Among the most famous of Shankly’s quotes – and, let’s face it, the great man wasn’t short of a sound-bite or two – this banner is the latest of a number of my creations which mark Liverpool’s first World Club Cup victory, and which, of course, celebrate our magnificent European heritage.
Napoleon had that idea. He wanted to conquer the bloody world. I wanted Liverpool to be untouchable. My idea was to build Liverpool up and up until eventually everyone would have to submit and give in. I want to build a team that’s invincible, so that they have to send a team from bloody Mars to beat us. If you are first, you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.
Bill Shankly
This design is beautiful in its simplicity. The Liverbird, the globe in its talons, stands proud under that most evocative, and provocative, of participles – CONQUERED. It’s what we’ve always done, and it’s how Bill shaped our Club.
Day 1 – The design is printed on 72 pieces of A4. These need to be carefully aligned, stuck together with tape, and then each shape individually cut out.
Day 2 – Set about backing my gold fabric with bondaweb before using the stencils to mark out the Liverbird. Then on to the challenge of the globe, with its minute details.
Day 3 – I began to create the lettering today. Like a few of my recent projects, this customer has opted for bi-colour lettering, in white with a gold edging. This is a really classy and effective look, but does not come cheap as it essentially doubles the amount of work needed for the lettering. Each stencil needs to be cut twice, and each letter needs to be marked out and cut twice from fabric, so I end up hand cutting each letter shape four times in total. Today, I got 3/4 of the way there, having marked and cut all the gold letters out, and then trimmed my stencils ready to mark out and cut the white letters the following evening.
Days 4-5 – A busy couple of days in my working life and home life, so just had a little bit of time to pick away at the last few cutting jobs on this project. Then an evening off for Valentine’s Day (I love you, Mrs Banners!), and all set for the final assembly.
Day 6 – All laid out, lots of careful measuring and marking (the curve of the lettering makes this one particularly challenging), and then the final fix. This banner is now ready for stitching.
Matt