Five of the Best

I’m not a football fan.

Rivalry between Scotland’s best known clubs, Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic, attracts worldwide attention. I cannot provide the name of a current player from either club. I cannot say whether this illustrates my continuing lack of enthusiasm or whether there were more interesting “characters” in the playing pool of the 80s and 90s. For whatever reason, players were more noticeable then, but that is merely my opinion.

My football fanatic engineer friend Brian from the Clyde Valley in Glasgow requested a portrait of one of the most popular Rangers players in the history of the club, Brian Laudrup, a Danish internationalist who gave excellent service between 1994 and 1998.

I thought it might be interesting to extend the range to a series of five of the players I best remember:

Ally McCoist continues to make his presence known off the field as a popular football commentator.

Davie Cooper, a winger who retains immense admiration from supporters of both Celtic and Rangers for his talent.

Sandy Jardine — in July 2016, Rangers announced that the club would be changing the name of their Govan Stand to the Sandy Jardine Stand as a mark of appreciation for his contribution to the club. Need one say more?

Richard Gough — a gentleman on and off the field.

For each print, I thought it appropriate to have a portrait-sized image alongside a smaller full-body shot of the player in action. For variety, one of the players would be in a Scotland strip (I chose Jardine), whilst another would display an away strip (Laudrup).

Interior and exterior images of the stadium would be incorporated in each work and, in addition, an actual piece of the red brick from the structure at the entrance to Ibrox Stadium would be included (before any charge of vandalism is raised, I obtained the security guard’s permission to lift some of the brick from the pavement at the entrance).

If the prints prove popular, I may extend the concept to other clubs. Interest has already been received from a Tottenham Hotspur fan.