A Letterpress Fixture Bill
jobbing printers, c. 1910
No print size passed the check for this piece: at 8 x 10 in, Wrong shape: a 24% crop. We would rather show it than sell a soft print.
See pieces like it you can buySaturday, set in wood type. Before the game had broadcasters it had jobbing printers — the men who set the kick-off hour, the admission price, and the visiting eleven in whatever sizes the case could spare, hierarchy doing the shouting. The match bill is the game’s letterpress voice: pasted to walls on Thursday, soaked off by Sunday, almost none surviving — which is why the survivors read like telegrams from a lost Saturday. It is also the ancestor of this house’s Fixture Bill commission, which turns your own date into one. Kick-off is the oldest deadline that makes people happy.
- Maker
- jobbing printers
- Date
- c. 1910
- Medium of the original
- Poster
- Original held by
- The Football Association, 1914 · Wikimedia Commons
- Credit
- The Football Association, 1914 · Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- Public domain, verified
- Catalogue number
- PA-01085
Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.
| Size | Why |
|---|---|
| 8 x 10 in | Wrong shape: a 24% crop |
| 8 x 12 in | 122 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 11 x 14 in | Wrong shape: a 22% crop |
| 12 x 16 in | Wrong shape: a 19% crop |
| 12 x 18 in | 81 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 16 x 20 in | Wrong shape: a 24% crop |
| 16 x 24 in | 61 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 18 x 24 in | Wrong shape: a 19% crop |
| 20 x 30 in | 48 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 24 x 30 in | Wrong shape: a 24% crop |
| 24 x 36 in | 40 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 30 x 40 in | Wrong shape: a 19% crop |
| 36 x 48 in | Wrong shape: a 19% crop |
| 40 x 60 in | 24 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
- Scanned
- 2026-10-07
- Master file
- 977 x 1,600 px, srgb
- Tone
- Darks 132, lights 247 of 255; 0.2% clipped light, 0% clipped dark
- Colour
- 0% vivid
- Sharpness
- 62.57
The Terraces
Before television, the game was ink.
All 53 pieces from The Terraces
