A day watching Aberdeen train

A shy, anxious young art student wrote to then manager Ian Porterfield for permission to photograph the players in training for an illustration project…

I appear to be looking down upon God here…

Despite borrowing a zoom lens for the occasion, I used it to stay further away from them as I was very shy and uncomfortable in their presence, so they are not as sharp as they should be. I can vividly remember having the answer ready in case anyone asked.
‘I am far away from them, but with a zoom lens because I am an a art student. It’s for something arty you won’t understand. I know what I’m doing okay, so leave me alone.’
No-one asked.

If ye tuck yer sweatshirt intae yer breeks, yer gonna look a wee bit fat there Charlie…

The coolest man in the world.

Wullie none too impressed with the anxious looking art student in the torn denim jacket, desperately trying to hide behind the camera. Tom Jones, Paul Wright, Peter Nicholas, I think Ian Robertson, Willie Miller, Alex McLeish. Even walking through Seaton Park, Willie keeps the defensive line for the offside trap.

Aye is it.

When I got back to art college with the photos, I thought they were terrible. Looking at a few of them now, a couple were okay with a little Photoshop cropping, all I needed to have done was go back the next day, and I’d have gotten them so much better. I just needed to see them developed to know what worked and what didn’t. This is pre-digital.

I think there were two films of 36 photos. I threw loads away. We were told at Gray’s ‘don’t ever throw away your negs’. I did, because it irritated me the bloke with the posh Edinburgh accent said ‘negs’, and not negatives…

Youth, like an education at Gray’s School of Art, is wasted on the young…

And that illustration project? Here it is.

27 t-shirts, 25 posters, the Dandy Dons shop.