British Football Programmes

(Published in Baseline 53, 2007)

Encompassing the totality of our lived environment, the symbols and objects of graphic design serve to mark our everyday encounters and activities. From our waking moment we encounter these visual creations in all their diversity of style and application. Admittedly, many of these designs remain instantly forgettable, passing before our eyes like a form of visual muzak. Yet, out of this graphic noise a work may catch our eye. Often, it is not the sanctified and accepted icon of design history, but something ephemeral and unselfconscious in its creation. For whatever reason, we may become drawn to the typeface on a bus ticket, an illustration on a shop door, or the depth numbers on the side of a swimming pool; all may hold a special significance for us which exceeds any accepted history of graphics. Ultimately, it is this aversion to hierarchies, the easy dividing up into high and low culture, that makes graphic design so fertile in its ability to give rise to moments of Proustian recollection.

Like such objects as record album covers or confectionary packaging, football programmes occupy a unique place in our personal and social history, often evoking a deep nostalgia for times past or experiences shared. As a child born and raised within shouting distance of Blundell Park, the home ground of Grimsby Town FC, the match day programme formed part of my fortnightly experience of the game. Carrying an old plastic crate in one hand - which, when placed on the bottom tier of the stand, would enable me to see over the imposing picket fence - I would always walk past the programme seller on the corner of my street. Initially, the programme itself was beyond my meagre pocket money. Borrowing a friend's, I would flick through this cheaply printed booklet initially looking for photographs of previous home fixtures, comparing the action pictured with my own memories of the match. As time past I was able to buy my own copy and would read with interest the manager's column, where he would make kindly remarks on the days visiting team, alongside the more barbed comments directed at disparaging match reports in the local press. As the minutes would pass before kick-off, I would then scour the stats and figures, the league tables and lists of forthcoming fixtures. Goals for, goals against, attendances at home and away grounds, all would hold real fascination (and still do). Lastly, I would look through the teams, usually printed on the back page, discussing with friends the respective benefits of playing Kevin Drinkell up front, or how Mike Brolly's speed will fare against the strong visiting defence. Throughout all these moments, no attention was paid to how the programme was designed, the choice of typeface or illustrations. At the time of purchase it served as part of the match day build-up. Yet, after the game the small stapled booklet marked out a space, one that conflated the memories and experiences forged in moments of communal despair, joy, anger and boredom. As the actual games recede into the past, these programmes speak with an indisputable honesty that, in their imperfect splendour, are a world away from the excuse for a choreographed marketing experience that now passes for a professional football match.

The origins of the football league programme are equally dissimilar from the slick glossy productions that seemingly grace most league grounds today. Originating in the 1870's, the publication was a rather humble team sheet, which simply identified the players on each side and informed the spectators of forthcoming fixtures. As John Litster has noted in The Football Programme: A History and Guide, in these early days of the game 'there were no team numbers on the backs of Victorian football shirts, but players did sometimes have distinguishing features, whether in the colour of their stockings or the type of cap or cowl they wore...and spectators were able to identify the players from the positions they took up on the field, which corresponded to the formation in which their names were printed on the team sheet.' Many of these early sheets were composed of a mixture of typefaces similar in style to billposters of the day. They were given out freely to the paying spectators. In time, however, the owners of the clubs realised that if the sheets became more sizeable, the public would be willing to pay for them. Around the beginning of the 19th century, some of the larger clubs began to produce more significant publications that increased from a single folded sheet to a more substantial stapled production. Originally sold for a penny, these works included information on visiting teams and short biographies of home players. 'Printers and publishers quickly cottoned on to the example shown by other branches of entertainment,' Litster notes, 'and attracted paid advertising to the issue. That in turn required sufficient sales to keep the advertisers happy, which meant that content had to be good enough to attract buyers at the match.'

As Litser highlights, it is from this period that advertising became a key feature of the football programme. In these early designs the reproduction of the team formation would still often occupy the central part of the front page, but surrounding it would be numerous adverts promoting local produce and services. Over time the volume of advertising in programmes would fluctuate. Initially, the owners were keen to make some much needed income for the club, and they would overload the publication with small boxed ads. The rampant commercialism of the penny programmes in the 1910s often made it difficult to locate match day information amongst the plethora of commercial announcements and notices.

It was only with the resumption of matches after World War One and an expansion of the number of clubs in the league (alongside the creation of a new third division) that an increase in production lead to a greater variety of programme design and material covered. It was also during the 1920s that we begin to see the addition of illustrations on programme covers, usually of players in mid-action. Admittedly, a large proportion of these are crudely rendered by local printers who never seemed to achieve the right anatomical proportions, often making for highly comic visions. Yet, on rare occasions, technically accomplished printers would produce ornate and detailed programme covers, works that looked to the world of the fine arts for their inspiration. As offset lithographic process became more affordable in the 1930s, photographs slowly replaced such illustrations. Yet, for many smaller clubs, the use of drawings or ready-made Letraset illustrations continued to remain a regular feature of programmes up until the early 1970s.

Another development that contributed to the growth in programme sales throughout the 1920s was the addition of a new coded system for communicating half-time scores. With no loudspeaker systems or radio broadcasts available, clubs began to introduce scoreboards that enabled spectators to keep abreast of the latest scores around the country. These boards consisted of a series of large letters and numbers, with each letter referring to a team and number indicating the current score. At half-time the supporter would look through their programme and find the chart, and then they would look for the letter and see which team it referred to and then decode the scores. For many of the younger supporters (myself included) this seemingly complicated system remained a mystery. As Bob Stanley noted in Match Day Football Programmes: Post War to Premiership, it was 'simple in theory, but in practise as hard to crack as the enigma code.' 

