Panini expands sticker range to WSL 2

Collecting Panini football stickers has been part of football culture for decades, and now there's the chance to pick up stickers of players from the second tier of the women's game.

Charlton Athletic's Katie Bradley and Jodie Hutton are among the first players from the Women's Super League 2 (WSL 2) to be depicted on the football stickers.

Bradley told BBC London: "I used to collect stickers when I was younger but it was just the men's stickers then. It's good just to see now that they've got the women's and the second league as well."

Hutton added: "It's always nice to have a shiny sticker because that's the one that everyone wants, ain't it?"

Sticker company Panini launched its first sticker album in 1970 and for more than half a century it was the preserve of the men's game.

In 2023 it released its first women's football stickers covering the WSL, and now the appearance of WSL 2 clubs is being seen as proof of how the game is growing.

There are currently 66 WSL 2 stickers, with that number set to increase in future editions.

Asked if her younger football sticker-collecting self would have believed that one day she was going to be on one of them, Hutton said: "No. I think I would have turned around and been like, I won't.

"But like I say, it's nice to just be recognised as women's football and again show the growth and the direction that football is going in."

As well as collecting stickers, Charlton are collecting plenty of points right now.

They're top of the table and have every chance of going up at the end of a season in which as many as three clubs could win promotion.

Bradley said: "Our main goal is to win the league and get promoted that way, but I think it's just exciting for the league as well, like to have second place and maybe third place play-off as well, that it might go right down to the wire for second and third places.

"It'll be really exciting and it'll just bring more attention to the league as well."

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