Recent UK Pickups Something Extremely Old Something New my Son the Mascot!!!

[Cujokidder]

Just returned from 2 weeks back in Scotland. Spent 10 days in Edinburgh and a day in a half in Newcastle. Did the trip with my 6 year old and my Dad representing 3 Generations of our family.

Saw Newcastle defeat Wolves 4-1 and did the stadium tour at St James Park for the second time-it was outstanding.

We took the train back to Edinburgh that night as my son was the mascot for the Edinburgh Derby the next day at noon (Hibs v Hearts). It may go down as our greatest day ever-here is the photo making the rounds in the programs and in a couple of UK publications.

He is of course in the maroon and white-our beloved Heart of Midlothian who fought hard for a 2-2 draw that day (with 10 men).

The final game was the following weekend where Hearts hosted Motherwell in a 0-0 snoozer. We did get to meet a ton of current and past players since we have some friends on the board at the club. If only I had hockey contacts like my football ones!

I have been collecting AB & C football cards for years but never post as there never seems to be much interest. My teams are the aforementioned Hearts and Newcastle along with any Scottish Internationals. I also like picking up cards of legendary managers from when they played the game.
Here is my most recent addition to the managers PC.

I believe its a 1968 AB& C Scottish series card-these are very hard to come by in decent shape.

Looks nice beside these other classics:

Hope you enjoyed this historical Football/soccer trip.

 

[enforcersonly]

WOW - superb story! Really, really cool that your boy was the mascot at the Edinburgh derby game. Looks like the other Hearts mascot got sent off too... Hibs have 2!

Loving the cards too - I was just old enough to remember the back end of Bremner's career - as a Leeds Utd fan myself, no question - Leeds' best player ever! My dad used to tell me about Dave Mackay too, another proper football (soccer) hard man. Like to see those two play in todays era of diving, feigning injury etc. There would be no feigning injury - if those guys touched you would be injured!

GREAT S&T.

 

[Bugjam]

Great stuff, nice to see someone showing off some football stuff. Even better that you're a Newcastle fan :beer: I've yet to do the tour of St James' Park, but have seen a few games.... nothing will top the memories I have of Alan Shearers Testimonial.:beer:

Thanks for the Show.

 

[Cujokidder]

Hi Bugjam -I too attended the Testimonial-flew over from Canada with my wife and could only get one ticket so I went to the game by myself. Bought my ticket from Mick the owner of the Back Page (program shop) and couldn't believe when I sat down I was sitting with his mom! True story. He had two other seats for that night.
That truly was a night to remember. When we all spun our scarves over our head at about 65 minutes, I had chills! I bought the game on DVD and still watch it at least once a season.
I have two scarves still intact from the game-one of my relatives in Scotland found out I was a Shearer fan and gave me an extra.
Was lucky enough to meet Shearer a few months later (see below) at an Adidas dinner in of all places the Royal York hotel in Toronto!

He was a wonderful lad (as I expected). He signed my testimonial program, the commemorative strip and the ticket. My favourite part was when I asked him to sign the ticket and he showed his agent the ticket and commented to me he had never seen one before-his agent also had a good look. That means (at least at that time) I had the only signed ticket from his Testimonial!
The announced that anyone with tickets ending in "9" would get to go to a private meet and greet-I had "99" so both my wife and I got to go. In the private room he signed some additional photos personalized to my two boys and one for my of his last goal in the testimonial against Celtic-I had tears in my eyes when he came back for the penalty!

The first game I ever attended at St James was 2005 NUFC 1 Liverpool 0. Lauren Robert scored a screamer on a free kick (left footed of course). That happened to be the day they filmed the movie goal and I am sitting about 7 rows up from the goals right where the ball goes in the net-pure luck but so be it. My dad joined me for that game but ended up at the opposite end of the stadium. Ironically we had two spare tickets we gave to young local lads.

I was born in Edinburgh but my Nana is pure Geordie so that's the Hearts/Newcastle affiliation. Also my first EVER game was the Alex MacDonald Testimonial in 1984. Hearts had a special #7 that night...Kevin Keegan. Pure destiny-I may also be destined to never when but I am happy just cheering every weekend.

All the best-if you have any interesting stories or cool NUFC stuff to share please do.

Chris

 

[bonnev659]

wow amazing congrats

 

[malskelton]

Cool Shearer story - he is pure class with the fans

I was born in Durham, about 20 miles from Newcastle .......... and I absolutely despise the Geordies !!

Most of my mates are Newcastle or Sunderland fans, therefore I decided to be the opposite and support Liverpool.

That said, my first ever professional game I attended was Newcastle v Millwall 1987. It finished 1-1 and I missed both goals because I was trying to show my mate Mirandinha who had just signed and was sat 5 rows behind us.

I've also been to St James a couple of times more - saw Gazza return for Everton which was cool, also saw West Ham when they had Lampard, Ferdinand, Carrick, Cole etc.

I used to go to Newcastle's training ground at Chester Le Street to collect autographs - met lots of great players and managers.

Nice older cards - love the Ian St John

Mal Skelton

 

[JTMcCool]

Wow, I didn't notice this thread originally, but that's a great story and those cards are amazing! I had no idea they were producing football cards that long ago. I was always under the impression that card collecting wasn't that big in Britain. Great looking cards, I appreciate you sharing them!

 

[malskelton]

Wow, I didn't notice this thread originally, but that's a great story and those cards are amazing! I had no idea they were producing football cards that long ago. I was always under the impression that card collecting wasn't that big in Britain. Great looking cards, I appreciate you sharing them!

Card collecting is growing - but football stickers have been massive over here for decades.

I always remember having Panini albums at school and a pile of swaps held together with an elastic band

That's one of the problems now, my nephews collect football cards and try and swap them with me but they don't understand the concept of condition being important.

Mal Skelton

 

[meatmancgy]

As a fellow Scotsman, I approve of this thread even if Chris is from Edinburgh! Chris gave me my first ever Dunfermline soccer cards and I really appreciated it! Great story and pictures.

 

[Cujokidder]

I've also collected the Panini World Cup and Euro Cup albums through the years.
Its was very tough to complete the older sets overseas-thankfully ebay and a few contacts have helped through the years. I can still remember trading for Trevor Francis, Joe Corrigan, John Wark and of course King Kev Keegan in the England 1982 book. Those were my favourite players back in the day.
I started when I went back to Edinburgh on holidays in 1982 and started the World Cup book-while its in rough shape its still the best as Scotland had one heck of a team! I spent all my holiday spending money on those packets of stickers (and Kiss's Unmasked LP)
I will scan some of the stickers in the next little while.

No laughing but I am so hooked on Panini stickers I recently ordered the German only released Womens World Cup album. Still need about 120 stickers but I have a second box on the way along with two boxes of Euro 2004 (Portugal). By the way I thought the quality of the womens game was fantastic.
With the Hearts drawing Spurs we should get some nice national exposure over the next fortnight assuming London gets their act in gear-sad to see whats been happening but it looks to be under control.