Weird Euros

posted by Emily Gosling June 30, 2021

As the Euros rumbles on, the age-old marriage between beer and football seems stronger than ever—even in the face of unusual circumstances like enforced pub table service and not legally being allowed to belt out Three Lions.

For this year’s European Championships, artists and designers including David Shrigley, Chris Simpson and Pentagram have created beer mats that illustrate the “weird, funny and esoteric moments” from the tournament’s history.

The project, Weird Euros, has seen 20 individual creatives and studios creating beer mats, including Jack Renwick Studio; illustrator, author and podcast host Ben Tallon; Barcelona-based Hey Studio; illustrator and printmaker Aleesha Nandhra; animator and illustrator Dan Woodger; textile artist Robyn Nichol; football-crazy illustrator Isobel Mehta and artist, co-founder of Juicy Food Porn, Hungry Castle and Cool Shit, Kill Cooper.

The mats are being sold to raise money for grassroots football charity Goals 4 Girls under the Adidas Football Collective, which aims to open up the game and use football as a catalyst for change in local communities.

Weird Euros is the brainchild of graphic designers Gordon Reid and Callum Stephenson. Reid heads up London-based studio Middle Boop, and has worked with the likes of record label 4AD, Red Bull, Warp records and Google; while Stephenson runs an eponymous collaborative studio based in West London with previous and current clients including men’s health start-up Manual, Wizkid, Native magazine and Adidas.

The genesis of the project began in 2018 when the pair were discussing their favourite World Cup moments, including Diana Ross missing the penalty in 1994, and John Barnes rapping. Noting that there was a fair bit of weird stuff that accompanied what actually happened on the pitch, they wanted to make something that celebrated those stranger bits of football history.

Reid and Stephenson decided to celebrate those little snippets of sort-of-sporting-related history and invite 20 of their favourite designers to create beer mats, dubbing the project Weird World Cup, and selling the collection. Weird World Cup went on to raise around £20,000 for charity.

This time, we’re promised that the collection illustrates even “weirder moments from previous European Championship” printed onto beermats and “an even stranger list of artists.”

The entire collection of 20 beer mats is on sale for £27.50; 10 mats with either David Shrigley or Chris (Simpsons Artist) are on sale for £15 per set. You can buy them here.

The full list of artists participating is as follows: David Shrigley, Chris (Simpsons Artist), Genie Espinosa, Dan Woodger, Ben Tallon, Maaike van Neck, David Oku, Raj Dhunna, Astrid Stavro/Pentagram, Jack Renwick Studio, Aleesha Nandhra, Hey Studio, Mina Owen, Isobel Mehta, Israel Kujore, Bratislav Milenkovic, Robyn Nichol, Justin Poulter, Marcus Møller Bitsch, and Kill Cooper (Cool Shit).