Nick Shale has come up with this fantastic banner for next season.
I thought I’d investigate and asked what was the inspiration behind it.
Nick answered:
‘It all really came about one afternoon in January. I’d been talking to my mate Dan about the prospect of Villa looking likely to have a relegation fight on their hands by the end of March if the team’s current form didn’t dramatically improve soon (you didn’t need to be Mystic Meg to see that coming) and that pretty much put us both on a downer.
I hadn’t been down to VP much for that season, mainly because work commitments at the time meant I was having to earn my crust on Saturdays, so attending home games ranged from infrequent to impossible. My mate Dan has a season ticket in the Holte End lower and was a regular at every home game – right through every shocking, negative, defensive goaless draw we’d become masters of since Mcshite had taken charge. Big kudos to my mate Dan for that, I’d have lost the will to live long before the season was over.
Anyway, the conversation got onto happier times in Claret and Blue and we recalled the 1977 league cup final replay at Hillsborough won by Brian Little’s extra time goal against Everton. We did a bit of you-tubing and found highlights from the final and were amazed at how well repesented the Villa fans were at Hillsborough – the terraces were a sea of claret & blue that night for sure. Whilst we were watching Dan said ‘keep an eye out for the Godsvilla banner’.
Now, I’d heard about this banner before but I’d never actually seen it, (still haven’t, it wasn’t featured in the clip we were watching) but it was probably that initial remark which sparked off the idea for me.
‘Godsvilla’ – I’ve always been a sucker for good puns and play-on-words, and thought that one was particularly clever. Although I didn’t think the ‘S’ in the name worked very well, it made it sound like ‘God’s Villa’ – as if some white bearded deity had bought a timeshare on the Costa Del Sol!? To me, ‘Godvilla’ made more sense. And that’s how it became one of those ideas that you have kicking around in the back of your head.
I work as a freelance designer and commercial artist. I do alot of creative work for organisations, people, businesses, events etc etc, you name it – I’ve probably done some promo design work for it. However, February is traditionally a very quiet month in my line of work,and one dreary wet day in Feb I found myself sat in front of my Mac with nothing to do, that’s when I got the idea to create my own banner – and that’s when my GodVilla started to take shape.
It took my just over to two days to complete. I wanted to add some Brum landmarks into the design to show Godvilla bossing it over the city (it is ours afterall) and as a nice little dig at our shed-dwelling neighbours, breathing fire on St Andrews!
Once finished, I posted a copy of it up on my facebook page, showed it to a few friends who liked it, and then, as usually happens with me, I forgot all about having it made up into a banner as other work started to come in.
it wasn’t until the end of May when my good friend Deb Kelly happened to find it on my facebook page that thing’s went crazy and interest in it really took off. She posted it up on every Villa site, forum and fan page out there and generated so much interest in it that I just had to get it made…and I have! 6ft x 8ft and will be hanging off the balcony of the Holte End upper this coming season!’
Cheers, Nick Shale
See Nick’s Vital Villa interview: Click Here
Nick’s own site is currently undergoing an overhaul, this page links to some of his work though: www.galleries-online.co.uk/artists
Hopefully www.nickshaledesign.com will be back up and running soon!
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