The Big Match: Studio Timeline (Part 1)

For many years The Big Match served up football highlights on a weekly basis for ITV viewers in London and the south east of England. Starting in 1968, it was presented by Brian Moore - ITV's main football commentator right through to the early 1990's - ably assisted at first by Jimmy Hill and latterly by Jim Rosenthal. Though ITV's coverage (and Moore himself) have rightly received much acclaim down the years, we thought it was time the...

Read More

'All The Way' (England Football Team), 1988

Officially the second worst England Football Team song ever*, this was released as a rallying call for Euro '88. When the First Round of said tournament was over, England's record in Group B read 'Played 3, Lost 3.'  Whoever had the bright idea of calling it 'All the Way' must have had a very oblique sense of humour indeed... (* The song peaked at number 64 in the UK charts, just two places better than 'We've Got The Whole World At Our Feet', released for Mexico '8...

Read More

Jimmy Hill’s Football Yearbook, 1976

Once again, we're delighted to bring you another guest post from Rob Langham of the awesome The Two Unfortunates. Here, Rob gives his take on Jimmy Hill’s Football Yearbook from 1976... I admit it. I quite like Jimmy Hill. Generally regarded as an indescribable buffoon, his reputation reached a nadir after his verbal jousts with Martin O’Neill on the BBC sofa in France 98. But, given the Ulsterman’s skill for careerism and his own reputation...

Read More

Evening Standard London 5-a-Sides, 1983

You don't see much indoor football on TV these days, and when you do, it's usually the Masters series in which one-time great players shake off their walking frames and career-threatening injuries to entertain a provincial crowd of a few hundred people. Once upon a time, however, people in the Thames TV area could look forward to the annual treat of the Evening Standard London 5-a-Side tournament at Wembley Arena. Here, the other end of the football spectrum fell under the spotlight, namely those players trying to break into the first team at...

Read More

Super Top Trumps: European Club Football

Good ideas never die, it seems - they just wait for nostalgia to catch up with them. That would appear to be the case with Top Trumps, the vintage card game that was once a staple for children in school playgrounds everywhere during the late-1970’s. By the time the 1990’s had arrived, Top Trumps was largely a forgotten phenomenon, but Waddingtons relaunched it with a new range of ‘Super Top Trumps’ aimed at distracting kids from their Nintendo...

Read More

Heading For Glory - Official Film of the 1974 FIFA World Cup

If you like your classic football served up with a large side order of metaphor and floral narration, you can do far worse than watch the Official Film of the 1970 World Cup – Heading For Glory.  It’s a bit like watching a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Match of the Day. Some official World Cup films provide a basic depiction of the key games, players and teams and underpins it with a sympathetically composed soundtrack. This one does...

Read More

Whatever Happened To... Long Laces?

Doh! This photograph is possibly one of the most famous football images of all time. The smallest of details seem burned into the subconscious - the Seiko advert in the background, the sloping roof of the executive boxes, the expressions of both participants, one sheer effort, the other a mix of panic and futility. There is one small detail however, that most won’t even realise is there, but one which only people of a certain age would even...

Read More

Future Nostalgia: Panini Euro 2012

I didn’t collect Panini World Cup 2010. I regret it now. I got to the party early, no-one arrived, so I went home. In my absence, the world showed up, had a great time and talked about it for weeks afterwards, every word lingering painfully within earshot. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. As an adult, I’ve collected every Panini sticker album for a main tournament from Euro 2000 onwards except one - World Cup 2010. Why I ever felt it was...

Read More