Football Programme Collecting -
Part Two: By D Langston 9th March 2010

So the profile of the match day programme grew but the current evidence tells us that pre second world war little collecting took place. Sure the must have been many fans to held on to programmes and tickets up to the first world war but the fact that these are so scarce now leads me to think football programme collectors were not so avid and the hobby was yet to gain the foundations to help it flourish.

Any foundations on football programme collecting suffered very hard in 1939 when World War Two started. But by then the roots of this hobby had been set, for the big clubs the are plenty of 1930s programmes to be had still and the price range is still within reach of most people. Still collecting a full set from any one season you are sure to come up against a few very scarce issues that will command very high prices if you can find them at all.

During WW2 football managed as well as it could and the seven seasons 1939-1946 provide some very interesting programmes. Mainly single sheet due to the paper shortage but the names that filled those team-sheets often included that footballers rank in the army or navy.

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 Football Programme Collecting -
Part One: By D Langston 15th Feb 2010

Perhaps the most common form of collecting a football supporter might take up is that of collecting all the match dayprogrammes they attend or all the home football programmes of their favorite club. Well lets face it with the price of them today you don’t really want to bin them anyway. But how did they get to what they are today and why do people still collect them?

Football programmes have had a mixed life, starting as a simple team sheet of players names way back in 1890s, Manchester and Everton being some of the first clubs to produce a publication. Others quickly followed as they saw income could be generated by the placing of a few sponsors adverts from the local shops and service in and around the local area. But soon fans wanted more and they began to become a form of communication between supporters and club officials in the form of directors notes.

In the space of perhaps just ten years the football programme had grew to ten pages for a lot of club and even bigger from major clubs like Aston Villa. The first issue of The Villa News Dated Sept 1st 1906 had two colour covers surround 14 pages packed with club info. An advert for Rover Cycles on the cover, not the Rover that that we all saw die recently but the very first geared bicycle. Before this the wheels on all bicycles turned the exact revolution as the peddles (fixed wheel).

Inside the Villa programme the is already images of the players and write ups too. Along with stats, future fixtures and loads of football news you can see why supporters eat them up at the time. Even Though, the focal point for today’s fans was missing – No mention of a managers or notes he may have written.

The reason being that back then the term manager didn’t actually exist, most clubs where run as any other social club. It wasn’t really until the 40-50s that the role of a single person picking the team and deciding which players to bring in became popular, in fact Alf Ramsey was perhaps England’s first real manager. Before that the committee decided on all things football. The managers role developed out of what was then termed the secretary. It was his job to organise the players and make sure they got to the ground, had their kit and in fact 20-30 years earlier not even much effort was put into training players let alone tactics. Anyway I digress, back to football programmes in the next part.

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Hi, my name is Dave Jones (no not that one) I help the owners of this site with ideas and facts on football history. I’ve been going to games for over 45 years now, I collect football programmes, Football Magazines and interesting items from my club and my favourite players. But recently I was asked what it was I first started collecting and why ?

That was not the first time I’ve been asked that and, perhaps like most fans who acutlly go to game, the reply has always been football programmes. But I recently remembered thats not exactly true. Yes it’s the first items for the match day I remember making a point of trying to collect the set of but before that the was something else I collected, I just didn’t realise it at the time.

What was it ? well football cards and I’m think the date was about 1965-1970 as I’m now 50 so 5 years old might be a bit young and 10 years old I would be in my prime as a dirty street kid in Winson Green Birmingham but by the I had already been to my first game and so perhaps the football programmes were starting to fill the first shoe box under my bed.

Trying to track down the exact cards I used to collect is difficult but with the help of NigelI think I’ve found the ones. In 1965 the cards people collected was cigerette cards and although I did smoke at a very early age and so might have had these available to me I didn’t collect those. The reason I can rule that type out is the reason I collected the cards – I use to play a game where you flicked the cards at a wall and the closest to the wall won the card. Either that or later just the furthest to flick the card won.

Flicking card was indeed an artform, new people to the sport would often lose their whole collection in hours if they came up against some who had the knack, like me. I was very proud of the fact that flicking cards was perhaps the first thing I stood out at – well couldn’t spell, didn’t go to school that often. I could run a bit but that and my footballing ability hadn’t really develloped till a short growth spurt when I was about ten.

So what where those cards ?

I’m guess these A&BC 1968/69 Yellow backs Footballers – Yellow backs. By A&BC Gum back in 1968.  They seem about the right size and I think I recall the backs colour.

Flicking was great fun and the joy is you don’t lose the knack. When we play cards now I often use the skills honed as a child to flick cards across the table. The key is the spin I think, this might act as the dimples on a golf ball, I don’t know but I do know I tried to get as much spin as possible.

I don’t have any football cards now, but I did build a big collection, I was also one of the first in our street to discover that with a keen eye you could make a card fall standing up against the wall and so making it almost impossible to get another card closer. Once this tactic was out the next step in the card flickers game was to aim your card to knock down a standing cards. Oh the joy we had with a simple pile of cards, the hours we whiled away, inbetween games of footie that is

Well thats me done for now, “anyone for swopsyees?” (anyone care to comment or give details on their first collection.)

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