The David McCreery Collection
Back in the day, players didn’t have the choice of keeping a few shirts as souvenirs from their football season on a whim.
I know players from the 1970’s who have told me that they had one long sleeved shirt, one short sleeved shirt and that if, perish the thought, one got damaged or stolen or swapped or whatever, the hoops they had to go through to get a replacement often beggared belief. A special occasion, such as a Cup final or promotion usually saw a souvenir, as the Cup in particular would tend to be a special one for that game, badged and presented accordingly, and quite right too. As the trend of the tracksuit top for walking out began, these seem to have got hung on to in many cases it would seem, and International shirts tended to see the match spare or sometimes even the match worn swapped with a club colleague or admired opponent.
However it's rare to see a couple, let alone a collection, and if you add medals into the mix, any such collection would be clearly an interesting one on many levels. In our auction on October the 1st in Manchester, our sale offers several wonderful examples, with the David McCreery collection just being that little bit special, to say the least.
David McCreery Collection Highlight Lots
McCreery was a real players player. Born in Belfast, he followed the path of so many great players from Ireland, joining Manchester United aged 17, a move that would see him gain an FA Cup Winners Medal to go with his runners up, a Charity Shield win as well as international recognition for Northern Ireland. He then joined QPR for a brief period before moving to Newcastle United, where he would make the most League appearances he notched for any club. Spells with Hearts, Hartlepool and Carlisle led to a successful spell in coaching. At one point, the respect he commanded in the game for his knowledge of the football machine and how it worked saw him become European Representative for Argentinian giants Boca Juniors.
He represented his country at full level on 67 occasions and also in the World Cup in both 1982 and 1986, making the All Star Select XI in 82- a mark of his continuously top level performances throughout the tournament. He also made history by being the first player to wear Nike boots in the Finals- some trendsetter given the names that have, if you pardon the pun, followed in his footsteps.
What a career for a lad from Belfast, and we at Graham Budd are delighted to offer for sale in Manchester on October 1st, the wonderful collection he amassed over that time. In our industry, anything Man Utd is always a little bit special when it comes to collectors. Cup Final shirts, walk out tracksuit tops, Northern Ireland shirts, international swap shirts, International Caps- it’s a football career from start to finish- a book of football in which the items are the pages, and what a read it is.
All of it is wonderful, but some of the Manchester United items are unreal. This includes an Admiral walk out top for the League Cup Final in a cream chenille material that is off the scale, and a blue travel top by the same manufacturer in a similar material that will also turn heads, as well as the Final shirts, medals and some old school Newcastle United shirts as well. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, and if I am rambling on then it’s simply because I have had the honour of cataloguing the collection, and its without doubt one of the best we have had for a while, and well deserving of being offered for sale in our forthcoming Manchester auction.
