Throwaway comments

A couple of weeks ago, I did something I’d never done before: I threw away some football programmes. Well, actually I took them down to the local recycling centre, but dumping them in the skip there felt like throwing them away. And it felt odd.

Programmes are funny things. I’ll go into WH Smith’s sometimes, browse the shelves for a magazine to read, and then see the cover price (£4.50, say) and decide to give it a miss – and yet I will unthinkingly hand over £3 at Vicarage Road for a ‘matchday magazine’ that I will read before kick-off, and again for a few minutes at half-time, before taking it home and filing it away. Chances are I’ll never look at it again. Earlier today, I was up in the attic at my Mum’s, where there are boxes of Watford programmes from the 70s and 80s, just sitting there, unmissed and unloved.

Of course, I tell myself I will look at them one day. One mythical day, when I have lots of time on my hands and no distractions, I will gather these historic artefacts and peruse them at my leisure, wallowing in the nostalgia and the period details (much as the features in this season’s programme allow you to do, in fact). I did actually do this a couple of years ago, on a very small scale; you can read about what I found here.

The programmes I recycled, though, were much more recent, covering the past 12 seasons; thick, glossy publications, not old enough to stir the blood. (Mind you, there was one whose cover, featuring the messianic-looking trio of Boothroyd, Ashton and Simpson, shook me for a moment.) They were taking up a lot of shelf space that I could ill afford, so I decided they had to go. After I’d established that there was no market for them on ebay, and offered them in vain to the good folk of the WML, the tip was my last resort.

I did save one programme from each season, though, as an exemplar of that year’s design, and to preserve a memory of a significant match (though there were seasons where I had to stretch the definition of ‘significant’ somewhat). Long-term, the plan is to do the same with the older programmes, though I fear it will be harder to part with them. And I’ve got to get them down from Mum’s attic first.