We’ve published quite an array of football pictures on BTLM and we’ll readily admit to a fondness for those at the more abstract end of the spectrum. On first sight this particular set of gallery images might appear the most abstract we’ve shared yet – and that’s if you can even discern any obvious reference to football in the first place.

A collection of women dressed in their Sunday best holding a picture frame in scenic Dutch locations from the early 1960s doesn’t exactly suggest retro football. We appreciate this. That these women are the wives or girlfriends of fairly obscure Dutch footballers of the era makes the tie-in marginally more relevant. So too do the locations which are all associated with the home town of the clubs those obscure footballers play for.

It’s still a willfully abstract and playful concept we’ll grant you, but as the pictures were taken by the master of abstract and playful – the wonderful Dutch photographer and BTLM regular, Henk Blansjaar – we feel they belong here as another demonstration of his unique style and imagination behind the camera lens.

The pictures were shot as part of a quirky tourism series with a football twist highlighting some of the more picturesque locations in the smaller towns and villages of the Netherlands.

Wife of PSV Eindhoven player Carel Theuwis, 1962

Wife of Elinkkwijk Utrecht player, Josef Siahava, 1963

Wife of an unspecified Sittardia player, 1962

Wife of Cor van Zandvliet, RBC Roosendaal 1962

Mimi Van der Woude, girlfriend of unnamed Enschedese Boys player, 1963

Wife of Jan Hooijmans from Fortuna Vlaardingen 1962

Wife of an unspecified Go Ahead Eagles player, 1963

Wife of Limburg’s Joop Hellemous, 1962

Wife of Cor Hendriks from Excelsior Eindhoven

Joke Lamberts wife of Albert Lamberts, Limburg 1962

Wife of DWS Amsterdam player Joop de Jong