Summary

Victorian Football League football card featuring Essendon player Russell Blew, from the Mobil Football Photos, 1965 season. There were 40 cards in a series and these could be collected and pasted in a Mobil football photos album. Comments on the featured player were published on the back of the cards, written by Lou Richards, football journalist for the Sun News-Pictorial newspaper, Melbourne and ex-Collingwood Football Club player. These cards and the accompanying album could be purchased at Mobil petrol stations.

After World War II, single petrol stations, which had previously sold a variety of petrol brands from multiple bowsers, evolved to become single brand petrol stations, selling just one brand of petrol. These cards can be seen as a marketing exercise to promote the Mobil petrol brand and engender customer loyalty through accessible and collectable items of popular culture.

Physical Description

Football card with full colour image of football player on the front and biographical and player statistics information on the back.

Significance

One of a collection of Mobil football cards, these are distinct material manifestations of Australian leisure and popular notions of collecting. They explore the relationships between football club supporter base, community identity, collective leisure and corporate sponsorship and promotion.

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