Further Money Talk

About collecting football programmes

In general you find four different types of collectors within the football programme enthusiast community. There is the potential collector who has a passing interest in starting a programme collection, there is the latent collector who collects programmes very sporadically, there is the casual collector who may collect old or new football programmes without having a specific theme to their collection, and also there is the confirmed collector who has distinct aims and regularly tries to buy programmes in order to enhance their collection.

There is no exact size to a collection, with the only limitations to it come in the form of your financial restraints. To be a collector, there is no need to own highly collectible programmes, just simply something that brings enjoyment or a sense of achievement to the collector. Programme collectors come from all walks of life.

When they first start collecting, a collector may try to acquire everything they can find to their collection as quickly as possible in order to give it some substance. However, with this comes a loss of tangible meaning, and later when restrictions may mean a particular theme has to be selected and explored in order to enhance a collection.

There really are an unlimited number of themes and sub-themes of programmes that can be collected. However, there are certain traditional ways to build a collection. For example, for example all those programmes concerned with a particular club, all those concerned with a particular competition, etc. During the course of a collection a person is likely to experience the highs and lows of buying a sought after football programme, or the frustration of not being able to find a source for one that is vital to your collection.

Those collectors who are more causal in their approach to the collecting of football programmes will usually own a limited number of important programmes for cup finals or semi-finals for the team that they personally support, internationals, testimonials, special fixtures, or other major cup matches. These can basically be classified as a Big Match programme.

If you have a strong affection for a particular soccer club your mission in programme collecting may be to simply acquire all editions for your chosen team. In addition to the regular league and cup matches, you may also attempt to collect programmes from friendlies, foreign tours, reserve teams, and youth teams.

One way of improving the depth and scope of your collection is by choosing an earlier date for the time period for which you’re collecting. You could, for example, decide to collect back to 1980, 1970, 1960, etc.

A collector who is fairly neutral in his or her affiliations, and just has a general passion for football will often widen the scope of their collection. In these sorts of collections you may find football programmes from a number of clubs at different levels (including non league). For the more adventurous collector, football programmes may have been bought from countries other than his or her own.

Chris Rudolph is a football programme collector and dealer. He runs the programme collector website.

More Resources for Football Programmes

Back To My Resources