From Dallaglio’s medals to Cantona’s shorts, sporting memorabilia is big business | Emma John

Like transfer fees and ticket prices, mementoes are one more marker of sport’s rampant self-inflation

The auctioneer cradled his gavel in his palm like a pipe, the handle pointing towards him. It gave his patter the air of a Victorian gentleman holding forth by the mantelpiece in a period drama. “Are you bidding, Wilf? You’re waving at me.” Under the hammer was a Barclays Manager of the Month trophy, complete with travel case, but no indication of which Premier League luminary once owned it. It outstripped its estimate and sold for £700.

An hour and a half into what Budds auction house dubbed its “Octoberfest” of sporting memorabilia, David Convery at the podium showed no sign of fatigue, save the occasional swig from a water bottle. There were 332 lots in total; Convery regularly manages sales with twice as many. In his three decades as an auctioneer he’s even secured some world-record prices, from the oldest surviving FA Cup to Pelé’s 1970 World Cup final shirt.

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