Waddington's Quiz Card Games - Football (1979)

When it comes to football card games, you’re nobody unless you have the words ‘Top’ and ‘Trumps’ on your packet. Yet if the passing of time tells us nothing, it shows that every once in a while, a new title would come along in an attempt to win the hearts and minds of young football-loving children everywhere.

One such title was made by Waddingtons, the iconic name linked with all-time classic board games such as Monopoly, Risk and er… Wheel of Fortune. In 1979, Waddingtons hit upon the idea of producing sets of cards featuring quiz questions on various subjects, one of which was Football. Others included Cricket, Pop Music and, bewilderingly, the Highway Code, but whatever the subject they all had the same basic gameplay.

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FC Football Graphics (1998)

Sometimes it seems that modern football is a purely visual experience. TV commentaries, tasteless hot dogs and noisy supporters aside, the game as we know it today really is a feast for the eyes. What we don’t realise is how much of this imagery we all take for granted, or how much work goes into creating the visual stimuli we see. For that reason, Jeremy Leslie and Patrick Burgoyne’s book, FC Football Graphics, is a worthwhile attempt to make us re-evaluate the things that we see.

Given the subject matter, it’s only natural that the book is comprised mainly of pictures, gloriously and tantalisingly presented with an invitation to dwell slowly on each one. Where text is concerned, most of it appears in the lengthy introduction where we’re reminded that the worlds of fashion, literature and music have all exchanged influences with the beautiful game. After that, however, it’s largely pictures all the way, save for a few descriptive sentences on each pair of pages.

To begin with, there’s a selection of English club badges - the motifs that appear everywhere from Sky Sports to the Daily Mirror. Then comes the MLS equivalent (as it was when the book was published in 1998), notable by its inclusion of several club badges that are no longer in use some 16 years later.

Later we see examples of World Cup mascots and logos, but fascinatingly we’re reminded of the everyday bits of ephemera that circle the world of football like the rings around Saturn. National Lottery scratchcards, betting coupons, food and drink packaging… these are the things that blend into the background of our everyday lives, but which we never stop to appreciate.

When it comes to the match-day experience, however, one cannot look much beyond football shirts and strips as the ultimate embodiment of design, style and colour. The book shows us fans wearing their team shirts outside the ground, various shirt designs of all types - even the sponsor logos and manufacturer logos that dominate the shirt itself. All of them contribute to the tidal wave of imagery that constantly washes over us, but here we’re reminded to stop and actually look - to willingly appreciate the detail and complexities that lie within.

If you throw in football websites, magazines, video games, TV presentation, advertising and everything in between, you soon realise that the very essence of being a football supporter and all the experiences and memories we've had are based on the graphics that this book highlights. Take all of it away, and our football world suddenly becomes very uninteresting and dull.

And just think: this is less than 100 pages of content that was put together over a decade ago. Now imagine how many more visuals could be included in a 2014 version. If nothing else, FC Football Graphics makes the mind boggle and trains the eye to see football visuals as art rather than the wallpaper we take for granted every day.

FC Football Graphics

by Jeremy Leslie & Patrick Burgoyne

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Publish date: 1998

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The Football Attic Podcast 16 - BALLS!

30 years (probably) on from Podcast 15, an aged Rich & Chris talk balls for an hour! What's new you say? A ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa... you're a funny guy!

Anyway, the old boys are discussing FOOTballs!

Which is the best all time football? The Tango or the Telstar?

Which is the worst? Easy... the Fevernova!

Ball ball ball!

Footy footy footy!

Download:
Subscribe on iTunes or download here. Alternatively, catch The Football Attic Podcast on Square One Football Radio.

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Up For The Cup 1987

As it’s FA Cup quarter final weekend, I thought I’d turn the clock back 28 years to a time when you’d have been able to buy this superb piece of football memorabilia - the Up For The Cup 1987 wallchart.

From what I’ve been able to make out, this was the third annual edition of the wallchart (the first being published for the 1984-85 season). I remember discovering my first one in a local newsagents sometime around the mid-1980’s. When folded up, it looked like an ordinary football magazine when sat on a shelf alongside other publications, but further investigation uncovered the extra dimensions that lay within. Once unpacked and unfolded, a huge, colourful, wallchart lay before you along with sheets and sheets of thumbnail-sized stickers, each one featuring club badges for every team imaginable.

