John Barnes: got. David Beckham: got. Ruud Gullit: got. Andrei Kanchelskis: got. Matthew Le Tissier: got. Alan Shearer: got.<\/p>\n
Looking back through the football autographs I collected as a child in the 1990s feels delightful and discomfiting. The Merlin sticker albums, Pro Set cards and Shoot annuals chronicle a youth spent travelling the country with my dad, watching Coventry City take on the great and the good of the top flight at the dawn of the Premier League<\/a>. We would hunt for the visiting teams at local hotels before each game, aiming to bag a handful of signatures when the players went for their mid-morning walk, then sneak around the back of Highfield Road after the match \u2013 darting past security, through the executive suites, to the players\u2019 exit \u2013 where we would complete our haul as the players boarded the team buses.<\/p>\n Tony Daley: got. Jason Dodd: got. Anders Limpar: got. Des Walker: got. Alf-Inge Haaland: got. Bruce Grobbelaar: got.<\/p>\n It\u2019s 25 years since Coventry were a Premier League team. That\u2019s more than half my life. No other team has returned after such a gap (a clutch of teams had far longer absences from the old First Division, but it\u2019s hard to compare Coventry\u2019s modern-day revival with theirs). The Sky Blues fell three divisions in the first 16 years and played \u201chome\u201d games at Northampton and Birmingham as a protracted stadium ownership saga almost killed the club. We, the fans, desperately held on but nearly gave up. And all the while, life rolled onwards relentlessly. I went to university and then moved to New Zealand, London, Australia and Cornwall; my dad became a pensioner; I had a child of my own; my autographs started to go mouldy in the loft.<\/p>\n Coventry City autographs in a Premier League sticker album from 1996, including Steve Ogrizovic, Paul Williams, Ally Pickering and John Salako. Photograph: Jonny Weeks\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Dion Dublin: got. Darren Huckerby: got. Cobi Jones: got. Gary McAllister: got. Peter Ndlovu: got.<\/p>\n At their best, Coventry were a decent Premier League team who should have finished in the top 10, but somehow never did. We scalped the big boys on a regular basis (Arsenal away via a Micky Quinn hat-trick; Manchester United 3-2 thanks to Darren Huckerby\u2019s solo special<\/a>; Chelsea at home in the first game of the season two years running). We bagged our share of bangers (Stephen Froggatt against Everton in 1998<\/a>) and curios (Dublin against Newcastle in 1997 at Shay Given\u2019s expense<\/a>). We even signed a Brazilian player, Isaias, in 1995 which felt positively exotic at the time. Watching Coventry from our touchline seats in the M&B Stand, I didn\u2019t truly appreciate how lucky I was to be present for those salad days, and to be there with my dad.<\/p>\n My drawing of John Barnes which was signed in 1990.<\/p>\n Eric Cantona: got (but badly smudged). Paul Gascoigne: need. David Ginola: got. Steve McManaman: got lots. Ali Dia: need.<\/p>\n The first rule of autograph memorabilia is: value lies in obscurity. As a boyhood fan I typically wanted to get the superstar footballers such as Cantona, whereas a seasoned collector like my dad, who has upwards of 30,000 autographs dating back to the first world war, cherishes quirky signatures such as that of Lee Hildreth, whose only appearance for Coventry came as an injury time substitute against Burnley in 2007 and lasted just 60 seconds (did he even touch the ball?). The second rule of autograph memorabilia is: one is never enough. I recall finding the so-called Spice Boys Liverpool team at the Hilton hotel on the outskirts of Coventry in the mid-90s and asking Steve McManaman to sign a few of my sticker books. When I pleaded for \u201cjust one more\u201d signature, McManaman looked at me and bellowed for the entire hotel to hear: \u201cAre you having a laugh?\u201d The third rule of autograph memorabilia, which I realised far too late, is: always use a marker pen, because Biro fades almost as fast as your youth.<\/p>\n Pro Set cards from the early 1990s, on the eve of the Premier League, including Geoff Thomas, Josh Fashanu, Bruce Grobbelaar and Tony Dorigo. Photograph: Jonny Weeks\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Ian Wright: got. Ian Woan: got. Ian Bishop: got. Ian Ormondroyd: got. Ian Rush: got. Ian Walker: got.