Retro Round-Up: 16 August 2013

Welcome, one and all, to the football nostalgia equivalent to supermarket shopping, i.e. it's something that bothers you once a week and it rarely gives you any satisfaction.

Yes, it's the Retro Round-Up - your Friday rundown of all the best links to football nostalgia stuff on the web from the last seven days. And a few other things thrown in your trolley when you reach the checkout.

First up this week: A fantastically comprehensive reminder of the 1987/88 Football League season from the Panini Football Yearbook, brought to you by Spirit of Mirko...

A candidate for our 'Great Tracksuits' series? A fine picture of Peter Taylor and Brian Clough at the 1979 European Cup Final, courtesy of Footysphere...

8Bit Football pixelates a colourful goalkeeper in the only way it knows how: it can only be Jorge Campos...

While this week's England v Scotland match is still fresh in your memory, here's a fine selection of photos from the same fixture down the years over at Who Ate All the Pies...

The Goldstone Wrap ploughs a familiar furrow to us here at The Football Attic - it's the quirky and often bewildering world of FKS stickers, focusing (as you'd expect) on Brighton and Hove Albion...

Some happy football memories immortalised forever for fans of West Ham, thanks to Same Old Subbuteo Brand New Kits...

Jimmy Greaves, Frank Worthington, Bobby Moore and Jimmy Armfield all feature in another On This Day selection over at the FootballGaffesGalore YouTube page...

Finally, it's our eBay Buy of the Week... If you've got £100 to spare and you can drive to Halifax, West Yorkshire, you'd be well advised to pick up this stack of 355 Shoot! magazines covering the best part of 16 years. Well worth the long drive, if you ask us...

Clive - The 'Other' 1923 FA Cup Final Horse

The 1923 FA Cup Final is remembered for many things; it was the first final at the all new Empire Stadium at Wembley, 900 people were injured due to the over-capacity crowd, Bolton's second goal was given as, in the opinion of the ref, the ball had crossed the line and rebounded off a spectator (yeah, suck that one up, Hawkeye!). Finally, there was a Horse named Billie.

Crowd estimates for the day ranged between 150-300,000, despite the official figure being just over 126,000. Due to the large number of people, mounted police had to step in and at that point, Billie the grey horse (yes, he wasn't white afterall) took centre stage, herding the masses in a manner which would now be referred to as 'bossing it'.

Due to the prominent role he played, the final became known as the White Horse Final and in 2005, the footbridge near the new Wembley would be named after him after a public vote.

It could all have been so different, however!


Also on duty that day was Clive. Clive, a black horse considered himself a bit of an also ran, often literally.

In the years before that infamous Cup Final, he had tried his hand at many things...Horse Racing (or 'racing' as it was known in the equine community), which he'd found rather tiring and repetitive, a summer stint on Blackpool's sea front and finally as a labourer, working a plough on the local farm.

But Clive dreamed of bigger things! He'd seen some early cowboy films and was convinced that was where his future lay...not with a man in chaps on his back, but in the movies! He got himself an agent, which was kind of hard to do, and landed a few walk on parts in countryside documentaries, but it was all small stuff. His agent told him to get exposure, so he landed a role as the face of a joke shop. He died a little every time he saw his gurning face alongside the inevitable 'long face' pun-based caption, but it was necessary he told himself...all to the greater good.

As with all jobbing actors, Clive had a secondary job to pay the bills and his chosen career was crowd control. It was easy money. Get suited and booted and just stand around...there was the occasional Geordie trying to land a punch, but he was the bigger man...literally. In early 1923, he spotted an ad in the 'Horse Bouncer' trade publication for qualified "crowd management executives" for an upcoming sporting event. The ad stated applicants must look good in front of a camera. Clive had heard about the new stadium being built in London and put 2 and 2 together. He galloped down to the big smoke and was immediately offered a job.

The big day arrived and Clive rocked up to Wembley with high hopes. He was going to be on the news reels! Then his first disappointment landed. He'd been assigned the deputy role; the lead being taken by some poncey grey bloke called Billie, which is a girl's name, Clive muttered under his strangely fresh & minty breath.

Clive at Wembley in 1923...apparently...

Once out on the field, it was clear this was going to be a large task, but Clive knew he was up to it...and what's more, he'd already seen the film cameras. Unfortunately, so had Billie and, abusing his rank, constantly ordered Clive off to other parts of the ground, whenever they were pointed his way.

At the end of the day, a tired and dejected Clive clopped off home, downbeat, but satisfied he'd done a good day's work. When he finally got to see the newsreels, his downheartedness turned into rage. Not one single piece of film had him in it! Instead, Billie the Bastard was there in every shot and not only that, but the cameras of the day also made his coat look a gleaming white! Then the final blow: "The White Horse Final".
Clive whinnied loudly, realising his one shot had come and gone.

