On Wikipedia, Top Trumps is described as this:
Top Trumps is a card game. Each card contains a list of numerical data, and the aim of the game is to compare these values in order to try to trump and win an opponent’s card. For example, in a pack based on cars, each card shows a different model of car, and the stats and data may include its engine size, its weight, its length, and its top speed. The cards may deliver camouflaged learning, or learning through play, as reading about the facts on the cards, and enhancing memory and maths skills through the use of comparing the data, adds an educational benefit.
So, was this the gateway drug to statto-esque nerdism or an exciting, social way to develop knowledge of the world?
Oh, definitely the latter!
If you were playing Top Trumps in the late 1970s, you’d have had a chance to play with not just one, but two Peter Ward. The first features the young rapscallion showing off his dribbling skills in the yellow Bukta away kit, and also looking pleased as Punch in his towelly blue hooded top in the inset…
Then, curiously, although Ward added another sixteen League goals in 1979/80, not to mention his one international appearance in the close season, his total only went up by fifteen goals here…
Perhaps, the card came out in mid-April 1980, then.
But just to show that the Albion team wasn’t just the Peter Ward show, Teddy Maybank is also featured on a card…
In his biography, Ward said:
Teddy was a good player and Mullery loved him. I was struggling to score when Teddy came into the side but I was playing OK. We were only scoring a goal a game, whereas we had been used to getting two, three or four goals every time we played at the Goldstone. The defenders were better and we weren’t getting as many chances, but I didn’t doubt that I would start scoring again.
Finally, boo!
Here’s a Top Trump card of Mickey Thomas, in his Wales garb, and it’s not surprising considering his short stay at the Goldstone. If points were given for turning out to be poor value for money for us, at £350,000 from Everton, then the undoubted talented but troubled midfielder would have been hard to have trumped. As long as his card didn’t go AWOL…
The Goldstone Wrap 