So I am about to turn twenty eight next month! That is late twenties and I am dreading it.

So with my up coming doom and the fact people like Football Attic have been doing articles on Subbuteo and Twitter has been full of Panini sticker chat, I thought I would reminisce about better footballing days.

I searched out old photo albums and went up to the attic in search of what remained of my old footballing fads and I thought I should share some with you.

The above photo is the earliest I could find with me and a football in the same pic. My dad (who is younger in this photo than I am now) is holding me, while my older brother is holding the ball. I am pretty sure Paul is holding the ball more securely than my dad is with me. Plus I have never ever suited hats.

Now my first vivid memories of football come from Italia 90… I was six at the time. I played before that but cant really remember watching anything earlier that 90.

I have fond memories of Roberto Baggio, Claudio Caniggia, Rene Higuita, Gary Lineker, Roger Milla, Careca, Maradona, Jurgen Klinsmann and Toto Schillaci.

Above I am very Italian in my Italia 90 outfit enjoying an ice cream in the sun. Its not in Italy though, I think its Arran.

Scotland also made to Italia 90.

This is me showing off my muscles, sorry I mean mussels, in front of a Scotland pendant in an old style Scottish Italian restaurant   This place also had lots of Italian strips decorating the wall.

My mum used to force me to wear a lot of corduroy when I was a child and I actually now hate that material. Once I started picking my own outfits I never wore it again!

Twenty years ago next month this picture was taken.

I had just had my first football birthday party in a local sports centre. I am proudly wearing that years Scotland home top and I have decorated it with an ‘I am 8’ badge and an Ultimate Warrior badge.

My hair…. Eh!!! Well this isn’t the worst hair cut I ever had, which says so much!!!

Also not entirely sure why I have a dog cake, I was scared of dogs at this time.

Again in a Scotland outfit and standing in goals at a friends house. We used to takes turns in but it was usually him in goals as I was a striker and he actually dived when making saves.

I broke the window behind me… Not my best or worst shot to be fair.

My first winners medal in my very first tournament, with my local team Cathkin United.

I think they liked Sheffield United, which is why we had that top.

I always colour co-ordinate. Look at me in this funky Disney outfit matching with the orange ball.

I should also point out my very first Nike trainers, these were bought because Andre Agassi wore them that year.

Here I am its Christmas time. This is one of my first Rangers strips. I was a very proud Scot as you can tell with my Tartan PJs and dressing gown. I am sure I also had Tartan slippers.

This is me five minutes later with the Gers kit on. I am thinking it may have been a wee bit too big for me.

Also check out my new desk and state of the art typewriter…Bought so I could write about football!

A blogger before blogging existed.

I was huge with my fads and collecting anything football related.

I had tons and tons of strips. My favourite ever was my Perugia Nakata top, which I still have. But I have had AC Milan, Inter, Barca, Japan, Portugal, Real Madrid, Corinthians, Boca Juniors, Brazil even a Jamaica strip. Seriously the list is endless.

Without doubt though the pic above was me in my favourite goalie top. I thought I was Peter Schmeichel  just a lot smaller, younger and darker. I also have on wee Michael Jordan’s …1..2…3 Awww!

I bought a lot of football boots. I was the first person in my school with Adidas Predators and I bought four pairs of Pantafola d’oro boots one summer. I had to have a blue pair, a red pair, a yellow pair and a red pair! I was off my head.

I loved Subbuteo.

I used to hold tournaments in my garage and I also won the local Boys Brigade Subbuteo cup. For unknown reasons I bought a new Rangers set year on year… They hardly changed, although I would stand on them by mistake so I had plenty of reserves to fill in.

I collected stickers.

Loved my silver shiny club badges and would have a pocket or two full of doublers to swap at school. For the life of me I could never complete an album and it wasn’t for the lack of trying or spending power. My pocket money would go solely on the wee packets that i would then tear open and know instantly if I had these stickers or not.

I loved computer games.

I have always been a FIFA man over PES. Firstly because I wanted the real names, then because it was better, for a while it was because I was just being stubborn and then it became better again. (I know a lot will disagree).

I was always interested in football management. Before manger sims, I used to do it all by paper. Write out my squads and do my transfers and formations.

Then came the games. I loved Champ manager and I enjoyed Football manager but for me nothing beat Sensible world of soccer. I bought an Amiga just for this game! It had every player, league and country in the world and you could manage anyone.

It had the three foreigner rule and bids of £2.2m were exciting! It was magic in my eyes and I absolutely loved it.

My biggest collection or fad that I had was Corinthian figurines. I started when they first came out, around 95 I think. The picture above is my attic, I have collected over 1000 of these wee guys.

I have bought rare ones from Japan, Brazil, Hong Kong and the like. I must of spent thousands on them.

Firstly they were just toys, I would unpack them and play with them. Then as I got older I found out others collected them and they would keep them in the packs, so I did the same.

I would travel to conventions at Villa Park and be amazed at how big this craze was.

I will leave you with a caricature of myself.

It was bought for me as a Christmas surprise I think I was 15. Remember in the back pages of the Football Italia magazine they had caricatures for sale of Serie A’s top stars well my family thought I was a star.

The artist may have disagreed though and thats why he made me so ugly!

I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane.

I would like to thank my mum for the outfits, my dad for the photos, the both of them for the money, my brother for a footballing teacher and my grandpa for introducing me to football in the first place.

Posted on April 5th, 2012 by scott
Filed under: Article