Faf de Klerk has had his cheeky smile painted on the pitch of the Twickenham Stadium in honour of the start of the Gallagher Premiership.
Twickenham, United Kingdom (13 August 2020) – Faf de Klerk, Maro Itoje and Joe Marler have been honoured by having their faces painted on the green of the Twickenham Stadium. Their larger-than-life faces will smile up from the pitch for all to see!
John Lundberg, the artist behind the works, said he wanted to do portraits of the biggest players in the Premiership and naturally, Faf came to mind after helping South Africa win the Rugby World Cup. The portrait is the UK’s largest outdoor painting and was cleverly laid down by painting little white squares on the grass.
The paint is biodegradable and a total of 1,280 litres was used to paint all three rugby stars. It also took over 24 hours to complete the paintings and 10 artists worked to make that happen. Twickenham Stadium is the largest stadium in the world dedicated to the sport of rugby union.
A new rugby season is starting in the UK, the first since the countries own lockdown was relaxed. The Gallagher Premiership Rugby will restart this Friday and everyone is buzzing about it. Fans will only be able to tune in, they are not yet allowed to attend live games.
Faf has had a successful career with the Springboks and thankfully, he is able to continue in the United Kingdom for the Sale Sharks, Manchester’s Rugby Union club. Even though Faf is playing for an English team, we are sure he is reminding his teammates, who won the world cup. After all, he earned his bragging rights!
SA Rugby Magazine shared a snippet of the portrait on their Twitter feed. Take a look below.
Beat England in the World Cup final ✅
Get your face painted on the Twickenham pitch ✅@fafdeklerk keeps winning pic.twitter.com/wYCJ4sdiMA— SA Rugby magazine (@SARugbymag) August 12, 2020