Agreed. The club spent a considerable amount of time sourcing photos, videos etc. from Franny's arrival on 9 Oct 1967 until the ECWC success in 1970. That's the period they were trying to capture and highlight. They asked me to help with some of that stuff and I supplied what I could too. There were several different sculptors asked to put their proposals forward and some of these had focused on a chubby Franny with different hair etc. from his final playing days and not the Franny who won those trophies. They were not appropriate at all in capturing that era.
Once the sculptor was selected even more effort was placed on getting the 3 players right and Franny was consulted and involved. I don't want to misquote him or anything but from what I heard he was very happy with the way he looked in the sculpture. That's good enough for me - it's a statue of him after all. As with all statues they are based on specific moments, images and video clips, and with football being a game that's visual and full of movement the way a player appears from one moment in a game to the next can vary.
I'm sure the full video the club are releasing will show the lengths taken to get this right. So many clubs take a standard football pose when creating stuff like this and that's dull. This sculpture is different and shows the players moving as they did in games. We all have fixed views of players and sometimes our memories are tainted by later events and so, as with so much else, it's important to go back to the period and do as much research as possible to ensure the past is being portrayed properly and not what any one of us thinks.
This statue is a major positive for our club. Together with the others they have cost an incredible amount in money, time and effort. The club didn't need to do this but it wanted to. It wanted to ensure our past is remembered. So many say we have no history but this major work of art helps others understand and recognise our history. We should all be proud of what these players achieved and be delighted that our current owner is actually doing something about remembering this era when so many claimed it was only the present the owner and senior management were interested in.
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