UK’s Football Heroes

The Royal Mail is issuing a set of stamps featuring some of the UK’s biggest soccer heroes to mark the 150th anniversary of Association Football rules being established.

The first class stamps, Football Heroes, show the stars in their home country’s strip, including John Charles (Wales), Denis Law (Scotland), George Best (Northern Ireland) and Jimmy Greaves (England).

The stamps were illustrated by artist Andrew Kinsman.

Andrew Hammond of Royal Mail said: “The stamps celebrate heroes of the beautiful game who excelled on the pitch at club and national level and are rightly considered icons of the sport.’’

Sir Trevor Brooking, FA director of football development, said: “It is fantastic that that Royal Mail has honoured a whole team of these heroes from across the United Kingdom.’’

The other stamps feature Gordon Banks, John Barnes, Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan, Bobby Moore, Bryan Robson (all England), and Dave Mackay (Scotland).