A really unique job this one; not only was it not based on a real Celtic player, it wasn't even a real person!! Yep, this repaint was all because of... a player on Football Manager!!
I was interested in the story behind it, so I asked the guy who I was painting it for to tell me more about why he wanted it. In short, Strok has to be one of the best FM regens ever!
I may be hazy on some of the details, but it was something like 800 goals for the club, resulting in the shirt number being retired.
As an avid FM player myself at times (the times it doesn't make me want to throw my laptop out the window) that would have been explanation enough. But there's more!
As a bit of a laugh, the guy whose game he showed up in made some Ivica Strok Testimonial programmes, and sold them for charity. And things continued to escalate!
A Strok Celtic shirt can now be found in the Football Museum; Strok's autobiography is in the process of being written and, as the picture below shows, he even has his own Twitter page (with thousands of followers, might I add!)
As any FM player will tell you, the game easily becomes an obsession, and, in my customers own words the whole thing "struck a chord" with other players who think this kind of thing in their heads. Also in his own words "I'm the idiot who put it all into action!"
As much as it was a tricky paint job (those thin white stripes on the green stripes!!) I loved doing this one, just because of the whole story!
If you want to know more about Ivica Strok, honestly, you'll find loads by googling him!!
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