It seemed like a perfect storm.
Italian collectables business Panini had moved into the UK during the late 1970s and now had young football fans eating out of their hands.
With the Cricket World Cup taking place in England and Wales that summer, 1983 was the perfect time to capture the hearts of burgeoning cricket followers.
Panini had already produced stickers for a similar album in Australia over the previous winter (‘Cricket 82’ by Scanlens) but the cricket collectables market Down Under was far more established than in the UK.
Cigarette cards had been popular up to the Second World War; A&BC produced a couple of card sets dedicated to cricket in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s; Bassett dabbled in the summer game as inserts into their sweet cigarettes during the late ‘70s/early ‘80s.
By 1983, however, football had cornered the UK in terms of sporting stickers – cards had fallen out of favour all round by that stage – and they were now collected all year round with domestic leagues followed by international tournaments every other year.
Unlike Panini’s ‘Football’ albums tie-in with ‘Shoot!’, there was no obvious fit in terms of a magazine with which to give away their ‘World Of Cricket 83’ album.
‘The Cricketer’ and ‘Wisden Cricket Monthly’ both primarily targeted adults rather than the kids who generally bought stickers in those days (things have since changed!).
IPC’s stable of comics leant their support with all-sports publication ‘Tiger’ giving away the album and stickers while the May 28th issue of ‘Eagle’ contained a free gift of 12 stickers.
Panini’s ‘World Of Cricket 83’ album cost 20p with each
packet of six stickers knocked out for 10p a time. It housed 268 stickers, with
each county double-page spread containing a team photo, 12 individual head
shots and the much sought-after ‘shiny’ badge.
While sales were ultimately as effective as England in their World Cup semi-final with India that year, the ‘World Of Cricket 83’ experiment did at least provide one positive for Panini.
It was for this album that the ‘Swop Shop’ was invented – at John Player League matches – where collectors were able to make use of their doubles.
While there was no ‘Cricket 84’ album, the concept of inviting swappers to congregate was deemed a success and repeated – on a far larger scale – for subsequent football albums.
Not one man dressed in cricket gear would darken Panini’s door after
this ill-starred foray until 1987, when the UK version of the ‘Supersport’ album
was released, featuring stars from a number of disciplines. Alongside the likes of
Daley Thompson, Ivan Lendl, Severiano Ballesteros and Eric Bristow were the
leading England and international players of the day as part of a 21-sticker
dedicated cricket area.
Just as Moto Sport (1982) and Cricket (1983) lived a short Panini existence, so did multi-sports as ‘Supersport’ was given a one-year run with football ruling the sticker-printing machines.
All of which would make the appearance of Panini’s ‘Cricket ‘95’ seem even more unlikely. Delving a tad deeper into its background does offer a little, just a little, more sense, to the concept.
By 1995 the golden era of the 1980s for Panini was long gone as Merlin (subsequently taken over by Topps) usurped its place at the top of the tree for sticker-lovers with its official Premier League collections. Panini’s ill-advised return to cricket, therefore, was an attempt to cover a new market…but ‘World Of Cricket 83’ should surely have taught them there was no market in cricket!
Advert for the 'Crucial' Panini Cricket '95 album in Match Weekly, 1st July 1995 issue (John Barnes did not feature despite appearing here!)
With just 169 stickers to collect (mainly in the form of three players to a sticker) doubles (or trebles!) were quickly acquired and with few, if any, fellow collectors to swap with the novelty soon wore off.
It was a case of twice bitten, thrice shy for Panini as they haven’t ventured back into cricket since.
Cards remain popular in Australia while Tap’n’Play brought out an England Cricket Trading Card set in the UK in 2018. Topps had been planning a ‘Cricket Attax’ card collection in 2020 for ‘The Hundred’ – now delayed – but Panini’s flirtation with cricket is unlikely to be rekindled.
That won’t stop me on my quest to finally complete ‘World Of Cricket 83’ sometime before its 40th anniversary!
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