graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm
Considering what a nigglingly slow month September has been here at TOoT, following a pleasingly productive few months’ practice, it’s something of a relief to be able to present this latest drawing, processed from the source of an enlarged photocopy taken from a photograph as printed in the ‘Official Football League Yearbook 1972 – 73’ of a delightful image, circa 1971, the subject of which features a young Kevin Keegan, pictured quite possibly just after having joined Liverpool during the May of that year, in the company of his manager Bill Shankly: Shankly had achieved something of iconic status with his achievements with Liverpool over the course of the previous decade, & Keegan was then on the cusp of doing similarly in the Seventies, transcending the confines of football/sport in the process to the extent of indulging in singing & advertising 'careers'.
Coincidentally, Kevin Keegan also played a central role in the first football match in which I ever took an interest, scoring twice for Liverpool in their comprehensive 3 - 0 victory over Newcastle United in the 1974 FA Cup Final, which televisual experience I immediately processed into drawing, as mentioned previously when I began this year's sequence of football-themed drawings back in February.
As ever, the magical attraction of the original image is to be found in the charm of its period details, which now seem to provide an undeniable sense of comfort: Keegan’s fashionable hairstyle, extravagant sideburns & tank top in particular, but also Shanks’s macintosh raincoat, which any number of managers (& the Prime Minister Harold Wilson) seemed to sport back in the day.
Subsequent pictorial research has led to the discovery online of another image from the photo-shoot that produced the source for the drawing, but this one in colour, adding substance to one’s imaginings based upon the monochrome ‘original’: interesting to observe that Kev was sporting a most harmonious & rather fetching ensemble of various hues & tones of blue (slightly disappointingly, as one dreams of the tank top’s stripes being multi-coloured, in the manner of Paul McCartney’s psychedelic number from The Beatles’ ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ film, as disinterred for reappraisal in Tuesday’s ‘Guardian’), along with – oh yes – those classic heels, & also that Shanks’s shirt (rather than pony) is a surprisingly dandyish pale pink – not necessarily unusual for the man, though, as one seems to recall him wearing shirts of various colours, such as orange, & red, on other occasions, an old school figure who could still swing with the times.
Soundtrack:
The ‘should have been’ is obviously Kevin Keegan’s "Head Over Heels in Love" (blimey, those weren’t necessarily the days) & The Smiths’ wonderful, mordant ‘Frankly, Mr Shankly’, but, in actuality, we instead indulged in the mellow sounds of Lambchop’s ‘Is a Woman’ & then, by way of variety, The Pastels’ equally enduringly-wonderful ‘Up For a Bit With…’, before, continuing, a late night session devoted to the drawing process was accompanied by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' ‘The Boatman’s Call’, returning to a more reflective mood appropriate to the hour.
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