My MLM Dream Team

In general you find a number of 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 accumulate 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 minimum or maximum size to a collection, and the only limitations to it come in the form of your financial restraints. To be a collector, there is no need to own highly expensive programmes, just simply something that brings enjoyment or a sense of satisfaction to the collector. Programme collectors come from all sorts of backgrounds.

When they first start collecting, a collector may try to acquire everything they can find 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 further a collection.

There truly are an unlimited 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 team, all those concerned with a particular competition, etc. During the course of a collection a person is likely to discover the joys and pitfalls of buying a sought after old 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 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 classed 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 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 improving 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 1950, etc.

A collector who is fairly 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 range of teams at different levels (including non-league). For the more adventurous collector, football programmes may have been bought from countries other than his or her own.