John Barnes: got. David Beckham: got. Ruud Gullit: got. Andrei Kanchelskis: got. Matthew Le Tissier: got. Alan Shearer: got.
Looking back through the football autographs I collected as a child in the 1990s feels delightful and discomfiting. The Merlin sticker albums, Pro Set cards and Shoot annuals chronicle a youth spent travelling the country with my dad, watching Coventry City take on the great and the good of the top flight at the dawn of the Premier League. We would hunt for the visiting teams at local hotels before each game, aiming to bag a handful of signatures when the players went for their mid-morning walk, then sneak around the back of Highfield Road after the match – darting past security, through the executive suites, to the players’ exit – where we would complete our haul as the players boarded the team buses.
