About collecting football programmes
In general you find four different types of collectors within the football programme enthusiast community. There is the potential collector who has a passing interest in starting a programme collection, there is the latent collector who collects programmes infrequently, there is the casual collector who may accumulate old 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 collectible 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 acquire 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 focus, and later when restraints may mean a particular theme will have to be chosen 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 of building a collection. For example, for example all those programmes concerned with a particular team, all those played in a particular competition, etc. During the course of a collection a person is likely to experience the highs and lows of buying a rare old 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 small number of important programmes for major 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 acquire all editions for your favourite team. In addition to the normal league matches and cup-ties, you may also try 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 setting an earlier date from which to collect. 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 may find football programmes from a number of teams at different levels (including non league). For the more adventurous type of collector, football programmes may have been bought from countries other than his or her own.
