Pirelli slippers ad, 1981

There are times in life when nothing seems to make sense.

Here's an example. What would you get if you combined Pirelli, the renowned maker of Formula 1 car tyres (and all the excitement that motor racing brings) with Kevin Keegan, the ultimate football superstar of the late-1970's and early 1980's? Something epitomising the excitement, glamour and exhilaration of international sport?

No. You'd get a pair of children's slippers, that's what.

Oh but no ordinary pair of children's slippers, that's for sure. These slippers came with a free gift of either a pin badge, sew-on badge or picture of Kevin Keegan, and all featured a distinctive Union Flag-like 'KK' logo. Oh the excitement...

Would we have loved it, LOVED IT if we'd received these as a Christmas present back in the early 80s? Probably not, but as celebrity tie-ins go, this one must be about the best there's ever been.

(Image reproduced by kind permission of combomphotos)

Shoot! 14 November 1981

Imagine a world where football fans across England could, in effect, choose which players could represent their country in international matches. Back in November 1981, Shoot! magazine wasn't quite able to offer such a direct influence on England team selection, but it did invite readers to send in their preferred team to beat Hungary in the upcoming crucial World Cup qualifier.

Having received a “phenomenal” response to their appeal in a previous issue, Shoot! compiled the team that its readers thought Ron Greenwood should pick. “Some positions were clear-cut” it said, while for “one or two we almost needed a recount” due to the closeness of the vote.

Peter Shilton was first choice between the posts, twice as popular as Ray Clemence who was said to have had a poor game two months earlier in the 2-1 defeat against Norway (you know the one...)

Bryan Robson, however, was an even bigger hit with the fans - his approval rating was 98% - while up front “only a handful of readers selected a team without [Kevin] Keegan. The final team selection was immortalised in a mocked up picture using some pre-Photoshop trickery known technically as ‘glueing other people’s heads on the wrong bodies.’

Seven of the starting eleven that faced the Hungarians at Wembley on 18 November 1981 was correctly predicted by Shoot! readers, but Ron Greenwood dealt a couple of wild cards from the bottom of the pack in the shape of Alvin Martin and Tony Morley. In the end, England secured the 1-0 win they needed to qualify for Spain ‘82, but some were already questioning Greenwood’s suitability as manager, not least former England striker Mick Channon.

“I believe the only thing wrong with England is the manager” he said. “Don’t get me wrong - I have no personal grudge against Ron Greenwood. I happen to believe he is a gentleman, a nice man. But I don’t believe he is the right man for the job.” Channon went on to explain his feelings: “Perhaps Ron does what the media thinks, rather than what he himself feels... I don’t know. But whatever it is, I don’t believe he has picked the right sides in recent years.” Channon’s comments after the 1-0 win over Hungary were not available at the time of writing.



In other news, Peter Beardsley was announcing his return to Canada to play for Vancouver Whitecaps - and appeared to care little for any English clubs wanting to sign him from Carlisle. “I thoroughly enjoyed my first summer over there and I'm already looking forward to returning” said Beardsley. “ I've heard reports that some English clubs are still interested in signing me, but they can forget it. I'm going back to Vancouver.” Beardsley ultimately had three spells with the Whitecaps - joining Manchester United in between where he played just one match in the League Cup - before finally restarting his English career proper at Newcastle United in September 1983.

Sadly things weren't going so well for England’s World Cup hero Gordon Banks back in 1981. Shoot! reported that “arguably the greatest goalkeeper ever seen” was “almost on the dole.”

Banks found himself out of work and lamented “ I'm more disappointed than bitter that I'm not still involved in football. I believe there is a need for specialised goalkeeper training.” He went on: “I didn't win my 73 caps by fluke and I feel my experience could help someone.”

Such a shame, then, that Banks’ views were a decade ahead of their time. It wouldn't be long before the former Leicester and Stoke goalkeeper found a new role, however. Since the 1980’s, he’s been one of the three men making up the Pools Panel that assesses postponed matches, one of the others being his former England team-mate, Roger Hunt.

