Many of you will know that I have been working with my Finnish friend, O-M Matihalti on his famous social media project that I featuredhere In a nutshell he is collecting ONE programme PER club PER season from 1967/68 to 2016/2017. This is being preserved as a huge project charting the social -economic, political and, of course, sporting life in England and Wales over those fifty years.

I thought it best if I added an update. We are making great progress although some clubs are much more difficult than others so far.

We are complete for ARSENAL, ASTON VILLA, BRENTFORD, CHELSEA, CHARLTON, CREWE, CRYSTAL PALACE, DARLINGTON, FULHAM, GILLINGHAM, IPSWICH, LIVERPOOL, MANCHESTER UNITED, NEWCASTLE UNITED, NORTHAMPTON TOWN, PORT VALE, QPR, READING, SHEFFIELD UTD/WED, SOUTHAMPTON, STOCKPORT COUNTY, STOKE, SUNDERLAND, TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR, WALSALL, WATFORD, WEST BROMWICH ALBION, WEST HAM UNITED, WIMBLEDON, WOLVES, YORK

O-M comments, “Many moons ago I had this brilliant brainstorm of mine of collecting one programme per club per season. Little did I know what a project this would be. Without Steve, whom I got acquainted to back in March of 2024, getting anywhere near finishing the task would have been practically impossible. There’s been plenty of other people helping Steve. One or two of them to mention are Brian of Brian’s Football Memorabilia, Stephen Morris (thanks, we shall meet one day) and the Supporters’ Trusts at Crewe Alexandra and Accrington Stanley.

I am eternally thankful for all the help fellow collectors have been giving on the way to finalize the task. Getting back to Steve… he has swapped hundreds of programmes helping me to fill the gaps and scanned an enormous number of programme covers for me. One of the biggest challenges I have found is the high cost of postage to Finland. I can arrange postage to/from here via Steve. I have many thousands of programmes from Finland that l can exchange for my wants. Obviously you are most welcome to visit beautiful Finland …. probably best in Summer!!! Things to be done… are to meet Steve in person (I know he’s deaf but we will get by), to visit a West London programme fair (Hi, Mark, Barry, Lee and Les – Steve has told me a lot about you all so I’d love to visit) and anyone else in the UK who wants to say “hi.” Meanwhile, I will be pleased to help any collector who is interested in Finnish programmes.”

Thanks, O-M. I am really excited to get back to Finland. I was there in 1975 ….. I guess that makes me “old” or “urgammal,” as they say in certain parts of Finland.

If anybody can fill the gaps on the other clubs please do make contact with me. The hope initially was that people would be keen to take part in the project and would be happy to donate or maybe run with 1×1 exchanges. Sadly, it has not been possible to complete so now I am offering 5×1 with either/any of Premier League, big match, Gillingham, named clubs (most but not all of the 92), non-league, Finnish or Swedish. Can you help?

Those who I would like to applaud publicly are:

Lee Hermitage of NWM Football

Brian at Brian’s Football Memorabilia

Mark Barnes the co-owner of Welling Collectables and of the West London Programme Fairs

… but the biggest, biggest (drum roll, PLEASE) shout out is for Stephen Morris. He has really engaged in the project and diligently searched for dozens of teams for O-M. He has huge stocks of most UK teams and I have always had hugely positive trades with him (both privately and for the project.) Everybody else I have spoken to speaks highly of him too.

He has a terrific offer on currently with a Super Summer 50p Sale. He has tens of thousands of club programmes from the 70s to the 20s all at 50p. As my way of thanking him, if you take 50 programmes at 50p, I will double that with 50 random programmes from my own collection. Seem fair?

Any thoughts, questions, suggestions, kind wishes or, well, anything just get in touch with O-M or me.

Many thanks indeed, to everyone.

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It’s actually probably a good place to note that this project will be my last major involvement with programmes. Why? Well, after 60+ years, health and old age are forcing me to sell up. So, if you are interested in 20,000+ programmes at a bargain price, check here

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