Witness the past! | Glimpse the future!
Forty years on from their European Cup victory, Glasgow (or half of it anyway) is celebrating Celtic's "Lisbon Lions". The Studio has drawn the '66/67 squad, with myself contributing Stevie Chalmers, Jim Craig, Charlie Gallagher and John "Yogi" Hughes. You can browse the whole lot here after clicking on "SPORT".




Whenever we do something like this, we try and balance things out. We knocked our pans in when hanging the exhibition in Edinburgh last year to ensure that for every Celtic face there was a Rangers, that they were equally sized, that none where hung higher or lower than the other and that no one artist was overly associated with either team. Didn't matter; someone still wrote in the visitor's book we were "obviously a bunch of Tims" (while others complained there weren't enough faces from Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen etcetera ad nausiem). In other words, you can't win; those who wish to see a bias will always see it. We've drawn these people because a significant anniversary of their significant achievement happens to fall next month... Had Rangers played that day (or the Jags for that matter) we wouldn't have used any green ink last week. As I've explained before- at length- we don't restrict ourselves to people we like (or hate). If I did then in all the things a caricaturist does best (commemorate, examine, or satirise a wide range of subjects, and thereby entertain and provoke his viewer) I'd fail. Who cares who I do or don't follow? Why alienate those who happen to not share my interests?




Whenever we do something like this, we try and balance things out. We knocked our pans in when hanging the exhibition in Edinburgh last year to ensure that for every Celtic face there was a Rangers, that they were equally sized, that none where hung higher or lower than the other and that no one artist was overly associated with either team. Didn't matter; someone still wrote in the visitor's book we were "obviously a bunch of Tims" (while others complained there weren't enough faces from Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen etcetera ad nausiem). In other words, you can't win; those who wish to see a bias will always see it. We've drawn these people because a significant anniversary of their significant achievement happens to fall next month... Had Rangers played that day (or the Jags for that matter) we wouldn't have used any green ink last week. As I've explained before- at length- we don't restrict ourselves to people we like (or hate). If I did then in all the things a caricaturist does best (commemorate, examine, or satirise a wide range of subjects, and thereby entertain and provoke his viewer) I'd fail. Who cares who I do or don't follow? Why alienate those who happen to not share my interests?


Comments
I remember sitting in our ground floor tenement flat front room in my stripey jim-jams, bathed and ready for bed but allowed to stay up and watch the match from Lisbon on our Black and White telly...I recall every significant part of the game as if it were forty days not forty years...their penalty..big Tam's equaliser and then just when it looked like extra time might be on the cards and I'd probably have had to go to bed...Stevie Chalmers gets in the way of a Bobby Murdoch daisy cutter and it's all over...Inter Milan, on your bike...euphoria in the house and right up the close...what a night..what a party...pity I was only nine.
A year or so ago I wrote a short radio play based on that glorious night called 'The first Protstant Saint' and I'm thinking this might be the time to dust it off and try hawking it around...got any ideas?
There's a big testimonial/exhibition match on at Parkhead on the day, and a play at the King's all that week.
We were too slow off the mark with our stuff, trying to get it all under the noses of relevant people at the club's marketing dept (did you know they run fourteen shops thoughout Scotland and Ireland?), losing out on the "official" seal of approval to other memorabilia. So we'll be taking them to the supporters associations etc., avoiding the tacky, sectarian, "Homer Simpson in a Celtic top, wiping his behind with a Union flag" Gallowgate crowd.