The wallchart was an invitation to indulge in and engage with the world’s oldest football competition. As each round of matches were played, your job was to adhere the appropriate stickers to the spaces provided and fill in the score and scorers with a pen. The Third Round results ran around the outside of the wallchart while subsequent rounds appeared in the middle ‘pitch’ section.

And let it be said right here and now - the ability to hold sheets and sheets of mini club badge stickers in your hand was the sort of thing that was liable to create a strange tingling sensation in your nether regions as a football-loving young teenager in the mid-1980s. Individual club badge stickers were not uncommon to Panini collectors, but owning so many in such great quantities - small though they were - was almost obscene. With an apparent surplus at your fingertips, it’s hardly surprising that thoughts would turn towards other places where they could be stuck. School exercise books, bedroom walls, the frame of your bicycle… why wait until the FA Cup Final when there were so many places to stick them?

With a potential five rounds to feature in, it’s understandable that each team had five stickers each. Even some non-league teams were lucky enough to have a few, although in this 1986-87 edition, there were plenty of blanks provided that you could scribble your own names on. As you can see on this wallchart I purchased on eBay a few years ago, you can see one child’s attempts to ensure that the mighty Caernarfon wasn’t going to be left out.

To liven the whole thing up, lots of colour photographs decorated the piece featuring the star players of the day. On this edition, we get to see a snowbound Nigel Clough playing with an orange Tango ball, Arsenal’s “new wonder boy” David Rocastle and Southampton’s Colin Clarke, who was on his way to scoring 20 league goals in his first season for The Saints.

The reverse side of the wallchart contained mostly statistical and narrative information split up into individual pages. There was a list of previous FA Cup Final results, the overall performance of different teams in previous competitions and the results from the previous FA Cup competition in 1986/87. For those seeking an insight into the life of a top player, Alan Hansen provided a potted history of his career heretofore, and an Editorial by someone at manufacturers Statmill spoke of the growing number of top players like Gary Lineker and Ian Rush leaving the English game.

Stealing the show, perhaps, was a competition to win two tickets to the 1986 Charity Shield match at Wembley. By answering three tricky questions, “you and your Dad or other adult” could go and see Liverpool and Everton battle it out again in the traditional season curtain-raiser. Call me fickle if you like, but I think I’d have been happier with the runner-up prize of a Subbuteo Club Edition set with two additional Cup Final teams and FA Cup trophy. Hell, I’d have even lived abroad temporarily to win the Overseas Prize of a Subbuteo World Cup set ‘with Cup Final teams and trophy’.

As mentioned before, this was one of several FA-approved Statmill wallcharts to be made. All of them followed the same basic format and repeated a lot of the material included, but at 87 centimetres by 62, this was a monster of a wallchart that offered fun galore thanks to all those wonderful stickers. There was even an Up For the World Cup edition released in time for the 1986 tournament that I also owned at the time, but I’ll get to that in a future article.

For now, just salute the majesty of this wallchart and accept the fact that if you saw something like this in the shops tomorrow, no matter what your age, you’d buy it like a shot. Don’t feel ashamed. It’s purely natural.

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5 Memorable Moments from South American World Cups

Once again we are proud to to say that Matthew Wassell is back in the Attic, and this time, with the World Cup in Brazil only 99 days away, he takes a look back at five memorable moments from previous tournaments hosted by South American countries.

1. The inaugural tournament (Uruguay 1930)

The first ever FIFA World cup was held in 1930 in the small country of Uruguay, partly due to their having retained their Olympic football title two years earlier. Only 13 teams made the journey, including just four from Europe (France, Belgium, Romania and Yugoslavia) competing against nine from the Americas. With all games being played in Montevideo, travelling within the country was at least kept to a minimum. Famously, the hosts would go on to win 4-2 in the Final against close rivals Argentina and become the first team to lift the trophy. Sadly though, they would lose their title four years later when refusing to participate in Italy in protest against the small number of European teams who had travelled to Uruguay in 1930.

2. The Battle of Santiago (Chile 1962)

In 1962, a particularly famous moment in British football TV history occurred when David Coleman introduced highlights of the first round match between the hosts Chile and challengers Italy with this description of what was to come:

“The most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game.”

