1969/70
Footballers

The Sun's first ever set of football cards, a set of coloured drawings given away, I think, with tokens from the newspaper. The cards came as part of a sheet, with all 22 cards in a long strip format with two side by side portraits by eleven cards underneath. The cards are actually ordered by club alphabetically in the strip.

Number in set: 22
Gallery: Set gallery
Checklists sorted by player: Set
Checklists sorted by team: Set

World Cup 1970 Souvenir Chart

In early 1970 the Sun produced a Souvenir Wallchart (price 1/-) in anticipation of the 1970 Mexico City World Cup. The chart had spaces for a number of stickers, which you ordered from the Sun. The stickers were: Great British players of the past (22 stickers), Flags of World Cup Nations (16 stickers), Stars of previous World Cups (16 stickers), England's squad for Mexico (28 stickers). You sent away to the Sun on an application form for each of the different sets. The Sun then posted them to you.

Number in set: 82

Soccer Calendar 1970 Souvenir Wallchart

The wallchart has spaces for a number of stickers, which you ordered from the Sun. The stickers were: Teams (22 stickers), Club Crests (22 stickers), Captains (22 stickers)

Each special coupon collected from the Sun newspaper entitled you to one sticker, though you had to collect 22 before you could send them away. As with the World Cup wallchart most of these stickers ended up on the wallcharts, so it is rare to find them in sheets.

Number in set: 66
Gallery: Captains, Crests, Teams

1970/71
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/-).

Number in set: 134 cards (66 players, 68 teams)
Gallery: Players, Teams
Checklists: Set checklist, Team checklist

1971/72
Soccerstamps

Following on from the undoubted success of the Swap cards the Sun followed up in 1971/72 with the ambitious Soccerstamps collection. The Soccerstamps were stamps, rather than cards, and came in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and colours. The tokens for Soccerstamps appeared in the Sun each day. The Sun only accepted tokens in lots of six, plus 5p, to get your 12 Soccerstamps by return post.

The stamps were to be mounted in the spaces for them in the 164-page Football Encyclopaedia and Soccerstamp Album (available from newsagents for 10p). The album suggests that you stick them in with stamp hinges. Collectors of these stamps therefore distinguish between those which were (a) never stuck into an album, (b) stuck in with stamp hinges or (c) stuck in as stamps.

The Sun claimed at the time that over 60 million Soccerstamps were to be printed, which means that they often turn up today.

Number in set: 500 stamps. Four additional stamps are also known, numbered 501 to 504, issued as a block of four 'Christmas Greetings'.
Gallery: N/A
Checklist: N/A

1972/73
3D Starcards, Actionpix and Moviecards

In 1972/73 the Sun went even further with 3 different types of cards in the same album. Unfortunately they couldn't decide what to call them, so they go by a number of different names... The cards were all '3D' and comprised: 3-D Gallery of Football Stars (50 to collect); Gallery of Football Action Cards (52 to collect - 50 according to the album, though 52 are known); How to play soccer (6 to collect).

The 3D Soccer (or Football) Stars were available by collecting and sending away a Sun Starcard token. You could order 1, 5 or 10 at a time. The Actionpix (also known as Gallery of Football Action) were available by collecting 10 tokens for sets of 10 at a time. The How-To-Play-Football (or Soccer) cards, also called Movie Cards, featuring Trevor Francis, were available as a set of 6 for 6 collected tokens.

The cards were to be mounted in the spaces in the 99-page Football Encyclopaedia and 3D Album (available from newsagents for 15p). If these cards were stuck into the albums they will undoubtedly have damage to their backs, so collectors are often seeking cards which never saw the insides of the album.

Number in set: 108 cards
Gallery: Football Stars - N/A
Gallery: Football Action Cards - N/A
Gallery: How to Play Football
Checklists: Football Stars - Set checklist, Team checklist
Checklists: Football Action Cards - Set checklist, Team checklist

1978/79
Soccercards

A massive set produced by the Sun newspaper for no apparent reason. This was their first football cards production for 6 years, and it was another 8 years after this one before they tried again. The set includes 1,000 "full colour drawings" of players, flags and trophies. Presumably they were unable to obtain the rights to the player photos so they commissioned an artist to draw the pictures. A typically neat way of avoiding the payment of image rights.

The cards were available in packs of 50. The information printed on the cards was correct as at November 1978. The fixtures printed in the albums was correct up until 16 December 1978.The set is divided into a number of categories:

Cards 1 - 200 International stars
Cards 201 - 350 All time greats
Cards 351 - 546 Defenders
Cards 547 - 742 Midfielders
Cards 743 - 938 Strikers
Cards 939 - 988 Flags of soccer nations
Cards 989 - 1000 Major football trophies

Four albums were available for the set, though they had unnumbered spaces, and not enough for 1,000 cards (each album has 150 spaces). Apparently you decided what you wanted to stick into each album. The albums were named:
No 1 - Soccer Souvenir Album
No 2 - My Gallery of League Stars
No 3 - Gallery of Superstars
No 4 - Gallery on International Soccer

Number in set: 1000 cards.
Gallery: N/A
Checklists: Set checklist, Team checklist