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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 occasionally, there is the casual collector who may collect 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 buy programmes in order to enhance his or her 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 collectible 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 quickly as possible 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 truly are a limitless number of themes and sub-themes of programmes that can be collected. However, there are a number of traditional ways to build a collection. For example, for example all those programmes involving a particular club, all those concerned with a specific competition, etc. During the course of a collection a person is likely to discover the highs and lows of buying a rare football programme, or the frustration of not being able to find a source for one that is vital to your collection.

Those casual collectors will usually own a limited number of important 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 classed as a Big Match programme.

If you have a big affiliation to a particular soccer club your mission in programme collecting may be to simply acquire all issues for your chosen 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 increasing 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 1940, etc.

A collector who is neutral in his or her 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 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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