A WORCESTER Warriors fan has admitted he will have mixed emotions when Warriors tackle Wasps at Ricoh Arena next week.
That’s because rugby player and fan Scott Jenkins – who has lived in Worcestershire for 45 years and co-runs Worcester-based creative agency This Is Union – designs the front covers of all of Wasps’ home league matches.
Scott put pen to paper on a design deal with Wasps Rugby Club for the 2018/19 Gallagher Premiership season.
Keen rugby fan Scott originally entered a competition to design Wasps’ match day programme front cover for Wasps’ home match against Leicester Tigers last September, and club bosses were so impressed with the comic book-style look, that they asked if he would carry on for the rest of the season.
Scott’s latest front cover design for the match that sees his local side take on his client on Saturday 6 April (kick-off 3pm), depicts Wasps’ Zurab Zhvania in an Incredible Hulk position dominating two Worcester players as he heads towards the try line.
“This fixture is a bit of a weird one for me as it pits my local team against one of my clients – it’s hardly a win-win situation and will be a tetchy 80 minutes for me!” said Scott.
“I always look out for Warriors’ scores as they are my team. Worcester are fighting for their lives at the bottom end of the table but I equally want to see Wasps have a positive finish to the season – if it ended up a draw then I’d be happy.”
Scott’s Black and Gold opportunity came about not long after deciding to take the plunge and start his own design business up, which is now based on Pierpoint Street in Worcester.
“It’s opportunities like this that make me think that starting up my own business with my wife Emma five years ago from a second-hand laptop on our kitchen table was well worth it,” said Scott.
“I’m a big fan of rugby and comic book illustrating – so this was a great opportunity for me to merge two of my favourite hobbies.
“I like applying the comic book approach to my work because there’s no pressure of making the subjects look exactly like they do in real life, so it allows you to have some fun.
“The thinking behind the Wasps programmes are that a lot of the players are heroes in the eyes of the fans, so transforming them into large comic-like characters on the front cover was the obvious thing to do.
“We have used with the comic book theme throughout this season, featuring one, two or three players at a time.”
