Goal Crisps

Goal Crisps

In pursuit of a spectacular football stadium and accompanying football, you were tasked with amassing 11 tokens for redemption. The collectible cards presented a unique distinction on their backs, with options including a) showcasing the Goal Crisps logo, and b) providing instructions on ‘how to get your free game.’ Notably, these cards were ingeniously paired, linked by perforation lines. This design ensured that when extracted from the packet, players were positioned in a head-to-head stance, creating an engaging and immersive unboxing experience.

1971/72

 
Action cards (Steve Heighway All Star series) and Football Game

The action cards came in the packets of crisps, two cards per packet. Each card had a token, and you could ruin your cards to remove the token in order to send off 11 tokens with your name, address and 4p stamp for postage to receive a ‘fabulous Football Stadium complete with football’. You could then further cut around the cards in order to place your players (cards) into slots in the game. It’s surprising that any of these cards have survived at all. You could collect all 22 ‘Great Stars’, presumably to play 11 vs 11 in your football game.

The cards appear to have come with two different backs, one promoting Goal Crisps while the other provided the instructions on how to play the free super football game. Apparently you slotted them into the spaces provided on the pitch selecting your own team versus the Steve Heighway All Stars. Exactly how this constitutes ‘playing’ the game is still not clear? Amazingly the card states that the free football game offer is only available to the first 20,000 applicants! I wonder if they did actually send out 20,000 games?

Dating this set is really difficult. The players included Gordon Banks (who played his last League game in October 1972) and Alan Mullery as a Tottenham player (transferred to Fulham in March 1972). More confusingly, Emlyn Hughes is recorded as having 6 full England caps. His 6th cap came in April 1970, and his 7th in November 1970, suggesting that the set dates to mid 1970. Alan Mullery is recorded as having 31 England caps, a figure he achieved in June 1970, adding weight to this early date. However, Steve Heighway only made his debut for Liverpool in September 1970, so it seems unlikely that Goal Crisps would award him a set of football cards this early in his career.

Number in set: 22
Gallery: N/A
Checklist: Set checklistTeam checklist

1972/73

Steve Heighway cards

The back of each card states… ‘with every packet of ‘Goal’ crisps you get a free colour action picture of Liverpool FC and Ireland soccer star, Steve Heighway. Collect all 12 great pictures in the series. PLUS! You also get one piece of a large 10” x 10.5” colour picture of your star, collect all 12 pictures and you have a terrific, autographed picture of Steve, for mounting on our exclusive wall chart’. So, there is also a wall chart to collect. Do you own one of these?

Heighway’s card states that he scored a great goal in the 70/71 Cup Final which took place May 8th 1971, so these cards perhaps date to the 1972/73 season (an insight kindly provided by Gerard).

The backs of the action cards were issued with 3 different texts, so there are 4 of each type. The 12 picture cards carry the Goal crisps back.

Number in set: 24 (12 action shots and 12 picture cards)
Gallery: N/A
Checklist: N/A