In the 1940s & 1950s the Scottish company A. & J. Donaldson released plenty of football collectibles including the ubiquitous cigarette cards. In the 50s they released their “Gold Cup” range which featured depictions of dozens of clubs in their colours. For the first time, Irish clubs were included. Here’s who made the cut

St Patrick’s Athletic entered the league in 1951 and Cork Athletic left after the 1956/57 season so the cards were issued somewhere in that time frame. The League of Ireland clubs to miss out were Drumcondra, Evergreen and Transport.

Some Irish League clubs were also issued including Derry City

Oh and this was issued for the national team. Both the Republic and Northern Ireland called themselves Ireland at the time.

In total 145 cards were issued. You can see a full list here