A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

The combination of interesting supermarket promotions , indulgent grandparents and me being his Dad meant it was only a matter of time until my son started his own football sticker and card collections. The false dawn of completing his first two books , aided entirely by his Nana’s patronage of M&S, has encouraged him to dive into this season’s first selection of Premier League cards and I’ve had to wait until after his bedtime to sneak this post’s card out of its binder. Thankfully the excitement of getting some Crystal Palace shinies and the fact we’re not remortgaging to buy regular packets means he is yet to have become disillusioned with doubles or the fact that half the players depicted have moved clubs since going to print. As well as the 300 ‘base cards’ in the collection there are a plethora of questionable additional cards to search for with such toe-curling themes as “Beast Mode” and “Nitro Boost” as well as “8 Bit Ballers”. I have no idea what any of these words mean ...

Mat Jolin-Beech rounds off the longest international break in living history with a look at a man who makes the likes of Roger Milla look like an exciting youth prospect. It’s probably the kind of feel good story that should act as a tonic to anyone falling out of love with the game or wondering if their kids will still want the shiny new Manchester City kits when they’re playing King’s Lynn Town instead of Paris Saint-Germain. Over to Mat. During one tedious afternoon at work, and thinking about not only the weekend’s disappointing results, terrible VAR calls, and the fact xG remains a thing we all ‘love’, it crossed my mind – am I falling out of love with the beautiful game? First of all, is it actually beautiful anymore? When was the last game you watched that, regardless of any bias, you came away from thinking that was an amazing game? I genuinely can’t remember. The World Cup was dross, only made exciting by the world’s growing hatred for Argentina . I’ll leave that, and any p...