Don Jose Carreras Ferrer, a Spanish nobleman, established The House of Carreras in London in the 19th century and his son, Don Jose Joaquin, carried his work on, producing cigars and snuff for many famous people of the time. Business expanded and in 1907 the first of the Arcadia Works was built in the East End of London.

In the 1930s, like many tobacco companies, Carreras started producing football cards as stiffners in the packets, to protect the cigarettes. The sets carried coloured-in photos on the front and a biog of the player on the back. The sets were each re-issued, sometimes with different pictures, making the collecting of them a little trickier than usual.

Paper shortages after the war meant that few sets were produced in the 1940s but Carreras did print footballers' pictures on the sliding section of their Turf brand. These were usually cut out by collectors so it's rare to find a set of sliders still intact.