With matchday programmes seemingly in decline, perhaps pin badges will fulfil the collector’s need for a memento
By Seb White for MUNDIAL
There’s a
Russian guy called Vladimir who flies to
London every year to watch his beloved
Chelsea at the Bridge. After negotiating security, he meets a guy called Terry in a car park near Heathrow. Terry and Vladimir have known each other for years. Vladimir has bundles of cash and Terry has a van full of merchandise that is available in batches of a hundred. After Vladimir samples some of the goods and the pair engage in a quick negotiation, hands are shaken and merchandise is exchanged for cash. Everyone is happy. Welcome to the fanatical world of football pin badges.
Terry stores his merchandise in his garage in deepest Oxfordshire, in hundreds of those small blue boxes you usually see in DIY stores full of nails and stuff. Terry’s boxes are labelled with quintessentially English place names such as Bridgwater, Lyme Regis and Chichester, and each one is full with metal pin badges in plastic wrapping.