graphite & putty eraser, with watercolour pencil/30x21cm
After another of those later-week drawing lulls, we’re able to get the
weekend going with the latest subject in the project as it continues,
representing here an image of Wim Van Hanegem, who was selected for inclusion
in both the FKS & Panini World Cup ’74 sticker albums, & subsequently
the official Holland squad for the tournament, in which he went on to play in
all 7 of the Dutch team’s matches on the way to their losing appearance in the
Final itself, & is a name remembered from the television coverage of the
tournament, one of the handful that registered at the time.
By one of those wonderful occurrences of serendipity, this very
morning, before embarking on today’s drawing process, a long-required copy of
the 26th October 1974 edition of Shoot! magazine arrived at
TOoT Towers, having been tracked down at last, including the must-have-for-the-archives
‘Results’ section featuring the first mentions of a number of our enduringly-favourite
European clubs as they’d been drawn against British teams in the first rounds
of the 3 continental competitions, those names that had so stirred the blood
& romantic tendencies (Strømsgodset, RWDM, Ajax & Ferencváros), & also carrying an interview with the very same Wim Van Hanegem, most
interestingly speaking his mind about a number of footballing matters, not
least the ’74 World Cup & its Final match & the domestic Dutch rivalry
between Ajax & Feyenoord, then in what was probably an unremarkable manner but
now reads shockingly forthright in a PR-driven age when footballer-drones say
nothing that could be considered anything other than anodyne, utterly
content-less & opinion-free in nature as it is (although the managers might
have a post-match grumble-in-the-moment, which isn’t the same thing as a
considered critique anyway).
In a further coincidence, the ‘Focus On’ feature in this particular
Shoot! has as its subject Eric Morecambe (whose football connection was his then-presidency
of Luton Town), with suitably light-hearted responses to the usual series of
questions, also half the subject of the stage production ‘Eric & Little Ern’ which, with rather a great deal of anticipation, A & I are off to see
this very evening.
(P.S. it was a wonderful, highly enjoyable show, spot-on performances
& a fitting tribute)
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