In general you find a few different types of collectors within the football programme communiuty. There is the potential collector who has a passing interest in starting a programme collection, there is the latent collector who collects programmes infrequently, there is the casual collector who may accumulate football programmes without having a specific theme to their collection, and also there is the confirmed collector who has precise aims and regularly tries to acquire programmes in order to enhance his or her collection.
There is no minimum or maximum size to a collection, and the only limitations to it come in the form of your available finance. To be a collector, there is no need to own highly expensive programmes, just simply something that brings enjoyment or a sense of achievement to the collector. Programme collectors come from all walks of life.
When they first start collecting, a collector may try to add everything on offer to their collection as quickly as possible in order to give it some substance. However, with this comes a loss of tangible meaning, and later when restraints may mean a particular theme will have to be chosen and explored in order to enhance a collection.
There truly are an unlimited number of themes and sub-themes of programmes that can be collected. However, there are certain traditional ways to build a collection. For example, for example all those programmes concerned with a particular club, all those played in a particular competition, etc. During the course of a collection a person is likely to discover the highs and lows of buying a sought after football programme, or the frustration of not being able to find a source for one that is vital to your collection.
Those collectors who are more causal in their approach to the collecting of football programmes will usually own a small number of special programmes for major finals or semi-finals for the team that they personally follow, internationals, testimonials, special fixtures, or other major cup ties. These can basically be classified as a Big Match programme.
If you have a big affiliation to a particular soccer club your mission in programme collecting may be to simply buy all issues for your chosen team. In addition to the normal league and cup matches, you may also attempt to collect programmes from friendlies, foreign tours, reserve teams, and youth teams.
One way of increasing the depth and scope of your collection is by setting an earlier date from which to collect. You might, for example, decide to collect back to 1980, 1970, 1960, etc.
A collector who is fairly neutral in their affiliations, and just has a general passion for football will often widen the scope of their collection. In these sorts of collections you may find football programmes from a number of clubs at varying levels (including non-league). For the more adventurous collector, football programmes may have been bought from countries other than his or her own.