<\/p>\n My dad\u2019s interest in autographs began as a child in Bristol in the 1950s. After his father sold half his collection for the sake of a few beers, that interest turned into obsession. For decades, he travelled the UK and beyond, relentlessly building a collection that no one else could tear away from him. If you\u2019ve kicked a ball professionally for Coventry \u2013 or for Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea \u2013 there\u2019s a good chance my dad has got your autograph. The collection is so vast and so impressive, it belongs in a museum. Instead, it lives in plastic boxes and peach-coloured wardrobes, catalogued in such a perplexing way that only my dad could ever understand it.<\/p>\n Liverpool autographs in a Premier League sticker album from 1996, including David James, Jamie Redknapp, Robbie Fowler and Steve Harkness. Photograph: Jonny Weeks\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Robbie Fowler: got. Chris Kiwomya: got. Henning Berg: got. Tony Dorigo: got. Peter Schmeichel: got. Gary Speed: got.<\/p>\n One summer, presumably around 1995, my dad took me to a sticker swap shop to help me finish that year\u2019s album. However, the event was cancelled, so he promptly drove me across the country to the Merlin offices, where he politely demanded that they give me all the shinies and player portraits I needed. I thought he was heroic. But soon my appetite for autographs was on the wane. In what must have been April 1996, my dad and I were trying to find where QPR were staying. We drove to the Holiday Inn behind Blockbuster Video. It was where the crap teams stayed. \u201cCan you see them?\u201d my dad asked. \u201cNo,\u201d I lied. I didn\u2019t have the heart to tell him I didn\u2019t wish to wait two hours in a drab hotel lobby just to get Kevin Gallen.<\/p>\n A collection of football programmes from the 1990s, including Coventry v Chelsea on the opening day of the 1998-99 season. Photograph: Jonny Weeks\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Richard Shaw: got. Paul Telfer: got. Gary Breen: got. John Hartson: got. Craig Bellamy: no thanks.<\/p>\n For many years the Sky Blues were the top flight\u2019s great escape artists. Needing a win at Tottenham on the last day in 1997 to stay up, we triumphed 2-1 thanks to a thunderbolt from Paul Williams. Nirvana! I can still feel it now. On the journey home in my dad\u2019s burgundy Renault Laguna, bathed in sunshine, listening to fans\u2019 reactions on the radio, it seemed we were invincible. But by 2001 our time was up. I hold Bellamy single-handedly culpable for Coventry\u2019s relegation. In my memory at least, he was an arrogant, petulant player who didn\u2019t score from open play all season (in reality he scored six goals, two of which were penalties). We were relegated at Aston Villa, of all places, when we threw away a two-goal lead to lose 3-2. Wearing my Subaru-sponsored Coventry shirt \u2013 the last kit I ever bought \u2013 I wept in the stands. One fan held aloft a sign saying: \u201cWe\u2019ll be back.\u201d In truth, I wasn\u2019t sure when I would be back. I was 18, soon to leave home and I knew my time as a season-ticket holder was over. It was the bookend to my childhood.<\/p>\n Coventry City fans at Villa Park after their relegation from the top flight in 2001. Photograph: Rui Vieira\/PA Archive\/Press Association Images<\/p>\n Gordon Strachan: got: Roland Nilsson got. Iain Dowie: got. Mark Robins: need. Frank Lampard: got.<\/p>\n Who could have envisaged, then, that Lampard, whose autograph I got when he was a West Ham youngster, would be the man to lead Coventry back to the top flight? Not one of our former players who tried in vain to turn our fortunes around, nor Mark Robins, who oversaw seven years of judicious progress and took us to within a penalty shootout of redemption. Under Lampard, City have bossed the Championship<\/a> thanks to a midfield cast in his image and a sensational goalkeeper in Carl Rushworth who\u2019ll one day star for England. We are overdue another crack at the top tier. Yet, I\u2019m not sure if I really want us to go up. The Premier League looks stale and joyless compared with the division we left behind all those years ago, and there\u2019s a risk we won\u2019t be competitive this time around. Most of all, I worry that demand for tickets will be so high that my dad and I may not even get a chance to attend a top-flight fixture next season. Whatever happens, at least I can live off those precious memories we made together in the 90s \u2013 they\u2019re more valuable to me than any autograph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Barnes: got. David Beckham: got. Ruud Gullit: got. Andrei Kanchelskis: got. Matthew Le Tissier: got. 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