Unusually, this card was chosen for the first name of the featured player, Mark, primarily for the Deutsche Mark, which was the coinage of Germany - and has a long story, being also used in many of the areas which were eventually combined to form modern Germany. In fact it was only named Mark in the ninth century, and that is a Latin word relating to weight, specifically eight troy ounces of gold.
It was also used, through the years, in the German colonies, as well as Estonia and Poland, but the only other country than Germany using it at the time of the changeover to the euro was Finland, though they called theirs either the Marka, or the Markka.
And it still remains the currency of Bosnia/Hercegovina
Our featured player, Mark Thomas Lawrenson, was born in June 1957, in Preston, in Lancashire, but he played internationally for the Republic of Ireland, his grandfather having been born in Waterford.
He is shown here in his Liverpool strip, but he started out with his home side, Preston North End. Brighton and Hove came after, starting in 1977, though interest was also shown at that time by Liverpool. Then, towards the end of his time at Brighton and Hove Albion things were not going so good for the side, and many cutbacks were being made, one of which saw our man being put up for sale, in 1981 - and, this time, Liverpool did manage to secure his services, for the record fee of £900,000.
Today, he is best known for this time with Liverpool, during which they won many honours, both in the league and internationally. However, despite the glory, in 1988 he was injured, in what was at first thought to be just a minor way, but from which he never really recovered to full strength. He then moved into managing, and had a few seasons with smaller clubs, before moving into commentating on television and radio, something which he not only enjoyed, but proved very good at.
This set was issued with "candy sticks", which older readers, including me, remember by another name, of sweet cigarettes.
For some reason, they went to the expense of printing several different boxes, not just changing the colour but the artwork on the front as well. You can see them all at the Trading Card Database/PackagingBF83 - and this also shows the album, for which the cover picture is yet another picture.
There`s a checklist for the set there too, on another page.