more interesting promise of the book. Access alone does not make a picture. Familiarity can: the small gesture, the unguarded expression, the ordinary corner that becomes meaningful because somebody bothered to notice it. A season's results tell one story; photographs can preserve the texture around it.

Other players behind the camera

Leighton Baines

The closest connection is inside Everton. Röhl describes Baines' photographs, private book and Super 8 footage as an inspiration; Baines and Seamus Coleman encouraged him to start photographing his new surroundings. That is encouragement, not an announcement of a joint publication. Interview, 06:10–10:00

Baines has discussed analogue photography in his own right. In an Essential Journal interview, he identified a Nikon FM2 as his first camera and spoke about a Leica M6. His interest provides an Everton precedent for taking photographs as personal work rather than treating every image as publicity. Baines' camera interview

Serge Gnabry

Gnabry offers a less elaborate example. In GQ's 2022 10 Essentials interview, he included a disposable camera and described the pleasure of birthday pictures collected into an album. His point was about keeping memories of friends and trips, not expensive equipment. It is a useful companion to Röhl's project: a physical sequence of photographs can matter more than a camera's prestige. Gnabry's interview

Equipment / What is confirmed

Which camera does Merlin use?

Röhl discusses analogue photography and shared camera interests with Baines, but this interview does not name his camera body or lens. The exact model used for this book remains unverified. Baines' documented Nikon FM2 and Leica M6 should not be relabelled as Röhl's equipment without further evidence.

The book

The announced launch price is £15 plus postage and packaging. Retail availability was announced for 15 October 2026 at Everton One and Everton Two, with online availability through Everton Direct subject to stock. Check the club's current listing before ordering. Launch details · Club book information

This is a preview based on the club interview and published launch information, not a review of a finished copy. The embedded video shows the book; its photographs are not reproduced here as a separate gallery.

Sources

• Everton Football Club: Röhl's full interview
• The Guide Liverpool: book and launch details
• Essential Journal: Leighton Baines on film photography (indexed interview; publisher page unavailable when checked)
• GQ: Serge Gnabry's 10 Essentials, 1 November 2022

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