Friday, 28 February 2014

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...

Friday, 14 February 2014

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...

Sunday, 9 February 2014

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...