A two-page feature on the Merseyside derby played around the time Shoot! was published gave Phil Thompson and Mick Lyons their chance to discuss the great rivalry between their sides. Everton had knocked Liverpool out of the FA Cup in a rare victory earlier in the year, but Lyons’ reluctance to predict another Toffees win proved shrewd enough - Everton wouldn't get another win over The Reds until August 1984, and the match he and Thompson discussed finished a 3-1 win to Liverpool.

The letters page, Goal-Lines, had more negative comments about Ron Greenwood’s management of the England team, but it was Ron Atkinson’s flamboyant style that irritated Stephen Wash of Great Barr.

“There seems no end to Ron Atkinson’s pursuit of publicity and sensation firstly with the possible return of George Best and culminating in the signing of Bryan Robson on the Old Trafford pitch” he said. “It is a great pity that Buckingham palace was not available. The signing could have been done in the Throne Room with the Lord Chamberlain as witness.” Shoot! replied sternly: “Ron Atkinson is a personality. Football needs personalities. Personalities sell the game.” And Shoot! needs readers letters, let us not forget...

While England were toiling in their qualification for the 1982 World Cup, Viva Scotland! showed Jock Stein’s team already home and dry. A montage of pictures showed some of the action from a campaign in which Scotland faced Sweden, Israel, Portugal and Northern Ireland and lost only one of their eight games. A goalless draw against Billy Bingham’s men in their penultimate match secured qualification, enabling Scotland to play in their fourth consecutive World Cup Finals.

Elsewhere in Shoot! this week were all the old favourites: You Are The Ref, the colour centre-page team picture (in this case featuring Southampton),a run-down of recent results from around the UK and copious adverts for cheap football duvet covers and digital watches. We end, however, with the Super Focus interview with Wolves midfielder Peter Daniel in which we not only find out that his favourite food and drink are the impressive combination of ‘Halibut steak and Tetley bitter’ but also that his superstition as a player was to “Always come out last.”

Where this review is concerned, Peter, we hope we've done you proud.

Panini: Football 81

You could hardly miss Panini’s Football 81 sticker album as it rested on the newsagent’s shelf alongside the Angling Times and the latest instalment of Carrier’s Kitchen. The bright yellow cover and dynamic picture of Ray Wilkins taking on Gerry Francis shouted ‘come and get me’ to any passing 10-year-olds, and I'm proud to admit that I was one.

By now, a strong format had become the foundation of the annual Panini sticker album. First Division teams had a double-page spread upon which were printed rows of stickers showing head-and-shoulder pics of the manager and various players. A team picture and foil badge headed it all up with mini player biographies and a club profile thrown in for good measure.

The page layout had been changed from Football 80, however, with two fewer player stickers on show. To compensate for that, however, the single Team picture was now made up of two stickers, half-and-half style. The foil badges had changed too, no longer silver but back to gold as they had been in Football 78.

Because of the double-sized Team pic, the club profile was moved from the top of the first page to the right hand side. This made for a big column of space that had to be filled, so as well as the usual details like ‘Manager’, ‘Honours’ and ‘Record Attendance’, there was also a factual nugget called ‘From the history books’ which appeared here for the first and only time.

The player sticker design took elements from Football 78 and 79 with a red border ring-fencing the picture, club badge, player details and the returning pictogram. Among the high-class fizzogs captured for posterity in this album were a 20-year-old Gary Megson playing for Everton, the ever-giving Sam Allardyce at Sunderland and a Leicester City team clearly trying to go one better than Coventry City’s moustachioed outfit from the year before.

A nice touch by Panini in this collection was to give every Second Division team a big foil badge and a two-part team picture of their very own. Though the individual half-size player pics from Football 80 had to be sacrificed, this somehow seemed a more pleasing way to show off the teams in question. Mind you, that whole issue of getting the two halves of each team pic to match up perfectly was always going to trip up some people - something that was still evident with Panini’s Euro 2012 collection.

