So our first clue for this week was of James McClean, who was one of the first footballers to admit openly that he is autistic - but he only decided to get himself tested after finding out his daughter was autistic, and realising many of his behaviours mirrored hers. recognizing many similarities between his own traits and those of his young daughter, who is also autistic. In fact he mainly admitted it to show her that everything was possible, despite the diagnosis, but he has gone on to use his social media to support many people, and call for greater awareness of the condition.
James Joseph McClean was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, on the 22nd of April, 1989, and started his footballing career with the local amateur side of Trojans Youth and Community Group. He then stepped up to the Semi-Professional side of Institute F.C., which again play in Derry, and whilst he was there became of age to join the adult team rather than the youth one, though at the same time he was still playing for the Northern Ireland under 21s.
However after just a year he moved to Derry City, where he stayed until 2011, when he was snapped up by Sunderland. This was when he seems to have made his cartophilic debut, part of Topps "Match Attax Premier League Extra" for the 2011-12 season. Now the important word there is "Extra" for it is an additional set with new signings and squad updates, and on the card he is shown in his new Sunderland strip
He openly admitted he missed Derry City, which is probably why he moved on so frequently, spending but two years in Sunderland and then the same with Wigan Athletic. And his homesickness was almost certainly not helped by his frequent appearances for the Republic of Ireland, which started in 2012. In fact the bulk of his cards show him in his international strip
He left Wigan Athletic in 2015 to join West Bromwich Albion. There seem to be no cards of him at Wigan, but he does appear in a West Bromwich Albion strip as card 336 of the 2016-17 "Match Attax Premier League" cards, presumably for the first time.
He moved across to Stoke City in 2018. This is where he played what is considered the bulk of his games, a hundred and two, but it is only in a single sitting, for in 2021 he moved back to Wigan Athletic (which if we add both terns together gives him 152 games for them in total).
In 2023 he went to Wrexham, staying there until 2026, and then in 2026 he returned to Derry City, which means that his match total there is also set to rise.
Our Topps Match Attax Premier League card for the season 2017-18, which shows him still at West Bromwich Albion, is another of those sets which has a base set and then lots of inserts, just to make it ever more difficult to complete a set without spending a footballer`s salary on them, but also to blur the lines as to what is a complete set anyway. So there are eight different insert sets connected to this, which are
- sixteen "International Stars"
- twenty "Kit Cards" showing current team strips only, not players
- eight "Limited Editions" cards, in bronze, gold and silver, of the following players only - Sergio Aguero, Christian Eriksen, Roberto Firmino, Javier Hernandez, Laurent Koscielny, David Luiz, Paul Pogba, and Wayne Rooney
- two "Limited Editions" cards in Platinum, both of Kevin de Bruyne
- forty "Live Code Cards", which allowed you to access digital cards and content with a code on each card.
- six "Tactics", cards on facets of the game
Then there is another set of sixty cards, which were only inserted in what were known as a "Mega Tin" of cards. This has another complication, because there were more than one "Mega Tin", you could get "Defensive Heroes", "Game Changers", "Goal Machines" and "Midfield Masters".
And if that were not enough, there is also a strange promotional set of eight cards which was to do with the Premier League Asia Trophy Tournament, first held in 2003 and last held in 2019.