He wasn’t wrong. Chile won 2-0 (the goals coming late in the second half) but Italy had two players sent off, the first after just 12 minutes for a kick to the head, and there were punches thrown and policy intervention on a semi regular basis throughout the match. It’s fair to say that the English referee, Ken Aston, had a tricky time of it! Chile would go on to finish third whilst Italy couldn’t get out of their first round group.

3. The World Cup without a Final (Brazil 1950)

In 1950, FIFA altered the tournament’s format replacing the traditional knock-out phase with that of a final round robin group stage. This meant that there was no final per se but Uruguay’s 2-1 victory over the hosts Brazil in the last match of the tournament, although a coincidence that the top two in the group would play each other last of all, can be seen as such. It was Uruguay’s second World Cup victory but the first time that the trophy was named the Jules Rimet Cup after the former president of FIFA.

4. Mario Kempes wins the Golden Boot (Argentina 1978)

The only foreign based member of the Argentinean squad (he was playing for Valencia at the time), Kempes won the Golden Boot award with two goals in the final against the Netherlands as Argentina lifted the trophy for the first time. After thirty eight minutes, Kempes scored his first, sliding the ball under the Dutch goalkeeper after bustling through the defence. The tickertape rained down and Argentina were in front. After the Netherlands equalised with just eight minutes to go, it would be down to Mario to win the game in extra time. Picking up the ball outside of the area, Kempes glided past two defenders and the goalkeeper before finally, via a couple of deflections, putting the ball in the net. The stadium went wild once more and shortly afterwards, Argentina had their coveted home victory.

5. Amarildo scores a goal for the ages (Brazil 1962)

Brazil were 1-0 down to Czechoslovakia in the 1962 Final when Amarildo took matters into his own hands and scored a classic goal that would be repeated in its black and white glory for years to come. Receiving the ball from a throw in, he jinked past two defenders to the left hand byline before firing a shot past the bemused Czech goalkeeper from a seemingly impossible angle. Brazil would go on to deservedly win 3-1 and capture their second world title.

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing a modern era South American World Cup. Can Messi lead Argentina to glory? Will Brazil win their sixth tournament? Will England get out of their group? There’s all to play for. Ultimately though, let’s hope that more magical moments are created for posterity and thus for the Football Attic to reflect upon in the years ahead…!

Huge thanks to Matthew for sharing his World Cup memories! If you'd like to share anything from your past (preferably football nostalgia related, we're not licensed therapists!), drop us a line and let us know to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com...

Other posts by Matthew Wassell:

• Nintendo World Cup 1990 
• Matthew Wassell's Top 5... Pogs
• Matthew Wassell's Top 5 International 'Do you remember when?' Moments of the 1990's

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Subbuteo Accessories - The Grandest of Stands!

Subbuteo was expensive, we all know that. To own a complete stadium, one either had to be very rich or work for Subbuteo and have the old five finger discount applied. It's not surprising therefore, to find that quite a few of us out there took to making our own accessories. Having complained bitterly about the poor quality of the official floodlights, I recently dug out my old grandstand and added some modern LED lighting (left). Others went much further than this, some creating true masterpieces. Here, Peter Briers of the92dotnet shares not only his memories, but also his truly awesome home made creations...

Unfortunately I missed the golden Subbuteo generation as I grew up in the Nineties, but was introduced to the game by my old man who loved it. He worked on the sports desk at the Southampton Echo and every so often they used to have tournaments. I vividly remember he brought home an old briefcase full of different teams, nets, balls and a pitch and I was bitten by the bug.

None of my friends really liked it so I mainly played on my own or with my dad. By this time the Playstation was about and the Mega drive had been, Fifa was the football game of choice. It got to the stage where you couldn’t really get Subbuteo, so I was left to the early days of eBay or Yahoo auctions to try and grab pieces when I could. Similarly to you guys, I probably spent more time creating the scene than playing the game. When the game was re-released, the player's bases were different – they were wider and flatter on the bottom – not as good as the older ones in my opinion, but as I wanted the Premier League teams with sponsors etc, I had to accept them.

