1972 Kellogg's Olympic football plastic figure

 

Olympic football comes to Britain today. Todays post celebrates when Cereal packets used to do something special to commemorate those occasions. Back in 1972 to honour the Munich Olympics, Kellogg's Sugar Smacks gave away 8 different athletes to collect and cherish. The carefully balanced, character above was for Football. 

If you want to see the rest of the set, you should head over to Mokarex. A rather good site full of more fabulous cereal giveaways.

ENJOY WALKERS CRISPS NOW

Super late Sixties beer mat promoting Walkers Crisps and Potato Sticks. The photo shows the front and back of the same beer mat. The bold stylized image, and the two colour printing reminds me of the programme covers for Stoke and Coventry City football club from the early Seventies.

John Elvin & Bernard Gallacher at Sportsgraphic were responsible for the programmes at Coventry and also produced work for Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion football clubs. In 1972 their work was recognised with a D&AD award. It would be nice to think they were responsible for the Walker beer mats too!

2012 CUP FINAL

Its the Cup Final tomorrow, and not only is it not the last game of the English football season, the FA have even moved kick off to 5.15. Is nothing sacrosanct anymore?

The fabulous little label is taken from The London Transport Museum archive, from the days when the Cup Final was still a central part of the British sporting calendar. You can search the London Transport archive via theme, and there are lots more football related posters if your interested!

Should you feel the urge for even more nostalgia, you can still download the 1975 FA Cup Final wallchart, that appeared in Tiger, that I posted back in 2009.

2011 Cup Final post

Its that time of year again. Its Cup Final day here in England! Here to celebrate are two corner kickers from an unknown football game, maybe from the Sixties. They show a striking resemblance to the fairground game I listed back in 2009.

Im bitterly disappointed that the FA, and the Premier league couldnt work out a way for the FA Cup to be the last game of the season, and that it was the only game played in Britain today. Its criminal so many traditions and rituals are being undermined! I guess Im just a silly romantic!

Football Special - British Rail 1972 leaflet

Back in the Seventies British Rail ran football special trains, so fans could get to games. It kept the hooligans separate and meant the general public werent inconvenienced. Seems logical really, until one day they stopped them!

Todays post is a relic from that era. The A5 leaflet, advertises transport for Arsenals FA Cup game at Swindon, on January 15 1972. Tickets cost £1.25 for adults (and 75p for children).

The image features a child that I always thought would look more at home on a Knitting pattern!

Two Striking Matchboxes

Two lovely matchboxes from Spain featuring two Spanish football teams. Made by Fosforera Espanola, they look to date from the Fifties.

If you like theses, you may be interested to know that the collecting of Matchbox labels, Phillumeny is big business. Theres even a Matchbox society!

Its been a while since Ive been to a Matchbox Society fair, but there was always lots to see, and the prices were pretty reasonable too. Ill add some more soon.

1982 World Cup England Scarf

In doing a little bit of research for the 1970s England football scarf, I posted last week I unconvered this Eighties one, on ebay. It was too good not to purchase and for the princely sum of £3.32 this little piece of football history was mine!

While not quite in the same league as the scarf from 1974, it does amuse me. Thankfully most of the perms have been checked, although it appears a few players; Kevin Keegan, Terry McDermott, Tony Woodcock & Bryan Robson were still tinkering with the style.




















The 1982 England team qualified for the World Cup in good shape, they were hard to beat and had only lost 4/32 games under the manger, Ron Greenwood. Having won all the group games, hopes were high, but sadly England went out in the next group stage even though they had never lost a game. In 1986 the tournament format was changed.

Daddy Sugar Wrappers, France 1998 World Cup

Another topical post tonight, as France crash to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Mexico in the FIFA World Cup. Back in 1998 France hosted the Tournament and won it, but tonight that must seem a distant memory.

As with all these Global events, companies are only too pleased to produce commemoratives, and back in the 1990s, Daddy, the king of paper wrapped sugar cubes produced these rather fetching sugar wrappers. I do believe that like matchbox labels, theres an army of collectors of paper wrapped Sugar cubes. These wrappers are the sort that used to be very popular at service stations and cafes.

1970s England nylon Scarf

With less than 24 hours to go to the start of The World Cup, it seems apt to have another football related post. Not that I really need an excuse!
Its because of this England scarf, that I picked up the Showaddywaddy one, the other day. They seem to perfectly epitomize a point in time. Printed on the most horrific 1970s nylon, it predates my favourite England kit by a couple of seasons.



















The team group includes Alan Ball, Ray Clemence, Dave Watson & Colin Bell, while on the reverse, (above) I think Ive spotted Kevin Beattie and Dave Thomas ! If like me, youre excited by the prospect of the World Cup, you may be interested to know theres a fantastic online wallchart. It seems to owe a lot to those information wheels, that I posted a while back.

