The ad game needs its heroes.

For analogy'’s sake, let’'s look at football first.
We have our all-action Premier League; the envy of the world.
We have our golden generation.
We have our brand-spanking new sponsored stadiums.
We have our splendid, ever-changing new rules, aimed at streamlining the game.  Making it faster, more exciting.
One sub. No two. No three from five. Next, five from seven perhaps. Maybe one day even eleven from eleven.
Times change. Whatever it is now, the supporters most certainly need something else. We'’re told.
There'’s no offside rule that resembles an offside rule. No tackles from behind, no raised studs, no having a good old swear at the referee, or a fight. (Not unless you’'re Alex Ferguson, and maybe not even him now.)
These are the kind of things that contribute to slowing down the game. We need to be quicker. TV needs us to be quicker.
Ah yes, TV.
The great god Sky and his billions, who did beget little idols with their tasteless ways and sweaty ticks. 
The players, whose wondrous talent makes it all possible.
And good luck to them, they deserve all they get and we really adore them.
After all they put their arms around all those disadvantaged little children and smile and lend their names to good causes.
Before heading off to another field, another lucrative contract and another good cause.
But all the while, as the game moves on, becomes swifter, slicker, more dazzling, more progressive, we still have its heritage, don’'t we?
Yes we still have that.
The history. The tradition into which all those supporters were born, and upon which they still feed. In which they still believe.
Outside those state-of-the-art stadiums you’ll find statues of old heroes bedecked with garlands.
Inside, there are plush stands named after former greats.
Read any online football forum and the quotes and questions are there, from teenagers and students, from young boys and girls who live for the game.
Today’'s young fans.
Who was the best?” “When will we as good as we used to be?” “Name the greatest team we had.” “Was Wilf better than Jermaine?”  “What was it like when we won the League?” “The FA/ Inter-City Fairs/UEFA/European Cup?” “Will England ever emulate the boys of ‘66?” “Can we do it again?”
They want their lads to be brilliant now and next but they understand what they owe, and where they’'re from.
The heritage means something.
Analogy over.
I tried to find the history of advertising online (as opposed to online advertising) and it wasn'’t there.
With a few measly exceptions, the history of advertising begins, in terms of what is accessible online at least, in about 1992.
Yes, go on, Google David Abbott and his name will pop up. But try finding the fabulous legacy of work that he produced and it appears to have gone the way of the outlawed back pass to the goalkeeper. (Yes, I know the analogy’'s back, but I promise you, only this once until the end.)
And the same goes for some of the greatest TV and print work of the latter part of the twentieth century.
Now I’'m no geek and maybe I’'m pushing the wrong buttons.
But the fact is it’'s not that easy to be able to refer to our glory glory days (last time, I swear) when British advertising ruled the world.
Yet it should be if what we do today is to mean anything.
Where is David’'s great Father'’s Day Chivas Regal press ad? I can'’t find it. Nor his fabulous Volvo work. Where is the excellent first Sainsbury’s campaign? Saatchi’'s B&H work? Lowe’s Albany Life stuff? Leagas Delaney’'s Timberland campaign? The great early Audi work? TBWA’s Lego commercial? All that the great CDP did?
Okay, look hard and you might come across one blurred, knackered example or another on page 84 of YouTube. But that’'s not good enough.
D&AD probably carry it all somewhere but it probably doesn'’t make commercial sense for them to make it readily available. They should.
Not long ago someone asked me about a great, now sadly deceased art director called John Knight with whom I once had the pleasure of working. They wanted to put something together highlighting his tremendous, unique talent.
Now John was as close as you could get to a genius when it came to advertising art direction and design. Perhaps I'’ll tell his story another day.
Unfortunately, no one knew where to find examples of his work. Most of it had been done before 1992 you see. When the history of advertising began.
Luckily for us all a chap called Dave Dye managed to scrape a few things together from here and there and you can go to http://bit.ly/3leQCo and be impressed.
Dave deserves our grateful thanks for his efforts.
But what of all the other stuff in that list of glorious creativity and beyond?
It must be somewhere but as far as I can tell, it’'s nowhere and it should be everywhere.
Advertising’s changed, I know that.
Football’'s changed too.
But in football, they all appreciate the history of their game.
I don’'t think in advertising, they really do.