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At the age of 36 most footballers have either hung their boots up or are about to. By that stage Ronnie Simpson had experienced a decent enough career: including two FA Cup wins with Newcastle.

Keeping score in the earliest days of the Football League was not as easy as checking the internet.

Although a smaller affair than the much better-known Isle of Wight festival of the same year, the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music, held on June 27-28, 1970, at the Shepton Mallet showground, boasted perhaps the greatest UK music festival line-up of all time.

The FA Cup proved a happy hunting ground for Norman Whiteside in his playing days and at auction many years later the competition was still proving to be a big winner for him.

As with so many other sales schedules for the summer, Graham Budd’s June two-day auction had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus lockdown. However, he has just announced that he will be holding his next on November 9-10 as a live ‘broadcast’ auction (all forms of bidding except for in the room, viewing by timed appointment at the firm’s Enfield premises).

The Petworth Park Antiques & Fine Art Fair can go ahead as planned in September after the National Trust deemed it an ‘outdoor’ event.

A pair of imperially inscribed Qianlong (1735-96) mark and period famille rose wall vases set a house record for Asian art at Roseberys.

The ‘high season’ of summer auctions in London held by Sotheby’s and Christie’s generated £205.8m including premium last week.

The recent Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) live online sale of Chinese, Japanese and Islamic art in Cheltenham included Chinese works on paper and textiles from a relative of Katherine Talati (1922-2015).

Two works by Fred Stead (1863-1940) drew strong interest at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in West Sussex thanks, in part, to here-to-be-sold estimates. They were being consigned from a deceased estate.