Postcards have always been part of my life, strange as that may sound. My father was a passionate collector of old picture postcards and a founding member and secretary of the Norfolk Postcard Club. He collected many themes, particularly topographical cards from around Norwich and Norfolk, but also various artists and themes. From a young age I was used to going out on a Sunday to buy collections in Norfolk or trips to Postcard Fairs as far away as London. All in the days before the internet and eBay.

With my own passion for Norwich City Football Club, I logically started collecting old picture postcards of the club, with a lot of help from my father. I still have that collection and perhaps that will become the subject of a future article. Many years ago, a book was published on the subject which I co-authored.

One day my father told me about a person who had collected signatures of the stars of stage and screen on postcards earlier in the 20th century. This sparked the idea for me to collect autographs of Norwich City footballers on postcards of the fine city.

I started collecting when I was 14, around 1979, and the first cards in the collection were of people like Duncan Forbes, Colin Suggett and Martin Peters. In those days you could write to players at the club and expect a personal answer. I asked the players to sign the card in the space next to the address and then return it to me in the post. Sometimes they also included a short message, and I always felt was honoured that a player had registered my name for a few seconds and taken the time to sign and return the card.

I soon also started collecting cards of players who had moved on or indeed stopped playing altogether. I told a Norwich collecting friend of my idea and he started something similar, albeit in a slightly different format. He was instrumental in searching out old players and has gone on to extend his own collection way beyond the scope of mine.

As I grew older, I tried to keep the collection going. As university, work and moving to another country came into my life, the collection stuttered at times but was always kept going to some extent. It has recently passed 1000 signatures of players, including some reserve and youth players, plus managers, coaches and other officials.

Of course, times have now changed dramatically from the 1980s. In the digital age, postcards are no longer a “thing”. You must be very lucky for a Premier League or Championship player to respond to such a specific request, I suspect most post doesn’t even reach them. Current players at Norwich are now asked to sign a card at some opportunity and the cards remain postally unused. Sometimes you can be lucky when sending a card away and the smaller the club, the better the chance of an answer for a player who has moved on in the meantime. For those whose career has finished, there are no longer many telephone book entries and while the internet offers many more research opportunities, finding an address or method of contact for any given player seems to become increasingly difficult.

Of course, when I do manage to receive a card back from an old player in the post, it is always a nice moment. But often the research looking for a player is just as rewarding.

There are many favourite cards and stories associated with some of the signatures.

Receiving a card back from the legendary 1930s player Percy Varco from his Cornwall home was an early highlight. Sir John Mills had a trial with Norwich City while he was at school, before becoming the well-known actor. Enough for me to write to him in my early collecting days and he was kind enough to return the card signed. For me it closed the loop to the original collector of stars of stage and screen.

Searching out players and receiving cards from abroad is an interesting challenge but several cards have now made their way back from the USA, Canada, Norway, France, Austria and even Australia.

Receiving a card back from goalkeeper Michael Theo in Australia a year after sending it was a big surprise. The record for the longest return time is however held by John O’Neill who I wrote to via the BBC in Northern Ireland where was involved in commentary work. Some three and a half years later the card turned up with apologies for the delay! Given postage from the UK to Germany had practically doubled in that time, I was lucky it arrived back at all.

Perhaps the biggest amount of detective work led to me finding 1960s player Tony Woolmer in Germany where I also live. It is a long story, but he was spending a lot of time here and we met up and spent a wonderful afternoon reminiscing about his football career and remained in contact.

There have been failures and oddities too. A card from Martin O‘Neill came back with a large corner torn off, but he was happy to return another card. Once a card came back with a child’s message on it that it had been found in the street. And on one occasion something went wrong with our research and the addressee was a little peeved to have to explain that he had the same name as the ex-footballer in question, but definitely wasn’t a football player!

Of course, many cards nowadays don’t make it back and the cost of postage from the UK to Germany means I need to be hopeful of a card being returned before sending one off. But I continue to keep the collection ticking over with help of friends in Norwich and don’t intend to stop yet!