Nigel's Webspace - Galleries of English Football Cards 1965/66 - 1979/80

Home page

~~~ On the world wide web since 1999 ~~~

Email your comments to this email link
Season 1970/71. A bumper season for football cards, dominated by a brilliant range from A&BC. Most of these items were timed to coincide with the Mexico World Cup, and England's' great expectations for retaining the Jules Rimet trophy. See Bob's website for the full history of the players and teams behind this season, and where they are now...
A&BC Gum
Footballer - Orange backs. A large set of attractive cards, issued in 3 sets. Series 1 comprises cards 1 to 84 (checklist), Series 2 cards 85 (checklist) to 169 and Series 3 cards 170 (checklist) to 255. The galleries available for this set include full player appearances for 1970/71 plus team results home and away, with goalscorer.

An interesting feature of this set is that it includes 21 of the 22 sides playing in the First Division in 1970/71. Huddersfield Town, promoted from the Second Division in 1969/70, are not included.

Number in set: 255. See also the A&BC Gum variants and error cards and the Wrappers gallery.
Teams: Arsenal, Blackpool, Burnley, Chelsea, Coventry City, Crystal Palace, Derby County, Everton, Ipswich Town, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Southampton, Stoke City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Checklists.

Checklists: Series 1 (1-84), Series 2 (85-169), Series 3 (170-255), Team checklist.
Pin-ups. An attractive set of 'pin-up' posters issued with Series 1 of the Orange Backs.

Since these pin-ups were squeezed into the bubble gum packets they always have the creases.

Set size: 14. Click for set gallery.

Checklists: Set checklist.
Action Transfers. Very small stickers which include the instructions 'Peel off back and rub picture with ball point'. Most of these transparencies would have been so attached to school books and other surfaces, so very few have survived intact. These transfers were issued with Series 2 and 3 of the Orange Backs.

Set size: 72.

Checklists: Set checklist, Team checklist.
Anglo Confectionery
World Cup / Learn the Game. A completely different style of cards to coincide with the World Cup. It's difficult to tell which side of the card is the front and which the back. One side has a feature from the World Cup, while the other has a tip on playing better football.

Set size: 48. Click for Learn the Game set gallery or World Cup 1970 set gallery.
B.A.B. Products
Footballer Shields. Garishly coloured shields with poorly drawn player heads. Really interesting set though. I've dated them from Alan Birchenall who is featured in Crystal Palace colours. Birchenall went to Palace in June 1970 and left to go to Leicester City in September 1971.

Set size: 42 (perhaps, not really sure).

Checklists: Set checklist, Team checklist. These checklists contain 40 of the 42 thought to be in the set.
Coffer
Footballers. A very rare set of small stickers.

Set size: 48.

  
Esso
Squelchers. The curiously named Squelchers were a set of 16 booklets produced 'to squelch arguments about football'. The books were edited for Esso by Leslie Vernon and printed in Holland by Sackville Smeets. A blue plastic folder is available to hold all 16 booklets.

Set size: 16. Click to see set gallery.

Checklists: Set checklist.
FKS Publishers
World Cup Soccer Stars - Mexico 70. An album to coincide with the World Cup, including the 30-man England squad and 16 players from each of the other qualifying countries. The offer from FKS to help complete collections through the order form expired in December 1970.

Set size: 272. Checklists: Set checklist, Team checklist.
Packet: 7 stickers for 6d. Click for FKS packets gallery.
Teams: England, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, El Salvador, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Rumania, Russia, Sweden, Uruguay, West Germany.
Album: Price 2s 6d. Click for FKS album gallery.
The Wonderful World of Soccer Stars Gala Collection. A bigger 420 sticker set, including a new Second Division Star Gallery, European Cup Finalists and the Best Players of Mexico 70. The phrase at the top of each card has changed from 'Apply adhesive here only' to 'Glue here only'.

The album credits Jack Rollin (later well-known as editor of Rothmans Football Yearbooks) for the album design and editing. At the rear of the album was a place for you to order and stick a Second Division Team Sheets, comprising photos of 15 players on a single, large sheet. The Sheets were 2/- (10p) each, plus 1s 6d postage and handling. Hardly any of these team sheets have survived.

The image gallery for each team (below) includes full player career details.

Set size: 420
Packet: 7 stickers for 6d or 2½p. Click for FKS packets gallery.
Teams: Arsenal, Blackpool, Burnley, Chelsea, Coventry City, Crystal Palace, Derby County, Everton, Huddersfield Town, Ipswich Town, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Southampton, Stoke City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Second Division Star Gallery, Celtic, Feijenoord
Album: Price 2s 6d or 12½p. Click for FKS album gallery.
Football Pictorial
Top Team Sets. Football Pictorial devoted the back page of each issue to printing 6 player pictures, each associated with a 'set'. The pictures could be cut out and collected separately, and are now collectable.

Set size: More than 250?
Lyons Maid
Soccer Stars. These cards were to be added to a 'full colour Soccer Star Chart', obtainable for a 1/- postal order sent to:
Lyons Maid Soccer Chart
18/20 St. Andrew Street
London E.C. 4

The offer closed on 1 July 1971.

At the bottom of each card was a token which could be cut off. The lolly wrappers included details of special offers available with the tokens.

Set size: 40. Click for Set checklist or Team checklist.
Nabisco
Cup Winners Badges. I'm going to guess that these attractive badges came in a cereal packet. They came in pairs so there were 9 pairs, a total of 18 badges, to collect. The collectors card came from the side of a cereal packet, so it was a clever ploy to get the boys of the day to cajole Mum into buying more of the same cereal.

