NEWCASTLE UNITED 1995/96

Possibly the greatest squad Newcastle United have ever assembled and one which came so close to capturing the Premiership title, indeed blowing a 13 point lead over eventual winners Manchester United. Corinthian immortalised this squad by releasing 16 players from that squad, along with the manager Kevin Keegan.

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Kevin Keegan, or 'King Kev' as he is affectionately known to the Geordies, was released at around the same time that he left the club, which meant that the figure was largely only sent to stockists in Newcastle, which led to the figure being difficult to obtain years later. Sadly this was not Corinthians best work and in my opinion it does not bear a great resemblance to the man himself.

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The set also featured many repaints of figures previously released as part of the England National range of Headliners, those figures being Rob Lee, Warren Barton, Peter Beardsley and Steve Howey. The figures were the same facial sculpts but the Barton figure was a different body pose, as was the Howey figure.

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New first time sculpts of British players like John Beresford, Darren Peacock, Lee Clark, Paul Kitson and Keith Gillespie along my personal favourite Shaka Hislop were all much sought after by collectors and as they were made in lower volume than the others, they have become much harder to find today, especially for those who value mint condition blister packs. All are truly fine sculpts, with only Hislop from those being released again, which would be for West Ham United in the ProStars Club Gold range.

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We were also treated to 3 first time sculpts of Newcastle's foreign legion with figures of inspirational French wizard David Ginola Colombia's skilful and unpredictable attacker Faustino Asprilla and also Belgium's moustache sporting maestro Philippe Albert and what toon fan can forget Albert's cheeky chip against Manchester United?

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Both Ginola and Asprilla have been released again by Corinthian but never using this sculpt, the Ginola sculpt was not the best but 'was he worth it' oh yes!

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Two repaints were also released, those two being David Batty and Toon icon Alan Shearer. The figure of David Batty was the same facial sculpt as previously released for Blackburn Rovers but with a new body pose and for some bizarre reason he was painted with green hair, with Shearer being the same sculpt as was previously released for both England and Blackburn Rovers.

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There were two very interesting things about the Les Ferdinand figure.

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1. The figure on the collector card that came issued with the figure shows the figure's master model, which is exactly the same as the one released in the England National kit, however, the released figure had the same facial sculpt but a new body pose. The new body pose used was originally planed for goal scoring legend Andy Cole but he transferred; to rivals at the time, Manchester united, so the figure was scrapped and Ferdinand's head was placed onto Cole's body pose to create a new looking Les Ferdinand.

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2. Les Ferdinand was first released as a single blister in January 1996 with squad number 9 on his back, but following the world record £15million transfer of Alan Shearer, he was forced to relinquish this number to Shearer, so took up number 10 instead. Corinthian released a 12 player pack in March 1996, this time the Ferdinand figure had his new squad number of 10 on the back of his shirt. Corinthian made this subtle change with little fuss, just their way or keeping the figures bang up to date. So if you want a number 9 Ferdinand buy a single blister and a 12 player pack for a number 10 Ferdinand.

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The figures were releases as single blister packs, which came with collector card and collectors information leaflet.

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There were also 2 versions of the 4 figure pack released

• NU4A - Rob Lee, Warren Barton, Peter Beardsley & Steve Howey

• NU4B - John Beresford, Philippe Albert, Paul Kitson & Faustino Asprilla

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The NU4B pack is incredibly rare to find and i consider myself very fortunate to have a near mint condition one in my personal collection.

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Corinthian also released a Newcastle United 12 figure pack, which contained the following 12 figures - Rob Lee, Steve Howey, Les Ferdinand ( 10 ) Warren Barton, Lee Clark, Darren Peacock, David Batty, John Beresford, Paul Kitson, Faustino Asprilla, David Ginola & Shaka Hislop.