A DINNER WITH ABERDEEN FOOTBALL CLUB

I recently attended a dinner with Aberdeen Football Club as part of a charity event. Aberdeen being my home team I was extremely excited to get up close and personal with the squad and also hoped to be given the chance to get my hands on signed football memorabilia.

The dinner went smoothly and the players seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as the guests, probably partly to do with the amount of champagne that was flowing! After the dinner the guests were given the opportunity to meet the players. Of course, I jumped on the prospect of being able to broaden my collection of football signed memorabilia.

I got talking to two players in particular, Fraser Fyvie; who is set to be Aberdeen’s next big player, and Jamie Langfield; Aberdeen’s goalkeeper. The guys seemed very genuine and were extremely helpful in terms of getting the other players to autograph footballs. They also introduced me to their manager Craig Brown, who was kind enough to sign photographs. This was set to be an interesting piece of football memorabilia to add to my collection.

It was obvious that the team was very appreciative of the support that they received from the guests and this was shown by the amount of signed football shirts and autographed photos that we were able to come away with.

Not only are dinners with footballers and other famous names a good way of raising funds for charities, they also make a useful contribution to the amount of autographs for sale within Memorabilia4U’s sports autographs’ collection. It was a very enjoyable evening and I will definitely be looking forward to more of these events in the near future.

HOW TO COLLECT AUTHENTIC SPORTS MEMORABILIA

For those of you interested in collecting signed sports memorabilia, I will try and pass on some valued information I have acquired over the years collecting authentic sports memorabilia. It is very difficult to collect all types of memorabilia and autographed photos unless you have autograph collectors working for you. If you have you have got to make sure they are indeed collecting the autographs and not simply buying sporting memorabilia from another collector, which in turn could lead to the possibility of fake memorabilia. So with this in mind you have to know who is getting the hand signed autographs for you and check to make sure they are indeed collecting sport autographs and not buying them in. This you can do buy getting the collector to date when the signed shirts or autograph photos were collected along with visual proof if possible.

 

I prefer to collect my own autographed football memorabilia or for those in the States soccer autographs. I have managed to collect some awesome

Tiger Woods autographs as well as many items of signed sports memorabilia and have even collected Pele memorabilia on my travels overseas. This however is costly so to keep costs down try and collect locally and concentrate on visitors coming to your area. Another way you can collect is if a company is launching football merchandise they will often have autographed photos of players or the players themselves autograph sports memorabilia at the venue. One of my favourite haunts for collecting sports autographs are golf courses. I have managed to find a golf tournament which not only has sportsmen but celebrities playing as well and have collected autographed music memorabilia, autographed posters, movie autographs and many hand signed autographs all at one venue (a collectors dream!!) Another area where you can collect autographed footballs is at football stadiums I have a famous football team virtually on my doorstep, however I prefer to get an autographed football from the visiting team, what I do is find out which hotel they are staying at and try and get the visiting team to autograph sports memorabilia the night before the match, then I wait at the stadium before and after the game to get the signatures of the players I missed earlier. This is often very time consuming, you need loads of patience and warm drinks.

 

Autographs memorabilia and f1 memorabilia are not always easy to collect, I spent years trying to get a Michael Schumacher autograph, I went to practice sessions, events, race tracks and after several years of trying I bumped into him in a hotel in London and got him to sign my favourite piece of formula 1 memorabilia….. the back of my business card. It was a strange weekend as I was going down to collect cricket memorabilia and hopefully get cricket autographs at Lords. I ended up having more success spotting celebrities in my hotel and the restaurant’s

I frequented. I got many famous signatures on menu’s, cards and even a signed shirt ( the one I was wearing) as I ran out of cards. But the highlight of the weekend was getting a Chelsea shirt signed for my nephew by Frank Lampard.

 

The one thing I have learned about collecting autographs is ALWAYS carry an autograph album and a sharpie pen with you at all times as you never know who you might bump into!!!