The Tottenham Cockerel - something to crow about …
It started with a Tweet, towards the end of the 2012-2013 football season. Spurs had come from behind to beat Man City 3 - 1 and Gareth Bale was back on the scoresheet. I scribbled an image of a bird on a ball and sent it out into the digital ether. Through a curious process, the cockerel winged it’s way to the Spurs powers that be and two years later this limited edition print was hatched.
I’ve been a fan of the Lillywhites for as long as I can remember (according to family folklore my great-grandmother, a Tottenham lass, drank from the FA Cup when Spurs won it in 1901), so for Spurs to commission my take on their iconic cockerel, makes me very proud!
As any self-respecting Spurs fan will happily tell you, the bird itself has been used as the Club’s identity since 1909 when former player, William James Scott, made a bronze cast of a cockerel standing on a football, to perch above Tottenham’s stadium. Harry Hotspur (the Club’s namesake) otherwise known as Harry Percy, valiant knight and 14th century nobleman, had a fondness for fighting cocks and the attached ‘spurs’ which featured on his own crest, were adopted by the Club to represent our never-say-die, fighting spirit.
My version of the bird on a ball is possibly a bit softer, though hopefully it has a freshness and energy about it, not unlike Pochettino’s current Spurs team. I wanted the image to be in one colour - ‘Tottenham blue’ - with the bird in ‘Lillywhite’, the colour of the paper. The bird is perched on a ball - or it could be floating. A brave little cockerel destined to achieve great things!
Screenprinted with the expertise of Ed French at Yeti Screen Print on 300gsm Radiant White Somerset Satin paper, each hand-pulled print is numbered, signed and titled, 'The Tottenham Cockerel’. Each print is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity, baring the official Tottenham Hotspur hologram. Strictly limited to an edition of just 30 prints, it is available exclusively from the Spurs online store. Prints come with an acid-free museum-quality mount and are framed in a black wooden frame with perspex.
