Panic stations! Christmas is two—yes, two—weeks away, and your decision to stick present-buying on the ‘laterbase’ is likely causing you a great deal of anxiety right now. Never fear, though. MUNDIAL is here to be your festive super-sub. Below, we’ve compiled the ultimate gift guide, suitable for all budgets. Your nearest and dearest are gonna love it. They’ll be calling you Sleigh Given (like Shay Given, yeah?) by the time the turkey’s served, guaranteed.
£10 and under
PARTRIDGE AIR FRESHENER—£4.99
You might find some superficial damage to the box, but the air freshener is perfectly usable.
JAPANESE CRAYONS—£8.50
Fab crayons in a fab retro box. 12 oil pastels in beautiful rich colours—and they teach you the Japanese hiragana for each colour! Show them to Japanese people of a certain age and they all say the same thing: Natsukashii!
BIG YELLOW—£1.50
We bought fifty of these for Hotel MUNDIAL (actually, where are all of those?) and at £1.50 a pop, you can turn up to 5-a-side and pretend you’re more Darren Anderton than you’ve ever been before.
CAFÉ ROYAL BOOKS—£6.70 (BURN UP, LONDON REGGAE, NORTH BIRMINGHAM)
Café Royal’s photography books are, without doubt, the greatest series of printed materials on the planet, other than MUNDIAL. A family-run publishing house—Craig, Joanne, Oscar, Hugo, and the dog, Coco—doing all the work, with each zine providing a unique view into a part of society. From Elaine Constantaine’s Burn Up, profiling boy racers in an Asda car park in Northampton, to David Corio’s Reggae in London to Richard Davis’ The Madchester Years, these are the perfect gift for anyone interested in the beauty of counter-culture.
MOD is Charlton’s unsurprisingly good fanzine, now a two-time winner of the Football Supporters’ Association Fanzine of the Year award. Hubba hubba. Their latest issue is a 64-page extravaganza featuring an exclusive interview with Jason Euell, the best and worst hairdos ever seen at The Valley and some away-day tales from Steve Charnock.
One of the most poignant, authentic, and revealing books of the last couple of years, Takeaway—Stories From A Childhood Behind The Counter is all about journalist Angela Hui’s upbringing in her family’s Chinese restaurant in the village of Beddau in the southern Welsh valleys. There’s an excerpt here if you’re still not sure.
£35 and under
EIGHTEEN86 DARK ARTS AFC INCENSE (CREMATE LONDON)—£20
Yeah, it's a lovely little Goth box of Arsenal incense cones. Smells like freshly cut grass, gunpowder & the lit fuse of a cannon. Stay humble, eh?
AOF LOVELY GAME FOR A GUINNESS TEE—£30
In an age of crap ‘brand collabs’ and needless ‘football fashion’ capsule collections, here’s a shirt that just makes a lot of sense. A Guinness x Art of Football backprint tee that riffs and lovingly updates classic Guinness adverts from the 1950s. Smooth, clean, and delicious.
ENGLAND PLAYING CARDS—£13.60
David Beckham as the Queen of Diamonds. Bobby Charlton as the King of Spades. Harry Kane as King of Hearts, and Bukayo Saka as the Queen of Clubs. Alf Ramsay and Gareth Southgate are jokers, which seems harsh. And look at the pair of big yellows Gazza is wielding there. A royal flush has never looked so good.
It’s Didier Drogba, it’s Olympique de Marseille, and it’s a sexy adidas Trefoil on a tequila sunrise background. A masterpiece by Liverpool’s own Ruth Davis. Hang it in the Stade Vélodrome or your living room. Either works.
FOOD SHAPED CANDLES—£16.50+
Mmmmmmmm, coffee beans, pimento olives, farfalle, fusilli, burrata. There’s not a single foodstuff out there that Anna and Tatiana of Nata haven’t turned into exquisite miniature candles. Gobble them up.
SAN SIRO SCARF—£32
Our mate John Colver loves the San Siro; he really does. Compares going to matches there to a pilgrimage and all sorts. But the one thing that was missing, for John, in this holiest of holy places, was a memento that wasn’t tied to either Inter or AC Milan. So he made this scarf, an LSD-laced tribute to the concrete spirals of a football cathedral.
£80 and under
PACKING CUBES—£40
You can fit literally everything and anything in these. Compact yet durable, and available in two colourways. We’ve managed to pack Asad, our associate editor, in one and sent him to Bermuda, as per his wishes. He’s having a great time.
ADVENTURE IN CLUBLAND HOODIE—£65
Our heaviest hoodie ever. 500 GSM, organic cotton made in Portugal, with a frankly gargantuan hood. Perfect for hangovers, hiding from the world, or just keeping warm on the shop run. It’s a reassuring weight on your body, like being swaddled by a big thick blanket while you’re walking.
Ever wanted to recreate, piece by piece, a lunch spread from Tom’s Restaurant at 782 Washington Ave, Brooklyn? You have? Welcome to the world of Le Puzz’s 1000-piece jumbo diner jigsaws. Fall out with all your family members by arguing over the shape of a dill pickle, and reconcile when you complete the Sistine Chapel of Christmas puzzles.
HAY CHESS SET—£49
A Minecraft-themed chess set? Yes, please.
FONTAINES DC BOHEMIANS SHIRT—£75
Fontaines D.C.’s latest, all-conquering tour pretty much confirmed their status as the best band on the planet—but they’re proper football men, too. After collabing with Dublin’s oldest football club, Bohemians, for their away kit back in 2021, the Boys in the Better Land are back at it again. Bohs’ brand-new third shirt, designed by bassist Carlos O’Connell, perfectly captures the band’s new Romance aesthetic. Make sure to snap one up double-quick so you look the part when Fontaines take over Finsbury Park, along with Kneecap and Amyl and the Sniffers, this summer.
“We should come up with an outfit for Earth. An Earth outfit. We should vote on it. Candidates propose different outfits, no speeches. They walk out, twirl, walk off. We just sit in the audience and go, ‘That was nice. I could wear that.’” These gunmetal Scenes NY trackies would be the first pick when building our Earth outfit.
Special things
Friend of MUNDIAL and tat extraordinaire A Store Like 94 has a sideline in making beautiful woven rugs that pay homage to the game’s greats, and his Zidane Madridista one is truly his pièce de résistance. Zizou, gold adidas Predators, Real Madrid crests and French cockerels. It doesn’t get better.
ART OF PING PONG HOME SET—£165 (other designs up to £200)
Put these in your home office, take them to work, hang them above your bed. You can play ping pong absolutely anywhere now.
ALLDAY RECYCLED PLASTIC KITCHEN KNIFE SET—£210+
The handles fashioned from the plastic of Maldon salt tubs. The blades handmade with steel sourced and forged in Sheffield. Santoku for chopping, slicing, and dicing, and Petty for all your paring and trimming needs. Support small businesses by supporting a small business? Oui, chef.
TEENAGE ENGINEERING POCKET OPERATOR—£89.99
Teenage Engineering are unserious by design. Whether they’re making a medieval sampler filled with sounds like a blacksmith hitting an iron or creating a pocket machine that has an animation of a man being knocked out over and over again as you record, they’re a reminder of the fun you can have just by messing around and hitting buttons. And we all need more of that in our lives, don’t we?
PUMA AC MILAN 125TH ANNI SHIRT—£125
Some things are eternal. Thick red and black stripes, a badge that nods to the club's origin as the Milan Football & Cricket Club, and the little devil printed inside the shirt. Only 1899 of them were made, one for every year of the Rossoneri. Bellissimo.
MUNDIAL PRINT & DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION—£80
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