The magazine is lavishly packed with photographs from cover to cover and features an article, 'With the Amateurs,' about Erich and Belvedere F.C. complete with a team photo. There are spotlight pages on Port Vale with photos, and wonderful hand-coloured photos of Ronnie Allen, and Willie Davie, If you’re looking for photos of family members in team line-ups from that era, the magazine has a selection of team photographs as follows:Luton Town, Wigan Athletic, Doncaster Rovers, and Scunthorpe United, Port Vale.
In the early 1950s, color photography was rare and expensive for publications. To add visual appeal, many photos—especially on covers and center spreads—were black-and-white prints that artists then hand-coloured. This gave the images a distinctive, sometimes slightly surreal look, with bright, flat colors and bold contrasts.
These hand-coloured photos were created by artists who painted directly onto black-and-white images, using watercolors, dyes, or tinted oils to bring them to life with vivid, often slightly surreal colours. The colouring was sometimes slightly inaccurate—kits or backgrounds could vary, and even the ball was sometimes inserted—but that was part of the charm.
The artists at Soccerbooks have taken these classic 1950s A4 hand-coloured images and elevated them with the latest art technology, producing stunning A4 prints that are perfect for framing—all for as little as £9.99. You can explore the collection here:
Hand Coloured Prints A manuscript from the forthcoming book (2026/27),
Finding Its Voice: The Identity Quest of Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly, is being shared
here. If you have any memories or information about the magazine, please feel free to leave a comment— We’d love to hear from you—and maybe even have a chat!
We’ve got the biggest collection of vintage football books, annuals, magazines, and a variety of cigarette and bubble gum cards that were popular back in the day. If you think you, a family member, or even an ancestor might appear in one of the thousands of photos in our publications, just email us your details to archives@soccerbooks.co.uk and we’ll help you find out; just allow 2 to 3 weeks for a reply.
