IPC / Fleetway - 1969/70 My favourite soccer stars (Blue backs).

A set of 160 small cards that most boys of the period will remember. They were issued as sets of 32 cards in 5 different comics. The cards came in sheets of 8 per comic, so you had to buy 5 comics for 4 weeks to collect the whole set. The cards could be mounted in small albums presented free with the comics. Fortunately the mounting was done by slipping the cards into slits by their corners, so the cards should never have been glued. This means that a number of the cards have survived in excellent condition. The cards featured a number of players from lesser known clubs and lower divisions, so proved quite popular to a wide audience. The comics were: Buster, Lion, Scorcher, Smash and Tiger. The publication dates were: February 7, 14, 21 and 28, 1970. Scorcher comic only commenced publication on 10 January 1970, so this was obviously a vehicle to promote the new comic. Smash had begun in 1966, but didn't last much past these cards, ending in 1971.

I do not have #'s 17 John Rashford from Smash & 18 George Graham from Tiger.

Information is from Nigel's Webspace