Wallace and Gromit support Bristol's 2018 World Cup bid
Aardman Animations, based in Bristol, have brought smiles to the faces of millions around the world with their creations and are now working on bringing many of them to Bristol to watch the world's biggest sporting event.
The city has until December to convince the England 2018 World Cup bid team it is worthy of a berth in England's bid to FIFA and Aardman are convinced that is the case.
To that end they have put their name to Bristol's campaign and been in contact with their hundreds of thousands of followers, home and abroad, to promote Bristol's virtues.
Head of broadcast, Miles Bullough, told the Evening Post: "There are a lot of football fans at Aardman and we wanted to support Bristol's bid as a result. It is a pleasure for us to put our name to it.
"We've had information on our website and we've sent information to all our subscribers and fans.
"Obviously it is a long way away and there are a lot of 'ifs' but it would be magnificent and Bristol would make an excellent venue."
Mr Bullough, 51, who lives in Long Ashton, had his first taste of the World Cup festival when he journeyed to the 2006 tournament in Germany for England's pulsating group game against Sweden. And what he saw set his heart racing.
"It was a fantastic occasion," he said. "I absolutely loved it. The England supporters were fantastic and it was a carnival atmosphere.
"You read about it and you hear about it but it really did bring it home. You had to park two or three miles away and there were so many people in costumes and make up.
"It was a real family atmosphere, much friendlier than I perhaps feared." Football has always featured in Aardman's work, with Wallace and Gromit in particular previously wrestling with a penalty-taking machine after donning their shorts and boots.
Timmy Time, their CBeebies character, is also a football fan and England supporter, according to Mr Bullough, and Shaun the Sheep has an episode playing football with a cabbage.
To give an indication of Aardman's following, Wallace and Gromit have about 100,000 Facebook followers, Shaun the Sheep thousands more and the company itself has, according to Mr Bullough, "tens if not hundreds of thousands of subscribers".
"Of course, a lot of them are all over the world," he added. "But that doesn't mean they're not interested in Bristol, or the World Cup. Perhaps they'll look it up and come for a visit.
"Bristol is a really vibrant, growing city. It's had a taste of world recognition with the Banksy show and would be a great venue for the World Cup."
● Join Wallace and Gromit to help bring international football to the South West by visiting www.thisisbristol.co.uk/worldcup or going to http://www.bristol2018.net/.
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