After nearly fours years of waiting and an emotional roller coaster of will it, won’t it happen, the “Spirit of Highbury” has finally been unveiled to the world. The Poster is a permanent reminder of every player and manager that played at Highbury. It will be at the South end of the public walkway around the Emirates Stadium.
Tapestry’s creative team worked in collaboration with Nike, Arsenal and creative agency Weiden + Kennedy to create this image. It started off as a list of players from club historian Fred Ollier, who had compiled the original data and been an advisor throughout the process. From the list, our research team sourced and catalogued the images that would fill the lineup. Then began the huge task of retouching and piecing all the pieces together.
The immediate priority was to capture Highbury before it was refurbished into the luxury apartments that are there today. With only weeks to spare photographer Ron Bambridge captured the stadium in sections spanning the length of the pitch. Each photo was then stitched together and retouched to form the background stadium image. This formed the backdrop for the “Spirit of Highbury” lineup.
The next task was to prepare a grid system to help position the players in a line up. After some experimentation it was decided that a 5 player deep grid was going to give the best scale for the players to sit in the stadium. Each grid person was then cross referenced with the historical list and grid positions assigned to players moving across in date order from 1913 to 2006.
Images of the players were sourced from glass negative slides from the early 1900′s to Photographic prints for the middle years and digital photography for the most recent teams. Each of the players had to be painstakingly created from a mixture of portrait, team and kit shots to finish up with a player appearing sitting or standing in the right kit, in the right position.
Only four players still remain to be found and Arsenal are currently seeking photographs of these players. If you can help in the search for the players: Tom Maxwell, William Maycock, James Caldwell and Fred Jones – please email spirit@arsenal.co.uk with any images and information.
A video of the structure taking shape:
For more information see
Client:
Nike and Arsenal FC
Creative Agency:
Weiden + Kennedy
Tapestry Retouching Team:
Danny Holden & Tamsie Thomas
Support Team:
Lucy Hingston, Les Keswick
Tapestry Research & Project Management:
Amy Cheeseman & Nathan Hearn
Club Historian:
Fred Ollier
Photo Agency:
Colorsport & Arsenal Football Club Ltd