For the first time ever, the Football League Third Division was featured in a Panini album of this kind, and here each team had it’s own single-sticker team pic alongside the ubiquitous profile of the club. Sadly there wasn't the space for a foil badge in each case, but I doubt supporters of Blackpool or Chester City would have been complaining back in the day.

Fans of Scottish clubs might have been happier too. Compared to Football 80, Panini finally gave Premier League teams a page each once again, however the players all still appeared on half-size stickers as they had done the previous year. At least there was a full size badge and two-piece team pic to restore some pride, but that would have been nothing compared to the pride felt by Scottish First Division supporters who also saw their teams making their Panini début.

In each domestic Panini album there were always two variables you could hang your hat on: the opening page and the middle section (after the First Division teams). In the case of Football 81, the former was dedicated to showing off the ‘Players of the Year’, namely Terry McDermott (England) and Davie Provan (Scotland). A nice little biography for both players was provided in what was a suitable opening gambit for the album, if not a greatly exciting one.

The middle section also seemed to lack a little pizazz in its remembrance of the 1980 FA Cup Final. True, there was a four-part sticker pic of the winning West Ham team and a couple of other two-part pics showing action from the Wembley showdown, but somehow this full-page feature lacked any real zip. Probably just as well this kind of thing would improve in future Panini albums.

With a sketchy pen and ink illustration bringing things to a close on the back cover, it’s fair to say this wasn't the finest hour for the Italian sticker makers, but at least their standards hadn't dropped since the previous collection. Onwards and upwards to Football 82, perhaps...

Kick-Off (1981)

It's our absolute delight to welcome back Al Gordon from God, Charlton and Punk Rock who provides us with another excellent guest post - this time on the simple pleasure of playing a classic football board game...

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of people on a Sunday morning. Those who like their bed, and those who would rather endure the wind and the rain to rummage through boxes of other people’s cast-offs at a boot sale.

I’m firmly planted in the former category whilst my wife will gladly come home clutching an armful of early bird ‘bargains’ which miraculously we have previously survived without.

In the run up to Christmas, however, some of these purchases may be for me, and possibly then football related. I wasn’t to be disappointed. Amongst some wonderful Subbuteo articles, she found me a football card game from MB Games called Kick-Off.

This game has had several incarnations, originally called ‘Penalty’ and then much later known as ‘Gazza!’, but the version I unwrapped Christmas morning was not only identical to the one I owned back in 1981, but in equally good condition too!

The board is a football pitch with a grid covering it, although obviously set up for Olympic football as the flags bordering the playing surface include the Union Jack. The small football counter moves from square to square depending on which card you play. And herein lies the skill.

Each player is dealt eight cards and once you play one, you pick another up from the pack to replace it. When the pack runs out, its half time so you give them a shuffle and start again for the second period.

The cards themselves are delightful. The artist has painted two teams, the Blues and the Yellows. The Yellows even have three green Adidas stripes running down their sleeves. These aren’t faceless footballers though. The likes of Keegan, Shilton, Dalglish, Coppell and Archibald are all here and I’m left in very little doubt as to how King Kenny would have looked had he ever pulled on a Norwich shirt!

As wonderful as the detail is, we are looking at a football game here, so the main topic of discussion has to be scoring more goals than your adversary.

It isn’t just enough to play a card that will see the ball move into the opposition goal, for they may be holding either a Goalkeeper or Corner card. This is where the symbols in the cards' top corners come into play.

If your opponent scores and you are fortunate enough to hold a ‘keeper card, simply play the ball back out according to the cards instructions, not forgetting to gloat as the smile rapidly disappears from your foe's 'boat race'. Failing that and you have a corner card, the ball is placed by the corresponding colour flag. The attacking player must then cut the blind pack; if the colour matches, he’s scored. If it doesn’t... you get the idea.


