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525: Dean Holdsworth, Wimbledon, Merlin’s Premier League 95 Sticker Collection

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Whether you love it or loathe it the tabloid press is an integral part of both British society and the beautiful game. While the decline of print media, and the Leveson Enquiry, has curbed its power its influence extends far beyond its dwindling readership and, perhaps, no more so than in its contribution to the English language. Robert Hutton’s excellent ‘Romps, Tots and Boffins…The Strange Language of News’ goes further to define the language of the press as a separate entity, known as ‘journalese’, where formal discussions are always “crisis talks”, large sums of money are routinely “trousered” and all award ceremonies are “glitzy”. In amongst these are the “bigwigs”, “chiefs” and “tsars” who dominate the worlds of law, business and the civil service, the “crooners” and “rockers” who make up the music industry and the “playboys”, “vice girls” and “love rats” held up for public disdain. Football (or, more often for the press, “soccer” or “footie”) has accordingly always provided a nu...
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572: Aaron Connolly and Dom Ballard, Leyton Orient and 630: Joel Pereira and Kelvin Abrefa, Reading and Panini EFL 2025/26 Sticker Collection

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It’s amazing what a global pandemic, several boxes of old football stuff and Peter Fear ’s curtains can do but, 399 posts after an attempt to stay sane, here we all are. Throughout this time the UK has had four Prime Ministers, two monarchs and economic twists and turns that mean buying a Freddo now probably requires a mortgage. In the footballing world England’s men have reached two consecutive European Championship finals while the Lionesses have won two consecutive European Championships , Leicester City and Crystal Palace have won the FA Cup and Watford have had fifteen different managers . Plenty of other stuff has happened too and whether or not any of us here has remained sane is probably best put to our long suffering partners, children and friends. When live football was taken away from us its absence convinced the four of us that we really missed it. This ignores the fact that my attendance at Selhurst Park since Palace returned to the Premier League is worse even than m...
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359: Barry Bannan, Sheffield Wednesday, Panini EFL 2025/26 Sticker Collection

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Our 399th post comes from Mat Jolin-Beech and goes some way to explain his absence from our upcoming 400th post. In the past Mat has given us a taste of his travel adventures with trips to Japan , South Korea and Singapore with accompanying tenuous links to football stickers. This time he’s taking it to strange new places. Over to Mat. Inspiration can come in many forms. Especially on a blog like this. We’ve delved into childhood heroes . And villains . Schoolboy Sunday league careers. First matches. Last matches. But this must be a new one. A metro line. Now, let me give you some context as to how an urban public transport line links with the now-Millwall player, Barry Bannan. It all started back at the end of 2025 - remember that? My wife was heading on holiday to Taiwan when, actually still in Heathrow, she completely ruptured her Achilles tendon. Yet, not knowing the full extent of the injury, she flew with her mum to Taiwan. The day after they landed, she, somehow, walked for f...
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108: Joe Allen, Wales, Panini UEFA Euro 2020 Official Licensed Sticker Album, Tournament Edition

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Prior to the Reformation the number of holy days, or holidays, in Britain is believed to have numbered somewhere between forty and sixty per year. As well as a church service, where a majority illiterate population would hear some Latin and be told they were off to Hell, these days were often accompanied by festivals and public gatherings. Sometimes a kickabout broke out with various forms of ‘mob football’ played across the country generally involving transporting something vaguely spherical from one village to another with church gates or doors serving as goals. The injury rate was such that both Edward II and Edward IV attempted to ban the game in order to ensure their kingdom had enough blokes left for their difficult second legs against Scotland and the Lancastrians respectively. Up until the nineteenth century the aforementioned spherical object was often an inflated pig’s bladder before more uniform leather creations began to be used as the game became codified and expanded. Sim...
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252: Papa Bouba Diop, Portsmouth, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, 2009/10

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Just under a fortnight ago Senegal won their second ever African Cup of Nations tournament thanks to an extra time goal from Pape Gueye sealing a 1-0 victory over hosts Morocco. On paper this sounds like the classic cagey international final but in reality there was more drama than an entire series of The Traitors and that was just in second half stoppage time. First of all Senegal had a perfectly good goal disallowed with the added farce of VAR not being consulted. Luckily fans of prolonged delays and questionable decisions only had to wait a few minutes for Morocco to be awarded a penalty when Brahim Diaz was held in the box. The understandably enraged Senegal manager Pape Thiaw instructed his team to leave the pitch in protest and, while captain Sadio Mane spent fifteen minutes talking his teammates back into finishing the game, there was an attempted pitch invasion and a fight in the press box. When the Senegalese players returned Brahim Diaz decided that this had all been a bit du...
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66: Neil Redfearn, Bradford City, Merlin’s F.A. Premier League 2000, Millennium Edition Sticker Collection

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When Leeds United, Burnley and Sunderland returned to the Premier League promised land at the end of last season there were very few pundits providing their fans with optimism ahead of the 2025/26 campaign. BBC Sport’s Phil McNulty condemned both the Clarets and Mackems to an instant return to the Championship in his pre-season predictions. FourFourTwo went further and decided all three newly promoted sides were doomed. As it happens Max Rushden in The Guardian had the current bottom three spot on with only Burnley cut adrift which suggests he might have had the misfortune of seeing Scott Parker’s charges play beforehand. Leeds have put together some impressive results in recent weeks by means of reminding Dominic Calvert-Lewin that’s he’s a decent striker while Sunderland have shocked everyone by not being anywhere near as shite as they were on Netflix for a few seasons. To give the soothsayers their due promoted sides have had a knack of struggling in the Premier League in recent ye...
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146: Paul Gerrard, Everton, Merlin’s F.A. Premier League 2001 Official Sticker Collection

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Merry Christmas and thanks for continuing to read our various nostalgic ramblings. For this year’s festive post Mat Jolin-Beech delves into the finer details of some of the Barclay’s era’s most memorable moments. If you’re starting to run out of interesting anecdotes to share with your nearest and dearest then you are in luck. They probably need a minute or two to recover from your hot takes on the lack of top flight Boxing Day fixtures and the England cricket team’s obsession with golf and vibes. Over to Mat with his fun facts. I saw something on the internet today. Cue old school Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear jokes… No, not that. But that it’s been 25 years since that incident with Paolo di Canio . To specify which one exactly, as the spicy little Italian had his fair share of incidents in his career, it came at his time with West Ham United . The game was against Everton at Goodison Park and in a probable relegation battles. This came at a time when relegation battles still existed ...
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