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Here’s another set of cards, although this time from the idiosyncratic brush of Philip Neil. Phil is a caricaturist who releases small sets of cards mostly of football players generally form the 50’s to 70’s but also does sets on famous actors such as Boris Karloff, Robert Redford as well as the likes of Frankie Howerd and George Formby.

Some of them you can buy framed on Amazon or like this one I bought as a set on eBay for £3.50. Phil also provides a personal service of caricatures if you want to take a peek at his Facebook page.

This is a small set of ten and I imagine Phil decided to do the set and not include Anglo Scots so there’s no Denis Law or Dave Mackay in the set but you do get Alan Gilzean with some hair still from his Dundee days.

Ostensibly, the set is made up of two each from Rangers, Celtic, Hearts and Hibs with one each from two teams which won the 1st Division in the 60’s; Dundee and Kilmarnock.

The Rangers players are fairly obvious i.e. John Greig and Jim Baxter both icons from the sixties, the Celtic players are Lisbon Lions Billy McNeill and Bobby Murdoch. The Hibs players Peter Cormack and Pat Stanton are also good choices of their era as are Alan Gilzean of Dundee and other than goalkeepers Campbell Forsyth or Bobby Ferguson, Tommy McLean was probably the best choice for Kilmarnock. As for the Hearts players there could be an argument for Dave Mackay and Alex Young but both had big successes with their English clubs Spurs and Everton respectively, so maybe they’ve been used in another set, so perhaps Davie Holt who earned five caps in the mid-sixties is a good choice as probably is Jim Cruickshank who although he gained only one cap in the sixties with his other five coming in the seventies, represents the Hearts team of the time as much as anybody. Although to do him without his moustache is a bit sacrilegious I feel.

Of course, my supposition is based on players, cap etc. whilst Phil might have just done it because they had the more interesting faces. So there you go a good wee set of cards, that framed would look good in anybody’s hallway or even in a Scotland pub.

David Stuart