Sticker album completed, 17 years later

[Part/Time Supporter]

Nice story

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-24992646

A man who was missing six stickers from a 1990s football album tracked down the players in question so he could complete his collection.

Adam Carroll-Smith, a 29-year-old Portsmouth fan who lives in the city, found the 1996 Merlin Premier League album in his attic.

It took him six months to trace the missing players, visit them and take their photos for his album.

Mr Carroll- Smith said: "They were all fantastic, really accommodating guys."

He described how he always thought he had completed the 1996 album but had a "gut punch" when he opened it 16 years later to discover six spaces remained.

He immediately decided "a great wrong had to be righted" and started an internet search for former Southampton and Blackburn winger Stuart Ripley.

Now a solicitor, Ripley invited Mr Carroll-Smith to Manchester to take his picture.

Finding the two foreign stars he was missing in his album proved more problematic.

After two cross-channel trips, Mr Carroll-Smith found Newcastle United's Philippe Albert was working in the fruit and vegetable trade in his native Belgium.

Blackburn's Norwegian midfielder Lars Bohinen, meanwhile, was taking part in a Scandinavian version of Strictly Come Dancing.

The rest of the six players were tracked down through internet searching, social media conversations and word-of-mouth contacts through networks of football fans.

For the lifelong Pompey fan, the album represented a "really interesting period" in the game.

"International stars like Dennis Bergkamp were just coming in but most Premier League players were still English," Mr Carroll-Smith said.

"It was on the cusp of the big money wages. Most players from that more innocent era were on good money, but many still had to have jobs after their football careers and are rooted in the real world.

"No matter how modern the game gets, football stickers will always have a nostalgic quality."

But despite his efforts to track down the players and complete the album, Mr Carroll-Smith then made a surprising decision.

Instead of keeping the album he decided to throw it in the Solent at Southsea.

"It was a cathartic experience," said Mr Carroll-Smith, who has written a book about the experience.

"My wife and I have just had our first child, so this was a symbolic way of showing I'd grown up.

"The sticker album was then and this is now."

[Danderhall Hibs]

Mental case.

[HibbyAndy]

Albert now in the fruit & veg industry

[Pretty Boy]

All that effort to throw it in the sea. Bit weird.

[Andy74]

It's not okay to litter.

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

he shouldve just forked out the 20p per ticket from the publishers at the time, wouldve saved a fortune! :)

[PerfectlyFranck]

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Albert now in the fruit & veg industry

He owns a company, although I read it just the same; badly worded.

I'll never forget this goal, against my favourite player.

[HibbyAndy]

Dinnae even need to click oan the link aken what goal your oan about..Dink over Schmeical when they molested man yoo 5 zip.

[NadeAteMyLunch!]

Mental. Why not just keep the book?

[leggeto]

Good bit determination there,good on him

[monktonharp]

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Albert now in the fruit & veg industry

aye, he went bannanas as well as the sticker book man

[worcesterhibby]

littering moron

[soupy]

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Mental. Why not just keep the book?

Cos he's all grown up now, seems he just needed move on...:-)

[barcahibs]

This is going to sound really petty, but...

What sort of halfwit just throws their crap into the sea? Is there some sort of blackhole under the Solent that transports it into another galaxy?

I regularly volunteer doing beach cleans and we fill a van full of this sort of moron's rubbish every time. Next time maybe we'll dump it in his garden

/endrant

I never did finish a sticker album - partly because I refused to put the hearts stickers in.

[tanfield]

bit extreme. could have just got the missing stickers on eBay. I completed an old panini one dating back to 1983 earlier on this year.

[Eyrie]

Throwing the album away like that is disrespectful to the six ex-players he was missing who were kind enough to help him. If he didn't want it, then he should have sold it on eBay or given it away rather than pollute the seas.

[danhibees1875]

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bit extreme. could have just got the missing stickers on eBay. I completed an old panini one dating back to 1983 earlier on this year.

Have you considered launching it into the forth and writing a book about your experience?

[tanfield]

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Have you considered launching it into the forth and writing a book about your experience?

funnily enough, now that you come to mention it ..............................................


No! ;)

[hibbymick]

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Mental. Why not just keep the book?

Hes moved on now to pastures new, like .....Big N bouncy and MILF o THE MONTH.

Hope he doesnt miss any of those stickers and has to go back years later, pool baws in socks spring to mind.