TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1995/96

Tottenham Hotspur had 13 figures released as part of the FAPL range of Headliners including their manager at the time Gerry Francis. All 12 outfield players were released in a 12 player box set with only the manager being made exclusively available on single blister format.

 

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The set was comprised of some great figures, one of which is my personal favourite football player ever and the entire reason why i support Newcastle United Ruel Fox. The Ruel Fox figure was originally intended to be released in the Newcastle United kit, here is why:

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All the Tottenham Hotspur figures PL numbers end in 8 except for Fox and Sinton (will get onto Sinton later.) The PL number for Fox is PL27 and all the Newcastle United figures PL numbers end in 7. Fox transferred to Tottenham from Newcastle shortly after the start of the 1995/96 season, so given the time scale involved in producing a figure it is most likely that when the Fox figure was originally sculpted he was at Newcastle United and so was assigned a Newcastle PL number.

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Another figure was also intended originally to be part of another team and that figure was Andy Sinton whose PL number is PL153 and i believe he was planned to be released in the kit of Sheffield Wednesday. All the Sheffield Wednesday figures PL numbers ended in number 3 and Sinton transferred to Tottenham Hotspur from them in the early part of 1996, before the figures release in October of 1996.

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The third interesting point about these figures is the fact that there are 2 different versions of the Chris Armstrong figure! He was released in two different skin shades. The first is a more tan looking shade and this was released in the single blister in January 1996, the other figure has a far lighter skin shade, which is the same shade as the 97/98 Armstrong and was released as part of the 12 player box set in October 1996. A reason for this may have been that either the club, the player himself or indeed Corinthian themselves were not happy with the original skin shade and so changed it when the figure was produced again for the 12 pack.

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This was the first release of Sol Campbell, with the figure being used for subsequent releases of him, while the Ian Walker and Darren Anderton were the same as feature in the England Squad 1996 set.

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The other 6 were first and only time sculpts, they would never again be released by Corinthian, those being Colin Calderwood, Andy Sinton, Jason Dozzell, Dean Austin, Justin Edinburgh and David Howells, all are excellent sculpts and their single blister packs can be hard to find these days, however loose they are relatively easy to obtain.

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A couple of the figures which hit the shops differed to the actual master models pictured on the collector cards, those were Ian Walker who's body pose differed as did Spurs legend Teddy Sheringham, whose collector card pictured him in a far more upright pose than the released figure.

 

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Corinthian also released a Spurs 4 pack.

TH4A = Darren Anderton, Teddy Sheringham, Ian Walker & Chris Armstrong

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There was also a 12 figure team pack which contained all 12 players, with just manager Gerry Francis omitted from inclusion in the pack.

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All figures were released as single blister packs, coming with collector card and collectors information file.

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