How to win big, even if England don’t
Four more years of hurt could increase the value of football collectibles from this country’s 1966 World Cup win, finds Sophie Christie
England’s bid for World Cup glory kicked off last night, and during the next month or so Gareth Southgate’s team will hope to replicate the success of 1966 by bringing home the most coveted award in football. But a national loss could be a personal gain. If the trophy eludes the England team once more, collectors could find that their memorabilia from the country’s only win becomes more valuable.
Auctioneers say the longer England’s disappointing World Cup record lasts, the higher memorabilia prices are driven. Mark Woodhead, auctioneer at trader Spirit of Sport, said: “Without doubt, the bestselling World Cup items are anything that relates to 1966. The longer the wait for another success, the higher memorabilia prices will go over time.”
The market for souvenirs from England’s solitary World Cup win is thriving, with collectors paying large premiums for almost any item, from shirts and medals to programmes and even ticket stubs. Since the turn of the millennium, there have been some giant sales. A World Cup winner’s medal belonging to Nobby Stiles fetched £160,000 at an auction in 2010, while England goalkeeper Gordon Banks’s 1966 winner’s medal sold for £124,750 in 2001.
Sir Geoff Hurst, hat-trick hero against West Germany in that fateful final, sold his England shirt for £91,750 in June 2000 – although when it was re-listed in 2016 for £300,000 to £500,000, it failed to reach the undisclosed reserve price.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most expensive piece of World Cup memorabilia is the cup itself – or at least a replica of it. When, a few months before the 1966 World Cup, the Jules Rimet trophy was stolen from a public exhibition at Westminster Central Hall, jeweller Dick Bird made a replica to use for display purposes.
The original cup was eventually recovered by a dog named Pickles and returned to the FA, while the replica was auctioned off to a secret bidder for £254,500.
Profits are not restricted to these rarest of items, however. Ticket stubs from the 1966 final, of which there are approximately 97,000, typically sell for between
£100 to £250.
Paul Webb, a collector of football programmes for more than 35 years and founder of the website buyfootball memorabilia.co.uk, recently sold 32 match tickets from the 1966 tournament for a total of £1,700. “Tickets are highly sought after by collectors and can fetch extremely high prices,” he said.
So which items of memorabilia gathering dust in lofts could turn the largest profits?
Shirts
A uniform worn by a World Cup-winning player is typically the bestselling item. The record amount paid for a piece of kit was set in 2002, when a shirt worn by Pelé in the 1970 final – during which he scored for Brazil, the winning side – went for £157,750 at a Christie’s auction.
Last year, a blue Umbro tracksuit “with some mud marks”, which was worn by Bobby Moore during the 1966 tournament, fetched £7,000 at auction, while a 1966 World
Cup shirt belonging to
Terry Paine, who was in the England squad but was not selected for the final match, sold for
£12,000 last month.
Signed goods
Mr Webb said signed memorabilia from 1966 had become more valuable because very few of the surviving players are still able to sign.
“Not that long ago,” he said, “with the exception of the late great Bobby Moore, all of the team were very easy to locate and would hold signing sessions where they would sign anything put in front of them.”
Mr Webb recently sold an A4 sheet of paper featuring the signatures of Sir Alf Ramsey and 17 1966 team members for £400. But not all signatures are equal. Football memorabilia trader Dave Alexander said because of the England team’s willingness to sign memorabilia after their win, the only autograph rare enough to be valuable is Bobby Moore’s.
Posters
Official posters from the 1966 tournament, such as ones featuring the
World Cup
Willie mascot or those by British
Rail indicating the different football grounds hosting matches, have fetched upwards of £100 at auction over the past few years. Specialist auctioneer Mullock’s sold an original Carvosso 1966 Football World Cup Finals poster, featuring the dates and venues of each match, for £220 in 2015. Last December, auctioneer Ewbank’s sold a film poster of Goal! The World Cup (1966) for £380 – more than double the estimated price.
Programmes
A match-day programme from a major World Cup game can net collectors big returns.
Mullock’s sold a programme from the 1966 final, in good condition, for £90 in 2016. A programme from the West Germany v Hungary final of the 1954 World Cup in Berne, plus an official autograph album, sold for £320 at Ewbank’s in December, far exceeding the £100 estimated price.
Newspapers
Getting your hands on memorabilia doesn’t have to cost a lot. Newspaper clippings and magazine articles could become valuable items. Auctioneer Stacey’s sold a collection of newspapers, including The People, News of the World, The Express, The Telegraph, The Times, The Mirror and
four German newspapers, from the day after the World Cup on July 31 1966, for £75.
Mascots
Any merchandise featuring mascot Willie, whether a tea towel or mug, is worth something, Mr Alexander said.
A commemorative gilt metal tray featuring Willie kicking a football at Wembley Stadium, still in its original packaging, sold for £180 last year.
Anyone who has kept a toy of the mascot safe all these years could make £50 to £100 selling it today – not a bad return, considering it originally cost around £1 in today’s money.