I was an only child in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in deepest Dorset and largely had to amuse myself. I ran a league of about 10 teams at times – but I couldn’t include my team (Southampton) as I know I would have been bias. I was very into collecting things like stickers and football figures as well as making things like Airfix kits and model railways buildings and scenes. Since the range of accessories wasn’t available in the shops and with my like of making things, I set about making, customising and creating my own accessories. I have shown these pictures to friends since but don’t think anyone has properly appreciated the effort and time that went into what I made. Here are some stills I took and descriptions below:

Pic 1

Pic 1: My TV tower and tunnel! Created with a box and some loo rolls. If you look carefully, there is a window half up the tower in which sits two commentators which are retired Airfix pilots. Above them is a small bulb and battery that sits in the tube above them that lights up their ‘studio’. Above the studio is the action replay screen, in which is inserted a plastic item I got in my Shreddies during Euro 96 – it’s one of those things where the action picture changes when you move it. The tower is adorned with sponsor logos cut out from my old Merlin Premier League sticker swaps. The tunnel has a piece of card at an angle painted with layer upon layer of PVA glue so the players could slide out onto the pitch. Next to the tunnel is a door with a green cross on, in which are two old players painted red with white crosses on, holding a stretcher fashioned from a cocktail stick and paper (can’t find of pic of them in action unfortunately!).

Pic 2

Pic 2: As a I mentioned before, I was a child of the Nineties and the accessories had somewhat changed. The stands I was able to get my hands on were the newer kind and looked pretty good. They were expensive so I had to try and make them go further, so I turned it into terracing sticking the upper and lower tier side by side. It also helped operate the goalkeeper better with a lower stand. In the middle is some segregation in the form of a cut up tangerine net and a Boots logo cut out from a carrier bag to cover up some of the empty space – as you said crowds were expensive! To the top right is an extra advertising board and behind, the classic scoreboard.

Pic 3

Pic 3: Over the years I managed to get four grandstands – the other three went along the side of the pitch that backed onto my chest of drawers – the height on that side wasn’t an issue. Some sponsors came in the box, but not enough, so I spent a long time trailing through magazines cutting out logos that were the right size to fit. You’ll also more tangerine segregation netting and a second scoreboard (I had a second from a box set I'd got later in my collecting).

Pic 4

Pics 4, 5, 6: With out a doubt my finest creation – a grandstand I built entirely from scratch. It took weeks but I was so proud of it. Inspired by the clock end at Highbury, yes the clock at the top is a working clock, with the mechanism coming from a Year 9 school woodwork project. At the back of the roof the stanctions are painted Scalectrics parts, and at the top you have the executive boxes. The seats and stairs took ages! The seats are record cards, A6 size I think, that I spent ages scoring with a Stanley knife and folding then sticking down.

The stairs in between the isles were painted sample stripes from B&Q, again scored and folded. It took hours as I’m sure you can imagine! I painted the whole thing with tester pots from B&Q. In pic 6 you can see the stewards along the front – players from an old team (too many of which were broken to be able to form a team anymore) painted with orange coats on. Finally there’s the camera stand on the side. Just noticed half-way up on the left side of pic 5 you can see the stretcher bearers! The stand had to be moved when I played against my old man as it was impractical, but when I was by myself it was ok.

Pic 5

Pic 6

Pic 7

Pic 7: I tried to recreate the more modern goal nets from my old style ones – more of a struggle than it seems!

Huge thanks to Peter for sharing his Subbuteo memories and creations! If you'd like to share anything from your past (preferably football nostalgia related, we're not licensed therapists!), drop us a line and let us know to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com...

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The Greatest France Home Kit 1964-2014: The Result

It was way back on December 23rd 2013 that we began our search to find the Greatest France Home Kit Ever. Thirty different kits were presented, and nearly 650 of you voted for your favourite from the last 50 years.

At midnight on February 28th 2014, the deadline for voting finally passed, at which point we were finally able to calculate the overall winner.

Having totalled up all the entries we received, we can now proudly announce that The Greatest France Home Kit since 1964 - according to visitors to The Football Attic's website - was Kit 13, made by Adidas and worn by the French national team between 1982 and 1983.

The kit, seen by millions during the 1982 World Cup Finals in Spain, received over 21% of the 646 votes we received, and was a particular favourite among the many people visiting our website via cahiersdufootbal.net and slate.fr in France.

