About collecting football programmes
In general you find a number of 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 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 finance. To be a collector, there is no need to own highly sort after programmes, just simply something that brings enjoyment or a sense of satisfaction to the collector. Programme collectors come from all sorts of backgrounds.
In the early stages of a collection, a collector may try to buy everything they can find to their collection as soon as they can in order to give it some bulk. However, with this comes a loss of focus, and later when restrictions may mean a particular theme has to be selected and explored in order to further a collection.
There truly 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 involving a particular team, all those played in a particular competition, etc. Whilst collecting a person is likely to experience the highs and lows of acquiring a rare 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 follow, internationals, testimonials, special fixtures, or other big cup matches. These can basically be classified as a Big Match programme.
If you have a strong affection for a particular soccer club your mission in programme collecting may be to simply buy all issues for your favourite team. In addition to the regular league matches and cup-ties, 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 choosing an earlier date for the time period for which you’re collecting. You could, for example, decide to collect back to 1970, 1960, 1950, 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.