Most football supporters have a box in a cupboard with a collection of programmes and/or tickets from games they have attended both home and away. We asked programme collector and Northern Ireland supporter, Cairan Crilly to do an article to see it our next away trip could be financed by a yellowing programme and give some advice for those thinking of starting a collection.

Northern Ireland's first post-war international, v England in '46, saw the IFA issue a basic 4 page, black and white programme a result of post war austerity and paper shortage. Back then, 'pirate' programmes were also available for most internationals. 'Pirates' were unofficial programmes, usually published by unscrupulous printers looking to make a quick £. However, one of the 'pirates' for the '46 game was published by Ulster Sports Gazette, a publisher that issued a well- known Northern Ireland-based sports magazine of the period.

The Ulster Sports Gazette 'pirate' issue was much more impressive than the official IFA version, with full colour and double the pages. As a consequence, the IFA appointed the Ulster Sports Gazette to publish the official programme for subsequent games and they continued to do so for many years. The Northern Ireland programmes from the late '40s, early 50s were well ahead of their time - large issues, with attractive covers, many photographs inside and good reading material. They were probably the best programmes of their day and much better than the programmes of the other home international sides. The official programme for the '46 game against England (left) is now very rare and undoubtedly the most valuable post-war Northern Ireland home. If one appears on the market, expect well-heeled England collectors to push the price to above £500. The other programmes from the late '40s, early '50s are also rare, especially for those games that attracted comparatively low crowds (v Wales '47, '49, '51 + '53 and the Festival of Britain match v France in '51) - expect to pay at least £100 for each of these issues in good condition.

The early England homes after '46 (i.e. '48, '50 + '52) appear more frequently but you'll still be doing well to pick up copies of these in good condition for less than £60 each. The rarest Scotland home is '47, valued at around £150, though it should be possible to pick up copies of the Scotland homes '49 and '51 for around the £50 mark. Collectors looking for just one Northern Ireland home from the '40s could do a lot worse than go for the '49 v Scotland - a very impressive programme, with an attractive front cover and less expensive than others from the era - the game also marked Danny Blanchflower's full international debut.

It's easier to obtain the homes from the mid '50s onwards, partly due to the larger crowds which resulted in more programmes being produced and the fact that programmes were increasingly viewed as 'collectibles' through regular articles in magazines such as Charles Buchan's Football Monthly and Soccer Star. As a consequence, it's still possible to obtain home programmes from the '58 WC era quite easily (for example, programmes from the famous matches v Italy in '57 & '58 can each be purchased for less than £10).

Similarly, most of the programmes from the '60s are easy to obtain - the programmes from the home internationals, esp. those against England and Scotland, turn up more regularly than those against continental opposition but, these programmes are also sought in greater numbers by cross-channel collectors. Slightly harder to obtain are programmes v Albania '65 and Mexico '66, again due to the low number of programmes produced for these games. However, in general, expect to pay around £5 for most of the '60s issues.

Home programmes for '70 and '71 tend to be more difficult to obtain and the prices reflect that - prices you could expect to pay for good condition copies are as follows - Cyprus '70 - £20, Scotland '70 - £20, England '71 - £30, Wales '71 - £20, USSR '71 - £15. Due to the civil unrest, Northern Ireland's home internationals from '71 to '75 were played on the mainland. Credit to the IFA for producing programmes for all these games at neutral venues including Goodison Park, Coventry, Hull and Hillsborough with opposition including England, Wales, Spain, Portugal and Bulgaria. The IFA also produced programmes for their 'home' games against Scotland, these being held at Hampden Park from '72 through to '78 (still a sore point due to the Scottish F.A. refusing to return to Windsor Park as from '75). Somewhat surprisingly, all the programmes from these 'home' games still turn up on a regular basis. With a few exceptions (for example, v Scotland '74 @ approx. £15), they can all be purchased for £5 or less.

Northern Ireland returned to Windsor Park for the international v Yugoslavia in '75. The venue was only confirmed at short notice with the result that Billy Kennedy, still Linfield's programme editor to this day, produced an issue of similar format to the then 'Look at Linfield' programme, the only exception being a green as opposed to a blue cover. The poor quality, by international standards, of the programme meant less fans kept a copy and the larger than expected crowd that attended the game resulted in a sell-out on the day (requests for copies orders from mainland collectors and programme dealers could not be fulfilled) has resulted in this being the rarest Northern Ireland home programme since the early '50s. For a copy in good condition, expect to pay up to £50.

Northern Ireland returned to Windsor Park for the international v Yugoslavia in '75. The venue was only confirmed at short notice with the result that Billy Kennedy, still Linfield's programme editor to this day, produced an issue of similar format to the then 'Look at Linfield' programme, the only exception being a green as opposed to a blue cover. The poor quality, by international standards, of the programme meant less fans kept a copy and the larger than expected crowd that attended the game resulted in a sell-out on the day (requests for copies orders from mainland collectors and programme dealers could not be fulfilled) has resulted in this being the rarest Northern Ireland home programme since the early '50s. For a copy in good condition, expect to pay up to £50.

