FIFA World Cup - In captions (Part 1)

At any given moment while you're watching a game of football on TV, you can tell what the current score is and how much time has elapsed. That's all down to the caption in the corner of your screen, a computer graphic that's been a part of 'Soccer on the Box' for the last couple of decades. Turn the clock back further still and you'll find less and less information on display during important matches. As we discussed back in July 2012, the European...

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The Best of Bygone Football - And the winner is...

...Multiple Replays After Drawn Cup Ties! Yes, you, the football nostalgia-lovers of this great world of ours have voted and made your voices heard. In your opinion, the best thing about bygone football is the potentially never-ending run of matches that decided the winner of Cup matches many years ago. The result may be a surprise to some, but clearly we underestimated the strength of feeling by those of you that think penalty shoot-outs decide...

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Esso 'Squelchers', 1970

The squelch - not just, as you'd expect, the term for the watery noise you get when you tread on a frog. Squelch also means 'to silence someone in an argument'. Who knew? Esso knew. The giant oil company with the phonetic name (S-O = Standard Oil) were riding the crest of a wave after the enormous success of their 1970 World Cup Coin Collection and were looking for a football-related follow-up to maintain the constant flow of drivers into their...

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The Best of Bygone Football - Let battle commence!

As promised recently. we bring you the grand vote-off to decide The Best of Bygone Football. With thanks to all of you that sent us your entries, we've been able to create a list of 30 candidates that in their own small way encapsulate all that's great about football the way it used to be. All we ask is that you now spend some time considering the list below and make certain that your judgement selects what you believe to be the single most wonderful...

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The Best of Bygone Football - The Search Begins!

About a month ago, we recorded our most recent podcast. It was all about the myriad of largely overlooked but much loved things that used to make up the world of football several decades ago. Many of you contributed memories of your own to our discussion (thank you!) and we had a wonderful time reminiscing about everything from rosettes and rattles to Elton Welsby! (Well, almost a wonderful time...) Such enjoyable chatter gave us an idea -...

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Hillsborough - A Personal Reflection

I don’t often write personal pieces on here, but I posted something on Facebook this morning and wanted to expand on it. Given football formed such a large part of my childhood, I just felt a need to put down my own thoughts on the Hillsborough tragedy and moreover how, in a single moment, life can change forever for some, while for others that moment means nothing.They always say you can remember where you were when major world events...

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Heads Up (Soccer Football), Vectrex, 1983

Once upon a time, arcade games ruled the Earth. Space Invaders, PacMan, Frogger - these titles and many more cropped up everywhere from your local pub to the fish-and-chip shop at the end of your road. Bright colours, synthesised music and quirky sound effects were the alluring qualities that invited you to insert a 10p coin and immerse yourself in an alternative reality. The explosion in the popularity of video games was extraordinary. New home...

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Changing your stripes

Thumbing through an issue of Football League Review the other day, I stumbled upon an article that caught my eye. 'Inquiry: Are the club colours getting too drab?' was its title, and it surmised that the day of the 'fancy' football shirt seemed to be all but dead and buried. Written in the first few weeks of the 1968/69 season by Bob Baldwin, it opened with the line: "Whatever happened to the Turquoise Blues, the Gold and Royal Blues and the Claret...

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