SERIES 7
ENGLAND SQUAD

With EURO 2000 approaching, Corinthian were busy preparing their range of tournament figures, with the usual dilemma of trying to pre-empt who would actually make the squad, so Corinthian aired on the side of caution and released 12 (14 in total when you factor in the 3 different versions of Michael Owen) which were done to compliment the England 12 pack released in November 1999.

 

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Series 7 England Squad features 3 first time sculpts, which are Emile Heskey, Frank Lampard and Kevin Phillips, all 3 are superb sculpts. Phillips would never be released by Corinthian again, the Master Model resides in my personal collection and you can actually see the red and white stripes under the paint job, showing the initial intention was to release him for Sunderland but the license was never acquired.

 

 

There are new models of goal keeper David Seaman, central defender Sol Campbell and midfield enforcer David Batty. Alan Shearer had announced he would retire from international football at the end of the tournament, so this would be his final release in the England shirt.

 

 

Completing the series are Tony Adams, Kieron Dyer, David Beckham, manager Kevin Keegan and Michael Owen in 3 different body poses. The reason for the 3 different body poses of Owen was to try maintain the collectability of the product long term, so Corinthian split the demand for Owen across 3 different figures.

 

 

The figures were all released as single blister packs and also a single window boxes and Corinthian also reintroduced the redemption figure for this series, with 4 different redemption figures on offer. Beckham, Owen and Shearer are in England red away kit, while Emmanuel Petit is in white France away kit, with just 6 tokens needed to claim a free redemption figure.

 

 

Series 7 England Squad blister packs and Window Boxes were available from collector centres from 12th May 2000, with blisters priced at £3 and window boxes £2.49. Included in each pack was the figures collector card, one side has the figure image and the other has the player ratings, which you could fill in to create your own version of a top trumps style card game. 

 

 

Also included in each blister pack and window box was a collectors information file, which detailed the range available and also came with a token, 6 tokens were needed to claim one of the 4 different redemption figures.

 

Along with the regular blister packs, Corinthian produced something special called the Platinum Pack, these were produced in much lower numbers and not available for direct sale, they were given away free for money spent with Corinthian Direct, however you could also buy them from official Corinthian Collector Centres. The figures are identical to those in the standard blister but are placed on a specially designed blister card.

 

 

Corinthian did not make public how many of each window box or blister pack were produced, only to say that the best seller in the series was of course David Beckham and the ones made in the lowest volume were the 3 different body poses of Michael Owen, with the lowest window box production being for Lampard, Batty, Adams and Dyer.

 

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Corinthian stated they produced 720 of each Platinum pack for the Series 7 England Squad figures, an incredibly high number which was down to Corinthian expecting a high selling volume of product, however due to England's poor performance at the tournament, the range did not do as well as Corinthian hoped or anticipated.