The reason for this card was that in September 1937 the first ever televised football match appeared on the BBC. It was a special match between the main Arsenal squad and the reserve squad. It was really only a test, and not nationally broadcast, so only those who lived close to Alexandra Palace managed to tune in. And apparently this man, C. M. Buchan, scored the first goal - the first ever goal to be seen on television. On this card he was with Sunderland, with whom he played in the 1913 F.A. Cup Final, and which was the team he left to join the Sherwood Foresters and fight in the First World War. He came back, with the Military Medal (details of which ought to follow by Saturday). This card proves that after the war he rejoined Sunderland, but in 1925 he joined Woolwich Arsenal, and was still there when the BBC came calling. And after he had left football as a player, he turned to commentating, for the BBC.
This is an unusual card, which was issued through a magazine called "Sport & Adventure", and that is why it appears in both sets of our Trade Indexes as SPO. However research seems to suggest that this was owned by Amalgamated Press.
The cards were issued weekly between the 29th of April and the 12th of August 1922 and measure 68 x 44 m/m but they vary because as our picture suggests they were issued in strips. The first twelve strips, containing cards 1-42, were three cards long, with this line and cut mark between each, but the last two strips only had two cards on each.