Brett Emerton

The collection commences with the Optus World Series Tournament Programme that included Brett Emerton’s debut against Chile.  His professional career began at Sydney Olympic in the National Soccer League where played for four years, I am not aware of any cards or stickers produced during his time in at Sydney Olympic but their are likely to be programmes where he appeared on the cover however  there are none in this collection. The collection does include two Olyroo Programmes where appears on the cover, the 2000 Sydney Olympics Football Programme and most unusually, but not rare, a Melbourne Met rail ticket with an action image.

In 2000 Brett Emerton transferred to the Dutch Eredivisie club Feyenoord where like many Continental European clubs they produce postcard size cards of all their squad.  The collection includes all three of these Feyenoord squad cards. That year also saw him feature for the 1st time on the cover on a Socceroo Programme for the WCQ against New Zealand and shortly thereafter in the one against Uruguay. In 2002 Panini produced an official sticker collection for Feyenoord with five stickers (four images) of Emerton.  The collection also has the only, to my knowledge, Champions League Programme, that has Brett on the cover from a group match against Dynamo Kiev. The collection also has the Matchday programme from the famous international friendly win over Australia’s traditional sporting rivals, England albeit not Footbal.  This was the last international for Brett while playing at Feyenoord and where he also scored his 5th international goal.  Probably rarest and also last card from his time at Feyenoord is from a 2003 Japanese set that featured players from a friendly match between Urawa Red Diamonds and Feyenoord (shown left). The image of Brett is the same as the one used on his last Feyenoord club card.

In the Summer of 2003 Brett Emerton transferred to English Premier League club Blackburn Rovers where he joined fellow Socceroo Lucas Neill. From his first season at Blackburn Rovers the collection comprises three cards, including a Robert Hood designed cartoon image of Brett, two match day programmes where he is featured on the cover and two stickers. 2004 also saw the start the qualification process for the 2006 World Cup.  The collection has three programmes from the Oceania Nations Cup part of the qualification where in six games he scored four goals.  Due to most of the Socceroo squad plying their trade in Europe, as preparation for the Word Cup Qualification games Australia started to play many international friendlies in England where Fulham’s Craven Cottage became the home ground.  The collection includes Match Day programmes from matches against South Africa, Norway, New Zealand and Jamaica.