With 137 votes, Kit 13 was a comfortable winner ahead of Kit 14 in second place, which received 108 votes. Kit 14, made by Adidas and worn during France's first major tournament win at Euro 84, was the more preferential choice of voters in the UK.

In third place, you voted for Kit 30, a kit which hasn't even been worn yet. Nike's third outfit for the French team (and one that's set to make its début in the next few weeks) has obviously caught the imagination of many of you already with its dark blue shirt and restyled cockerel badge.

Kit 30 finished just one vote ahead of Kit 20, the Adidas kit worn during France's successful World Cup campaign of 1998 and one that stylistically takes its inspiration from Kit 14 (which finished second in our online vote).

At the other end of the scale were two kits that received only a single vote each. One of them, Kit 2, was the v-neck variant of France's plainly-styled outfit of the late 1960's while the other, Kit 7, was the first Adidas kit to be worn by the French team back in 1972.

Click for larger version

So there it is - the Greatest France Home Kit is now known, and at this point we at The Football Attic would like to give our huge thanks to the hundreds of you that voted over the last nine weeks or so. We'd also like to send our special thanks to Andrew Gibney from French Football Weekly for helping us promote our online poll, without whom it would have been far less popular!

We hope your favourite France home kit fared well in our vote-off, and we'd be interested to hear your views on the final result, so please do leave us a comment below and give us your thoughts.

In the meantime, thanks once again for your participation - we really appreciate it!

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Subbuteo catalogue, 1986

There can be fewer more gladdening sights as a Subbuteo match being played in front of a packed stadium under floodlights, fans holding their scarves aloft in the foreground. The floodlights, in reality, were about as bright as the North Pole in December and some of the fans were supporting a team in red that weren’t even playing, but these are small details. Welcome to the world of Subbuteo.

Published in time for the 1986 World Cup, this was the first catalogue to be released by Subbuteo since 1981 after several years where the poster format was deemed better at promoting the full range of products. And a fine catalogue it was too: 15 full colour pages showing off a whopping 636 team kits, along with the usual array of  factual information, accessories and team indexes.

For me, this catalogue is better to look at than the 1988 version we covered back in April last year. It’s not too overstyled, it’s got many more team strips to look at on each double page and the pictures are bigger and brighter. True, you get the usual text explaining how Subbuteo was invented and developed and a brief explanation of how the basic ‘flick-to-kick’ concept works, but it fits in nicely with the imagery that captures a kid’s imagination so well.

The three boxed sets are there for all to see, including the World Cup Edition that contained the teams of Mexico (1986 hosts) and Italy (1982 champions). Better still was the International Edition: here you had three teams (red/white, blue/white and Argentina) plus a scoreboard, floodlights, pitch fencing and all the paraphernalia you could ever wish for.

As for the accessories, many were displayed in their green branded cardboard boxes or their clear plastic-fronted cardboard packs. Seeing so many items looking smart in their uniformly designed packaging made you feel like there was a never-ending supply of wonderful whatchamacallits to keep you interested for years and years.

And to celebrate a World Cup year, there was also a photographic trip down memory lane to remember not just the most recent FIFA tournaments, but also the Subbuteo World Cups that were held in the same year. Of more interest to the average collector, however, were the new special edition World Cup Squads that contained 14 outfield players and two goalkeepers, all presented in a bigger-than-usual box. The available squads were illustrated accordingly, providing you with the perfect reference should you decide to purchase the teams for Iraq, Canada or Australia.

With all the team indexes at the back and a pleasing array of flags showcasing the national Subbuteo associations on the reverse cover, there was no excuse for not laying out your pitch and flicking away to your heart’s content. Everything you needed to get you going was contained between the pages of this lovely catalogue. Shame about those floodlights, though…

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Panini: Soccer Superstars (1988)

Mention the name 'Panini' to anyone and the word they're likely to associate it with is 'stickers.' An understandable association, given the many thousands of self-adhesive pictures the Italian company had churned out by the late 1980's. Not all of their collectable pictures were sticky, however. Not even tacky. Having said that, Panini's Soccer Superstars album did use the words 'crucial' and 'wicked' on the cover, so tackiness was never too far away.

