US $450.00
In general you find a few different types of collectors within the football programme communiuty. 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 accumulate old or new 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 acquire programmes in order to enhance their collection.
There is no maximum or minimum 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 expensive programmes, just simply something that brings enjoyment or a sense of satisfaction to the collector. Football programme collectors come from all sorts of backgrounds.
When they first start collecting, a collector may try to add everything on offer to their collection as quickly as possible in order to give it some substance. However, with this comes a loss of focus, and later when restrictions may mean a particular theme has to be selected and explored in order to enhance a collection.
There really are a limitless 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 involving a particular club, all those concerned with a particular competition, etc. Whilst collecting a person is likely to experience the highs and lows 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 collectors who are more causal in their approach to the collecting of football programmes will usually own a small number of important programmes for cup 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 purchase all issues for your chosen team. In addition to the regular league and cup matches, 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 choosing an earlier date for the time period for which you’re collecting. You might, for example, decide to collect back to 1980, 1970, 1960, etc.
A collector who is neutral in their 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 teams at different 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.
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