Great football (UK) cards – John Roberts

I’d been planning on doing another ’52 Bowman, or maybe some hockey, but this post reminded me just how much fun I had with 1975 Topps UK Footballers and I had to post another one of them.  This is John Roberts, ex of Arsenal, a Welsh footballer who played over 400 league games and made 22 international appearances for Wales.  His career spanned the years 1964-82.

This set made use of the 1975 Topps Baseball design.  This was very common with the football releases.  Most Topps designs of the 1970s borrowed heavily from previously-released North-American sets, and A&BC, the UK company who released football cards prior to 1975, themselves licensed a number of famous baseball designs and made use of them for football.

Many of the shots in this set are posed, but there are a number of game action pictures which are interesting, to say the least.  I don’t think I could manage a kick like that without doing some serious internal damage. 

Like Roberts, I too was a defender when I played, but that was a result of having no skill whatsoever other than getting in the way of people who knew what they were doing.  My son’s soccer career is now two games old.  To me, he looks like a midfielder.

I’ve forgotten about the footballer cards for the past few months.  I have to pick this back up.  They’re such a change of pace and a real blast to collect.  Plus, I’m learning about a sport of which I know virtually nothing.  It’s great.

Again – I love the fact that these cards left space for kids to add in the prior year’s stats themselves.  I wonder how many actually did.