Painting ‘Going to the last match of a champion winning season’

This painting is the third in a series on the theme of ‘going to the match’, following a Lowry-styled trip to Tranmere at Prenton Park, and Goodison Park in it’s final season hosting Everton men’s team. This was a challenge to choose a good angle to draw from. Modern stadiums are so vast that they dominate any scene, but as with the Goodison painting I wanted to capture Anfield set among it’s community. Many of the terraces surrounding the ground have since been demolished, but this view behind the Kenny Dalgleish stand worked well as not only could I capture the terraces, but also part of Stanley Park and then the view over to the Mersey.

The base sketch was build up from a mix of aerial photos, Google Earth aerial views, and general principles of drawing / rules of perspective and so on.

Base sketch prior to painting

Following the sketch I started blocking in with solvent thinned oil paints (oil as a thinner needs to be saved for upper layers. Given there was significant distance perspective in the painting, the middle and distance layers need to be painted in mid-tone colours to create that sense of distance in landscapes, bringing in deeper and darker tones into the foreground.

Blocking in mid-tone colours for distance

I visited Anfield for the build up to the match (May 25th 2025) to get the feel for density of crowds, how people were moving and celebrating, the general flow of people around the stadium, and how the light and shadows were falling. It was a sunny warm day with the sun high in the sky. The painting captures the scene around 2.30 - 3pm, a good hour before kick off at 4pm.

Painting the stadium and mid-ground

I usually paint the ‘landscape’ first then add the fans at the end. This is easily the most time consuming painting I have ever painted. Partly because virtually every inch has fine detail, but also the detail has to be painted in several sittings. To the building structures need to be painted first, then dry for about a week, before detail like windows can be added. So fitting around a full time job and family meant this took many months.

Adding the terraces

I’m particularly pleased how I captured the light. With such a sunny day, a high sun, and drawn from a high perspective meant most of the surfaces were sunbathed. This is actually hard to represent the brightness of the sun as there are fewer shadows to in this angle drawn to amplify the brightness. But pleased with the light and colour balance overall.

To ensure accuracy I made endless visits to the surroundings to get the detail represented as best I could, - but also mainly so I could get a pie from the awesome award-winning Homebaked Community Bakery just outside the ground.

Finished at last!