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Paul
is renowned as one of the best Roy of the Rovers artists and
drew the story at various stages beginning with the 13th
April 1963 edition, where he kicked off a new 'Roy of the
Rovers' story in all its glory on the front cover of the
Tiger comic.
Paul is known for
bringing Roy of the Rovers to life with his 'comic art realism' and has
gained a huge reputation across the world for his excellence in this area
being dubbed 'The Master of Movement'. He says in an interview with website
manager Mark Towers in July 2006.
"I'm a Spurs fan and when I was down at Tottenham, I used to
go and watch training. There was Danny Blanchflower, the
Captain of the double team. He was talking to Bill Nicholson
and I heard him, he might have been injured that day, or it
might have been passed his time for playing, I'm not
sure.…but he was stood nearby and he said to Nicholson "He
thinks he's Roy of the Rovers". What was interesting was he
said "He thinks he's Roy of the Rovers". He never said his
name, not Roy Race or Roy of Melchester Rovers – he was Roy
of the Rovers, I suddenly thought - I made that, I suddenly
thought he's real, he's real, he's come alive – it’s not
just the kids who are reading it, but the dads are as well.
That was definitely when I was doing it. This is real Roy of the
Rovers stuff!"
Paul was born on 11th March 1934 at Love Lane, Tottenham and
was a football fanatic from the beginning. Even before he
could walk he was taken to watch Tottenham Hotspur play. His
mother told him that every time a Spurs goal was scored,
every window in the house shook.
With no great emphasis on academic lessons, by the age of
ten Paul could neither read nor write, but had gained many
prizes for the school and had drawn a variety of special
birthday, Christmas and wedding cards for his teachers. When
Paul failed his 11 plus for the second time, his father
decided to take away his pens and pencils with the promise
that when he could read and write then they would be
returned to him. Six months later Paul got his pencils back
- he came second in a class of 40.
In 1952 when Paul was still a schoolboy, His Royal
Highness the Duke of Edinburgh wrote a letter praising him
for his artwork – this letter appeared
in the National press and launched Paul's career. Sir
Winston Churchill also played a major part with an inspiring
conversation that drove Paul's artistic talent. In 1955, the
year of his resignation, Sir Winston sat and drank coffee
with Paul, who presented him with a likeable portrait, which
Churchill signed in appreciation. This portrait currently
hangs in the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation.
During his school days Paul was drawing for comics
such as ‘Eagle’ , ‘TV21’ and of course ‘Roy of the
Rovers’. He left college with a teaching diploma in Art
and Design.
As
mentioned earlier, Paul first drew the Roy of the Rovers
story in the 13th April 1963 edition and drew the story on
and off for a number of years that followed. As well as
bringing 'Roy of the Rovers' to life, Paul also continued
drawing his 'Hey Ref!' strip, which had been launched in
'The People' newspaper in 1958. It was later to become the
world renowned 'You Are The Ref!' This appeared in Roy of
the Rovers Annuals in the 1960's and later the Shoot
magazine and annuals in the 1970's. The 'You Are The Ref'
strip was revived for 'The Observer' in 2006 and now appears
on the BBC Sport website as part of the coverage for Euro
2008.
Click here to see You are the Ref! on the BBC website.
From the 1960’s to the 1980’s, Paul's art featured in almost
every national newspaper in the United Kingdom. He devised
and illustrated instructional based art for The Mirror,
Daily Express, The Sun, The Telegraph and The Times. During
this period he became famous for the movement that he
expressed in his drawings and achieved many accolades from
the world’s top sport personalities, who christened him ‘The
Master of Movement’. As mentioned at the beginning, this is
most relevant for his drawings of Roy of the Rovers.
Paul is the author and illustrator of over 20 books that
have sold worldwide, including the Peter Alliss
instructional book ‘Easier Golf’ which was reprinted 10
times. He also illustrated the world famous ‘Gary Player
Golf Class’ which appeared in over 300 newspapers worldwide
and became the largest syndicated sports feature in the
world. He has spent much of his life in the United States,
teaming up with Mark McCormack at IMG in the 1960’s and he
has since been contracted to work on various sporting
projects with Coca Cola, Adidas, Umbro, Hershey, Budweiser,
Barclays Bank and Fuji. Paul has also drawn for the NBA,
MLB, NFL and Nascar. To top all of this he was commissioned
to draw for Michael Jordan through his licence company,
Upper Deck.
Throughout his career people around the world have been
amazed by not only the perfect facial accuracy in his
drawing, but also the exciting movement that he captures in
his art. He recalls a meeting with famous Disney animator
Milt Neil who worked on such classics as Snow White,
Pinocchio and Dumbo. Milt told Paul that it took 20 drawings
to produce the movement that Paul captures in one.
Paul has expertly
driven his career through all of the major sports from
Boxing to Soccer to NFL to Golf. He has worked with the top
stars in all the aforementioned - Gary Player, Peter Alliss,
Lee Trevino, Sugar Ray Robinson, Oscar De La Hoya, Paul
Gascoigne, Gary Lineker, George Best, Pele and so the list
goes on. His love of sport and football in particular is
epitomised when in the 1980's, he even dressed up as DJ
Bear, the Panda of Peace to help pacify football hooligans
and spread love in the game.
His
book, published in September 2005 titled: ‘Double Bill’ –
The Bill Nicholson Story with co-author Alan Mullery, the
former Spurs and England International, contains much of his
artwork during his fifty years illustrating sport. To
commemorate 50 years of 'You Are The Ref!', a book was
published by the Observer in 2006. This is a brilliant
compilation of how this strip has developed since the 1950's
and it show's how the artwork is still so brilliantly up to
date and 'realistic'!.
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