The collectors card suggests that the badges are 'of major cup winners plus the team badges of the four home countries. Each badge has a special backing that will stick on cloth, plastic, metal and almost anything!' The 'special backing' paper was produced by FasPrint of Fasson, Leiden, Holland.

Set size: 18

The cup winners featured (plus details of their cup wins) are:

Team Cup Opponent
Score, venue and date
West Ham United Euro. Cup Winners Cup vs. Munich (1860), 2-0, Wembley, May 19, 1965
Liverpool F. A. Cup vs. Leeds United, 2-1 (AET), Wembley, 1965
Everton F. A. Cup vs. Sheffield Wednesday, 3-2, Wembley, 1966
Tottenham Hotspur F. A. Cup vs. Chelsea, 2-1, Wembley, 1967
Celtic European Cup vs. Inter Milan, 2-1, Lisbon, May 25, 1967
W.B.A. F. A. Cup vs. Everton, 1-0, Wembley, 1968
Manchester United European Cup vs. Benfica, 4-1 (AET) , Wembley, May 29, 1968
Leeds United European Fairs Cup vs. Ferencvaros
1-0, Elland Road, August 7, 1968
0-0, Budapest, September 11, 1968
Newcastle United European Fairs Cup vs. Ujpest Dozsa
3-0, St. James' Park, May 29, 1969
3-2, Budapest, June 11, 1969
Arsenal European Fairs Cup vs. Anderlecht
1-3, Brussels, April 22, 1970
3-0, Highbury, April 28, 1970
Manchester City Euro.Cup Winners Cup vs. Gornik Zabrze, 2-1, Vienna, April 29, 1970
Chelsea F. A. Cup vs. Leeds United
2-2 (AET) , Wembley, April 11, 1970
2-1 (AET), Old Trafford, April 29, 1970
Brazil World Cup vs. Italy, 4-1, Mexico City, June 21, 1970
Feyenoord World Club
Championship		 vs. Estudiantes
2-2, Buenos Aires, August 27, 1970
1-0, Amsterdam, September 9, 1970

Bob Wilson's Shredded Wheat Soccer Action Stickers. A set of 30 stickers issued as strips of 3 stickers each in special Shredded Wheat Soccer Action Picture packs. The stickers were designed to be stuck into Bob Wilson's Soccer Action Collector Book.

The Collector Book was given away free inside the cereal packets, thereby encouraging you to collect the stickers.

Four pictures were already printed into the book, so I'm not sure how the numbers worked out? The booklet was edited by Hayters Sports Agency for Nabisco Ltd. Printed by Creaseys of Hertford.

Set size: 30. Click for Set checklist or Team checklist.
Cup Soccer 71. A set of 8 pamphlets available in packets of Shredded Wheat. Apparently these pamphlets just sat inside cereal packets. I'm not sure how they worked out if the Bob Wilson stickers were available at the same time.

The pamphlets were printed by Sir Joseph Causton and Sons Ltd, London and Eastleigh. There are no other company names or manufacturer indicators on these, but I am assured by a keen cereal card collector that they did come in Shredded Wheat packets - thanks for the information Wayne!

The pamphlets fold out into a 340 x 230mm display which includes team and player details and the recent cup form of the team. The pamphlet states that the details are current as at the start of the 1970-71 season.

Set size: 8. Click to view set gallery.
The Sun Newspaper
Swap cards. In 1970 the Sun began an interesting series of cards which you acquired from the newspaper to stick into albums (which they called Encyclopaedia).

The first offering was a set of 134 cards covering teams from the First, Second and Third Divisions, First Division captains and star players and Second Division star players.

The fronts of the cards had the pictures while the backs (in various colours) included the instructions. You obtained tokens which appeared every day in the Sun during the 1970/71 football season and send them away to receive some swap cards.

The cards were to be mounted in the spaces left for them in the 164-page Scrapbook Encyclopaedia of Football (available from newsagents for 2/-).

Set size: 134 cards.

Checklists: Set checklist, Team checklist
D.C. Thomson
Great Captains 1970. A small set of 12 from the Wizard. They appear to have been cut from a sheet, suggesting that the comic provided the reader with one or two sheets and suggested that the cards be cut out.

Set size: 12
World Cup Stars 1970. These cards were presented in the Hornet and Hotspur comics in blocks of 8 or 10 which were to be cut into individual cards by the reader. Some of the uncut blocks still exist, and are quite collectable. A plastic wallet was given away with the first sets of cards. The cards were issued as:
Cards 01-08: Hornet (8) - June 6, 1970
Cards 09-16: Hotspur (8) - June 8, 1970
Cards 17-26: Hornet (10) - June 13, 1970
Cards 27-36: Hotspur (10) - June 15, 1970
Cards 37-44: Hornet (8) - June 20, 1970
Cards 45-52: Hotspur (8) - June 22, 1970
Cards 53-62: Hornet (10) - June 27, 1970
Cards 63-72: Hotspur (10) - June 29, 1970

Set size: 72
The Team that Won the World Cup. A 16-page booklet produced, I assume, as a lead-up to the Mexico World Cup. The booklet was printed by Buckley and Bland, Stockport and Copyright D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. 1970.
Tonibell
Team of All Time 1971. A set of small, attractive, circular cards produced in association with World Soccer magazine. I'm not sure, but I suspect that these were given away a few at a time attached in a card (so that you had to remove the disks from the card).

Set size: 36. Click to view set gallery.

No cards are for sale via this website. If you need help with your collection please see the FAQ page.