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

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Season 1973/74. An interesting year for football cards. A&BC tried hard with the blue backs and giant team posters. FKS experimented with a new style. Typhoo produced another edition of their popular tea cards and premium issue, but this was to be their last. Esso produced the interesting Top Team disks.
A&BC Gum
Footballers - Blue backs. A&BC entered the era of scary hairstyles with a classy and popular set, despite their being some seriously ugly footballers amongst these cards. The set was issued in 2 series: cards 1 to 131 (checklist 36) and 132 to 263 (checklist 182). Quality control was still not a priority for A&BC with cards 235 and 262 apparently never issued.

Set size: 261
Variants: 182, 241
Teams: Arsenal, Birmingham City, Burnley, Chelsea, Coventry City, Derby County, Everton, Ipswich Town, Leeds United, Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Norwich City, Queen's Park Rangers, Sheffield United, Southampton, Stoke City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Checklists.

Checklists: Series 1 (1-131), Series 2 (132-263), Team checklist.

Crinkle-cut photographs. Another A&BC set of black and white photographs, similar to the 1969/70 set but these tend to be action, rather than head, shots. Quality is again an issue, with the paper tending to age and therefore make this set appear older than they really are. These cards were issued with Series 2 of the Blue back set.

Set size: 32

Checklists: Set checklist, Team checklist.

Giant Team Posters. Large posters of the top English and Scottish teams, each with 12 player portraits. The posters were collectable from packets of gum costing 4p each.

Set size: 16.

 
Barratt & Co.
Football Stars. A set of 50 cigarette style cards issued by Barratt & Co Ltd, London, England. Printed in England.

This was the final issue for Barratt's under their old name, with Bassett's name appearing on cards after this date.

Set size: 50.

Esso
Top Team Collection. A strange though attractive set of small, thin metal disks, referred to as 'photo-discs' by Esso. The 22 'Soccer Superstars' could be mounted on a card by moistening the back of the photo-disc and pressing it firmly onto the ready-gummed circle on the collection card. The collection cards originally came with tissue paper in the middle to stop the pages of the card sticking to each other.

The photo-discs were presented in small sachets obtained each time you bought 3 gallons of petrol or 1 pint of Esso motor oil. When opened the sachets exposed pictures of players. The sachets and their pictures (stamps) have also become collectable (see below).

Set size: 22.


Top Team Collection Packets Footballer Stamps. Printed inside the sachets were small photos of players. The backs of the sachets indicated that each sachet should contain two footballer stamps, but they were from a continuous roll which was cut according to the needs of the sachets. There are therefore many different combinations of players.

Set size: 22.

FKS Publishers
The Wonderful World of Soccer Stars 1973/74 First Division and 1973 F.A. Cup Winners. A new landscape format, complete with club colours and a small, colour head shot. The centre pages of the album include fourteen stickers of Sunderland, commemorating their F.A. Cup win - these stickers are A thru N. The final pages of the album include 2 pictures each of Bobby and Jack Charlton, stickers O, P, Q and R.

Set size: 304. Checklists: Set checklist, Team checklist
Packet: 10 stamps for 3p. Click for
FKS packets gallery.
Teams:
Arsenal, Birmingham City, Burnley, Chelsea, Coventry City, Derby County, Everton, Ipswich Town, Leeds United, Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Norwich City, Queen's Park Rangers, Sheffield United, Southampton, Stoke City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Special: Sunderland and Charlton brother's page.
Album: Price 15p.
Click for FKS album gallery.

Goodies
World Cup. A set of 25 cigarette sized football cards presented by Goodies Limited, Greenbank, Bristol.

Set size: 25.

The cards came in sweet cigarette packets, which also advertised that there was an album available for 10p.

IPC Magazines
My Magic Moment in Football - a Shoot booklet. Another in the series of booklets formed from the inside pages of Shoot magazine. The autograph stickers were back again, replacing the badges.

Set size: 111.

Kellogg's
International Soccer Tips. A small set of coloured drawings.

Set size: 8.

 
Panini
Munchen 74 World Cup.

Set size: 400

 
Primrose Confectionery
Football Funnies. Another set of flimsy cards (paper really) which have a cartoon on the front and the related story on the back.

Set size: 25.

D.C. Thomson
The Victor Year of Football. A football calendar for 1974, presented with the Victor comic in its edition dated January 19, 1974.

Set size: 1

Top Sellers
Football 1974. A large set of cards featuring the First Division teams, plus some puzzle cards.

Set size: 420

 
Typhoo
Football Stars.  The cards were able to be cut from the side of the tea packets. The quality of the cards therefore depends a lot on the person who cut them out, since this dictates how much of the packet was included, and how neat the borders will be. Some people cut them out with the accompanying text, while others cut around the picture only.

You needed to collect 12 of the white footballs from the packets and post them to Typhoo stating which of the set of 24 you required.

Set size: 24

Football Stars, Colour Pictures. If you collected any 12 of the tea packet footballs you could send them away to Typhoo Tea and obtain a 10" x 8" colour photo of your favourite player.

Set size: 24


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