Football has always kindled a creative spark for me. I remember very little about my first games from the 1970s but can vividly remember the atmosphere of pent up rage, hard-bitten humour and machismo. And the “Fauvist”, iridescent green of the pitch.
When young my love of football also found expression through my obsession with kits from the 1920s and 1930s. Why, I wondered, couldn’t the 1970s footballer wear the (to me) much more elegant styles of the inter-war years? During the same time (1977-1983), I was engaged in painting the “Lace War” armies of the C18th Austro-Hungarian Empire. This venture got out of hand very quickly. Somewhere in my parents’ loft marches every regiment that fought at Waterloo (Airfix HO/OO scale figures) and a fair number of figures depicting the terrible opening battles of the First War.
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” in Leiden’s then un-renovated Scheltema. The day also saw me down a crate of ale, with the aid of a cheese sandwich. The uniforms are those from all combatant armies of The Great War.
A slightly blurred photograph of a photocopy with drawing and inscription. Here, two North Western crews confront each other: the curator seems to remember that shows Bolton Wanderers fans versus some other bored youths. The text (in byro) is doggerel hot from the frontal lobes of the Photocopier, the soldier (in felt tip liner and a few pencil strokes) is an Italian Bersaglieri rifleman from the 6th regiment, 1915; taken from the excellent Blandford Colour Series title, “Army Uniforms of World War 1”. The Photocopier likes the fact this photo is slightly blurred; it seems to complement the hurried movement suggested in the hooligan photograph.
A photograph of a photocopy with drawing and inscription. Two police dogs are restrained by their handlers, whilst casual types look on.. The text (in byro) is doggerel but the Photocopier is quietly pleased that his conscience shone through the increasing fug of beer in writing it. The officer (in oil pencil and pencil) is a German pilot officer, Manfred von Richthofen no less, the famous “Red Baron”. The curator has no doubt that the Baron, known for his courtly manners, would have agreed with the sentiment about plastic in the world’s oceans.
A slightly blurred photograph of a photocopy with a quick sketch and inscription. Here, we see a crocodile of casuals walking through some North Western town. The text (in felt tip) is taken from Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962) a book that somehow presaged the football violence of the late 1960s -late 1980s. The head is that of a wearing the famous “Czapka” (in pencil outlined in felt tip) is a Polish Lancer in the service of the Austro-Hungarian army, 1916. Taken from the excellent Blandford Colour Series title, “Army Uniforms of World War 1”. Again the hasty, off centre nature of the Photocopier’s photograph somehow adds to the essence of the image.
