Now here is Bobby Brennan, or, more correctly, Robert Anderson Brennan, who played most of his league matches for Norwich City. However the answer to our sneaky teaser was that after he left Norwich City but, after he left them, in 1961 he actually joined Kings Lynn Football Club.
King's Lynn F.C. was founded in 1881 but went out of business in 2009. However the following year they were back, as Lynn F.C.. and are still going as Kings Lynn Town F.C. I do not know if you can find any cards with any of these clubs on but I look forward to hearing that you did.... as always the email is webmaster@card-world.co.uk
And please also get in touch if you can answer the question posed on this card - namely which goalkeeper was picked for Scotland to play against the Army but lost his place when it was discovered he was born in Surrey ?
Now Mr. Brennan is also not very well recorded on cards, despite his almost four hundred games, and his five caps for Northern Ireland. Even the Trading Card Database/BBrennan has him on just three cards. There is also little about him online. He was born in 1925, in Belfast, and we know that he must have worked for the shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, because what is said to be his first appearance was with the Harland and Wolff Welders team. That almost certainly provides us with his job as well. Now it then says he played for a team called Bloomfield United, but until I am corrected I think this came first, for they were formed in East Belfast in the 1950s from members of the Bloomfield Methodist church and Boys Brigade. He also played for the Dunville & Co. works team in Lisburn, which was known as The Distillery Football Club. At the end of the 1940s, or perhaps after his return from the Second World War, he moved to England and played for Luton Town, Birmingham City and Fulham, joining Norwich City in 1953. He was there for just three years before moving across the country to Great Yarmouth Town, but this seems not to have been to his liking as in 1957 he was back at Norwich City. Then, in 1961, he moved to King`s Lynn.
He died in Norwich in 2002.
Our original British Trade Index part II tells us that this set is from the "Footballers Grouping" which appears in full with the Card of the Day for October 19 2024, simply because that was the first football set ever to be issued by A & B.C. Gum, in 1958-1959. All the other sets are tackled like today`s, in as much as they simply repeat their section of the listing, and not how it interacts with the other sets.
So today`s card is listed as :
FOOTBALLERS GROUPING (A). Md. or Lg. 8 backs illustrated at Fig. ABF-10. Nd. ... ABF-10
2. Portrait in circle, coloured surround. Back in black, style of back 2, except Nos 42 & 84 which are team pictures with back headed "Footballer Checklist" in horizontal format. 90 x 64 (84). Variety at No.42, descriptive text
a) black on white
b) white on black.
You can find a checklist of all the players courtesy of the Football Cartophilic Info Exchange/F.1-2 - which reveals the two team pictures to be No.42 Wolverhampton Wanderers and No.84 Blackpool.
As to why these teams got the honours, I do not know - the only thing I found to be notable after a long time of hunting was that on Saturday the 14th of January 1961, the match between the two was abandoned after only nine minutes due to fog. But I have since been told that Wolverhampton won the 1960 F.A. Cup Final, which justifies their place. And as for Blackpool, they did become one of the first football clubs in England to have their game televised, but not until the 10th of December 1960, against Bolton Wanderers, when they unfortunately lost 1-0.
Despite the fact that most dealers call this set "Footballers 1960-61", or "Footballers, black backs", there is evidence that it was originally called "Famous Footballers".
Now by the time of our next edition of the British Trade Index, part III, there has been a bit of a change and the entry there reads :
2. Portrait in circle. Back of player cards "Rub Edge of coin ... for Magic answer". (84). Issued 1960-61, in two batches, 1/42 and 43/84