In general you find a few 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 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 acquire programmes in order to enhance their collection.

There is no maximum or minimum size to a programme collection, with the only limitations to it come in the form of your available funding. To be a collector, there is no need to own highly expensive programmes, just simply something that brings enjoyment or a sense of achievement to the collector. Football programme collectors come from all walks of life.

In the early stages of a collection, a collector may try to acquire everything on offer to their collection as soon as they can in order to give it some substance. However, with this comes a loss of tangible meaning, and later when restraints 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 of building a collection. For example, for example all those programmes concerned with a particular club, all those concerned with a particular competition, etc. Whilst collecting a person is likely to discover 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 collectors who are more causal in their approach to the collecting of football programmes will usually own a limited number of important programmes for major 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 football club your mission in programme collecting may be to simply buy all editions for your chosen team. In addition to the normal league and cup matches, you may also try 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 for the time period for which you’re collecting. You might, for example, decide to collect back to 1940, etc.

A collector who is 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 clubs at different levels (including non league). For the more adventurous collector, football programmes may have been acquired from countries other than his or her own.

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

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