1950s Cup Final Blow Football

Its that time of year again! Tomorrow sees Portsmouth take on Chelsea in the 2010 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. I always think of it as a special day and remember fondly as a child going up the high street with my father and buying the Official programme from WH Smith.

Back then, the Cup Final was the only live televised game, and the pre match build up was legendary. Now every game is on the internet, or live on Sky. Somehow, some of the romance has gone. But here from those halcyon days are two fantastic Cup Final commemoratives; Blow Football. It really doesnt get much more glamorous than this!

The top box is from 1958, while the bottom one is from 1960. Neither has a makers mark, but the contents are identical. Round the side of the box, the winners from from that decade are listed. The goalkeepers are beautifully printed on tin, and are threaded along the crossbar, to allow them to move.

Should you want to fill in a 1975 Tiger FA Cup wallchart you can download it from last years Cup Final Post.

Football Snowdomes

The new football season is now well under way, so excuse another football related post. Its true theyve seen better days, but like much that Ive uploaded here, they have a special place on the mantlepiece. There was another I had in the series, but that fell behind a radiator, and sadly was never able to retrieve!

If you like snowdomes, (and theres no doubt a lot of people do!) Theres a superb book in the Abbeville collection series that features a great selection of these plastic domes in stunning technicolour, and details their humble origins.

I did wonder though, shouldn't 1970s footballers play with orange balls in the snow?

FA CUP FINAL SOUVENIR WALLCHART

I thought id post this little gem from 1975, seeing as tonight is the Champions League Final and on Saturday its the FA Cup Final. The poster comes from Tiger & Scorcher magazine, dated Monday May 3rd. The original price was 5p.

Ive kept the file quite large so that if you feel the urge you can download, print and fill in the teams and goalscorers. Enjoy the game!

1966 World Cup Willie Mascot

Another great find, this time from the Stables at Camden Market, probably sometime in the early Nineties. To think I actually ummed and arrghed over paying the £8 price tag!

World Cup Willie was the mascot for the 1966 World Cup in England and what a handsome fellow he is too. There've been some good mascots over the years, but this soft toy version is my favourite. Sadly I cant find a makers mark, so I cant tell you much more about him.

Willie was the first World Cup mascot, and while he was emblazoned on all manner of items one of the strangest Ive found is this rollerball figure below by Marx Rolykins. The base has a lead ballbearing that makes Willie glide along.















To see all the mascots, since Englands finest hour head over to Wikipedia.

Cleveland 1971 Footballers

Im not sure when I first encountered this lovely set of footballers, but these two turned up in a box of oddments at last weeks carboot. Originally given away by Cleveland petrol in 1971, these small plastic busts went under the rather odd title of "Joe Mercer's Great Britain Soccer Squad 1971". It all sounds terribly American. There were 16 in the series that fitted on to a rather unusual circular black base.

The two here, are Allan Mullery and George Best. If you want to see more, head over to littleoaks.com . Not only can you see the whole of this set but also a superb collection of English football cards.

Roll up! Roll Up!

Trawling through a box load of old photographs, I found this old picture. It feels a bit like catching up with an old friend!

On a trip to Southport in the late Eighties I came across this wonderful fairground stall. If my memory serves me correct you pulled the players foot back and he shot a two pence piece, over a void. The idea of the game was to land the penny onto a revolving island in the middle. If your coin landed on the designated target, you won a prize.

I love the players haircut and the simplicity of the kit. I could never work out if he was centre forward or centre half. Either way, I bet he could tell a story or two. The games has echoes of baby-foot, and should you like table football, you'll probably enjoy Nicola Shwartzs book table head over at pocko books.

It was sad to read that the fairground at Southport has since been demolished. I do hope this old fella' found a good home, somewhere!

Skipping?

Some of my favourite finds have been from skips. Theres just something you cant beat about getting something for nothing, and of course the notion that something so beautiful could have ever been discarded.

Ive always enjoyed mis-registered and overprinted pieces of print. I guess it stems from Vaughan Olivers covers for Colourbox on 4AD records. I've always wondered what happened to the printing press that printed this. If only I could get my hands on it!

These two stunning cards were recovered from a skip in North London in the late 1980s. It looked like someone had moved out, perhaps in a hurry and sadly a load of kids stuff had got binned.

I cant read arabic but judging on the format I reckon these are a form of Top Trumps, massive in Britain in the late Seventies and now finding favour with the next generation.

The two characters on the cards are the footballers Dino Zoff, Italys most famous goalkeeper & could that possibly be Aberdeens Willie Miller ?