“It’s a goal!” - a card game with a kick!

 

The buying of vintage games is big business. Its an interesting hobby and can be lucrative – or may be one day! People pay for vintage games that are complete and in good condition.

Condition is key. However, most great games get worn out – so to find a great vintage game in good condition and complete can be quite a challenge.

 

I recently bought “It’s a goal!”, a football card game, from the late 1950’s.

The cards are works of art. Cards of the 1950’s kits of the teams in Division 1 and 2.

I was interested to see my boyhood club Bury FC (now defunct) in the Division 2 set of cards.

I have noticed someone is framing and selling individual cards for £4 each + postage, that’s one way to make money from vintage card games!

 

The game itself is a little primitive. Many of the cards have a number of yards in the corner which must be played in sequence to reach 120 yards to score a goal. Three goals and you win.

However, there are free kick cards, obstruction and cancel cards which negate the attack. There is the possibility of a penalty but also a missed penalty or saved penalty to scupper a chance of a goal.

The game can be played by more than two players by decreasing the number of cards in each hand at the beginning of a round.

There are further rules about which card you can play where and when. For example, your goalkeeper can only contribute to the move in the first 60 yards and you can’t claim a penalty until 20 yards from goal.

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Does the game have a kick? Well, perhaps a gentle nudge?

My review scores (out of 5) are:

APPEARANCE *****

EASE OF PLAY **

SKILL LEVEL ***

ADDICTION DANGER **

TOTAL 12/20

“The game is enjoyable and can become a little addictive. The skill is judging whether to go for goal yourself or seek to block off your opponent(s) advances towards goal." 

“You can imagine a family or group of mates (with a brown ale) sitting at a card table playing the game and enjoying seeing their local team kit completing the move to score the winning goal.”

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This game was around before the days of celebrity Soccer stars and major advertising. This keeps the game and concept pure and simple, but just imagine the money they could have made with George Best, Denis Law et al on the cards, or a modern version would make today with individual cards to be collected in packs like the Panini stickers? (mmm... there's a thought!)