Card of the Day - 2022-06-04

So here we have a footballer - E. F. Brook of Manchester City, who is named on the reverse as Eric. F was for Fred. He appears on several cards, which you can see at the trading card database - he was born in November 1907 in Mexborough, South Yorkshire and died in March 1965, quite young, aged just 57.

 Now the reason why this card is here is that if you look really carefully there is a white flag, which I think is a corner flag - and it is unusual, plus rather fun, to find not just a portrait, but some other part of sporting life poking its way gently into the picture. It is only sad that it does not seem to happen more often. 

If you look at the front a bit better you will also see something else that is not always there, and that is a signature, in this case MAC. And yes, this is the same “MAC” who drew the footballers for “Footballers, Caricatures by MAC” issued in September 1927 by John Player. However in that set. note how the artist is credited as part of the title, whereas in our set they are not. This seems even  odder when you look at the dates, because the Player set which does credit him was issued before this one. so I am not sure why he was famous enough to merit a credit then but not now!

"Mac" of course was his pseudonym, his name was Captain George Douglas Machin DFC, born in January 1893 and only dying in 1985. During the First World War he was with the Hampshire Regiment, heavily involved with balloons, and there are several mentions about this online, but we have found something much better than facts, for there is a most amazing word-press biography of him.

This set first appears in the London Cigarette Card News, Vol.3, No.25, dated October 1935, under “Notes on Current Series”, by C.L. Porter. He lists it as :

OGDEN, Football Caricatures. 50 small cards. This branch of the Imperial has specialised in sporting subjects, and the many collectors interested will welcome this addition to the gallery. The production (in colour) is good, rather reminiscent of one or two Players and Wills issues, with modern improvements. The players are Rugby League and Association (Football League) players, no Rugby Union men being included. Also issued by Hignett.

This set was next recorded in our original 1950 issued Reference Book, RB.15, to Ogden`s Ltd as: 

83. 50 FOOTBALL CARICATURES. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour, caricatures signed “MAC”. Backs in grey, with descriptive text. Home issue, 1935. Similar series issued by Hignett.

it is a bit odd that here there is no reference to the fact that it is Rugby League as well as Association Football. And I wonder how many Rugby League collectors even know this set exists.

Our World Tobacco Issues Indexes list this slightly more succinctly, as  "FOOTBALL CARICATURES. Sm. Nd. (50). See Ha.571-8"   - though strangely the handbook reference is missing in our updated version, so unless you looked first at the Hignett, where the header says “All similar to Ogden`s Series”, you would never know of the connection.

Most curious of all, there is no month of issue recorded for the Ogden`s set, but there is for the Hignett version, which was released in September 1935.