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 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 purchase programmes in order to enhance his or her collection.

There is no exact size to a programme collection, and 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 satisfaction to the collector. Programme collectors come from all walks of life.

In the early stages of a collection, a collector may try to add everything they can find 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 will have to be chosen and explored in order to further a collection.

There truly 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 team, all those concerned with a particular competition, etc. Whilst collecting a person is likely to experience the joys and pitfalls 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 special programmes for cup finals or semi-finals for the team that they personally support, internationals, testimonials, special fixtures, or other big cup matches. These can basically be classified as a Big Match programme.

If you have a strong affiliation to a particular football club your mission in programme collecting may be to simply buy all editions for your favourite 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 increasing 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 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 varying levels (including non league). For the more adventurous type of 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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