The 1970s and 1980s were the era where I began to watch football matches in Lancashire and the North East. Initially accompanied by an adult (a pal’s dad, my dad or my granda) during the mid-to-late 1970s, I attended my first games on my own around 1984, with my first serious away trip being spring 1987 to watch Newcastle United play Manchester City at Maine Road (0-0 if you must know). Football has always kindled a creative spark for me. I remember very little about the actual games from the 1970s but can vividly remember the atmosphere of pent up rage, hard-bitten humour and machismo. And the “Fauvist”, almost giddily bright splash of green of the pitch. This somehow opened up a feeling I could only express through drawing.
During the same time (1977-1983), I was engaged in painting the armies of the C18th Austro-Hungarian Empire in full; specifically that which had fought during the later Wars of the Spanish Succession (covering 1740s-1760s). Somehow that dovetailed with obsessively drawing footballers from the 1920s and 1930s. Football history was a subject that, back then, was often ridiculed by my increasingly “casually-clothed” peers.
During 2011-12, I returned to examine this thematic link, discovering that there may be more in it than my pre-adolescent whims let on. These are sketches from a day long “draw-in”(accompanied by a crate of ale, which was polished off day-tripper charabanc style, with the aid of a cheese sandwich). The uniforms are those from all combatant armies of The Great War.
A photograph of a photocopy of a photograph of two North West casual gangs (the curator can’t remember which crew, or team). The freehand drawing (in byro) is taken from the excellent Blandford title, “Army Uniforms of World War 1”. The acrylic paint was accidentally added during the making of a mural of British football hooliganism in Enschede, where the photocopy served as a visual note. With additional text from Anthony Burgess’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1962). The soldier is Russian Lieutenant General (GS) Baron Frederick von den Brincken, Chief of Staff Guards and St Petersburg Military District, 1915.
A photograph of a photocopy of a photograph. Here, police monitor what looks like a crew from the very late 1980s. The freehand drawing (in felt liner tip) is taken from the excellent Blandford title, “Army Uniforms of World War 1”. With additional text from a tispy curator. The soldier is Russian Life Guardsman of the Ismailovski Regiment in walking-out dress, 1915.
A photograph of a photocopy of a photograph of what, without doubt, is an image from the mid 1980s, capturing the (bizarre) trend for deerstalker hats amongst North West casual gangs. The curator thinks this lot could be Tranmere FC. Deerstalkers were lampooned in Liverpool FC’s widely read fanzine The End, but – as usual with any message laced with any form of irony – taken seriously by those it sought to lampoon. The soldier images (in felt liner tip) are those of a Serbian soldier and staff officer, dating from 1916 possibly from the Salonika campaign. The third image (in pencil) is French; the helmet badge for the engineers, to be found on the front of the 1916 Adrian pattern helmet. The doggerel text from the curator has no provenance, though music fans of a certain age may recognise the title of a Smiths song, from the ‘Meat is Murder’ album (1985).
