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N/A: Maracana Stadium, Mystery Jersey King Prints

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Mat Jolin-Beech provides us with a break from Donald Trump’s Super Awesome Soccer Showdown with a look at an historic World Cup stadium. Built in 1950 for the first post-Second World War tournament, and prepared for the host nation’s coronation that never came, it became a symbol of sporting hubris as much as a national landmark. Whether global politics’ most risible tangerine takes this to strange new places is yet to be seen but the trophy will probably end up in the Oval Office even if the Septics crash out in the first knockout round. Over to Mat. Since my subscription to Mystery Jersey King has lapsed, I’d not thought anything about it. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the latest, slimline, navy blue packaged had been shoved part way through my letterbox. Perplexed, I opened it. Now, call this cynical marketing, loss leading, or just a nice gesture, it was a freebie and included some goodies. And some not so goodies. There was an Inter Milan t-shirt - not a kit, but one of those tops...
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428: Jean-Philippe Mateta, Crystal Palace, Panini Premier League Adrenalyn XL 2023

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In May 2025 my beloved Crystal Palace won their first major trophy in their 120 year history when Eberechi Eze’s exquisite strike downed Manchester City in the FA Cup final. Just over a year later a club that had only ever experienced European football in a short lived Intertoto Cup campaign and the Anglo-Italian Cup celebrated victory in the Europa (Vauxhall) Conference League final with a nerveless 1-0 victory over Rayo Vallecano. This seemingly linear progress came with several caveats. Palace only ended up in the Conference League due to some poor admin, a miserable bastard at Nottingham Forest and the shady world of multi-club ownership. The drawn out process of finding out which obscure clubs would be heading to South London on Thursday nights hampered recruitment and did little to convince the likes of Eze and captain Mark Guehi to stick about. The former headed to Arsenal while the latter’s aborted move to Liverpool saw manager Oliver Glasner personally intervene in the tran...
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390: Reading Kits, Panini Coca-Cola Championship Official Sticker Collection 2009 and R9: Fulham, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, Barclays Premier League 2010/11 Collector Binder

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Emlyn Shepherdson-Jones explores the class divide and gentrification in a wide-ranging post which may also serve as a useful guide on where’s best to pick up a Steak Bake and/or some potato and rosemary sourdough. Clearly West Ham United fans have been crying out for both judging by the new addition at the nearby Westfield shopping centre. Over to Emlyn. Football social media has recently hit upon a trend of ranking league grounds by how close they are to certain amenities, with notable examples being McDonald’s, Greggs and Wetherspoons. These have been useful to spark debate, including whether you can get from St James' Park in Exeter to the Chevalier Inn in eight minutes (absolutely not), and why they haven't done one for Domino's, given that Leyton Orient have a dugout serving halftime pizzas from the brand. This naturally ended up in a discussion in our WhatsApp group about other potential measures of ground location value, eventually settling on who was likely to win...
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424: Lee Cattermole, Sunderland, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, Barclays Premier League 2010/11 Collector Binder

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In 1879 schoolmaster James Allan decided to gather his colleagues together for a kickabout and, by October 1880, Sunderland AFC had come into existence. Based on personal experience of teachers’ kickabouts I can only assume there were some ultra-competitive members of the PE department, some surprisingly decent elder statesmen and one member of the Senior Leadership Team who everyone was worried about tackling. Unlike the various Friday misuses of sports halls I have taken part in Sunderland joined the Football League in 1890 and had won the whole thing three times in their first five seasons. Long before Chelsea were given something shiny for a couple of minutes by Donald Trump the Black Cats had also been crowned ‘Football World Champions’ on three occasions by virtue of victories over Scottish champions Celtic, Queen’s Park and Heart of Midlothian. When the First World War brought a temporary pause to league football in 1915 Sunderland had won five league championships, finished a...
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8: Colin Hendry, Scotland, PG Tips International Soccer Stars Picture Card Album

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Emlyn Shepherdson-Jones heads north of the border to have a look back at the good old days when footballers had proper mullets and could do a job up front and at centre half . This post’s subject earned the nickname Braveheart partly due to his fearless performances for club and country but, more realistically, because he happened to be at his peak around the same time the film came out and had an excellent haircut. Over to Emlyn. For plenty of people, myself included, their love of football is formed in childhood, and the modern iteration doesn't hold quite the same charm as their first exposure to the beautiful game. I'm sure this was true for people from every era, with innovations from goalie gloves to coloured boots all being surefire signs that 'the game's gone'. For me, early memories of Eric Cantona bamboozling opponents, or the cultured play of Dennis Bergkamp or David Ginola coming up against the grit of Julian Dicks and Neil Ruddock , will always hold...
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235: Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer, Manchester United, Panini Football Sticker Album, The Official PFA Collection, A-Z of ALL the Top Players from All the Top Teams in ‘97

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Coursework season has recently come to a close at work and it’s hard to tell who is more relieved. For students there is the catharsis of handing in a significant piece of work which has caused several sleepless nights while for teachers it means we can actually finish up the content for the upcoming public exams. The tight word count often leaves students needing to cut towards the deadline and my advice is always for them to read their work aloud as it often highlights repetition, typos and waffle. Despite the word limit for this particular blog being forgotten a long time ago I still ask my long suffering wife to listen to my posts before I upload them for the aforementioned reasons. She’s only fallen asleep a couple of times in the last six years. She did have a little chuckle for herself at the mention of Swiss side BSC Young Boys’ home ground, Stadion Wankdorf, last time out which led me to reference an American Football team my old man had mentioned having the nickname ‘the Wa...
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N/A: Eusébio, Portugal, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game International Legends Collector Binder (Exclusive to Tesco)

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EA Sports FC 26 was released in September 2025 and, by the end of the following month, had sold twelve million copies. The latest edition of the successor to the infamous FIFA series apparently included “a complete overhaul of dribbling mechanics”, “more lifelike goalkeeping animations ” and the ability to make your Career Mode starlets experience homesickness. I’m sure all of this is great but as someone who hasn’t played a football game released since 2008 it isn’t exactly making me want to remortgage and buy a PS5. FC 26 can boast incredible attention to detail, however, with more than 20,000 licensed players and a host of realistic stadia including Everton’s new offering and the, never not amusing, Stadion Wankdorf home of Swiss side BSC Young Boys. Graphically it also looks frighteningly realistic and a far cry from Chris Kamara ’s Street Soccer but probably doesn’t let you play in a medieval castle. Access to such licensing was not always a given for the franchise formally known...
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