ThreeMatchBan
Three kinds of picture
The pictures on Three Match Ban come from three places. The oldest are from the site's own picture library: stickers, programme covers, newspaper back pages and photographs taken by readers and writers since 2009. A few come from Wikimedia Commons under an open licence. The rest were made with AI, mostly to give older articles a picture again where the original could no longer be used.
Each picture made with AI carries a small "AI" badge in the corner of the image, the line "Picture made with AI" in its caption, and the same words at the end of its alt text. The files also keep the standard IPTC marker that identifies them as AI-made, and that marker is never stripped out.
Pictures from the library are captioned "Source: Three Match Ban picture library". Commons photographs name the photographer and the licence in the caption, with a link to the original.
How the texts are written
AI tools help with research and with first drafts. Nothing goes up without a person reading it through, cutting what is wrong or dull, and checking the facts against books, club histories and newspaper archives. Questions about anything published on the site can be sent to [email protected].
Why AI pictures at all
Photographs of real players and real matches belong to agencies and the photographers who took them. Rather than borrow them, the site uses AI pictures of the things around football that every fan knows: terraces, floodlights, kit bags, sticker albums and pubs on a matchday.
How to tell them apart
Look at the corner of a picture for the AI badge, then at the line underneath. A sticker or an old photograph from the library has a source credit instead. If you use a screen reader, the alt text of an AI picture ends with "(picture made with AI)".
What AI pictures never show
No AI picture on the site shows a real, recognisable person, a club crest or a sponsor's logo, and none is made to look like a historical news photograph. Where a page needs a real face or a real badge, it uses a sticker, a scan or a credited photograph instead.
Spotted a mistake?
If a picture is labelled wrongly, or an AI picture looks too much like a real player, send the page address to [email protected] and it will be checked and corrected.