UK SERIES 5 ENGLAND 2002

The nation was once again filled with hopes, dreams and aspirations of football at last coming home, Corinthian could not guarantee that but they did give collector's the chance to bring home an all new range of England MicroStars!​

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Corinthian never officially called this Series 5 but this is how it has always been referred to by collector's, with the stock hitting the shelves from Early April 2002, just in time for the World Cup tournament taking place in Japan & Korea.

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There were 24 figures in the England home kit, along with manager Sven Goran Erikssson, in addition we have 7 in the Red away kit worn for the 2002 World Cup, and completing the range are 8 figures in the kit worn during the qualification stage, and is the kit worn in the famous victory over Greece which secured England's qualification thanks to a sublime free kick from David Beckham!

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Corinthian produced 3 different packs for the release, Single player pack, 2 player pack and also a 3 player WCL game pack. The single player pack contained one Powerpodz which would have a Navy capsule inside containing one of the 24 home kit figures or manager Eriksson., priced at £1.49.

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The 2 player pack was a first for the MicroStars range as it actually allowed collector's to see one of the figures they were buying, and also came with a Powerpodz. The figures found in the 2 player pack were the 24 home kit or manager Eriksson, with the product being exclusive to Woolworths and price at £2.49

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The 3 player WCL game pack contained 1 Powerpodz, a capsule containing a home kit player and also a capsule which contained one of the special away kit figures, with production limited to under 10,000 for each!

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There was actually a little bit of controversy and mystery surrounding the 3 pack away kit figures, as the initial batch did not contain the red away kits as advertised but in fact the all white qualification kit, and Corinthian had made no mention of these figures on the packaging or any of the newsletters! 

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Interestingly they are all done on 6 base colour but each one has the same MC code, which led to much speculation amongst collector's as to whether this was a mistake and in fact these 8 figures were set for another release all together.

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In time the red away kit figures did appear in the 3 player WCL game packs, however it must be stated they are far rarer than the all white qualification kit versions and much harder to find.

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As part of this release Corinthian introduced the Collection Completerz Scheme, with the idea being to help ensure collector's were able to complete the squad and get all the figures they wanted. Each Powerpodz came with a information leaflet and on it was a token, you needed just 4 tokens and a £1 contribution towards P&P to claim a free figure! 

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The last thing to mention is that all MC codes were unique to this series, the only exception is Beckham in home kit, he was also released in Japan Miniatures Series 2 as a Chaser figure.

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All figures were released on 6 base colours, Green, Red, Blue, White, Silver and Gold with the goal keepers having 4 different MC codes per base colour. Each capsule came with a collector's information leaflet which detailed the range of figures available and also gave details on the Collector's Completerz Scheme.

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Thanks go to Olly Speed for providing the images of the single box.

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