"Bastard"

Days after the final he went for an audition for a Lloyds Bank commercial. As ever, he got down to the last two applicants, but blew it when he failed the Polo-resistance test - the director conducted the sessions with an open pack of Polos on his desk...sadly, Clive had a reallly sweet tooth and just loved fresh, minty breath.
Sadly, his lack of self control, and a large hospital bill from the director, who lost a finger when he tried to wrestle the holey mints from Clive's salivating jaws, meant he was blacklisted in the industry.

Sure, he got occasional offers from 'filmmakers', but these always followed the same seedy path and Clive had his morals.

And so it was he saw out the remainder of the year back in Blackpool, posing for occasional photos in kiss-me-quick hats and giving rides to bored children...but even this was to be short lived...stumbling one day while giving a particularly wriggly child a ride, he snapped his ankle.

I wish I could provide a happy end to this entirely fictional story, but alas, Clive's days had come to an end...a rather sticky one...

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...

FA Cup Final Programme, 1980

A quick skim through the Official Souvenir Programme of the 1980 FA Cup Final shows that it was a mixed bag of trivia, some of it dry, some of it brilliantly evocative.

Inside, we first see the Timetable and Programme of Events for May 10th 1980. The running order for the biggest afternoon in English football had a familiar feel; marching regimental bands at 1.10pm, the marching band of Kansas State University at 1.35, more from the regimental bands of the Guards' Division at 2.30 and again at half time, Abide With Me at 2.45 and The Duke of Duchess of Kent shaking hands with the players at 2.50. So far, so regimented.

On page 5, we get a word from Ted Croker, FA Secretary, who speaks of the growing trend for Second Division clubs to do well in the FA Cup Final (Sunderland and Southampton being recent examples at the time). This was a good omen for West Ham although, as Croker said, Arsenal "seemed to have reserved a permanent place at Wembley. This will be the club's third Wembley Final in succession – a record…" He signed off by telling readers that the Final would "be seen on TV in over 60 countries" and by hundreds of millions of people. It would probably have been more were it not for all those regimental marching bands showing up every five minutes.

Further inside the programme, there are detailed club profiles on Arsenal and West Ham along with full colour pictures of the two teams, in case you'd forgotten what they looked like. Furthermore, there are double-page profiles of the two teams to give some detail on the playing staff in each case. We're told that "in August 1977, [Pat Jennings] joined Arsenal from neighbours Tottenham Hotspur. Would Spurs have let him go for £45,000 if they had known he would play for their greatest rivals at Wembley in 1978, 1979 and 1980?" Probably not, but there again if my aunt had balls, would she be my uncle? The answer to both questions is likely to be the same.

The FA Cup Final programme of 1980 serves as much as a condensed reference book as any kind of souvenir. There are pages devoted to previous Cup Final results, Cup Facts ('compiled by Jack Rollin') and Goals Galore ('Scoring feats from past FA Cup Finals') but aside from the statistics and the plentiful colour action photos of both teams, the real charm can found in the filler material. Here, we get a perfect snapshot of the era through the adverts dotted willy-nilly throughout.

There's one for the Sunday Mirror featuring "Kevin Keegan of England and Hamburg – soon Southampton" who was writing a column for the weekend tabloid at the time. Keegan also cropped up in a small advert for Mitre Sports, alongside another for Adidas bearing a tiny caption telling us that Umbro International (Footwear) Ltd were "the sole UK distributors of Adidas products." Quite a sporting gesture on the part of the future England kit suppliers in more ways than one.

Elsewhere, there's an advert for the Victor range of men's toiletries - a useful reference for anyone wondering whether Brut 33 was the low point in male grooming products at the start of the 1980's. Another advertises Skol, surely as ubiquitous in pubs back then as pictures of topless models on Big D peanut dispensers and a predilection for cirrhosis of the liver and lung cancer among the regulars.

But for those wanting a lasting memory of a wonderful day at the FA Cup Final, page 48 of the programme was where it was all happening. There it was possible to choose your commemorative gift to remind you of the big day from a range of Wembley branded products. Blue and white wrist band? Certainly – that'll be 90p. How about a "slide card" as a pocket size-record of all FA Cup Final matches since 1872? No problem – 55p.

And if the 'Italian-made sports bag' didn't take your fancy (despite being made from 'durable nylon - £4.99') there was always the opposite page featuring 8mm soccer home movies. Two hundred feet of celluloid bliss – some even with sound – from just £8.30. What more could a football fan want? Perhaps a ticket to the upcoming Harlem Globetrotters game, but for that you'd need to contact the Wembley Box Office.