Corinthian football figures fans celebrate joy of collecting

BBC News

06-07-2025

Between 1995 and 2011, British modelmaker Corinthian created and sold thousands of figures of footballers, known lovingly as Big Heads. Though the company has long since gone, the joy their toys bring is as strong as ever. Why?
It's a sweltering day and 200 people are crowded into the stifling Scrutton Bland Premier Suite at Essex County Cricket Club in Chelmsford.They genuinely couldn't look any happier to be there.Mostly men aged from their mid-30s and up, they have come from across the country to attend the first Corinthian Convention in almost two decades.Though their retro football shirts betray club allegiances, all enmities are set aside for the one thing they share - an undying love of Big Heads.
High Wycombe-based Corinthian made toys for cereal packets before scoring big with the release of its debut range of England players in 1995, with the launch party at a Marlow hotel attended by goalkeeper David Seaman.Known as Headliners, figures from English and Scottish clubs and leagues across the world swiftly followed.The popular range was rebranded as Prostars several years later and collectors clamoured for more, with conventions held annually in Birmingham from 1999 to 2007, before Corinthian closed in 2011.
The 2025 convention has been organised as part of the Essex Retro Football Show by the Corinthian Collectors Club (CCC), a group started by fans of the figures on Facebook in 2021, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the figures' launch.David Cook, a 39-year-old marketing lecturer from Burton upon Trent, typifies many of those here.He started collecting when he was nine, having been hooked by a Warren Barton England 96 secret sachet.A childhood of trawling toy shops for Corinthians ensued, but enthusiasm waned in the teenage and early adult years as other distractions emerged, before finally returning in recent years to his first love.
"It just takes you back to those fond childhood memories," he says, adding: "Maybe it's also about control."There is a lot in adult life you can't control, but your collection, that's something you can actually do something about."The CCC community is also a big part of the attraction for David. "It's nice to know there are a few other saddos, ahem, I mean like-minded collectors like me," he jokes.He is now just two figures away from completing his set of the original Headliners range, an impressive - and costly - feat."I can justify it by saying these are an investment," he says.He pauses, everyone knows what's coming next."Not that I'll ever sell them."
Craig Robinson, a 39-year-old stock giftware company manager from Scunthorpe, never had the departure from collecting that most did."The joy has never left me," he says.Craig, the creator of the encyclopaedic Corinthian Archive website, has literally written the book on Big Heads, his Football Crazy Corinthians Mad launched in May.He has more than 10,000 figures in his collection, including dozens of one-off highly coveted master models produced by Corinthian to show what completed figures could look like.They include the likes of Niall Quinn and other Sunderland players who were planned but never released as the Black Cats were relegated from the Premier League.
"In a way my collection is worth nothing," he says, "because I would never sell it."For me now, the biggest enjoyment is actually helping other people get stuff for their collections."The connection to childhood joy and distraction from woes of adult life are strong for Craig.
The Newcastle United fan still gets "giddy now" at the memory of his father picking him up from school one day and pulling out a Shaka Hislop from behind his back.Craig says he was the "right age" when the Big Heads were released and they were a "good price point", his £5-a-week pocket money buying two figures. His collection will never be complete, and neither does he want it to be."It's about the journey," he says. "Once you complete it, then what?"
For many, the 2020 coronavirus pandemic was a re-entering point into the hobby."Covid rejuvenated it," says Dave Rule, a 57-year-old toy dealer and Corinthian specialist from Epsom in Surrey."People had more time and money, they went up into lofts, found their old collections and started thinking about completing them," he adds.Dave has been trading Corinthians for 27 years, having started as a collector who wanted to sell some of his duplicates.The market "died a couple of times", he says, first when Corinthian dropped the Headliners brand at the turn of the century and again when the firm folded in 2011.But now things are almost back to their peak, he says.
Fellow dealer Blain Hoskins agrees the hobby is enjoying a boom.The 37-year-old Dogs Trust kennel supervisor from Stockton started selling Corinthians to downsize his own collection during the Covid-19 pandemic, but also rediscovered the joy of it all in the process."It's the nostalgia," Blain says, reminiscing about his first purchase, England's Rob Jones, and creating games with his brother Connor using figures and an old Subbuteo pitch.
The figures can and do sell for hundreds of pounds, there are mutterings of "bargain" as someone agrees to pay £300 for the ultrarare Norwegian national team 12-pack in Dave's convention auction.Another collector, arms laden with boxes, bids his comrades a cheery farewell with: "I've spent a fortune, I'm going to have to sell a kidney in the car park now."There are also many tacit agreements to not tell wives and partners about purchases made today, an understanding among collectors that probably dates back to the first conventions.
The old gatherings, held mainly at Villa Park, were the centrepiece for trading in Big Heads.James Pomeroy is now a high-flying economist in the London banking world, but back then, he was a schoolboy from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, with one dream - to become of the envy of all by having a figure made of himself.Having lost at the 2002 convention's Microstars World Club League, a game played using Corinthian figures, the then 13-year-old spent months devising a winning strategy to take the title in 2003 (crucial to his success was a green-based England Paul Scholes).
The prize was a model of the winner, with James opting to sport the kit of his beloved Newcastle United."It is still my greatest life achievement," he says, gazing adoringly at the figure still claiming pride of place on his desk."My wife is sick of me bringing it up when we meet new people and it's what I always go to at a corporate event when you have to tell people something interesting about yourself," James says."Half of people have no idea what I'm talking about, but the rest get very excited about it."
Personalised figures have taken on a whole new lease of life in recent years, thanks to the advances in 3D printing and skilled painters like Andrew Flack.The 45-year-old Manchester United fan from Newton Abbot, Devon, is a postman by day and delivers on collectors' requests at nightHe rediscovered his collection during lockdown and things "snowballed" from there.
He repaints figures into the iconic kits that symbolise moments and memories for fans."We grew up in that lucky era where football was at its peak," he says. "It was just getting big and global but it wasn't yet solely about the money."
For Dan Lilley, who founded the CCC in 2021, bringing back the convention has been the fulfilment of a dream.He wanted the club to be more than just buying and selling, it was to be a community, a distraction from the stresses of daily life, a haven for collectors."We bonded over these little figures," he says. "Now we are all friends."
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