As Rothmans require a saviour, we take a football nostalgia trip as we mourn the things we miss the most

What is it they say? You don’t miss something until it’s gone. English football’s tranquil subculture is being ruthlessly dismantled, the game we love growing up has lost some of what made it special both on and off the pitch.

Another much-cherished favourite is in trouble. The football bible otherwise known as the Rothmans Yearbook faces closure. Its 48th issue may be its last.

Think of the thick door-stopper of a publication and you are automatically transported to a simpler time.

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You consider John Motson, sitting there peering over the top of his glasses with a small glass of red preparing for his weekend duty, scavenging for facts and figures whilst being distracted by the drawing. If you like your stats, you had a large – and probably dangerous – stack of Rothmans somewhere they shouldn’t be.

Equally as unhealthy was the amount of time spend thumbing through its near 1,000 pages.

Some 15 years on from Sky Sports keeping the iconic book in print, it now needs another supporter. If the £30,000 cannot be found, football’s favourite reference point will be no more.

Should a saviour not step forward, it will spell the end of another old favourite. Wiped from the football landscape, we could see another old favourite reduced to sentiment.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first and won’t bit of yesteryear glory we lose to the need-to-know-now generation.

Football purists are still mourning the loss of Ceefax, which closed down its service after 38 years back in 2012. Knowing your pages better than your own phone number, you couldn’t step into a football clubhouse without the strolling results and league tables. Often missing letters at key points and getting stuck on loop, it was all part of the fun.

You would often see adverts for Club Call flash across the screen as you waited patiently for your team’s score to eventually roll on round.

Now, you had to be sneaky here. These were the days before mobile phones, and at 48p a minute, the name of the game was keeping the phone calls from your parents for the longest amount of time as possible. That game was usually up as soon as the phone bill landed on the doormat.

But any self-respecting football fan knew this was a price that just had to be paid. No internet? No problem. As soon as the parent’s screams start, blame your brother. Or “take it out of my birthday money” was my own go-to offering.

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Now, you can read an in-depth match report of your team’s 3-0 home defeat by the time it takes you to take a stroppy stroll back to your car after the match. If you’re not the designated driver, you can read all about it – but this isn’t actually a modern-day phenomenon.

Had you gone for some grub after the game, often by the time you head for home you could pick up a Saturday evening paper as you fill up on petrol.

Classics like the PinkUn – oddly named but the best thing you’ll read all week – was just one of the titles to close its doors, the presses stopped and a long-standing tradition was lost.

Going the same way surely is the Football Pools. That knowing Friday knock at the door was as regular as clockworks, “it’s only the Pools man” mothers would scream at an overexcited dog. Online betting as well as the National Lottery ultimately the devil in disguise.

League Ladders. A symbol not only of hope, but of football – finally – returning after a long summer.

The excitement of our juvenile lives was arranging the teams, first of all in alphabetical order and then, on the first weekend of the season, those first game standings. Joy!

Alas, the length of attention coincided with how bad your team were. Granted, they were often in the bin by late August – or the teams hoovered up by a careless mother – but it was never a wasted hour.