Yes, I’ve been doing cards again. I’ve done Star Trek, The Beatles and yet more A&BC football cards (the orange and red backs from 1972-3). Thanks to an informative website I’m now in possession of much more knowledge than I really need on this subject.
I think my brain may be grinding to a halt, but I think I’ve isolated the point when the rot set into football. The 1970 set shows footballers with serviceable haircuts and quite a few broken noses. The 1972-3 set shows straighter noses and shocking haircuts. That three year window was the thin end of the wedge, and look where we ended up – diving, spray foam and perms.
Look at that haircut…
…and that moustache.
I grew my first moustache in 1975. It wasn’t a success. In truth they rarely are. Some things from the past should be left there – moustaches, I feel, are one of those things. As are rickets, platform soles and The King’s Evil.
For those of you interested in why one photo is upside down I have to confess that I don’t know. I struggled with a glitchy internet last night and had problems with a lot of photographs being upside down on the photo card. Eventually I just used two that seemed to be cooperative.
This morning I found that the post hadn’t actually loaded and one of the photos was upside down again.
So I gave up and loaded the post again with extra lines to explain the upside down photograph.
For those of you more arty types it’s an ironic take on the topsy-turvey nature of modern sport.
For the others, it’s what happens when you hand modern technology to a man who is barely past the crayon stage of artistic evolution.