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Starting a football programme collection
In general you find a number of different types of collectors within the football programme enthusiast community. There is the potential collector who has a passing interest in beginning a programme collection, there is the latent collector who collects programmes very sporadically, there is the casual collector who may accumulate football programmes without having a specific theme to their collection, and also there is the confirmed collector who has specific aims and regularly tries to purchase programmes in order to enhance his or her collection.
There is no maximum or minimum size to a collection, and 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 satisfaction to the collector. Programme collectors come from all sorts of backgrounds.
When they first start collecting, a collector may try to acquire everything they can find to their collection as soon as they can in order to give it some bulk. However, with this comes a loss of focus, and later when restraints may mean a particular theme has to be selected and explored in order to further a collection.
There truly are an unlimited number of themes and sub-themes of programmes that can be collected. However, there are a number of traditional ways of building a collection. For example, for example all those programmes involving a particular club, all those concerned with a specific competition, etc. During the course of a collection a person is likely to experience the joys and pitfalls of acquiring a sought after old football programme, or the frustration of not being able to find a source for one that is key to your collection.
Those casual collectors will usually own a limited number of special programmes for major finals or semi-finals for the team that they personally follow, internationals, testimonials, special fixtures, or other big cup matches. These can basically be classed 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 favourite team. In addition to the regular league matches and cup-ties, you may also be tempted 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 setting an earlier date from which to collect. You could, for example, decide to collect back to 1965, etc.
A collector who is fairly neutral in his or her affiliations, and just has a general passion for football will tend to widen the scope of their collection. In these sorts of collections you often find football programmes from a number of teams at varying levels (including non-league). For the more adventurous collector, football programmes may have been acquired from other countries.
Chris Rudolph is a football programme collector and dealer. He runs the programme collector website.
More Resources for Football Programmes
