Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.9

Argentina (1978):

A special occasion sometimes requires a special outfit to wear and as hosts of the 1978 World Cup, Argentina certainly got it in the form of this fetching sky blue tracksuit by Adidas.

Read More

England XI v Thames TV XI advert, 1979

While some people these days prefer to idle away their spare time pondering who they'd invite to their fantasy dinner parties, we football fans of a certain age can opt for something more enlightening. What better, you might say, than to put together your fantasy celebrity football team? Not much, we hear you cry.

Imagine, if you will, those heady days of the 1970's when a Pro-Celebrity Charity football match seemed to take place somewhere in the UK every other week. You could barely move for celebrity teams back then. TV commentators, politicians... everyone was at it. Rest assured the great, the good and the attention-seeking were all to be found pulling on a cheap Bukta strip at a neglected local football ground throughout the 70's, and to prove a point, here's an ad from surely the decade's biggest event.

Read More

The Football Attic Guide To... Team Photos

Ever since the day when 22 men first walked onto a field to kick about an inflated pig's bladder, the practice of taking a team photograph has been a mainstay in the football world. With the constant need to worship the sporting heroes put before us, we, the fans, have demanded the imagery that maintains and strengthens the love we have for our teams. To see a picture of the team we support is to reaffirm our pride and dedication.

Yet the act of capturing the physical and spiritual attributes of a given team is nothing if not a fine art. Merely snapping a picture of a group of men standing next to each other in the same outfit is only the beginning. There are many other things to consider if you want to create a truly epic team photo, so to illustrate that point we’ve put together a special Football Attic Guide for anyone needing to know how to do it right.

Read More

The Big Match - December 1969 - Part 2

Last week we brought to you 'The Big Match - December 1969 (Part 1)' from David Poza, creator of the epic 'On This Day' series on YouTube that showcases historical football matches for every day of the year. Here, we present Part 2!

DEBATE

So, game finished, 2-1 for the R’s and we are back to the studio with Jimmy Hill and our guest, a “handsome skipper Terry Venables” (would that sound acceptable today?) talking in very polite terms about the game itself. And for this, ladies and gentlemen, we see a SLOW MOTION REPLAY! For most of us, it seems very normal to have 450 replays focusing frame by frame on how good a player moves his hair in order to head a ball, but in 1969 we had to wait to the end of the highlights to see the goals and some actions with the voice of the protagonists.

Read More

Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.8

Derby County (1978):

Much as we love the flamboyance of Admiral's many daring tracksuit designs, we shouldn't forget that it sometimes pays to imply a sense of style through understatedness. To that end, we bring you a lovely Umbro tracksuit worn by Derby County in the 1977/78 season.

Read More

Subbuteo: Accessories for the modern era

Subbuteo today leads a charmed life. Having peaked in the late-1970's, it dwindled away into virtual obscurity during the next decade or two and looked for a while as though 'flick to kick' had breathed its last. Luckily, despite several clumsy attempts by various companies to try and reinvent the brand, it survives to this day thanks to a loyal legion of fans keen to bring the game up to date in their own inventive ways.

Yet one can't help wondering what Subbuteo would be like today had it continued uninterrupted on its upward curve of the 1970's. The game of football today is different in so many ways to the one we knew back then, but would Subbuteo have changed with it? If so, what would we, the humble consumer, be buying for our collections if the game was as big today?

Read More

Rich J's Top 5... Worst England Home Kits

As usual when Chris posts a Top 5, my immediate reaction is to grab onto his coat tails and quickly chuck my own top 5 out there, but in the case of his Top 5 England Home Kits, he's chosen some crackers and 2 of my would-be top 5 are also in there.

At some point, I will choose my Top 5 2nd/3rd kits, but for now, I'm going in the opposite direction and bang out what I think are the Top 5 worst England home kits. 

In no particular order...

1. Umbro 2003-2005 

Famous for: Penalty woe... again

Worn in England's disappointing (do we ever have any other kind of tournament these days?) Euro 2004 campaign, this kit conjures up images of surrendered leads and yet another penalty shoot-out defeat. The reason I dislike this kit however is the sheer banality of it. 

When dealing with minimal designs, there's a fine line between 'classic' (see 2010) and bland. This sits on the latter's side. What could have been a great kit with clean lines and a strong red shoulder stripe is rendered boring by lame horizontal shadow patterning and a tiny tiny England badge. Instead of appearing bold, it appears apologetic. Apology not accepted!

Read More

Chris O's Favourite 5... England home kits

Once again we find ourselves ready to make acquaintance with another new England home strip, an altogether more frequent event these days but made all the more exciting this time around due to a new manufacturer taking over.

But before we embrace all that Nike has to offer, I thought I'd take a look at the home kits England have worn since World Cup '66 and pick out my own Favourite 5... and if you want to see Rich J's Worst 5, click here!

1. Admiral 1980-83

The first and so far only England shirt I've ever owned, or at least a cheap nylon interpretation of one. When England wore this strip for the first time against Argentina in a 1980 friendly, BBC commentator Barry Davies felt duty bound to question the inclusion of all the colours of the Union Flag on the kit. Maybe he was right, but it would be another 32 years before he'd see an England home kit that was only white and red.

When this kit was launched in May 1980, I remember feeling at the time that the design was good, but not quite on a par with those being produced by Adidas at the time. True though this might have been, it offered a unique look that no other team had, thanks to those distinctive horizontal bands across the shoulders.

Read More

The Big Match - December 1969 - Part 1

We often feature guest posts here in the Attic and today sees another debutant. All the way from Spain, David Poza, creator of the epic 'On This Day' series on YouTube that showcases historical football matches for every day of the year. Here, he takes us through a December 1969 episode of The Big Match...

In previous posts we have been talking about some of The Big Match Studios during their 15 year-span, and we have even covered the first edition of their “rivals”, Match of the Day. I was a bit puzzled when nobody dared to develop some aspects of any typical edition of The Big Match and as I have some editions in my collection, I decided that this would be the time to show how the program was made... in this case an edition from late December 1969.

OPENING

Ramsey: 'Woop'

London Weekend Television started transmitting in colour in November 1969, and probably for this reason the ITV Sport department did not have any colour footage to show, so instead, they showed archive films from years ago. So, another time to see the last goal of Geoff Hurst against West Germany with the cheering English bench at the very end. Also, look at Alf Ramsey, probably the quietest man among the near 100,000 crowd at Wembley.

After the opening titles, it’s time to see... Jimmy Hill?!

Read More

NASL Soccer (1979)

There is, in my view, a curious ratio that applies when you’re a child. It states that no matter how good the Christmas presents are that you receive, you will always be envious of those your friends received. This was the case back in the early 1980’s when I, as the grateful owner of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, paid a visit to the home of my schoolmate, Trevor. At some point in my stay, he unveiled the prize offering from his festive haul – an Intellivision video game system. No contest.

The Atari 2600 console seemed to have been and gone by the time Intellivision arrived in the UK. Intellivision seemed incredibly modern and comprehensive by comparison. True, we still had a token piece of wood panelling to provide a supposed touch of class, but the Mattel-made system had strange hand-held controllers like telephone handsets connected to their mothership via a curly cord. Strange stuff indeed.

Read More