The 1930s saw the football programme grow in page number and quality, yet it was a progression cut short with the arrival of World War Two. With the football league suspended for seven seasons, it took until the late forties until a regular fixture list was re-established. Yet, with the war-time shortage of paper supplies continuing for many years after the war, most clubs were only able to produce programmes of four and eight pages, instead of the twenty and thirty page productions of the thirties. With the reduction of pages came a reduction in content. Featuring just the barest of match day information, the remaining space was most often taken up with adverts. As many clubs continued to charge a relatively high price for such a paltry creation, the growth experienced in pre-war programme sales went into reverse. A general apathy towards altering this state of affairs was common at most clubs. For most, the programme was merely an obligatory requirement and little was done to improve their overall design. The slump in quality and sales would continue throughout much of the 1950s.

For most collectors of football programmes, the dusty feeling of nostalgia experienced when looking at the use of colour, the illustrations, or the visceral quality of paper and print, often arises from an encounter with the programmes of the 1960s. Out of the dark ages of the immediate post-war period, the sixties marked a renaissance in both the number of programmes produced and the quality and diversity of their design. One of the key events of the sixties that fueled the growing attendances at games and encouraged clubs to pay closer attention towards their programmes (at least in England) was the 1966 World Cup. Interest in the national game reached new heights when the home country won the tournament and the enthusiasm from this much re-visited event fed into a more general boom for the game. This upturn manifested itself in a desire amongst many clubs to produce something more substantial. Fortnightly columns by local writers, full-page photo-stories of previous games, and expansive notes on the days visiting team, made for a sizeable publication worthy of the cover price. Admittedly, sandwiched among these features were the usual range of adverts and promotions. Yet, in the best examples, unlike the earlier programmes, they were never permitted to overwhelm the page.

Clearly, the main feature of the programme that first greets the fan is the cover. In terms of its design, it was often the only part of the publication to feature photographs or the use of colour. In keeping with the growing ambitions of programme design during the sixties, printers frequently became more resourceful in their use of limited funds. For example, in the most basic designs, the white paper on which the program was printed would be made to form one part of a two colour design scheme that replicated the club colours. So, the Plymouth program is green on white, Gillingham blue on white, Doncaster red on white, and so on. The fixture details and price would be printed in the negative space alongside a photograph of the ground (usually an aerial shot). While some programmes utilised stark geometric blocks of colour, the most common format was three horizontal 'bands'. With the name in the top, an image occupying the central portion and match day information on the bottom, it was a popular approach that was replicated on the covers of most major cup final and international match programmes. Alternatives to such layouts included colour tinted photographs bled off the page and full cover illustrations. The mid-1960s also bore witness to a unique football programme format that has never since been replicated: the 'mini'. Measuring approximately 11 by 14cm, this pint-sized booklet was introduced at various clubs around the country such as Reading and Swindon. Not needing to be folded up or rolled into a tube these compact constructions were more suited to the fans pocket. As with many fashions of the sixties, however, these designs were short-lived. While a slightly enlarged version of this programme continued into the 1980's (most notably at West Ham United) the perception that you were not getting enough for your money, alongside advertisers increasing desire for more space, ultimately contributed to their decline.

Many of the programmes from the sixties were created with an engagingly hand-crafted Do-It-Yourself aesthetic. It was an idiosyncratic approach that was all the more inventive when contrasted with the increasingly slick programme designs of the 1970s. During this decade, the growing affordability of improved printing technologies and a desire to produce a more polished product led many clubs to manufacture programmes that would not look out of place on a newsagents shelf. Yet, this shift was part of a wider response to a period of change in football. With memories of the 1966 World Cup win fading and the growing problem of crowd violence, the national game was developing a serious image problem. Many clubs attempted to address the public perception of your average football fan as some corpulent thug, by creating 'family stands' and cheap tickets for parents and their children. Having to compete with numerous other leisure pursuits, clubs now had to entice fans into the ground. By the mid-eighties, visiting a football ground was slowly becoming part of a complete matchday 'experience'. It was a development that gathered speed into the 1990s, until, as Jeremy Leslie noted in Football Graphics, today we find that 'everything at the stadium...is...branded by the club. From the pre-match burger to the match programme and from the half-time cuppa to the video information screens which are now a feature at many grounds, everything is tied in to the visual language of football.'

Much to its detriment, the programme is now just one element of the commodified arena that greets your average football fan. With the arrival of desktop publishing, even the smallest club can produce a programme that looks polished and professional. Yet, compared with the programmes of the 1960s, these thick glossy booklets are more akin to soulless company report or advert laden theatre programme. Admittedly, such criticisms may be fueled by nothing more than pure unadulterated nostalgia. Yet, the way in which seemingly ephemeral designs, works not considered a design classic, can trigger a set of emotions, thoughts, or feelings, merely underscores the rigidity of most official stories of design. Each one of us has a unique relationship to a graphic object, a relationship that transcends easy categorization. For me, the programmes seen on these pages speak of moments shared, relationships formed, and times past.

Bibliography

Litster, John. The Football Programme: A History and a Guide. (Tempus Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2000)

Stanley, Bob. & Kelly, Paul. Match Day Football Programmes, Post-war to Premiership. (Fuel Publishing, London, 2006)

Leslie, Jeremy. & Burgoyne, Patrick. Football Graphics. (Thames & Hudson, London, 1998)

Kerry William Purcell 2008 ©