A Sticker's Worth 500 Words

It’s FA Cup final day and Crystal Palace take on Manchester City at Wembley in what should be the showpiece finale to the English football season. As the Zenith Data Systems Cup apparently doesn’t count as a major trophy this presents the Eagles with a chance to win the first piece of significant silverware in their history while City will be competing in their third consecutive FA Cup final aiming to win the world’s oldest cup competition for the ninth time. At the time of writing Palace are in their now traditional twelfth position in the Premier League while City are contemplating a devastating campaign battling for a Champions League spot having surrendered their league title to Liverpool. All neutrals are obviously deeply concerned for their plight and have definitely not been basking in their misery. There are a number of reasons why I want Palace to win today. 36 years of following the Eagles is clearly the most important of these and I am so happy that we’ve taken the cup c...

Mat Jolin-Beech takes a look at a player who seemingly sacrificed his prime years as a professional to chase the big bucks in an upstart league. While this epithet could easily apply to Sadio Mane or Ivan Toney the focus is slightly further east and on a Chelsea team which almost acted as a feeder club for the Chinese Super League in the 2010s. Someone probably ended up at Vitesse Arnhem too for good measure. Over to Mat. The Saudi league is the current residence for ageing, over the hill footballers, and those seeking refuge from Europe and a huge pay check. And Ronaldo. But it is not he first foreign league from a non-footballing land – at least not one where it traditionally has a foothold. There was the US in the 70s with the North American Soccer League (I still feel dirty writing soccer and not football). We’re riding the Saudi and middle eastern wave right now – with the oil money attracting many who are seeking financial security for them and their families. But a decade ago ...

Emlyn Shepherdson-Jones takes us on a journey through the career of a national icon today who took the Welsh men’s national football team to the brink of continental glory. His commitment to his country was evident in the accompanying quote for today’s sticker where he stated “I have my heart set on a place in France in 1998 with Wales”. These words obviously came off the back of back-to-back thrashings of San Marino in the summer of 1996 rather than the subsequent drubbing at the hands of the Netherlands and a ten goal thriller with Turkey. Eighteen years later, however, he was in France with the Red Dragons. Over to Emlyn with the rest. I grew up speaking Welsh with my father, and still retain a level of fluency in the language, but have to take steps to try and retain the skill. One useful technique for this is utilising the Welsh language channel S4C, with the coverage of the Welsh football and rugby teams' fixtures with Welsh commentary a great option. In addition to this, so...

We celebrate five years of our blog in this post and we would like to start by saying thank you to anyone who has read, shared, commented, contributed or suggested content. It’s insane to think that the Covid-19 lockdowns which inspired this were so long ago and the fact that anyone is still engaging with it now that they have the ability to have actual friends or lives is incredibly flattering. When we started suggesting ideas for this collaborative effort we thought it might be time to be a bit braver than our usual tributes to genuine global icons , club heroes and substitute goalkeepers . Today we come for three players we believe to be overrated. They are clearly all excellent footballers (and we really can’t talk ) and some of them might be really nice blokes (see above) but there’s just something not quite right for us. We’ll start across the Channel with Emlyn Shepherdson-Jones and someone who might prove us all even more wrong than we probably are. When the call came through...

This post is a leaving present for my colleague Rupert Try who is off to pastures new at the end of the month. Having come across our blog due to my shameless self promotion our subject was the first name he put into the search bar. As an Arsenal season ticket holder it’s good to see Rupert still carries a torch for the Gunners’ mediocre years ahead of the glory that visited Highbury with Arsene Wenger. That or he’s still haunted by the programme images of the man below’s horrific leg break. All the best in the new role mate and I hope this does the trick for you. The Merlin’s Premier League 95 Sticker Collection was my first proper foray into sticker collecting (having shared the 1994 World Cup book with my sister) and, looking back, it is an absolute treasure trove of 1990s nostalgia. The likes of Simon Rodger , Stuart Nethercott and Ian Walker provide curtains inspiration to rival Nick Carter of The Backstreet Boys while members of Manchester United’s infamous ‘ Class of 92 ’ make ...

Emlyn Shepherdson-Jones heads to the green green grass of home for a post on a talented Welsh forward with an enviable record in front of goal. We also get a look into the bizarre world of non-licensed pseudonyms in football video games and it’s time to say thanks to EA Sports for their choice for this post’s subject. Yes they could have gone full Konami and renamed the Wales players something like Daffodil019 but instead they got creative and allowed Emlyn and I to make numerous references to WWE giant The Big Show instead. Over to my esteemed colleague with a big bad show tonight y’all. The EA Sports tournament cash grab tie-in, Euro 2000, is a game that has been mentioned once or twice before on this blog – filling hours of evenings in our uni house and also the evening before Manny's wedding. As beloved as the game was to us, the follow-up brought out for the 2008 European Championships was far from spurned – the advance in technology allowing you to use the analog stick on t...

The various streaming platforms available today mean that it is rare for a show to create the kind of water cooler moments dreamed of by producers and writers. The recent deep dive into the extent of human gullibility that is The Traitors has perhaps come close while the hype around Game Of Thrones meant that its sets across the world became closely guarded especially when famous faces made cameo appearances. Ipswich Town fan, and apparent Sky Sports pundit, Ed Sheeran chewed through the forest scenery while Lovejoy and Deadwood star Ian McShane fared considerably better. He did, however, come under fire from those terrified of spoilers when he revealed the tiniest of hints about his fairly irrelevant scenes. His riposte of “I was accused of giving the plot away, but I just think get a f***ing life. It’s only tits and dragons” hit harder than any of his actual lines. While the likes of Eric Cantona and Vinnie Jones made the transition into Hollywood blockbusters many Premier League ...