Any old goodies?
In the cash strapped state of today's football, teams look to every means to get some money. Programmes can be a valuable method of income so every team produces one. This year's Motherwell programme contains 32 pages and is priced at £1. The price has stayed the same for a few seasons and is good value (not as good as GLF- last issue 36 pages for 80p). In England the programmes are already £1.50 but Man. Utd.'s programme gives you forty eight pages of information, trivia and adverts. Chelsea were one of the first clubs to add the extra 50p, doing so in 1992 although they offered forty pages of articles and photos of the latest matches. My last English programme is from Newcastle. Another £1.50 for forty pages effort and this is one of the best. Two pages are devoted to the youth and a flash back to a previous F.A. cup tie. The only programme I have from abroad so far is from the Dortmund away leg. It looks more like a magazine with thirty six A4 pages. A complete stock-list of the BVB shop is included which is a good idea as not everybody has time to look at the club shop. It is very fairly priced at only two deutch marks (just under a pound).
The oldest programme I have is from 1968, a Motherwell v Celtic league game. It cost 6d. and had 8 pages. The first ever Motherwell game a programme was issued in was in August 1948. That is one I would like in my collection! The programme from the 1952, is also a collector's item.
There is also a market for cigarette and bubble gum cards. These have been produced for years and at first were sold in packets of cigarettes. The authorities soon realised that this was encouraging kids to smoke and this was soon stopped. Major companies soon saw the opportunity to make a killing on an open market but this soon filled up giving the collector a variety of choices. The oldest card I have is actually a photograph, Hughie Ferguson was a prolific scorer and got the winner for Cardiff in the 1927 F.A. cup final. Another favourite of mine is Willie Pettigrew who needs no introduction. The more modern sets are from Pro-Set and Panini although one year the latter covered every Scottish Premier club except one! I wonder which!
Visit the GLF archive. Hundreds of articles.