Kevin Davies Poses for Lofthouse Sculpture

We've been engaging in a lot of SKD love here at the Lion of Vienna Suite. First we gave him the unequivocal honour of our MOTM award, and told you about his fondness of yoga. We even went so far as to make some comparisons between him and the Lion of Vienna, in terms of his role within the club. Now he's turned model. That's right, Kevin Davies, your captain, leader, legend, has been modelling in the names of fine arts and Nat Lofthouse.

There has been a lot of activity surrounding the Nat Lofthouse memorial garden of late. The sculptor chosen to complete the work made the trek up north last week to reveal the first of two bronze friezes that will accompany the statue in the garden. While he was up here Sean Hedges-Quinn decided to take advantage of another solidly built Wanderers legend, and had none other than Super Kevin Davies pose to serve as inspiration for Nat Lofthouse's musculature.

Hedges-Quinn said of the process,

We picked Kevin because his physique is pretty similar to that of Nat's. We needed a footballer to get all the muscle tones and other characteristics. I took as many measurements as I could, particularly that of his bones, biceps, triceps, neck and all other parts of the body.

At present I'm now working on the maquette, which is a small-scale 18 inch version, from the photographs and measurements that I took of Kevin. Once that is complete I will show it to the family and the football club, and if I get the okay then it is a case of cracking on with the nine foot statue of Nat.

I enjoyed my visit and I received a lot of positive feedback. Hopefully I made it a bit clearer to fans about the process involved in making a statue. It was an honour to be around a lot of ex-players and those who knew Nat. It all helps and, like I say, the encouraging feedback made it all worthwhile.

We here at Lion of Vienna Suite have just one question: are those measurements going to be made available to the public? No?

Ahem, anyway, Kevin Davies also had a few words about his new line of work,

I found it very interesting and it was an honour. I'm sure all the fans are looking forward to the statue being unveiled next August.

It's fantastic that Hedges-Quinn had access to someone like Davies to help out in this manner, and it feels quite fitting that our current Mr. Bolton should help inspire the remembrance of our old Mr. Bolton. To find out more about the creative process Hedges-Quinn will be employing to create the statue, see this post. To get more details on the Nat Lofthouse Memorial Fund and find out how to contribute, mosey on this way.