‘Unusual’ artwork appears at Greater Manchester football stadium

An ‘unusual’ giant artwork has been erected outside Boundary Park stadium in Oldham. The eight-metre tall embryo was put up by local legend and football club owner Frank Rothwell.

The design celebrates Oldham’s crucial role in developing IVF technology – and is supposed to act as a prototype for a 30m (100-foot) high sculpture at the side of the M60, according to Rothwell.

The Oldham-born businessman had previously revealed plans to build a ‘big f***-off wheel’ to mark the entrance to Oldham borough. The idea was to use something eye-catching to attract visitors to the area and celebrate positive aspects of Oldham’s past.

His designs for the wheel have now evolved to focus on the areas medical research history, the MBE-holder revealed.

The prototype shows a line drawing of a baby in utero inside a giant cog representing the town’s industrial past.

“IVF is one of the most important things that has happened in Oldham,” Rothwell told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. “It didn’t happen in Munich or Beijing or even Manchester or London. It happened here. Millions of babies have been born around the world because of what happened in Oldham.”

Rothwell envisions the full-scale version as Oldham’s answer to Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North in Gateshead. He hopes it would attract visitors from far and wide to the borough.

“It will be a secular shrine where people will come to visit and reflect,” he said.

The embryo symbol honours the first IVF baby, Louise Joy Brown, who was born in Oldham in 1978, after groundbreaking fertility treatment developed by Dr Patrick Steptoe, Sir Robert Edwards and embryologist and nurse Jean Purdy.

While locals described the feature as ‘a bit unusual’, the people who the LDRS spoke to on the street were largely positive about the project.
“The first time I drove past it, I thought ‘What the heck is that?’,” said Anne Johnson, 72 (pictured below). “But when I found out what it was about I was impressed. It’s great that the football club is doing more for the local area.”

“It’s definitely unusual,” her partner Tony agreed. “It sounds daft. But if it can bring people in, bring businesses and investment to te area, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

And Alison Smith, 60, a retired civil servant, said she ‘absolutely loves’ the giant embryo artwork.

Alison said: “Anything that represents the achievements of Oldham is a positive to me. I think there’s a really poor perception of Oldham and anything that works to improve that is amazing.”

The major Latics fan, whose house borders on the Stadium grounds, added that Rothwell had made a big, positive impact on the local community.
Though not everyone is getting the message. Martin Moody, 45, (pictured below) who lives in Ashton but works as an accountant near Boundary Park, said he walks past the giant embryo every day because he parks at the stadium.

“I had no idea what it’s about,” he admitted. “I walk past it every day and wonder. But now I know, I guess it’s a positive thing. Any artwork improves an area.”