Football is one of the great Russian passions. Moscow Dynamos famous tour of Britain in 1945 forged footballing links with this country, but not being able to beat Chelsea on that occasion revenge has been taken by buying up the club. So strange the forms imperialism takes.

This work formes part of a triptych for an exhibition in Pushkin House in Central London entitled "A Suite of Lighted Rooms: reflections on Russian Culture".

Entitled "The Little Tragedies" the triptych was based on work of the same name written by Pushkin in the early 1830s, and are highly compressed "chamber dramas", dealing with the contradictions of being human. I thought the title fitted they work I was trying to undertake focusing as they do on a protagonist at a crucial moment of moral choice.

The other parts of the Tritych are, "Once more, once again, still once more, after Repin"print 61 and "After Mayakovsky"print 53. They form a pastiche on the colours of the Russian flag.