Stoke City

[tommy]

AN EXTREMELY rare Stoke City match programme from one of the club’s first football league games is expected to fetch up to £10,000 at auction.
The single-sheet programme, for the Potters’ match against Notts County on September 22, 1888, is thought to be one of the oldest in the world.
It was published during the Football League’s very first season.
The game was only the third played by Stoke in the league, their second at home – and the club’s first league win, with a score of 3-0.
The programme was found in a house in The Westlands, Newcastle, by Andy Clayton, who inherited the contents of the house when his cousin died.
The 59-year-old said: “My cousin, Margaret Stayton, was a descendant of one of the Stoke players, which is probably how she ended up with the programme. I had no idea of its significance until friends asked me if I knew what it was.
“When I had the programme valued, I was amazed – I had to sit down.
“My wife and I have retired to France but we own an old village house which needs restoring and this will help us start work on the top floor.”
Only 3,000 people made up the crowd at the match at the Victoria Ground, which means that few programmes were produced.
The programme was printed by The New Press Printing Company in Foundry Street, Hanley, and has vertical and horizontal folds and Sellotape repairs.
Yet despite these flaws, auctioneers Bonhams have given the programme an £8,000 to £10,000 pre-sale estimate.
It will go on sale in Chester on February 25.
When it was new, it cost one old penny and a pint of a beer in Stoke cost tuppence.
The programme reveals there were no linesmen at the match but each club supplied an umpire to help the referee.
Stoke City’s impartial umpire was H. Lockett, who may have been manager Harry Lockett – a trail-blazing figure who led Stoke into the Football League and helped kick-start professional football in England.
He was Stoke City’s representative at a meeting on March 23, 1888, when the formation of the league was discussed, and became the Football League’s first secretary at its headquarters at Parkers Terrace, Etruria, now Brick Kiln Lane. In those days, the better paid professional footballers were paid half a crown a week – around 13p in modern money.
Dan Davies, sports consultant at Bonhams said: “It’s special because it was from the first season of the football league, and was also the team’s first home win.
“We’re expecting a lot of interest from collectors of Stoke City programmes and collectors of programmes in general.”
The current world record for a football programme is £21,850 which was paid for a copy of the single-sheet 1888-1889 Wolves versus Preston FA cup final programme at Graham Budd Auctions in London in May 2006.

[Auchinleckian]

Wouldn't be surprised to see Nick Hancock end up with it.

[smk06]

Or Robbie Williams. Who will then proceed to burn it.

[tommy]

Sold for £8,760 inclusive of Buyer's Premium