in the city of blinding lights

March 23, 20123 Comments

Roberto Mancini (which is Italian for Robert of Man City), or at least a close approximation, drawn in the Stillman and Birn gamma book, mostly in copic multiliner until it decided to give up on me. I have been practising drawing Mr Mancini, but still I haven’t quite captured his eyes; they’re too dark, too intense, as though Tevez is giving him evils. Still, this is progress, not perfection, and I’ll keep practising (until they sack him). I have a soft spot for Mancini. I was a big fan of his as a player at Sampdoria (my Italian team preferisco back in the giorno). And he’s a good looking fellow too. After all the untold riches City have had heaped upon them lately, I suddenly felt sorry for them when United went top recently; City fans are long suffering, and to be pipped now would be gut-wrenching. They look destined, despite winning every single home game, to ‘do a Newcastle’. (Notice how I’m not talking about Spurs nbeing pipped into 3rd by Arsenal. Lots of pipping going on.)

it’s not easy being blue

March 8, 2012March 8, 20122 Comments

You have to laugh at Chelsea. It would be easy to say their managerial office has a revolving door, but it’s more like a revolving cashpoint. It reminds me of the Crystal Maze, that bit at the end where you are in that air cupboard and have a minute to grab as many bits of rapidly flying silvery paper as possible before your time is up. Actually it’s not like that in the slightest but I like the image. Longer serving managers like Ferguson, Wenger, Moyes (that’s it, by the way) must look at Chelsea in the same way that oak trees look at human beings, with their fleeting brief lifespans, but still strong enough to cut them down from time to time. The fabulous wealth that their Russian owner brought them means that instant success is an absolute (which basically means winning every trophy in your first couple of weeks or you’re fired). Even Ancelotti, who won them their second double, was booted out less than a year later. The double used to be really really hard to win, and double-winning managers were revered for decades later (Nicholson, Mee, Dalglish). Now it’s like, well you couldn’t even win the Champion’s League too? You’re useless! All of which hiring and firing becomes very expensive for Chelsea. This is Andres Villas-Boas, who lasted about two thirds of a season. He’s only 34, look at him. He was a manager for one year before coming to Chelsea, winning a load of stuff at Porto before shifting to the Bridge for a ton of Siberian cash. Now he’s out the door also with a ton of cash, and while part of me feels bad for the guy – he’s young, still learning, and needed to be given time to change that aging cliquey team around – but really I think he’s not been harmed too much by this whole affair, he has full pockets now, and when even top-drawer managers with very successful careers can get axed at Chelsea (Ancelotti, Mourinho, Scolari) it doesn’t hurt his reputation as much as you’d think. Andre, I hope you to either a smaller club, or even back to Portugal, and spend a few years really working on a project, making it successful, building up a bank of respect and a catalogue of trophies, and then when Chelsea, many more managers and revolving doors and millions of pounds and failed players down the line, will look back up at you and shout “save us!” you will whisper, “no…”

sir fergie

June 15, 2011June 15, 20111 Comment

Sir Fergie. He’s happy because he looks a bit like John Craven in this drawing. The football season is over, and it has been a long long time since I drew anything in the football book started last year, despite having an amazing football season to report on (namely, Spurs in the Champions League). I thought I’d make up for it with a few drawings of the faces of the season. Well, one drawing. Sir Alex Ferguson won yet another Premier League title this year, Manchester United’s 19th (a new record), and though they ultimately lost the Champions League final (once again to Barcelona), he’s without a doubt cemented his place as the best and most consistent of all managers in English (maybe even British) football history. Fair play to him. Refs hate him, Arsene Wenger doesn’t send him Christmas cards, and the FA seem to have an automatic ‘fine Fergie for something’ reminder on their Outlook calendars. I tell you what, football will be very different when he’s gone. He is the embodiment of the manager truly being the Boss, and for those who argue with him, he has a hell of a lot of silverware, and he’s not afraid to throw it at you.

