Any Swaps? Rediscovering the Joy of Collecting Football Stickers

Despite picking up six Martin Zubimendis, I'm enjoying this World Cup album

My girlfriend got back from the local corner shop and chucked what I thought was a hefty magazine my way.

‘OFFICIAL STICKER COLLECTION FIFA WORLD CUP 2026’.

Knowing I’m football daft - an hour before I became a Dad in May 2022, I had to check how Everton, battling relegation, had done down at Watford - she assumed I’d obviously want the album ahead of the big summer tournament.

“I haven’t collected stickers in 30 years,” I said, a bit bemused.

However, having previously taken little interest, the next time I was in the shop, the shiny stickers next to the till were catching my eye.

Three weeks later, I’ve nearly completed the album having rediscovered the joy of collecting.

It was three decades ago that my Mum bought me my first album. The 96/97 Merlin sticker album was the catalyst for me becoming a football obsessive and the sport completely dominating my life, both socially and even when it’s come to my career.

I think the towering figure of Alan Shearer, together with Eric Cantona, on the front cover helped the fascination as only a month earlier I had watched the Newcastle centre forward and world record signing make his Magpies debut at Goodison Park.

August 17th ,1996 marked my first Everton match. I was five and it was absolutely everything. The place was just so vibrant as the sun beamed down on a mass of yellow and black away kits that packed the Gwladys Street where I was sat on Row EE. The team wore the royal blue DANKA home shirt with blue and black socks and won 2-0.

To then see the royal blue again and my new heroes including Duncan Ferguson (those iconic curtains), Gary Speed, Andrei Kanchelskis, David Unsworth and Neville Southall up close, is what got me absolutely hooked on Everton but also the Premiership and football.

I loved all the badges and discovering the different players (Fabrizio Ravanelli with his collar up, David Beckham’s hair full of Brylcream and around six Andrew Ducros of Coventry City swaps) across the league. Each sticker and page was packed with stats and figures which proved the basis for the geeky levels of knowledge I still hold today. I found the old album not long ago and spotted I had rated each team. On the Everton page I wrote ‘brilyant/the best’. Coventry City were ‘sorte of good’, Leeds ‘good’ and Derby County ‘very rubbish’. I flicked to Liverpool to see what I’d thought of them at that young age and discovered the pages had been completely ripped out. A bitter blue from the very start

However, for whatever reason, I didn’t pursue the hobby. I recall having some stickers in following seasons and looking at albums round my mates but I seemingly wasn’t bothered. Even shortly after Uni when lads my age were collecting again, I didn’t get it. This summer though, I get it.

I’ve loved the World Cup ever since my first tournament which was France 98 when I was seven. I can vividly remember sitting on my Nan’s lounge floor as John Collins scored a penalty for Scotland against Brazil before actually signing for Everton a month or so later.

I can still name all 32 teams in order of group (I told you, absolute geek) and recall that World Cup so fondly. Now at an age Arsene Wenger absolutely wouldn’t offer me more than a one-year deal, I’m engrossed again, catching new players from around the world through this album. I’ve properly enjoyed it. And I tell you what, now a grown man with family and responsibilities, that half an hour when I add more stickers to the album? Pure chill.

I never bothered with swaps when I was five either, instead shuffling the stickers and picking out scorers for imaginary Premiership matchdays written down in a notebook. Now though, thanks to social media, I’ve flown through filling the album, doing swaps with people across the country via post. Not only that but it’s allowed me to shift the mass of Martin Zubimendis I seem to get every time I open a new pack.

There are thousands of enthusiasts who have been collecting since childhood. This month I’ve sent swaps to Stoke, Cambridge, Newcastle, Crawley. Coincidentally, I’ve even posted to a fellow Evertonian who used to also sit in the Gwladys Street.

It’s been cool sharing a hobby with so many different people - fellas in their twenties who weren’t born when my first album was bought for me and blokes in their late forties who can recall watching Diego Maradona racing away from Peter Reid and Co live back in 1986.

Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s I’ve always been a football nut, but even at my age, I’ve genuinely enjoyed starting a collection and pursuing the aim of completing the album. It’ll be cool to look back on and, as I try to claim, maybe even worth a bit in the decades to come.

At a time I struggle to feel much for the modern game with VAR, daft kick-off times and what feels like a lack of genuine star quality impacting matchday, sticker collecting has made football fun again.

Got any swaps?