It’s the same scenario with the Penalty card. There’s just the one of these but that does pretty much guarantee a spot kick in each half. All that’s required is to get the ball into the opposing penalty area and then play your 'joker’. After the initial sinking feeling has passed, the defending player must cut the cards; a hand symbol in the top corner and it’s saved. If there isn’t... yes you’re ahead of me here.

It may not have been the most animated of childhood football games but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Once the Subbuteo was packed away for the day, this was an easy chance to challenge one of the family as I looked to distract their attentions from bedtime.

Unfortunately Grandad wasn’t able to experience its pleasures first hand and just had to make do watching from afar. MB Games, for reasons known only to themselves, had a policy setting the age recommendation from 7-70 years. I can only surmise they believed their game was that exciting it could be fatal to those with a dodgy ticker.

My wife went to the boot sale and believed she had found me a cheap and humourous stocking filler. Not for one second did she realise she’d struck gold.

Either that or Santa knew I’d been a very very good lad.

Our thanks once again go to Al Gordon, and if you want to read some more of his fine writing on the Attic, check out 'Al Gordon's Top 5 Patrick Kits' and 'Al Gordon's Five Subbuteo Items They Never Made.'

Failing that, Chris O recently gave us his take on 'Kick-Off' in his second Videoblog - catch it here.

Videoblog 2: Kick-Off (MB Games)

Chris O returns with the second Football Attic Videoblog, this time taking MB's Kick-Off as its subject.

JVC 'Goal Makers' ad, 1981

We've featured adverts before on our blog site, adverts like this one for JVC taken from the back cover of National Geographic magazine in 1981.

Usually the main image is something football-related (else we wouldn't bother bringing it to your attention) and here we have an actual match in action, or so it seems. Chances are it's not really an actual match at all - more likely a staged scene at a US stadium (this was a US-syndicated magazine, after all) that made use of the resources before an NASL match.



By way of additional material, we also hear about JVC's wonderful range of audio and video equipment, including the 'revolutionary VHD video disc system' which, in hindsight, beautifully pricked the bubble of self-importance JVC were putting themselves in.

Yet that isn't really the most interesting part of this advert. For me, the best bit comes right at the bottom where we see a series of six logos printed in black and white.

The first one's very familiar as it's the official logo for the 1982 FIFA World Cup. Granted it loses something with the lack of red and yellow to illustrate the Spanish flag, but so be it.

The next logo, however, is very unfamiliar. It appears to be a map of Europe, stylised in such a way as to look loosely like a football. I'm guessing that's the case on account of a few hexagonal patches I can see, but others are anything but hexagonal (yes Italy, I'm looking at you). The inclusion of the UEFA acronym below suggests this is a little known logo for the Swiss-based governing body, but can any of you claim to have seen this ever before? Thought not...

Next up we have the lovely flower-inspired logo for the 1980 European Championships, a familiar sight for collectors of Panini's Europa 80 stickers and the great uncle of the logo created for Euro 2012. After that we have the traditional old logo for the US Soccer Federation, a logo that wouldn't look out of place on the jacket of an American military leader. It was crying out for a modern replacement and sure enough one duly came a decade later.

Speaking of logos that have since been replaced, we next have one for the Australian Soccer Federation - a pleasing if rooted-in-the-70s symbol that'd look good on any football shirt, in my humble opinion.

The last one, however, is a real beaut. Not so much a logo as a trophy shown in silhouette, we see the 'Gold Cup' or La Copa de Oro de Campeones Mundiales, to give it its full title. It was the prize for a little-known tournament with the nickname of Mundialito ('little World Cup') played once and once only between December 1980 and January 1981. Hosted by Uruguay, It's purpose was to celebrate 50 years of  World Cup history by bringing together all five former champions for a one-off winner-takes-all 'battle royale' (if that's not too many exuberant phrases to cram into once sentence).

With guest team Holland completing the two groups of three, the tournament played out before a conclusion that saw the host country beat Brazil 2-1 in a dream final for the locals. But what about that trophy, though? And what about those logos? Surely no advert for a Japanese home electronics company has ever seen such splendour.