this is gonna be messi

May 31, 2011May 31, 2011Leave a comment

That was a very good final. No honestly, it was – sure, the second half saw the far and away best team in the world close their grip on – oh my – the very mighty Manchester United like a crocodile and a kitten. But these were two great teams capable of greatness, but with one being really really good at keeping the ball. Almost like a chess player who doesn’t allow the opponent to start any sort of move by closing off every alleyway and keeping all knights on the rim (or at least those knights not all over the tabloid papers). When Rooney hit that magnificent equalizer, I thought it was game on, and the second half would be a titanic battle. The moral of the Titanic however is that the iceberg always wins, no matter how great the ship. Barcelona are the best team in the world and one of the best in history, and deservedly so – they haven’t been cobbled together last minute with a massive chequebook like a Man City or Chelsea, and you really get a sense that any of the players can do something unbelievable. That midfield team of Xavi and Iniesta will go down in the history books, we will tell our children about them, and then to top them off with the ever-brilliant Messi? In a season when Cristiano Ronaldo scored over fifty goals in a season, something not ever done before in Spain, Messi then did the same. Manchester United are the deserving champions of England and Ferguson rightly in place as perhaps the greatest British manager of all time, and it was nice to see him give a smile and congratulations to what is obviously a legendary team in Barcelona. I’ve never ever seen Manchester United have only 30% possession in any game. I remember the great final of 92 (I loved Barcelona back then but Sampdoria were my favourite Italian team too) when Koeman scored at the old Wembley, for their first ever European Cup (and a year after Man United beat them in the Cup Winners Cup final), the ‘Dream Team’, in that great orange away kit. In that team was Pep Guardiola, manager of the current Dream Team. With this final being at the new Wembley stadium, with fate involved there was only going to be one winner. I’m glad I watched it.

Now I’m in footy withdrawal – what will I do all summer? Watch the MLS??

are you murray in disguise?

January 30, 2011January 31, 2011Leave a comment

Not a brilliant Sunday morning, sports fans. I was tired, after staying up far too late (and falling asleep on the couch) watching Andy Murray turn up and get humiliated in the Australian Open final (I’m not a tennis watcher, but as a Brit it’s my duty to tune in and get my hopes up before having them cruelly dashed by someone from the old Yugoslavia, and there’s still six months until Wimbledon!). Then I woke up to watch my beloved Tottenham (almost an anagram of Tim Henman…) get roundly turned over by Fulham, all over by half-time at four-nil. This hurt; it’s the FA Cup, the oldest football competition in the world, and this year ends in a ‘1’ – Spurs are supposed to win it this year! Perhaps this was a ruse, to make AC Milan think we’ll be a pushover in the Champion’s League in a few weeks. If so it was a bloody convincing ruse, I must say. Anyway, enough disappointment, I got out my moleskine diary and started sketching the living room as I watched (I would have been hanging my head anyway). Soon my son and then my wife joined in, all drawing pictures together with my little paint set, which was fun. You can see the streamers are till up from my son’s birthday party, all around the room; our apartment currently resembles an airmail envelope. Back in the match, Spurs didn’t even score a consolation goal.

‘cos we only know that there’s gonna be a show

September 4, 2010Leave a comment

I forgot to post this when I drew it. Back in July, I went to see MLS outfit San Jose Earthquakes play my team from London, Tottenham Hotspur. It was fun, though a long way. Anyway, I got a phonecall from San Jose Earthquakes this week, which was a surprise. They were just following up on my recent visit to Buck Shaw stadium and wanted to see how my experience could have been improved. Welcome to America folks, seriously, can you imagine English clubs calling up everyone who went to their matches – including away fans – and asking about customer service? (Maybe they do these days?) Incredible, I was really impressed. I had actually enjoyed the day immensely and told the guy so (even mentioned that I cycled which helped me beat the post-game traffic). As for suggestions, I told him to ban Arsenal shirts (that got a laugh). I was going to say they should have gotten rid of their cheerleaders and had Ossie Ardiles sing a few half-time numbers (Ossie had been meeting fans in San Francisco the night before – how I wish I’d been there! As you know he was my childhood hero). Football football football.

did you think i’d forgotten?

August 15, 20102 Comments

With all this new post-Symposium energetic sketching (which you’re yet to see), you might think that the start of the new Premier League football season had somehow slipped by me. Not at all! Things kicked off today, with my team Spurs drawing 0-0 at home to Man City, who for all the billions and squillions they are spending, still can’t beat Tottenham. Sorry, City fans.

For a World Cup year, we haven’t seen all that many big blazing transfers this summer. Clubs are being more cautious. However, there have again been a glut of new kits, many very nice, many not so nice. I love Tottenham’s new home kit, Puma have really stepped up lately. The new ‘tailored’ Umbro shirts are lovely, especially the Rangers one (I’d even get it, if I didn’t have a Celtic shirt). Most of the adidas kits are overdone, gaudy and unnecessary. However, hate to say it though I do, Arsenal’s new old-style Nike kit is one of the best they’ve had. I can’t believe I just said that.

I’m sure football-shirt-design geekery isn’t as interesting to you as it is to me. Nonetheless, if you want a laugh, go over to the football shirt websites (such as this one or this one)and check out the comments sections. They get quite unbelievably passionate, vitriolic, ridiculous. Laughter will ensue, I promise, at least after a few beers.