In 1988, Panini sticker albums were still a mainstay of many a schoolboy's juvenile life, but already the allure of home computers was becoming something of a distraction. Not only that, but after over a decade the novelty of collecting stickers was no doubt starting to wear off a little, sad though it is to say it. Luckily Panini have always had the ability to innovate, and in this special set they kept the collecting bug alive with this curious football sticker/picture card hybrid.

One of three 'checklist' cards from
the set

As detailed on the back cover of the album - sorry, 'display folder' - there were 96 cards to collect, available, as ever, from your local newsagent. At this point, Panini connoisseurs might have dropped their doubles at such a low number compared to the 500 or more stickers featured in their annual 'Football' albums. The reason for such a low number was because of the medium used - card. The folder was made up of seven sheets of card, and the collectable images were made of card. Put any more pages in the folder and the damn thing wouldn't have folded at all.

'Custodians'?

As it is, this wasn't a serious problem because this was Panini offering something different - a modern-day equivalent to those dusty old albums your granddad owned containing cigarette cards of the late, great Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews. Each double-page spread of Soccer Superstars had diagonal slots where each corner of your picture cards had to be slotted in. A refreshing change from the peel-and-stick nature of Panini's other collections, although the downside was that the front cover of your display folder ended up with lots of white triangles all over it.

Another difference between this album (sorry, I can't keep up this 'display folder' nonsense any longer) and it's once-a-year sticker equivalents was in the layout of the pages. Instead of players being displayed as part of their respective clubs, here they were shown off as fine examples of their respective playing positions. Mind you, even that was turned on its head by Panini. No double page spread on 'Goalkeepers' here - instead, these were 'Custodians.' Similarly midfielders were labelled 'Playmakers' before inspiration ran out altogether for the 'Defenders' and 'Strikers' sections.

Titles aside, each page simply contained half a dozen pictures of the top players of the era, along with a short summary describing their career and other notable facts. Some of the text was on point - David Seaman "tipped by many as a future England goalkeeper" - while other passages were, well, let's just say... 'interesting'. John Lukic, we were told, was "probably the only Arsenal goalkeeper ever to speak fluent Serbo Croat". That must have come in handy...

'Playmakers'?

The centre pages of the album were undoubtedly the high point of the collection with a focus on World Stars, but genuine stars seemed a little thin on the ground at the time. Yes, there was Maradona, Gullit, Van Basten and Voller, but Portugal's Dito looked slightly out of place, and though Jean-Marie Pfaff was undoubtedly a good goalkeeper, his place might have been better taken by Rinat Dasayev of the Soviet Union in my humble view.

Still, all that was just half of the deal because Soccer Superstars had a clever selling point up its sleeve because each picture card had a peel-off sticker on its back. Adhere the stickers to the poster that came free with the album and you'd be able to build "giant colour pictures of four of the most crucial stars in the collection."

Panini 'body part' stickers

Quite who they were remains something of a mystery because two of the stickers seemed to come up far more often than the others - one showing a hand and the other showing a pair of feet. As for the poster, they're similarly elusive as anyone trying to find one on eBay will testify. Though the albums and cards are attainable, the posters, sadly, have become separated from their main publication in all too many cases.

Detatched or complete, this is an interesting collection from Panini that shows its ability to reinvent its output for many of its avid followers. Old-fashioned football cards they may have been, but Panini showed they could still produce wicked stuff, even with the 1990's just around the corner.

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Fantasy Nostalgia: Panini World Cup 2014 Wish List

Just over 122 days. That's how long we've got to wait until the arrival of FIFA's 20th cavalcade of football brilliance, the World Cup Finals. And where there's a World Cup, there's always an accompanying Panini sticker album to look forward to...

Rejoice!

It's always a big event when a new Panini World Cup collection comes along, so what would we like to see when the new album finally makes an appearance?

I've been looking back through some old Panini albums for some ideas that would brighten up this year's compendium, and I've drawn up a wish list of the things I'd like to see when it finally reaches the shops. See what you think...

1. A decent cover

If a picture paints a thousand words, it's fair to say that some of Panini's previous albums didn't have a lot to say for themselves. Quite often, the front cover would feature a picture of one or more players painted by an artist that clearly didn't understand the excitement that football provides. Sometimes, we'd get a generic montage of flags or a picture of a football that seemed a little soulless. Very rarely, we might get to see some real players on a pitch, but they were usually unidentifiable and therefore boring.

