ALAPPUZHA: What’s common between Indian cricketer Virat Kohli and Mavelikkara youth S Deva Narayanan? They are among the eight Indians followed by Manchester City football club (FC) on Instagram. In fact, the 18-year-old hailing from Punnamoodu is the lone Keralite to be followed by the club.
Reason: Deva’s artworks on pieces of wood. After a few of his works went viral, the club approached him for more. Deva obliged. Subsequently, the wooden artworks of four players – Erling Haaland, Julian Alvarez, and Ruben Dias of the club and Riyad Mahrez (now former player of the club) – as well as the three trophies the club won in 2023, created by Deva was shared by the club on its social media pages and got millions of views.
Deva ventured into painting purely out of boredom during the lockdown, while he was a higher secondary student. While exploring ways to develop his skill, Deva came across wooden pieces. The pieces, around 17-25cm long and 1cm wide, allowed him to create portraits of four celebrities, one on each side.
“I am more passionate about football and posted images of my wood art of Pele, Maradona, Ronaldo, and Messi on my Instagram page on August 18, 2022. The post was viewed by 1.55 lakh people. In March this year, 433, the world’s biggest online football fan community, shared my post and got 19.4 million views,” said Deva, a second-year computer engineering student of IHRD College of Engineering in Chengannur. It also caught the attention of Manchester City FC.
“In that artwork, I had used my mobile phone to maintain the alignment of the wooden pieces. Its cover had the club’s logo. Seeing this, someone from the club sent me a message asking me to contact Jonathan Townsley, the admin of the club’s social media pages.
When contacted, he expressed interest in getting portraits of players Haaland, Alvarez, Mahrez, and Dias done in wood,” Deva said. “The post of my art on the club’s page on March 30 garnered around 6.75 million views,” said Deva.
Later, Jonathan contacted him again to create wooden art of the three trophies (FA Cup, EPL and UCL). The club had won the first two events and was gearing up for the third.
“I requested him to send a jersey. He accepted the request,” said Deva. After Manchester City won the UCL, the club posted Deva’s art on June 12. “It got around 6.99 million views,” said Deva, the son of Sunil Kumar and Sujam. Soon, the jersey arrived. “It was signed by Haaland himself. Though I never sought a signed jersey, they sent me one signed by a world famous footballer as appreciation for my work,” he said.