THE T.V
Today I watched Soccer A.M for the first time in about ten years. Even though it’s a bit crap these days it still filled me with nostalgia for being a kid in the 90s and thinking Lovejoy was hilarious and having naughty thoughts about Helen Chamberlain and the soccerette.
It got me thinking back to those days and football in general back then. I already made a post about the genius that was Fantasy Football with Baddiel and Skinner and that alongside Soccer AM were the real highlights of football discussion shows, getting the perfect balance between humour and football talk. For more serious discussion I used to love watching Jimmy Hill’s Sunday Supplement, featuring Hill and a load of tabloid hacks sat around in “Jimmy’s kitchen” talking about the weekend’s events. Soccer Saturday is obviously still the daddy, a premise that sounds ridiculous on paper but works so well in reality. I’m not sure if it’s just nostalgia talking or what but the lineup I remember watching as a kid with George Best, Rodney Marsh and Frank McLintock was the true golden era but it’s still a fantastic show to this day.
Of course Match of the Day has a special place in my heart also, it’s not great, especially these days, but it could be a lot worse (remember ITV’s THE PREMIERSHIP ffs) and that theme tune just is football. I also have vague memories of first getting into football and enjoying Big Match on ITV and also Saint and Greavsie before Sky took over and dominated everything.
THE MAGAZINES
I still remember getting my first ever football magazines, my dad bought me the trio of Shoot, Match and 90 Minutes one weekend in about 92 and they remained my three favourites for many years to come. I didn’t get 90 Minutes quite so often but I’d come to purchase Match and Shoot most weeks for most of the early and mid 90s, there was even a spell where I subscribed to Match and had it delivered through the door. An issue I remember in particular had John Beresford as the special guest editor, huge times.
One of my most vivid memories of cool freebies with football magazines was getting a set of cards free with an issue of 90 Minutes magazine featuring a load of footballers doing weird things. I found a few pictures of them online…
There was also obviously the infamous wall charts with the little cut out kits you’d get free at the start of each season, put up on your wall with the best of intentions each August and then by September you couldn’t be arsed updating them anymore and they’d sit there untouched until about January when you finally decided to take them down and lob them in the bin.
As I got slightly older I moved onto Match of the Day magazine and Four Four Two. Whilst those two were obviously aimed more and the adult market and were much better reads, they never quite captured the same feeling of having Match arrive through my letterbox.
CARDS/STICKERS/FIGURES ETC
My first ever sticker album was the Panini one for the 91/92 season, the last of the old Division One before the Premiership took over the world. Once the Premiership started then Merlin proved themselves to be the true king of the football sticker world and I think I had every album up until about 97/98 when I thought myself far too cool to be collecting stickers anymore.
There were also various football card fads over the years too. My favourite were the “big head” series, I can’t remember who made them but they featured caricature type pictures of the footballers and had top trump style ratings on the back.
Talking of big heads, the Corinthian figures were another huge playground phase in the mid 90s. Before them though, I remember building a small collection of Tonka football figures but you rarely hear people talk of them these days. They were bigger than the Corinthian ones and were more prominent in the late 80s/early 90s I think.
Anyway back onto Corinthian big heads, I used to love lining them up on the carpet in dream teams and different formations and stuff. One man who would always make my team is the don down below.
I also remember for a short while Netbusters videos seemed to be all the rage. A fairly low budget and short video that would come out every month or so that were pretty shit on reflection.
There was also a stupidly large amount of cock ups videos. My favourite of which was Neil Hancock’s Football Nightmares. I actually got my copy free with Four Four Two magazine and watched it fucking tons of times. He tries to get a lift to a Stoke game but ends up in another Stoke or something – HILARIOUS TIMES.
Other football collectables I remember from the time were football pogs, and also something I really struggle to find any evidence of it actually existing and that no-one seems to remember but I swear existed – little marble type things with pictures of footballers inside. I swear they were called “flick a balls” or something like that and there was a little game you could play with them too. Can’t find any pictures or anything though so you can have a huge one of an Ian Snodin pog instead.
THE VIDEO GAMES
This is just my personal journey so I’m well aware I’m missing out lots of classics here (I never played Sensible Soccer as a kid for instance). I’m pretty sure the first ever football game I played was Italia 90 round a friends, a bit of a crap game really but I thought it was amazing just because I had nothing else to compare it to.
My first ever console was a Sega Master System and the football game I played most on that and properly came to love was Super Kick Off. I also owned World Soccer but as I said, Super Kick Off was the daddy for me.
The first game of the Fifa franchise I ever owned was Fifa 96 on the Sega Saturn. I remember being stunned at its realism and it was my football game of choice on that console for quite a while as the only other one I had was the rather pony Euro 96 game based on the Actua Soccer game engine.
In 97 however, whilst I still purchased the updated Fifa game, Sega Worldwide Soccer was launched and blew it out of the water. It’s one of my favourite games of all time in fact and is hugely underrated to this day. I must have spent weeks playing on it.
So yeah that’s my recollections of being a football obsessed kid in the 90s. Have you got anything you’d like to add or that I’ve reminded you about? Post below or on the forum then innit.
The Soapbox X 