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 collect old or new football programmes without having a specific theme to their collection, and also there is the confirmed collector who has precise aims and regularly tries to purchase programmes in order to enhance his or her collection.

There is no minimum or maximum size to a programme collection, and the only limitations to it come in the form of your available finance. To be a collector, there is no need to own highly sort after programmes, just simply something that brings pleasure or a sense of satisfaction to the collector. Programme collectors come from all walks of life.

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 bulk. 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 truly are a limitless 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 involving a particular club, all those played in a specific competition, etc. Whilst collecting a person is likely to discover the highs and lows of acquiring a sought after 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 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 soccer club your mission in programme collecting may be to simply purchase all issues for your favourite team. In addition to the normal 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 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 teams 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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