“GOT, GOT, NEED!” – THOSE WHO HAVE EVER COLLECTED AN ALBUM WITH STICKERS, KNOW!
Poured by
Marija Miteva
The World Cup football is coming soon, the world enters into soccer euphoria from the passionate fans, to the ” rubberneck” 😊 who cheer for the one who wins. But the football magic gets a special charm from the most interesting group of people that don’t distinguish adult, racial, religious differences. They are eagerly awaiting every next World Cup to collect their new World Cup album with stickers and they are terribly annoyed when they heard in the newsstand “We don`t have it yet”. Sticking the thumbnails with your favorite football players, marking the winners of the games, the joys when playing a “tap” will pick up the best sticker of the opponent, changing with a pair -unpair, wearing a A4 sheet format twisted into dozens with recorded duplicates, exchanges, assemblies to change, complete the whole club! Beautiful “Got, got, NEED” friendship! Today they are still gathering in Central City Park in Skopje and together they contribute to pre-football euphoria.
Collecting an album with stickers is a chronicle of one time. As children we have many hobbies, who knows whether we are imposed, or it is a collecting passion that a human has from the earliest age. When I was a kid, we were collecting napkins and petals. The one who had the oldest napkins and petals or brought from abroad was the coolest in the neighborhood. Then we collected sticker albums. From the animal kingdom to albums with cartoon characters and, finally, an album for the World and European Championships. We beg for 10 denars and together with the other ten that we hid in pockets we bought stickers instead of ice cream and dessert. How many desserts we just gave up for five new album stickers. Do you remember that joy when you open a packet of stickers and not one is a duplicate or a flashy one falls or one that is “hard to get”!?
For those “hard to get” we three, four duplicates for one. We gathered in a neighborhood, so we went to arranged gatherings to stickers, the parents exchanged at work, grandmothers said if we eat everything we will get two new packages, the grandfathers before playing chess have the duplicates of their grandchildren and when you see the whole world is living in the fervor to fill the album. And so, it remained today. The children then grew physically, but not the child in them, who rejoiced at every new collection of an album with stickers. New generations arrived with new euphoria. Collecting stikers is a lively and special feeling, much bigger than the idea of picking up an entire album and perhaps sending it for a rewarding game. You open the album completely empty and the first thing you do – you feel the smell of brand new sticker album- from this perspective, it’s the smell of childhood. Then you list and imagine the stickers that will stick in the empty rectangles. You read all the articles, browse through it a hundred times, you take it even for sleeping. You write down all the results of the finished matches and after years and years you have an insight into what happened at the 1982 World Cup. Learn new information about players that you did not even know existed; you find new things about your favorite players such as:
- Darko Pancev at the 1990 championship gave 2 out of 4 goals for Yugoslavia.
- In Panini’s World Cup 2002 album, royalties were not made since the beginning of the tournament, with thumbnails for Irish footballers, so those with an Irish sticker were considered real lucky, and a picture with an Irish contestant changed in a few thumbnails.
- In the album of Panini Eurofootball 1998-99 for the first time, two Macedonian teams of Vardar and Sloga Jugomagnat appear as representatives in Europe.
- In the Panini’s albums for the world championships, Macedonians who played for other national teams also knew – among the best known are Marek Jankulovski (Czech Republic, World Championship 2006) and Jovan Kirovski (USA, World Championship 2002).
- In Panini’s Euro 2000 album, the Spanish national football team were photographed in their club instead of representative jerseys, which is a precedent in such an album.
5 most satisfying feelings associated with filling album with thumbnails:
- The smell of a new album
- Opening a new package
- When you get a “hard to get” sticker.
- When you peel off the sticker of the white hart from the first
- When you tape the image exactly in the rectangle
Today in a time of globalization, perhaps it’s simpler, you can buy more packages for a lower price from the internet, you can collect an online album, arrange to change stickers of Facebook groups from anywhere on the globe, share Instagram experience with the hash tag #GotGotNeed and what else … But still something is left of the old school, there is no better feeling than being part of the atmosphere with the people around you!
