Football Match Programmes | Football Programmes

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Football Match Programmes: How They Have Developed Over the Years?

Football Match Programmes are booklets that one gets when one goes to watch a football match specially in the U.K. Today they are mostly termed as match-day magazine; but the original name of these glossy pages of full colour print with information about the match, players and others like sponsors and next schedules is popularly called football match programmes. A veteran football lover would jump at the name of such a programme and some of them would also take the pride of collection they made thus a proof of enjoying every match of his/her favourite team. The legacy of football match programmes is very old. Today many ardent football fans miss this tradition because with the growing culture of blogs, forums, and advanced web information slowly the craze of football match programmes is disappearing.

The football match programmes has its roots in the later half of the 19th century. The programmes were necessary part of every such event and tournament. Every fan of a club or team would carry them and get the football match programmes to learn about the day. The programmes basically had two fundamental features – first such a programme was a mouthpiece of the organizing authority or host club and second it contained all the details of the day, participating teams, players, officials and other important notes to help spectators identify them and learn more about them.

The history of the football match programmes has been a roller coaster ride since its inception. There have been lots of changes and improvements to the programmes to meet needs of time and bring in new style and aura of fashion. The fifties saw the mini programmes, the 60’s saw the development of London Pride, and the improved standards of the 70’s. The modernisation of football match programmes began in 1970s. Then came the brief filtration with newspapers, insertions and additional supplements in different sizes and shapes, and finally to the modern day glorious modern magazine that you get when you enter the stadium to watch a match.

The first football match programme was introduced in 1870 to identify the players wearing the jerseys bearing different numbers. Since then the booklets have been used to provide and impart lots of other information to the spectators. Ask your grandfather or someone who is an ardent football fan and knows more than any intelligent spokesman on football today about such football match programmes; you will observe a kind of glow in his eyes which would tell you what such programmes meant to them. There was time when such informative booklets were distributed free to spectators, but today you have this same medium used as marketing vehicle. The one and half century old tradition is vanishing day by day and one day it would only be remembered by old veteran fans after which perhaps a day would come when no body would know about such an existence.

Summary: The ‘football match programmes’ today are glossy, colourful magazines sold in prodigious qualities no longer create a craze among spectators. Leaving few die hard fan of soccer you will find hardly others buying them. Slowly the practice of such programmes are dieing in the oblivion. After a long journey today it is going to sleep and slip away from the minds of people.