Title / Titles
Footballers Sports Series
Catalogue
number/s
Cat No. 1835 - Code No. 51470-3 (Type One box)
Code No. 51470-3 (Type Two box)
Item-No. 51470-3 (French box)
One Airfix
website has credited the set with the following codes - 9-51570 for 1980-84, 14
figure 'small boxes' and 51570 for the 1986 equivalent; to
this author's knowledge, neither set was issued and no second referee was
tooled-up, as would have been necessary.
Catalogue
entries
9th Edition
10th Edition
11th Edition
12th Edition
13th Edition
14th Edition
15th Edition
Meaning it was advertised (in all versions) from between 1971 and 1978
inclusively, whatever the retail availability and/or actual issue/batch date/s.
The first version box seems no rarer than the second, so when the '73 artwork
boxes actually got released is another question.
They say
"This new set of model figures
will enable the enthusiast to stage his own football match. There are 29 pieces
in the set - 24 players, in various poses, 2 trainers, 2 linesmen and a
referee. In addition there are 2 footballs. We leave the choice of team colours
to you as all the figures are unpainted." 9th edition catalogue,
issued autumn 1971 for 1972
Box Types/Date
of issue (with notes)
1 - Type One (no date, large box-end logo, herb green graphics, equates
to brown box 'round logo' era, possibly available for Christmas 1971 but
probably not issued until 1972)
2 - Type Two (possibly issued in 1973, but it looks as if they weren't
got to market until 1974, small box-end logo, grass green graphics, equates to
target box era, new 'Letrasett' style
block-font)
3 - 'Le Redoubt' (French Language, 1974 issue, box; ©1973) The French version of the type two box, carried by the mail-order
company La Redoute has a translation
of the information panel, but drops the World Cup 1966 winners line and adds
the winners of the 1974 Munich World Cup (Germany) after the Brazil/Mexico
line, creating a new paragraph and letting us know the French issue was
produced after the World Cup had been held, in late 1974, despite carrying a
1973 copyright, not found on the English box.
There are other differences in layout of
that box rear and while the word footballers is on the front (and the four
sides - leading to changes in the positioning of the figures on the long
sides), on the back panel is has been changed to Footballeurs with a 'u', also the La Redoute logotype is to be found round all four sides of the box
under the 'Footballers'.
Number of figures/accessories per box
The early box describes the set as
containing 29 scale pieces, there are in fact 29 figures and two ball as one
additional 'spruelette' moulding for a 30 or 31-count depending on whether they
are found mint or loose.
Figure poses -
by identifying number/letter codes
Figures are not
marked.
Other notes
*The two figures above – reaching high
& reaching low – are actually the same goalkeeper pose, placed in different
attitudes vis-à-vis the base, prior to the final stages of the cavity
positioning/cutting/mould-making process.
One of the two balls, if anything about
this set is 'rare' (and it's neither of the box types if evilbeevilBay is
anything to go by!) it is the footballs, which are tiny and easily lost, I've
never checked but I think they may actually be under-scale?
Comparison between an Airfix figure and two
of his clones; the Champions of Soccer
board-game playing piece from Mike
Orchard Enterprises, published in 1984 and a Hong Kong marked rack toy/cake
decoration.
Vis-à-vis the HK one; the same source seems
to have been responsible for the copies of the Airfix 1:32nd scale Napoleonic
Infantry, being issued in the same colours and wearing the same, quite neat,
base-mark.
Another of the Mike Orchard figures, it's easy to mistake the six Champions of Soccer players for Airfix if found in this colour, but he
is both slightly smaller and a paler, wishy-washy creamy-white, rather than the
full 'double-cream' of the Airfix
originals.
The above are just four scans from the
earlier box. There are more comparisons to come, more of the HK figures and
better images of the 2nd version box - if I didn't sell them all in 2011, time
will tell?
Update on the Hong Kong copies with four
different poses. They have lost a bit on [probable] pantographing, but these
were quite late as far as copies from the colony went, and compared to some of
those third or umteysomethingth-generation copies of earlier figures (8th Army
or Germans for instance) these have been done well and kept most detail to
almost the same level as the originals. It may help that there's been no
attempt to give them different or wacky 'landscaped' bases?
