Continuing with the Seventies’ project, a selection of nostalgic subject matter represented in the form of graphite drawings, another process of which I’m fond and harks back in particular to the decade in question, when drawing was my creative activity and pencil or felt pen was my medium of choice.
The first drawing features an action shot from the FA Cup Final of 1974, played at Wembley Stadium in London and contested between Liverpool and Newcastle United, the former running out convincing 3 – 0 winners over opponents who failed to live up to expectations and hype (‘Supermac’ amongst others who proved to be rather ordinary on the day). This in fact was the first live televised football match I watched or took any interest in, the latter to the extent that I made a drawing at the time, in the moment, in felt pen, being also the first drawing I have any recollection of making, in felt pen and concentrating particularly on rendering the thousands of faces/heads in the crowd (the attendance was 100,000 – the capacity of the ground), which obviously impressed/amazed my then 9-year-old self to the exclusion of much else, something borne out by a memory of my father, when appraising my efforts later, enquiring whether perhaps Newcastle didn’t sport vertically-striped shirts rather than the hoops I’d represented!
Anyway, here we observe Liverpool’s Kevin Keegan, probably the star of the match, hurdling a tackle by Newcastle’s number 3 Alan Kennedy (who later played for Liverpool with considerable distinction, including the scoring of two European Cup-winning goals), with the latter’s teammate Terry Hibbitt also in attendance. Admire, if nothing else, the luxuriousness of those sideburns, very much the facial hair du jour.
‘1974 FA Cup Final’
graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartridge paper/30 x 42cm (A3)
Next is (re)presented the mighty John Peel, the late night Radio One DJ who brought punk, post-punk and so much other music to our eager young ears, desperate for inspiration, in the late Seventies and then for a further 25 years until his untimely death in 2004 (this very day marking the anniversary of, indeed, so here’s a personal tribute). I recall I started listening to Peel in the summer of 1979, very probably at a school friend’s insistent recommendation, and could write at great length about the influence he had, in not just musical but broader cultural and philosophical terms, but for now here’s the drawing, of the man at a mixing desk.
‘John Peel c.1979’
graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartridge paper/30 x 42cm (A3)
Finally for this update, another figure from the world of broadcasting, and ITV’s Saturday afternoon ‘World of Sport’, the iconic and legendary Dickie Davies, at his dapper and groomed finest. ‘World of Sport’ was something I remember being on TV at my paternal grandparents’ home even before I started watching it myself once I’d quickly developed an obsession with football (see above), beginning as it did with the preview magazine ‘On the Ball’ and covering the afternoon until the final scores were in – as something of a more louche relation to the BBC’s ‘Grandstand’, all manner of more obscure sports were featured, most iconically perhaps wrestling, and these are the memories that resonate down the years, with Dickie the genial host. Of course, many of us British viewers will also recall Benny Hill’s spoofs of Dickie Davies, but here’s the man himself, seated at ‘home’ in the World of Sport studio with its also iconic logo.
‘Dickie Davies: World of Sport’
graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartridge paper/30 x 42cm (A3)
