Showing posts with label 1975. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1975. Show all posts

Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Catalogue of Eras: Marshall Ward - Autumn and Winter 1975-76

Once again it's time to plunge into the long-forgotten world of mail order catalogues as we search for football-related delights to remind us of an innocent time before the internet went and spoiled everything.

On this occasion, we're going back nearly 40 years to check out a Marshall Ward 'club book' that would have been put to good use in the run-up to Christmas 1975.

In our previous instalment, we found that football boots were available to buy in a 1982 catalogue, and here again they crop up, but in two flavours - 'cheap and nasty' and 'I could be the next Johan Cruyff.'

Sunday, 6 October 2013

Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.16

Queens Park Rangers (circa 1975)

Throughout this long and illustrious series of ours, there's one tracksuit we've somehow forgotten to focus our attention on; a tracksuit that strode the footballing landscape like a giant back in the mid-70s and yet today has all but been ignored.

QPR's blue tracksuit with a big white V was a regular sight back then and stood out like a sore thumb with its bright colouring and distinctive motif. Anyone watching The Big Match four decades or so ago will have seen it often on their TV screens, especially if Brian Moore allowed a brief glimpse of the subs warming up on the pitch before the match started.

As you can see from this image taken from Shoot! magazine, the design was rather fetching when only the top half was worn, but there was also a matching pair of blue tracksuit trousers to go with it to complete the ensemble. The tops had a zip fastener and the cuffs and collar were striped in blue and white.

All in all, a very nice outfit. We're not sure who made it, but we can't help feeling they missed a trick here. Given that big white V on the top, perhaps it would have looked more appropriate if worn in different colours by a team like Port Vale or Aston Villa. The V would have had a bit more meaning if fans felt it was a reference to the latter part of their team name.

Or maybe it would have looked good in claret and blue to match the Burnley home strip of the same era. Here's Peter Noble (left) wearing it. Just imagine unzipping an identical tracksuit top to reveal a shirt beneath with exactly the same design! The very thrill of it! Oh we should have been fashion designers, you know...

Anyway, QPR's classic blue and white 'V' tracksuit is undoubtedly an absolute classic, and if you want to see some more, here are the previous 15 entries in our Great Tracksuits collection.

Monday, 8 April 2013

Palitoy Pocketeers 'World Cup' (1975)

Think of the phrase 'Flick-to-kick' and you're immediately likely to summon up images of the hemispherically-anchored figures of Subbuteo. The trouble is, Subbuteo was never very good as a game to play in the back of a car on a long journey.

Luckily, there was one game worthy of the slogan. Kind of. 'World Cup' was one of a whole range of games by Palitoy called 'Pocketeers'. Their aim was to provide fun entertainment that kids could easily buy with whatever pocket money they had. There were no batteries to fit and no computer gadgetry involved; all the moving parts in each game were built around clockwork mechanisms and manual interaction on the part of the owner, and that was all.

There were many games to collect in the series emulating everything from angling to motor racing, and all of them fitted snugly in an average school child's pocket. Inevitably football came into focus for the Palitoy boffins and in 1975 they came up with a design that simulated the end-to-end cut and thrust of the beautiful game... in plastic.