In one of the most high profile transfer deals in recent years. It was announced that Panini had regained the licence for top division football stickers in England for the first time in over 25 years and for the first time, the Premier League. Being a bona fide sticker nut, I decided to reclaim my childhood and sample the new album. Read on to see what I thought.
Ok, just in case my wife is reading I'll be blunt. I'm still massively into collecting football stickers, whenever a major tournament comes round I'm always straight down to the paper shop or supermarket to grab the starter pack and as many packets of stickers I can get my hands on (I haven't quite gone the whole hog and bought an entire display box....yet).
While I can't wait to get stuck in (pun completely intentional) to tournament albums, over recent years I've been reticent to take the plunge and collect the Premier League album, mainly because of reports that the quality had diminished since the heyday of the 1990s when Merlin held the licence.
Before we get into the meat of the album and each team's individual section (which boasts two generous two page spreads for each team), we're greeted to stickers of some of each team's key players posing in stances reminiscent of the line-ups on Sky Sports and the team badges. I liked this section even if I did find the stickers a little fiddly to fix into place, mainly due to the fact they needed to be lined up with the joining pieces already printed in the album. That and the fact I am ever so slightly visually impaired.
And so to the stickers themselves and each team's sections. The stickers are printed on high quality glossy adhesive paper and made of tough stuff, seemingly strong against potential rips and tears (a major criticism of latter Merlin/Topps stickers). The first two pages for each club features spaces for 22 players (other squad players are depicted overleaf) while the following two pages consist of foil stickers for the respective team's key player and captain as well as the stadium and (feeding another of my addictions) the home kit. The ever popular foil badge sticker sits in the top left hand corner of the squad page.
To say Panini haven't had the Premier League licence, it is easy to see that they have transferred plenty of the successful aspects from their albums on the continent to these shores with tremendous effect. Everything from the bright colourway of the album to the high quality of the stickers and the depth Panini have gone to in order to cover each team leads me to believe that the Premier League stickers are in good hands and I look forward to a fantastic future collecting Panini Premier League stickers.
I hope you enjoyed my review of the Panini Football 2020 album. Are you collecting them? Or are you a sticker nut too. Why not share your memories of collecting and your collections online. You can get in touch with us on Twitter @FootballOTB or via Facebook by searching for FootballOTBOfficial.
We'll be back the week after next with a piece about football in a certain European country.
Until then, have a very Merry Christmas and take care.
No comments:
Post a Comment