Saturday, February 19, 2011

Soccer? I Hardly Even Know Her

Well, one thing we strive for here at the ol' Archive is completeness, although it can take a while to achieve . Alan Jenkins of Wales added a comment recently to an old post on the 1979 Topps Soccer Stickers, a bizarre little set that is largely unknown to the outside world. As you will recall, these very orange stickers were pretty blah, even for Topps in 1979:



Alan has sussed out a full checklist, which is presented below. If you add the six 4-on-1 stickers, there are 33 stickers in the set, although there may be different backs for each. As Topps would use iterations of 33 four times on a 132 card half sheet, I would think up to four backs styles are possible for each front but that has yet to be determined as there may be no variation on the backs at all.'

Many thanks to Alan for providing this checklist.

1979 Topps Soccer Stickers Checklist

1. NASL logo
2. Star Ball symbol
3. Atlanta Chiefs
4. California Surf
5. Chicago Sting
6. Dallas Tornado
7. Detroit Express
8. San Diego Sockers
9. Strikers
10. Hurricane
11. Los Angelkes Aztecs
12. Rogues
13. Minnesota Kick
14. New England Tea Men
15. New York Cosmos
16. Philadelphia Fury
17. Portland Timbers
18. Rochester Lancers
19. Toronto Blizzard
20. Edmonton Drillers
21. Seattle Sounders
22. Tampa Bay Rowdies
23. San Jose Earthquakes
24. Tulsa Roughnecks
25. Vancouver Whitecaps
26. Washinton Diplomats
27. Soccer is a Kick in the Grass
NN. Hurricane / Strikers / Kicks / Chiefs
NN. Aztecs / Sounders / Whitecaps / Lancers
NN. Diplomats / Cosmos / Earthquakes / Surf
NN. Tornado / Rogues / Blizzard / Drillers
NN. Sockers / Express / Sting / Rowdies
NN. Timbers / Roughnecks / Fury / Tea Men

2 comments:

Chuck's Used Cards said...

He failed to meantion the puzzle backs that were used by topps for many years in the 1960's and early 1970's.

They were WARNER ROTH - NEW YORK COSMOS
RODNEY MARSH - TAMPA BAY ROWDIES / DENNIS TEAURT - NEW YORK COSMOS

TOPPs really missed the boat on that in 1979. Stickers were cool in the 1970's but there value faded into the 1980's.

If you look at Topps Match Attax that is a world wide phenomenom right now, the billion dollars in revenue looks good.

Conversely, Topps soccer cards from England are pulling good money and even a better value than their baseball or football counterparts.

toppcat said...

My prior post on these got into the puzzle backs. Just not sure if any sticker has more than one back or not.