THE OFFSIDE RULE 50 PENCE

 

Come on England!

The England football team is in the Euros Final tonight playing Spain. Fans of the game have dreamed about winning a major title since the 1960s. There are many different world coins which feature sports and football but thirteen years ago the Royal Mint issued a coin which does not relate to a competition but highlights a rule in the game.

Football's "offside rule" is explained on a 50 pence coin dating from 2011. It is one of scarcer 50p commemorative coins with a circulating mintage of 1,125,500. One site lists it as very scarce.

The coin was designed by Neil Wolfson, a sports journalist, who saw an advertisement for a competition by the Royal Mint for a football themed 50p piece for the London 2012 Olympics. Neil Wolfson was only 26 at the time.

He was quoted as saying "The offside rule is always a talking point so I wanted to create something original to reflect that. It's a case of lateral thinking, so to speak... It will be interesting to see how the design looks in relief and I hope it provokes discussion."

Dave Knight, the Royal Mint’s director of commemorative coin, said: "Every one of the winners is making history... Their coins will become treasured mementos of the biggest sporting event [the Olympics] to happen on UK shores for over half a century and we hope will encourage a new generation of collectors. "The Royal Mint is immensely proud to be part of London 2012 and we're thrilled that this competition has enabled the general public to play a part too."

The designer reflected that, "as a natural extension of what I do and this design itself was a case of lateral thinking, I sent it off and here I am"¦I'm a football fan, I've followed the Premier League since its inception and if I had fifty pence for every time someone asks what the offside rule is then I would be a rich man.

He had the idea to tackle the offside rule and given the size of the fifty pence coin face it had to be visual rather than wordy so he came up with an idea for shapes: a circle for the ball, triangle for the attacking team and square for the defending team and the words also seemed to choose themselves. "The fiddly bit was trying to get the proportions right."

In the lead up to the Olympic Games in London, a series of commemorative coins were issued by the Royal Mint referring to twenty-nine different sports. Perhaps other countries should issue coins referring to the quirks and idiosyncrasies of their favourite game.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: JULY 8, 2018 : Penalty Shootout Coin Proposed (https://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n27a13.html)

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