The Second Half of an Update

Back after our half-time orange, the Seventies project now takes a turn into what has proved to be an abiding area of interest from the middle of that decade to the present, namely European football.

I’ve blogged on this subject previously and extensively, but, basically, I got into football via the 1974 World Cup and became immersed in the game in the autumn of that year with the domestic season and the exploits of a selection of British clubs in the various continental competitions for which they had qualified. However, what most appealed, mostly, when encountered via the results pages of the Daily Mirror newspaper and, in particular, Shoot! magazine were the identities of these teams’ opponents and, in an unwitting act of un-nationalism, such gloriously exotic names became immediate and enduring favourites.

Two of these happened to feature as Liverpool’s opponents in the opening two rounds of the now sadly defunct and much-lamented European Cup-Winners’ Cup, which was pure coincidence but nevertheless acts as the inspiration for the following two drawings.

First of all, the magnificently-monikered Strømsgodset, from Drammen in Norway, presented themselves as an attractive proposition and an underdog to be embraced after receiving an 11 – 0 pasting at Anfield in the first leg of their First Round tie. Prior to the return fixture, which big match was scheduled to take place in the national Ulleval Stadium in Oslo, a particularly wet Norwegian autumn had rendered the pitch somewhat churned-up and waterlogged, apparently to such an extent that the match was under threat of postponement.

Liverpool’s star striker duo of John Toshack and Kevin Keegan – the latter of whom we’ve already encountered twice earlier in this project – were sent out to perform publicity duties and be pictured ‘testing’ the state of the surface, albeit in their civvies (admire those fashions, those flares, if you will) rather than playing kit, and the source image of this media performance provides grist to the artistic mill in this instance. Much to the Liverpool contingent’s disbelief, as subsequently reported, the match did go ahead on the ‘cow field’ and our heroes Strømsgodset managed an impressively doughty display to restrict their opponents to a mere single-goal victory on this occasion: since, they have maintained a place in my heart.

John Toshack and Kevin Keegan, Oslo, October 1974

graphite and putty eraser on ‘Seawhite’ cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

Liverpool’s reward was to progress to a Second Round meeting with Hungary’s wonderful Ferencváros, one of a number of attractive clubs from Budapest, who had previously eliminated Cardiff City from the competition after a fabulous 4 – 1 victory on Welsh soil (as I was to become a Wrexham FC supporter, historically this defeat of the most despised of rivals is thus doubly enjoyable), and it is the first leg of this match, on Merseyside, that provides the source image for the next drawing, of Liverpool, and Kevin Keegan (again!) in particular, pictured attacking the Ferencváros goal. Keegan scored on the night to give his team a lead they held until the final minute, when Maté equalised for our Hungarian heroes, a goal that ultimately proved decisive as, following a scoreless return match, Ferencváros progressed to the next round courtesy of the ‘away goals rule’ in the event of a tied aggregate, a journey that subsequently continued to the Final of the 1974 – 75 season’s Cup-Winners’ Cup, where they sadly succumbed 0 – 3 to the then-Soviet Union’s Dynamo Kiev, one of the great clubs of European football but nowhere near one of my particular favourites, even from the Ukraine.

Liverpool v Ferencvaros, ECWC, October 1974

graphite and putty eraser on ‘Seawhite’ cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

My first taste of live European match action came in September 1978, when I attended the Wrexham v NK Rijeka – then of Yugoslavia – European Cup-Winners’ Cup First Round, Second Leg, tie at the Racecourse Ground, where the hosts could retrieve only two of a three-goal First Leg deficit and thus departed the competition at the initial stage.

The next season saw Wrexham return to the Cup-Winners’ Cup and being drawn to play East Germany’s 1FC Magdeburg, winners of the trophy in 1974, in the First Round. As we were, of course, all schoolboy Communists at this time, such matches had a palpably exotic glamour to them, to yours truly at least, and to be there was magical indeed, to witness the action unfolding, especially beneath floodlights. The first leg took place at the Racecourse and it is this match that provides the source image for the following drawing, depicting Wrexham’s Steve Fox (far right) in the act of scoring his team’s equalising goal to make the score on the night 2 – 2: this was a proper cup tie of the legendary sort – Wrexham establishing a very early lead before Magdeburg recovered and flourished to go 2 – 1 ahead by half-time. Fox’s goal arrived late but there still remained enough time for Wrexham to score a winning goal to take a 3 – 2 advantage to East Germany for the rematch (lost, unfortunately, cruelly, 2 – 5 after extra time to again fall at the first hurdle), and it is such occasions that form the lasting memories, which those of us of a nostalgic inclination can recall fondly whilst they contribute to the personal cultural store.

