15 things the pandemic has brought to our hobby?

[HendonHotshots]

A bit of a brain dump on what covid has brought to programme collecting (not all bad)!!

In no particular order......

1. “Limited edition” printed programmes (e.g the Solihull 100)

2. A slightly harder to obtain FAC Final programme (Arsenal v Chelsea) c. £20

3. An FAC semi-final without an official programme. Does anyone know the last semi not to have one...?

4. An England home international without a programme (last one was....?)

5. “Ghost” programmes for matches that never were (I’m thinking of NLN & NLS for null and void matches)

6. A shift to programmes downloadable to mobile devices such as matchday app

7. Clubs printing only what they have to & collectors pre-ordering programmes (not possible to purchase after match played)

8. the rise of the “print from digital” service (M60, printaprogramme )

9. Fewer official programme printers (Curtis, reach & ignition seem to do most FL clubs??)

10. A move to ordering programmes direct from the club rather than dealers

11. The inconsistency in postage prices charged for programmes

12. The absence of football programme fairs

13. Clubs providing downloadable official teamsheets as justification to stop producing programmes

14. The emergence of “fan packages” & “virtual tickets” for BCD matches

15. ....& not forgetting the gaps in programme collections as clubs opt for one of:a) printed programme, b) digital only, c) printed from digital, d) teamsheet only or e) nothing at all

That’s my tuppence worth. What do others think???!!!!!

[Dorking]

It's been a PITA.
But then I used to go to all the games I wanted to and get the programmes at the ground, so all this ordering from home is new for me anyway.

I suspect that going forward, many non league clubs may well stick to doing digital only programmes, so thank goodness for the likes of printaprogramme.

In the autumn I did a fair bit of groundhopping, as games were still continuing at non league steps 3-6. And so I found all sorts of useful websites and forums. And it was very clear that to a lot of groundhoppers and programme 'loyalists' whether or not there was a printed programme available was part of the criteria of whether they chose to go to that game, or choose another to go to.

You'd see it on twitter quite often - clubs would put out a tweet with the entry price, kick off time etc, and then people would ask if there was a programme or not. And if there wasn't, they'd be quite open in saying that's a shame, and that they'd go elsewhere.