TV’s Crick and fellow devotees lament decline of programmes
League vote could spell end of match magazine but a band of obsessives still cultivate their collections
Michael Crick has a confession. “I’m obsessed by football programmes,” says the Channel 4 News political correspondent, the broadcaster renowned for his magnificent door-stepping interviews with reluctant politicians. “I’ve been collecting them ever since I went to my first match – Manchester United versus Crystal Palace in October 1970. I have never thrown one away.”
The study at his home is lined with programmes. He has thousands of them, neatly filed season by season, a collection which includes items from every competitive match United have played since 1958. His favourites are the battered and bruised copies he bought at long-forgotten away matches, every crease and rain-splattered splodge a pungent reminder of his supporting past. Indeed, it is a collection the value of which, he admits, is almost entirely personal.
“I’ve spent way too much over the years filling in the gaps,” he says. “But it’s a stupid investment. Programmes from the Fifties, you’re talking about maybe £20 a time for some of the rarer ones. But anything post-1970 is worth nothing.
The truth is this is a dying hobby restricted to people of 50 and above.” It may be on the wane, but on match day you will find enthusiasts such as Crick outside every ground in the country. There will be a gaggle of anorak-clad programme collectors surrounding the open boot of a hatchback parked up somewhere near the stadium, leafing through boxes of rare back numbers. There will be a certain poignancy in their activities this weekend: the wider future of the programme is in danger after the Football League announced that it is to conduct a vote among members about whether clubs will be required to maintain the long-held obligation to produce them. For many lowerdivision operations, the cost of printing a glossy fortnightly magazine has become prohibitive, given that sales have recently fallen through the floor. “It used to be vital component of game, you’d pick one up at the match along with a pie and a Bovril,” says Steven Mason, of Event Surplus Outlet, the organisation that collects and sells sporting memorabilia to raise money for charity. “It’s not the case any more. It used to provide a lot of information. These days, you can get that for free from other sources, particularly social media, so there’s less and less reason to buy a programme. Of all the memorabilia we gather up to sell for charity, programmes are probably the least valuable for us.” Clubs are reluctant to release figures, but anecdotal evidence suggests fewer and fewer are sold on match days; in the Premier League the majority are given away as part of corporate hospitality. In the past, clubs incentivised purchase by printing tokens in programmes that fans were obliged to collect in order to prove attendance when seeking to buy tickets for in-demand games. For a while, Crick remembers, Manchester United even required fans to collect the front page of away match programmes to demonstrate their loyalty. “They stopped that when it became clear that sellers at away grounds were being robbed of their stock,” he says.
These days, there seems little point paying upwards of £3.50 for a publication, unless there is potential historical significance to the match in question (Crick gleefully points out that programmes for the recent Mancunian derby at the Etihad were in huge demand from City fans anxious to record the moment they won the Premier League by beating their local rivals). Because, unlike a news-stand magazine, the content is unlikely to hold the attention for long.
Programmes have for years largely followed the same template: opening with the manager’s ghostwritten thoughts, followed by the chairman and captain’s observations and a bunch of bland features. As an extension of the club’s public relations department, the regular player interviews are rarely revealing. Though few can match the lack of illumination shown by Derek Hales in the Quickfire Q&A section in a Charlton programme dating from 1976.
“Nickname at club: None; Favourite British player: None; Favourite foreign player: None; Favourite away ground: Don’t have one; Best goal ever scored: Don’t have one in particular.” Well worth the cover price, that.
“Lots do follow that familiar pattern,” says Paul Natz, editor of Programme Monthly, the Hansard of the collecting hobby. “But there are some that have real imagination, put together by writers who love their clubs.” He cites the three that won his magazine’s annual awards as exemplars: Fulham, Rochdale and Mansfield. And he points out that clubs way down the pyramid still produce programmes. Such as South Liverpool in the West Cheshire League Division One, who do not charge admission to games but pride themselves on always having available a match-day publication.
Though it appears not even the collectors themselves are avid readers of the product. Take Leslie Millman, who has a library of United programmes which, according to Crick, is the most extensive in the country. “I never read them, they’re drivel,” Millman says. That, however, has not stopped him gathering together every known programme associated with the club. And he has done it not once, but twice. “I had to sell my entire collection in 2000 to fund a divorce,” he explains. “But
– four or five items apart – I’ve rebuilt it.” And he has found it increasingly easy to do so, thanks to the arrival of online auction sites. “Ebay has changed the world of collecting,” he says. “It’s made it relatively straightforward to build up a complete collection, provided you have the funds.”
What is more, he reckons recently he has required fewer funds than before. Back in 2010, he sold a much sought-after programme from United’s game away at the Argentine club Estudiantes in the Intercontinental Cup in 1968 for £12,000. This year, he noticed the same item was sold at auction for £8,000.
“Value is entirely determined by who wants to buy,” he says. “And if there are fewer people collecting, then there’s less money around.”
Indeed, he reckons that the largest amount paid for a single programme – the £35,250 for the Old Etonians v Blackburn Rovers FA Cup final in 1882 handed over in 2013 – is a record never now likely to be surpassed.
Not that diminishing returns are going to stop Crick. Worthless or not, he will have come home from United’s game at Brighton on Friday clutching a copy of the match-day programme, as always. “Why do I keep buying them?” he says. “I’ve no idea. I can’t stop myself.”
‘I’ve spent way too much but it’s a stupid investment. Anything from after 1970 is worth nothing’