The existence of their first set of collectable stickers in England
in 1967/68 is still subject to some conjecture. There is a story that the
stickers were issued 'in the North East of England' only, as a trial,
but Greg has contacted this website to advise that he collected them from
his home town in Nottinghamshire. What is known about
this set is that the stickers were very basic, with the club name and player
name only on the back. The spaces in the album are also blank i.e. there
are no player biographies on either the stickers or in the album. There
were also no instructions about what to do with the stickers, so most children
stuck them into the spaces in the album, gluing the whole of the back of
the stickers, making them almost impossible to remove without serious damage
to the stickers (as opposed to the later editions, which provide instructions
to glue only the tops of the stickers).
Pictured below is what is thought to be a packet for the
1967/68 FKS stickers. It has been very kindly supplied by Barry from London
who has been on the hunt for it for some time, but I also own one of these so can confirm the size.
Barry has provided a scan of the 1967/68 packet alongside a 1968/69 packet, both
to scale, which shows you that the 1967/68 packet was significantly larger,
though using the same text and image. The images of the backs of the packets
also show that in moving from 1967/68 to 1968/69 FKS decided to reduce the
number of stickers (which at the time they called stamps), from 8 to 7 per
packet.
Very little else changed between the 1967/68 and 1968/69
issues. The album covers were identical (except for the different years),
and most of the sticker images remained the same (except for a few transfers
which were reflected in the stickers).
Fulham and
Sheffield United were included
in the 1967/68 set, but were replaced by
Ipswich Town
and Q.P.R. in the 1968/69
edition, representing the teams relegated from the First Division and promoted
from the Second Division at the end of the 1967/68 season.
So, while
there is nothing on this packet which tells us that it is from the 1967/68
FKS issue, it is plausible. If you have any views on this FKS packet, either to confirm or deny
the suggestion, please
drop me a line here.
|