Stick with the (valuable) programme
ALL 72 clubs in the English Football League are meeting up next month to decide whether selling match-day programmes should remain mandatory. It could trigger the slow death of the football programme but historic examples will still command big prices.
For example, a single sheet programme for the 1882 FA Cup final between Old Etonians and Blackburn Rovers sold for a record £35,250 in 2013.
The previous record price for a programme was £20,000 for a Manchester United versus Bristol City FA Cup final 1909 ‘match card’ that sold in 2012. The Red Devils won 1-0.
Programme dealer and collector Chris Williams has been a Manchester City fan for more than half a century. The 64-yearold has collected every home programme over that time. But he warns: ‘You should not buy modern programmes as an investor – but as a fan.’
Williams is the High Wycombebased owner of auctioneer Sportingold in Buckinghamshire. He points out the first programmes were cards. Some of the first were printed by Everton.
A match card for an 1889 Everton game against now extinct club Notts Rangers sold last year for £1,100.
Williams says: ‘The FA Cup was what mattered in the early years. It is a far cry from the modern era where league survival is more important.’
The 1915 FA Cup ‘khaki’ final between Chelsea and Sheffield United at Old Trafford – so-called as most of the people in the crowd were soldiers on leave – is perhaps the most famous.
Programmes from this match can fetch £10,000. It was the last match played for four years because the football league was suspended due to the war.
Manchester United’s programmes are the most collectable. A single-sheet team selection when the Red Devils played Walsall in 1890 at The Chuckery before Old Trafford had even been built – cost 1d on the day. It is now worth £10,000.
Williams says: ‘When it comes to the inter-war years the London club whose programmes are worth the most is West Ham. The East End was severely bombed during the Second World War and collections were often destroyed.’
One of the most tragic episodes in football was the 1958 Munich air disaster when eight ‘Busby Babes’ were killed. Programmes of the next – cancelled – game can change hands for up to £10,000.