Steve Fox scores, Wrexham v 1FC Magdeburg, ECWC, September 1979

graphite and putty eraser on ‘Seawhite’ cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

Next up, another sport-themed source image, this one of the author pictured some time at that particularly awkward age around the threshold of one’s teens, captured for posterity in sun-drenched colour. There is no requirement to add anything further here.

Tennis Self-Portrait, 1970s

coloured pencil on ‘Seawhite’ cartridge paper, 30 x 42cm

Further to an inglorious personal history of being pictured pulling faces (or, perhaps, pulling faces when being photographed), the following drawing is based on a source image that is up there with the very best/worst. Taken for and published by a local newspaper in the summer of 1976, it depicts three of St Mary’s school’s ‘Prize Pupils’ clutching the books with which their academic achievements had been rewarded. The apparent loon grinning maniacally in the centre of the group of course made his parents very proud at such a public display of ‘showing off’. 

‘The Prize Pupils, 1976’

graphite and putty eraser on ‘Seawhite’ cartridge paper/30 x 42cm

Back in Time

The Seventies project continues here with a slight deviation from its course (which is pretty random!) to take into account a suitable period image of a subject who has ‘enjoyed’ recent topicality. Here is represented Neil Warnock – who last Monday mutually agreed to part ways with his most recent employer – as pictured some time between February 1972 and March 1975, when his football playing career took him to Scunthorpe United ( also the first club of recent subject Kevin Keegan) and long before he came to resemble Mrs Doubtfire: note the hairstyle as being particularly du jour.

‘Neil Warnock, Scunthorpe United (c. 1972 – 75)’

graphite and putty eraser on cartridge paper/30 x 21cm (A4)

Kenny Killed Us

As mentioned at the conclusion of the previous entry, Kevin Keegan‘s replacement in the Liverpool FC team for the 1977-78 football season was Kenny Dalglish, on whose purchase the club didn’t stint in their pursuit of continued success, as might be gleaned from this portrait published within the pages of the match programme for the Wrexham v Liverpool Football League Cup quarter-final tie played at the Racecourse Ground on Tuesday, 17th January 1978.

This was a match at which I was fortunate to be present, a big occasion and distinct memory in a season of much excitement and great days/nights at Wrexham that season, competing that evening against the reigning domestic and European club champions. Alas, Liverpool  were  to poop Wrexham’s giant-killing party by inflicting a 3 – 1 defeat not least courtesy of Dalglish scoring all three of his team’s goals, and here the Seventies project continues with a representation of the man celebrating one of his hat-trick during the course of the 90 minutes of the match. As Liverpool supporter John Peel‘s favourite player of the era, there’s thus a link between this and a previous subject to be featured in the project. As also mentioned before, Youtube footage of the highlights of the match and the damage done by Dalglish, is available).

‘Kenny Dalglish, Wrexham v Liverpool, 16/01/78’

Graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartidge paper/42 x 30cm (A3)

A tangible souvenir of the occasion, a portal to a variety of memories, here’s an image of the front cover of the match programme and also the rear, featuring the team line-ups, both full of fine players: if only Dixie McNeil, goalscorer par excellence, hadn’t been cup-tied and thus unavailable to represent Wrexham, though…(we can still dream of what might have been).

Film and Football

Continuing with the Seventies project and another selection of drawings, the latest to be processed with reference to memories retained from growing up.

First up are a pair of stills from the film (movie) ‘Thunderbolt and Lightfoot’, which I recall seeing on television for the first time (it became what seemed like an annual event for a period of a few early-Eighties’ years) in 1979, sometime around the August Bank Holiday which was also the time John Peel, as featured previously, was mentioning his 40th birthday. I obviously enjoyed the film a great deal, enough to return to watch it numerous times, and can remember in particular its sun-bleached aesthetic and those scenes near the conclusion of the tale featuring a car journey between Clint Eastwood‘s ‘Thunderbolt’ and [spoiler alert] a dying ‘Lightfoot’ (Jeff Bridges, who became a real favourite actor of mine).

