Words: Manny Hawks // @asw500.bsky.social

Many good ideas start in the pub. If legends are to be believed, both The Glorious Revolution (not so glorious if you’re Irish) and the American Revolution were mapped out in London boozers. On a similarly significant level was the meeting of a group of mates in the Lord’s Tavern ahead of the 2018 World Cup. We were theoretically gathered to celebrate Emlyn’s 30th birthday and had already presented him with his Panama home shirt and sticker album when it was made clear that there would be no more play on the hallowed Lord’s turf. Luckily there was a newsagent nearby and so the rest of the day, and much of the evening, was spent filling in the pages and building a healthy tower of swaps. By the end of the gathering we all had an album of our own and an additional reason for our financial issues.

Much of the blame for this can be placed on the tournament’s eventual finalists, Croatia, who seemed to have made a team-wide decision to pay tribute to the great stadium rock acts of the 1980s. The moody Ivan Perišić and his faux-hawk on drums, the earnest fringe of Ivan Strinić on bass and a cheerful, bearded Ivan Rakitić on keys all did a great job supporting the mercurial talents and flowing locks of frontman, and tournament Golden Ball winner, Luka Modrić. The real star of the show, however, had to be the lead guitarist and mouthpiece of the band Domagoj Vida, depicted in sticker form with his slicked back golden mane. Vida had a more than impressive tournament at the heart of the Croatian defence but, for us, was a reminder of the halcyon days of encountering hitherto unknown players for the first time in a sticker album and instantly wanting to know more.

The same was probably true back in 1896 when the first collectible images of footballers appeared as free gifts in packs of Marcus and Company cigarettes. Not only could you get your daily dose of nicotine to calm the nerves and stave off the common cold but you could also add to your collection of ‘Footballers and Club Colours’. Many tobacco companies followed suit in the following years as the Football League expanded and more national and local heroes emerged. In 1912, Lees’ Hand Filled Cigarettes produced a series of cards depicting the players of Northampton Town, then of the Southern League, which is where we find forward Walter Tull.

Tull was one of the first Black British professional footballers and, having enlisted in 1914, went on to become the first Black British Army officer to command white troops when he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1917. He was killed in action during the German Spring Offensive in March 1918, having been commended for the Military Cross two months earlier. Football was a prime recruitment ground for the British armed services in both World Wars and many players served in combat and physical training roles owing to their above-average fitness and high profile status. Seeing such men on promotional tools for life-shortening products seems a little out of kilter nowadays but this was a time when British soldiers were issued with twelve cigarettes as part of their daily rations.

While the first World Cup was held in 1930 it was not until the resumption of international sport following the Second World War that the tournament began to better resemble the global football showcase of today. The first televised tournament to be enjoyed in technicolour was the 1970 event in Mexico, which was also the first to be supported by a Panini sticker album. This was also the first tournament to be held outside of the traditional football hotbeds of Europe or South America and the first to guarantee a finals place to an African nation. As the empires of European nations crumbled and dictatorships fell, the game became increasingly global and more and more countries joined the party.

The expansion of the tournament to 24 teams in 1982 led to the first instance where all-continental federations were represented and Algeria, Cameroon, Honduras, Kuwait and New Zealand all made their World Cup debuts. Unless you were a particularly die hard Brentford fan of a certain age it’s unlikely you would have heard of Brian Turner, while only the most ardent of Kiwi football fans would have heard of Wynton Rufer prior to the 1982 World Cup. The classic Panini double sticker below introduced them to a much wider audience and may have rubbed salt in the wounds for Norwich City fans who were denied Rufer’s goalscoring talents due to work permit issues. Instead he made a name for himself in Switzerland and Germany scoring nearly three hundred career goals and winning a host of silverware with Werder Bremen.

While footballers have always been household names, the explosion of the game in the 1990s took more and more players from the back to the front pages. Increased television revenue led to higher wages and more lavish celebrity lifestyles for even the most run of the mill professionals. It wasn’t just the playing staff getting in on the act; managers and even club board members became more prominent. with the likes of Jack Walker splashing the cash to help Blackburn Rovers to Premier League glory long before anyone was accusing Chelsea and Manchester City of buying the title. The money men were also making a tidy sum off the back of a growing demand for replica shirts and clubs paved the way for a thriving retro shirt culture by releasing new kits for every occasion.

All of this is shown neatly below in the Crystal Palace team photo ahead of the 1994/95 season. The coaching staff have done the club shop a huge favour by modelling the flirty ‘Brazil’ away kit, befitting a side who would manage a league low of 34 goals and suffer relegation due to the restructuring of the top flight in the following campaign. Alongside manager Alan Smith sits the suited and booted chairman Ron Noades, who clearly wants to make it clear how instrumental he was in the Eagles’ First Division triumph to secure their return to the Premier League. In reality, Noades had tarnished his early success at the helm in South London by making racist comments about his own squad. He would go on to throw the club under the bus and into administration by the end of the decade. Despite the mediocrity of this Palace side there were a number of players leaning into the styles and fashions of the time with Simon Rodger, along with youngsters Tony Scully and Jamie Vincent, donning curtains worthy of a Smash Hits Poll Winners’ Party award for Best Haircut.

While football stickers sometimes feel like remnants of a bygone era, they continue to serve as markers for football’s major events. Ahead of the 2024 European Championships there were at least three albums for people to get their hands on. For the first time, the tournament’s official license went to American company Topps and, clearly excited about this new opportunity, they went to print before the final places in Germany had been secured. Having missed out on every major tournament since 1958, Wales were looking to make their third consecutive Euros. Instead they endured penalty heartache at the hands of Poland but Danny Ward could perhaps take some solace from making the sticker album.

To make matters more interesting Panini issued a rival album with the backing of the England team allowing them to showcase the likes of Jude Bellingham in his official headshot finery. Someone behind this collection clearly owned a crystal ball as it also acted as the official sticker vehicle for eventual winners Spain and semi-finalists France as well as the host nation and holders Italy. England also cashed in on their sponsorship from Marks & Spencer with a joint venture with Panini providing freebies for the nation’s more discerning shoppers. This did give us an insight into the secret behind Jack Grealish’s phenomenal calf muscles and no doubt boosted sales of their Naked Chicken Katsu Salad even if the Manchester City man didn’t make Gareth Southgate’s final squad. We’ve come a long way from cigarettes.

Football stickers, cards and collectibles have been around nearly as long as the game itself, and even in an increasingly digital age it’s hard to imagine a major tournament without them. Perhaps it’s because they serve as such a handy marker of these events and provide a window into the world in which they were created. Both football and the world have changed a lot since the nineteenth century but small pieces of paper bearing the images of the talented people who provide us with drama and excitement continue to be at the heart of it.