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While we wait for the new series of Game of Thrones, how about a game of cards with Scotland players? I suppose football cards have probably always been played with over the years in one way or another. I remember you used to use your doublers and skite them towards a wall and who got the closest to the wall won all the cards. Did we call that Skites? Maybe it was a just a Glasgow thing I don’t really know.

Anyway there have been some cards that were ready made games. The Pepys Company in 1947 released a set of Whist cards, which had eleven players from each of the Home International teams. These were quite well done with good accurate drawings of the players and were a good looking set. Among the Scottish players were Bobby Brown, Jackie Husband, Gordon Smith and George Young with his giant sized ears. Did George inspire Roald Dahl’s BFG?

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Fast forward to the seventies and the Top Trump cards and in particular to the 1978 World Cup, sadly there was to be no England players in this one due to the fact that as Andy Cameron  once put “they didnae qualify”. However, there was some Scotland players in the set including the likes of Dalglish, Gemmill, Willie Johnston and others.

Nowadays, it’s almost like cards have been dumbed down with next to no player info and all numbers correlating to games splashed across the front and back. You do still get Scotland in them, even though we don’t qualify for tournaments. Futera cards bring out cards every year it seems with some Scots players and you would have been able to collect such players as Darren Fletcher, James McFadden, Gary Naysmith but also the likes of John Fleck and Nigel Quashie. A selection of the cards are of course to be found on the cards and sticker section of the website.

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David Stuart