‘Thunderbolt and Lightfoot #1’

graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartridge paper/A3 (42 x 30cm)

‘Thunderbolt and Lightfoot #2’

graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartridge paper/A3 (42 x 30cm)

Next, a drawing sourced from an original image that graced a number of the front covers of Wrexham FC‘s match programmes towards the latter part of 1977 and which features the central figure of Bobby Shinton celebrating the single goal that defeated Bristol City in a Football League Cup Third Round tie played at the Racecourse Ground on Wednesday 26th October, a match I attended in the company of my father and more than 10,000 other spectators. Shinton, obviously the goalscorer, is accompanied by a couple of teammates, the late Johns Roberts and Lyons, with the dejected opponent being, I think, Gerry Sweeney.

‘Bobby Shinton (Wrexham v Bristol City, 26/10/1977)’

graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartridge paper/A3 (42 x 30cm)

These were the great days when Third Division Wrexham were bona fide giant killers – Bristol City were enjoying a brief period in the First Division at this time – and would reach the quarter final stage of both the FA and League Cups during the 1977-78 season, the club’s most successful ever when they went on the be crowned champions of Division Three and earn promotion to the heady heights of English football’s second tier for the first and only time in their history before adding the Welsh Cup to the list of honours. The Racecourse became littered with the scalps of the ‘big’ clubs – Bristol City again and then Newcastle United were both treated to 3-goal drubbings in FA Cup tie replays in the new year – and it took the might of European champions Liverpool and a referee-assisted Arsenal to end those glorious cup runs, memories of which remain vivid, welcome as they are in these times of the club plumbing the nadir of their almost 100 years in the national league structure (I could go on…).

The particular significance of the Bobby Shinton drawing is the fact that I made a version of it back in the day, which was published in the art section of the children’s pages of the local (NE Wales) ‘Evening Leader’ newspaper – unfortunately, no tangible evidence of this remains but my parents did retain a cutting of an earlier artistic effort submitted to and published in the same ‘paper, which has subsequently come into my possession and here, accordingly, introduces/precedes the next drawing, one of my then-favourite footballer, Kevin Keegan, pictured here representing Liverpool FC in 1976, when the original drawing was made. Of particular and curious footballing interest, 1976-77 was Keegan’s last season at Liverpool before departing for new continental challenges at SV Hamburg – by the following season, he had been replaced by a player who went on to even greater achievements and legend at Liverpool, Kenny Dalglish, who downed Wrexham with a hat-trick at the Racecourse, another special occasion I was present to witness (and of which there is Youtube footage – never mind the game, look at the state of that vintage Seventies’ pitch!).

(note the Kevin Keegan drawing is credited to a ‘James Roudey’, which is not a misprint but an interpretation by a member of the newspaper staff based on what was obviously my illegible handwriting even then – how typical that I should find a way of taking something of the gloss off a public achievement!)

‘Kevin Keegan 1976’

graphite and putty eraser on cartridge paper/A4 (30 x 21cm)

Teenage Armchair Fandom (Subbuteo-style)

Continuing with the Half Man Half Biscuit-inflected ‘Subbuteo’-themed series of still life paintings, this latest composition – essentially a study of a slight reduction in scale of the represented objects exploring the potential of a larger, more complex proposition – references the title and subject of the song ‘I Was a Teenage Armchair Honved Fan’ and thus features our miniature heroes sporting the colours of Honved on the left, in the red and black strip, and their Budapest neighbours and rivals – to whom I became attracted and attached as a pre-teen and have favoured since – Ferencváros in the green and white to the right. I’ve blogged on the very subject of this teenage armchair fandom as it relates to European clubs teams previously, at some length and in some detail, but this recent series seems to be the first time I’ve made such allusions in paint.

‘Teenage Armchair Fandom (Subbuteo Budapest derby)’

oil on canvas/25cm x 35cm/June 2018

The pair of miniature figures are here represented as being placed in their cutout slots in the cardboard box of the type in which complete teams of players were/are presented for sale or otherwise in the boxed sets of the Subbuteo game, as will be obvious to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with such. It’s noticeable that the plastic bases reflect more highlights in this state than being placed on a horizontal surface as previous examples have been, which helps give a bit more painterly ‘zip’ to proceedings.

An Alternative Christmas ‘Want’?

Following-on from the previous post, the latest painting on and off the easel mines the same Half Man Half Biscuit-inspired subject-matter a little more deeply and quite possibly obscurely, this time depicting a vintage Subbuteo football (soccer) player figure sporting something of an Ujpest Dozsa ‘away’ kit.

