“The woman behind the counter hands me a piece of cardboard and tells me to hold it up in the air if I want to bid. I’m number 7002 and that makes me feel uneasy. Is that how many people are going to be involved? Inside the auction room, it is a Trevor Francis nostalgia-fest. There are medals and trophies laid out on a table and, in a glass cabinet, the shiny red shirt from the night he — the first £1million footballer — scored the goal that won Nottingham Forest the 1979 European Cup. People are taking their seats. We eye each other suspiciously and avoid small talk. But those of us attending also know it’s the people we cannot see that we really have to worry about: the online bidders, dialling in from Canada, the United States and Australia to fill out their collections. …”
NY Times/The Athletic