True Vintage

A framed 12 × 10 inch photograph of the England 1966 World Cup winning team carrying original signatures — Nobby Stiles, Roger Hunt, Gordon Banks, Jack Charlton, George Cohen, Ray Wilson, Martin Peters, Alan Ball and Geoff Hurst. The Bid4Sport certificate is dated 21 June 2006 and guarantees it as an original and authentic item. Ray Wilson signed straight over Bobby Charlton in the photograph. Nobody knows why.

I bought it around the turn of the century from bid4sport.com — the charity sports memorabilia auction site Barry Venison set up while he was working as an ITV pundit. I was living in Asia at the time and bought a fair few things from it.

Bobby Charlton signed separately — on my invitation to the British Ambassador’s Residence in Bangkok. Seven o’clock on 16 February, lounge suit, to meet the Minister for Sport Tony Banks, FA Chairman Keith Wiseman and Sir Bobby Charlton.

That reception was not a social occasion. February 1998 was when England’s campaign to host the 2006 World Cup moved into Asia, and Thailand mattered because Worawi Makudi sat on the FIFA Executive Committee — one of the twenty-four votes. Banks, Wiseman and Charlton were the people sent to do it. England lost the vote to Germany.

A Leeds United 2002/03 home shirt from the Strongbow era signed by the squad. Another Bid4Sport purchase from the early 2000s — the certificate is signed by Barry Venison himself.

The names on it are a snapshot of a club about to fall: Viduka, Kewell, Radebe, Harte, Robinson, Woodgate, Bowyer, Smith, Dacourt, Fowler, Barmby, Kelly, Gray, Kidd, Bakke, Duberry, Morris and Martyn.

Leeds had reached a Champions League semi-final in 2001. By 2002/03 they were fighting relegation. Venables went in March, Peter Reid came in, and survival was settled at Highbury on 4 May — Arsenal 2 Leeds 3, Kewell turning away from two defenders and finishing from twenty-five yards, Harte from the spot and Viduka with the winner against the defending champions. Leeds finished fifteenth, four points clear.

They went down the following season and kept going down. This shirt is the last season before the collapse — and somewhere in that squad list is a sixteen-year-old James Milner.