The fight to keep Lowry’s Going to the Match in public view

Famous for his paintings of the matchstalk men and matchstalk animals that populate his industrial landscapes inspired by the north-west of England, LS Lowry disliked being called an artist, preferring instead to describe himself as “a man who paints”. Upon being labelled “a naive Sunday painter” by one particularly condescending art critic, he countered by pointing out that he was “a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week”. Since his death in 1976, Lowry’s paintings and drawings have sold for numbers heading into the millions and arguably his most famous, Going to the Match, is owned by the PFA and is going on sale at Christie’s auction house next month. It is expected to fetch up to £8m, which at the time of writing is still a lot of money despite the best attempts of the Tories to flatline our economy.

Currently on display at the magnificent Lowry museum in Salford, Going to the Match depicts a scene outside and inside Burnden Park, the former ground of Bolton Wanderers, not far from his home in Pendlebury. But with the gallery and local council unable to afford it and the PFA obliged to sell the painting they paid £1.9m for in 1999 in order to raise funds for their charitable arm, the mayor of Salford has appealed to wealthy football players and clubs in the area to consider buying it to prevent the “huge tragedy and scandal” of it becoming part of a private collection and disappearing from public view.

“My fear is a work that has been publicly available at the Lowry for 22 years, that champions the work of one of our great artists, is potentially going to be lost from public view and public access,” sighed Paul Dennett. “I’d like to make a personal plea for the footballing community here to look at