FOOTBALL 79 As Bob Paisley led Liverpool to his third Division One title and Forest splashed the cash to help conquer Europe, Panini further established its number one spot in the collectables market with Football 79. Now with formal approval from the Football League – as well as the English and Scottish Professional Footballers’ Associations – Panini’s collection stood out among all other football sticker albums. Football 79 was also a step up in quality from Panini on the back of their UK domestic debut the previous season. Player images were now almost all from the previous summer’s preseason photoshoots, ensuring the latest kits were shown (always an issue for rival albums that came out earlier). The shiny club badges were replaced by a denim-style material with a silky finish. Many collectors still look back on these as the high point of Panini innovation. All Scottish League Premier Division clubs (not just the ‘Old Firm’) now had a double-page spread in an album of nearly 600 stickers (an increase of 69 from the previous season). The stickers themselves changed shape a bit as well, and was
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slightly taller and narrower than Football 78. Before getting into the usual team pages, Football 79 opened with a six-part map of the UK, pinpointing every club in the English First and Second Divisions, as well as the Scottish League Premier Division. This was a great feature, as well as being the kind of geography lesson no one ever got at school!
The shiny club badges were replaced by a denim-style material with a silky finish. Many collectors still look back on these as the high point of Panini innovation. Once more distributed via Shoot!, the album and a packet of stickers were given away with the magazine dated 27 January (to be precise, on sale on Friday 19 January), followed by two more packets the following week. The
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