Stylish tribute to our legend
ARTIST UNVEILS 20FT MURAL OF SAFC HERO BOBBY:
A stunning mural on a Silksworth pub depicting a Sunderland AFC all-time great is now complete.
Artist Frank Styles has created the work of art on the side of the Golden Fleece pub on Silksworth Terrace.
The 20 ft mural depicts Sunderland AFC’s all-time record goalscorer, striker Bobby Gurney, who was born into a Silksworth mining family in 1907.
Bobby won the league title with his local club in 1936 and scored in the FA Cup final win the following year.
The piece took three months to complete.
Artist Fran said: "Sometimes you get complaints about street art, but when it features people like this there are no complaints.
“It's great that people have, off their own backs, funded public art for everyone to enjoy." He added: "One of the hardest challenges is working from a 100-year-old photograph. He's had about four different heads to get it right."
Funding for the mural was organised by Sunderland fan Gav Willis, who is still looking for about another £1,500 to pay for the project.
Gav said: “It's been a fantastic journey, one I’m glad I have undertaken. It was done solely to keep the memory of Bobby alive.
“He’s a Sunderland legend, all-time leading goalscorer and Silksworth boy, who many haven't heard of, but should have.
“I have spoken to Bobby’s
granddaughter, Jill, and daughter Dorothy, who are both completely behind the project.
“Jill even said in a message to me: ‘I started to get emotional when I saw grandad coming to life on the wall.’ I can’t think of any better testimony than that.
“The support we have received has been phenomenal. We just need one further push to get us to the end.”
Frank Styles is a prolific street artist, whose other works include a mural honouring Silksworth’s mining heritage at Donkin’s pub on Blind Lane, and another of Bobby Gurney’s strike partner Raich Carter on the Blue House pub in Hendon.
The scaffold has now been taken down at the Golden Fleece and the mural is visible from miles around.
And in one final fund-raising push, screen prints of the footballer are set to be raffled off with tickets costing £10 each from www.bobbygurney.com