‘Subbuteo Footballer #6 (Ujpest Dozsa ‘Away’)

oil on canvas/35cm x 25cm/June 2018

 

Christmas ‘Wants’

Continuing with the current series of small still life paintings, the latest pair (as they’ve become, related) again feature vintage ‘heavyweight’ Subbuteo football player figures (circa 1960s-70s), empirically observed as objects, but here sporting invented colours, the first inspired by the title and lyrics of the legendary and much-beloved in this parish  Half Man Half Biscuit‘s early song ‘All I Want For Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit’, thus being an idiosyncratic representation of, based upon what research reveals to be pretty much established facts, with a nod to period generalities of Subbuteo style.

‘Subbuteo Footballer #4 (Dukla Prague)’

oil on canvas/40cm x 30cm/May 2018

The matter was by no means laid to rest upon the resolution of this painting (as I assumed it would be), however, as a particular research find served to rock the concept to its very foundation, with Nigel Blackwell‘s revelation here that it was his initial intention to lyrically reference not Dukla Prague but another East European football club – indeed, another Hungarian one to accompany the also-legendary Honved, of whom he wrote and sang of being ‘a teenage armchair fan’ (see here for a personal ‘adversarial’ response to this, which might help explain a lot, not least an obsession with the romantically-named football clubs of Hungary and Budapest in particular which began in the 1970s and continues to this day) – in the form of Ujpesti Dozsa, who’d opposed British teams in numerous European club competition ties during the late Sixties to mid-Seventies, but had unfortunately been unable to make such a lyric scan.

Accordingly, and in particularly multi-nerdy manner, what is (re)presented below is a ‘hand-painted’ interpretation/approximation of the traditional Ujpesti Dozsa colours of purple and white – the former of which is perhaps a little too blue in hue, especially when compared to the mauve of Subbuteo vintage as they represented teams such as Anderlecht and ‘Austria Vienna’.

‘Subbuteo Footballer #5 (Ujpesti Dozsa)’

oil on canvas/35cm x 25cm/June 2018

This imagining of the ‘home’ colours of Ujpesti yet creates another doubt, of course – did the song’s character instead desire the ‘away’ version, and is another painting in order to address this possibility? To be brutally honest, another painting is already in order to address the failure of this unsatisfactory offering, so perhaps watch this space for further developments.

In other, more important news, there is coincidentally a brand-new Half Man Half Biscuit album, in vinyl LP, CD and mp3 download format, to enjoy, which is most advisable under these and indeed any circumstances.

Blue Sunday

‘Subbuteo Footballer #3’

oil on canvas/40cm x 30cm/May 2018

Continuing the current theme and series of small paintings, this most recent one, brought to a resolution yesterday afternoon after a substantial session on Saturday, depicts another of the recently-acquired late-1980s’ vintage Subbuteo ‘lightweight’ football (soccer) player figures, enlarged on the canvas to around x 10 scale, this one being from the ‘blue’ team in the boxed set, opposing the ‘reds’.

Again, part of the challenge involves the ‘Uglowian’ representation of different types of plastic (the cup of the base into which the figure is fixed being of a particularly ‘polished’, highly-reflective-surfaced type not unlike a ceramic glaze), some of which has, obviously, a hand-painted finish applied to it, thus opening-up a dialogue between two forms of hand-painted object in the figure and the painting itself.

Showing Our Colours

‘Subbuteo Footballer #2’

oil on canvas/20″ x 16″/May 2018

Another in the current series of the still life paintings of miniature model football players, in this instance the object of active contemplation being a later-generation so-called ‘lightweight’ Subbuteo figure, dating from the late 1980s, recently acquired as a member of one of the two teams contained within a boxed edition of the game, discovered in a local antiques emporium at what was considered to be an affordable price.

As differing from the previous painting – that being a direct transcript of the observed subject – this one takes a certain artistic licence in that the colours sported by the figure have been invented in the hand-painted ‘customised’ manner of one’s youth, and in fact are intended to represent those of Atlético Madrid, one of TOoT‘s favourite European clubs. As it so happened, the painted was resolved early on Wednesday evening, soon before the kick-off of that night’s UEFA Europa League Final, subsequently won by Atlético by a 3 – 0 margin over Olympique Marseille, thus serving as something of a personal tribute to the victorious team.