Most homes from '75 onwards are relatively easy to obtain . Note that the homes v England and Wales in the Home Championships from '75 onwards were joint issues and that a programme was not produced for the friendly v Denmark in '86. The IFA's World Cup Souvenir Brochure went on sale that evening, priced at £2.50 - a large amount of money for this type of item back then, and the IFA were worried that the availability of a programme would detract from sales of the brochure. It turned out to be a Public Relations disaster - requests by the Northern Ireland Football Programme Collectors' Club (under the auspices of John Duffy, who as Secretary of Cliftonville in 1999 did what Linfield failed to do by knocking Cliftonville out of the Irish Cup) to produce a 4 page programme free of charge or at a nominal amount, with any money raised being donated to charity were refused. The Souvenir Brochure sold badly and it later turned out that thousands of unsold copies had been dumped by the IFA, when these could have been given away free of charge in schools, youth clubs etc.

Although some of the more recent programmes are now at a premium, most are easy to obtain. Collectors looking for memories of the Bingham era should be able to pick up programmes from the famous games against Israel '81 and Germany '82 for around £2 each. Also look out for the game v Sweden in '80 - this marked the IFA's centenary and a very impressive centenary celebration programme was produced, again you should be able to pick this up for circa. £2. Although most post '86 programmes are still available at, or just over, cover price, it will be interesting to see how these prices change over the longer term, due to the low crowds and low number of programmes produced for some of these games.

As a rule of thumb, the aways v England, Scotland and Wales are relatively easy to obtain, with prices being quite high for late '40s issues and gradually decreasing in value through the '50s to the '80s. Expect to pay circa. £50 on average for the late '40s aways, though the programme from the 2-2 draw v England at Goodison in '47 will set you back at least £100. However, by the 1950s prices come down considerably - expect to pick up a programme from our famous 3-2 victory over England at Wembley in '57 for less than £10. Onwards to '85, and the programme from the 0-0 draw at Wembley in the WC Qualifier can be obtained for approx. £2.

Aways against continental opposition can be considerably rarer. No programme is known for Northern Ireland's first official international on the continental against France in '52, though I'd be surprised if some sort of programme was not produced. Note that programmes are known to exist for the unofficial internationals we played away to Norway in 1922. Early away internationals that can be obtained are v Portugal '58, West Germany ' 61, Netherlands '62 and USSR ' 69 but still expect to pay around £20 for each of these. Others, such as Switzerland ' 64 and Albania '65, are almost impossible to obtain and would fetch three figures if they were to turn up today.

Most of the continental aways in the 70s are also hard to obtain - programmes for aways to Bulgaria, Sweden, Norway and West Germany will set back collectors at least £50 each. However, the programme for our first visit to the Rep. of Ireland in '78 can still be obtained for less than £2. Some continental aways from the Bingham era can still be picked up relatively easily - for the famous 1-0 victories, expect to pay around £10 for the '83 game v Germany and £15 - £20 for the '85 game v Rumania. However, some aways from the 90s are now very rare - Yugoslavia '91 would sell for at least £50 if it turned up for auction and programmes from some other games have been brought back in comparatively few numbers.

All of the away issues from the 2002 WC Qualifying Round are fairly rare, with the most difficult to obtain definitely being the Bulgaria issue. Bulgaria issued a joint programme, which incorporated their home match to Iceland the previous Saturday - very few copies were left by the Wednesday and few have arrived back in Northern Ireland - so if you have one keep it safe.

In conclusion, its certainly possible to build a collection of programmes relating to some of Northern Ireland's most memorable matches relatively easily and without spending a fortune in the process. However, some issues are very rare and very expensive. If you want to obtain a collection of all Northern Ireland homes post-war then you need to be prepared to spend significant three figure sums for some of the early issues and the patience to wait for these issues to come onto the market. If you want to obtain all the Northern Ireland aways, you'll find it's almost an impossible task - there are still away games out there for which it can't be confirmed whether or not a programme was issued.

Collectors of recent Northern Ireland programmes who are looking to branch out and start collecting some earlier programmes could do a lot worse than go for the programmes from the 5 games that we played in the '58 World Cup in Sweden. Unlike '82 and '86, for which only tournament brochures were produced, the '58 World Cup saw programmes produced for each individual game. The 5 Northern Ireland issues can be picked up in the region of £30 to £40 each. However all World Cup-related memorabilia has been increasingly significantly in value in recent years and is likely to be further in demand after Japan / Korea 2002 so these programmes are likely to be a good investment.

Another tip is to keep ticket stubs from games - used tickets for recent homes are now selling for circa £3 each with higher prices for older homes and all aways. Its ironic that the used ticket stubs from both the aways to Bulgaria and Czech Rep are worth slightly more than their original cover value. Similarly, those fans who travel to Northern Ireland aways should look out for other match souvenirs, especially posters advertising the game but almost any match-related item, even newspapers from the home country that preview or review the game, is increasingly sought after.