So who will win the league this year? I don’t care, I really don’t. As long as Spurs do alright, I’ll be happy. Now, back to the Portland Symposium sketches…

the beautiful game

July 22, 20104 Comments

It was time for another collage drawing, and after the frenzied obsession of the World Cup, what better theme to draw than football? I scrambled together some of the football related items of mine – old ticket stubs, football stickers and keyrings mostly – plus drew a thing or two that I don’t actually have (those subbuteo players? Sorry, I stepped on and broke mine decades ago). You never know where these things will end. I’m happy with the final outcome. Click on the image to go to my Flickr site for a closer view (or you could just move really close to the screen, but I don’t recommend it). Here is a step-by-step to show you how it was done:

Stage one: I had a World Cup keyring, and I knew I wanted to draw some football stickers. the subbuteo men were, however, drawn from memory, as the careers of my own ones were long ago ended by being-trodden-on-related-injuries. Speaking of little plastic figures who don’t do much on the big stage, there’s Wayne Rooney.

Stage Two: more details, more Panini stickers, plus some from previous years. I have old sticker albums, plus a small collection of random football stickers from Belgium, Germany, Italy. My Spurs shirt keyring makes an appearance, as does the THFC tie-pin, and you can see a bit of my old mid-90s Ireland shirt, the same one Fatehr Dougal Maguire wears to bed.

Stage Three: the ink drawing is done, and more old tickets, some thrity years old, plus some badges and the CD of ‘Three Lions’. the magazine France Football finds its way in – that’s a great magazine, probably the best. There’s a lace representing a football boot, unfortunately I’ve not owned boots in over 20 years so a lace is all you get.

Stage Four: time to add some colour. I toyed with the idea of only colouring part of it, but the colour was always going to be a big part of this drawing. It’s supposed to remind us we just had a World Cup in the rainbow nation, in a way. I had to think about composition, but in truth when I start these types of drawings I have no idea how they will look, I just go with what comes to mind as I go along. If I hadn’t done the step by step here, you’d still have guessed I go from left to right.

Stage Five: finished! Here is a detail from the final piece. You can see it at the top of this post. I’ll write another post about my thoughts on the recent World Cup later on.

i want to be in that number

July 19, 2010July 19, 2010Leave a comment

The World Cup is over, and it’s a long wait until the Premier League season begins. But that doesn’t mean no footy! And who should come to California for a friendly but my own beloved Tottenham Hotspur FC. They kicked off their US tour with a match against their club partners in the MLS, San Jose Earthquakes, who happen to be my ‘local’ big team. When I say ‘local’ it’s all relative of course – San Jose is almost three hours away by train, and I’d never been before Saturday. When I say ‘big’, it’s all relative… their ground, Buck Shaw Stadium, is located on the Santa Clara University campus, and the Earthquakes recorded their largest attendance there with a whopping 10,712. I was in that number.

Sure, the match ended 0-0, but it was a fun occasion. We had our big names there, those who didn’t go to the World Cup – Bale, Modric, Huddlestone, and the returning Robbie Keane (who missed some sitters). I coudn’t believe how many Tottenham fans there were! A good deal of whom were American, but many were British (with their American kids tagging along; that’ll be me in a few years). And it was like a walking gallery of Spurs football shirt history! I’ve never seen so many different era Spurs shirts, not even at the Lane. All the classics were there, with the exception of the 1986 hummel one, I never saw that. My one wouldn’t fit me now, I was only ten back then. I wore the all-white Kappa shirt. On the field, the players were wearing the new Tottenham shirt for the first time, and it’s a beauty, I’ll be getting that. Surprisingly, here and there were dotted people in bright and obvious red Arsenal shirts; unsurprisingly, each of them were roundly booed as they passed (and some looked genuinely surprised at that fact too). There were lots of other shirts on show from all sorts of clubs and countries, something you also wouldn’t normally see at the Lane. A guy sat near me had the old Wales away shirt from the early 90s, the white Umbro one with little green and red arrows and lines on it. Haven’t seen that in years. Even the Earthquakes fans were well decked out, and I saw kits going from the current black Adidas tops to the old Nike blue ones with white arms.

yeah, that was offside

But enough football-kit geekery. You know I can’t help myself. I enjoyed watching the Earthquakes; it’s America, for sure, and there are cheerleaders and sunburn, but it felt a lot like how football used to be, or still is for small clubs, intimate, friendly, informal. I really enjoyed that. I would go again. I also liked that I cycled to the stadium from San Jose train station. Good job I knew the way.

Oh yes, and some urban sketching. Before the match I drew the Mission Santa Clara de Asis, on the SCU campus right by Buck Shaw.

Come on you Spuuuuuurs!!!!!!! Tottenham play New York Red Bulls on Thursday; I think I’ll watch that one on telly.

all you need is Löw

July 6, 2010Leave a comment

Clearly the most fashionable man in the World Cup (if you don’t include his identikit assistant), German coach and George Harrison c.1965 impersonator Joachim Löw and his team of counter-attacking kids have taken South Africa by storm. They face Spain in tomorrow’s all-important semi-final, having utterly destroyed Maradona’s Argentina, and we all know about what happened against England. No need to mention it again. That was a Löw point.