Panini Complete!

For as long as I can remember Panini were the ubiquitous football sticker. They made an appearance every four years whenever the World Cup rolled around and I remember as a kid packets costing 20p bought from the local Stars newsagents on my walk to primary school. I never completed a full album. Usually albums were started off with great fervour and then collecting ran in parallel with England's usual precarious presence in the world cup. Eventually enthusiasm would wane and then run out entirely as we were dumped out in the quarters.

You were usually left with five Terry Butchers and three Jorge Campos's.

Just prior to the start of the Russian World Cup I spotted a Panini album in our local newsagents and snapped it up. Thus began several months of ardent collecting.

Times have changed alas. The stickers were pretty expensive this time around and kids no longer gather round in playgrounds shuffling through big decks of stickers, 'got, got, need, need, got, got'.

As is the way, we started with great vigour. Eli's book was soon half full and we were cruising, but then came the inevitable tipping-point. Now we'd buy a pack and the majority would be swaps. It's disappointing on several counts, not least due to the amount you'd paid, but being able to stick a solitary Cameroon player in after buying three packets isn't exactly motivating for anyone.

We forged on. Eli's quest took us to some crazy situations. Swapping stickers in a lady's apartment (after finding out she had started her collection in Mexico), a visit by another lady (with a newborn) who was trading stickers on behalf of her husband. Buying stickers from a small newsagents in Switzerland (the stickers were gold, but the same players and numbers)

Eventually we were in touching distance and I ordered the remaining 20 or so directly from Panini in Italy. When they arrived Eli delightedly stuck them in. Months of collecting were over.

I think next time (if Eli's motivated to collect them as a 13 year old) we'll start earlier. The few shops that sold the stickers in Australia stopped selling them almost as soon as the world cup was over. I worried at one point that our book would go uncompleted, but we made it. I'm (somewhat irrationally) pleased with our efforts..

Here's a short video of Eli's album...