Painted players... uninspiring

Finally, however, Panini ditched that approach for its Euro 2000 album by basing the entire front cover design around the official tournament logo. At last - something modern and dynamic... and corporate. Oh it was fine the first couple of times, but the same approach has been used over and over again right up until the Euro 2012 album. It'll no doubt be used again for World Cup 2014, too.

Panini's Munchen 74 album

It needn't be that way, though. Going back to the Munchen 74 album, Panini used the official poster of the 1974 World Cup as it's main cover art. And art it most certainly was - a no-nonsense abstract painting of a player striking the ball on a stark black background. How refreshingly mature. So why not go back to having some proper art on the cover again?

Click for larger version

Any number of artistic approaches could be used: Impressionism, Surrealism, Art Nouveau. Here's my very basic example of how it could look, using a Pop Art approach... (see right)

It needn't be technically complex, so long as it was more visually interesting than a corporate tournament logo or a badly painted player. How hard can it be?

2. Map and flags

If there's one image that sticks in my mind from my earliest sticker collecting days, it's the opening page of Panini's Europa 80 album. It featured a three-by-three sticker image showing a map of Europe with lots of flags stuck in where the competing nations were located. Perhaps a little juvenile to some people, but to me it was a pleasing summary of who had made it to the prestige finals in Italy that year.

Click for larger version

Putting aside the fact that it was the devil's own job trying to line up nine stickers in a perfect grid, I think Panini should bring back the big map - but this time apply it to this year's World Cup. Here's how it might look... (see left)

Admittedly my attempt to show all of the European flags became rather challenging due to the imbalance of too many flags and not enough land mass, but in general terms I think it admirably keeps the spirit of Europa 80 alive.

Before you say it, that bottom-left sticker does look a bit bare, but hey, you can't have everything, right?

3. Excluded Nations

If you go back to Panini's main albums of the 1970's/early-80s, you'll find one of my all-time favourite features - the Excluded Nations section.

Here, you can allow yourself a brief snigger as Panini attempted to make its collection more appealing to a wider audience. You see, England singularly failed to qualify for anything of note during the 1970's and that meant few kids in England were likely to buy its sticker albums whenever a World Cup came around. The same could be said for many other countries - France, Portugal, Ireland, Switzerland, Greece...

Panini Europa 80: Excluded Nations

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The answer? To create a section showing some of those self same teams that would have been given a double-page spread if they had qualified. Miserable over the fact that Eusebio didn't make it to the 1974 World Cup? No problem! There's a sticker for him in Munchen 74! Crying over Trevor Brooking's absence from Argentina '78? Weep no more - he's in the World Cup 78 album! (etc, etc, etc...)

Taking this wonderful attempt to please all of the people all of the time, I think Panini should bring it back for 2014. Unlike the old way of doing things, there's actually no need to include a few players from each of the excluded nations. A simple page showing the badges for each country should suffice, because everyone loves a foil badge, right? Perhaps it could look like this... (see right)

4. World Cup Posters

The idea of including former World Cup posters is not a new one where Panini is concerned, but the posters themselves were often included in a wider look back at previous tournaments. They were usually packaged together with pictures of legendary players and teams, and good though that was (and sadly absent as that's been from recent World Cup albums), it did rather detract from the lovely artwork of those posters.

With that in mind, I suggest that as a tribute to this year's 20th Finals, Panini should display all 20 tournament posters on a decent-sized double page spread. Think of it as a gallery of artistic greatness, displayed for posterity and viewed upon with pride. Something like this, for instance...

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5. Venue Posters

And while we're on the subject of posters, who's seen the creations for each of Brazil's 12 stadium venues? Aren't they magnificent?!!

If you haven't guessed already, I'm a big fan of art and graphic design. When it's done properly (something I wouldn't know about personally), it lifts the spirits and nourishes the soul. So once again, let's see if Panini can show off such a wonderful array of poster art with another double page spread. Go on Panini, you know it makes sense...

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So those are my ideas... what would you like to see in Panini's World Cup 2014 sticker album? Leave us a comment and tell us your thoughts!

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