Matchday programme
A matchday programme or match programme is a booklet associated with a live sporting event which details the proposed starting lineup and other details of the match. To some spectators, the purchase of a matchday programme is part of the "ritual" of attending football and hurling matches in Britain and Ireland. Until 2018, the printing of matchday programmes was compulsory for English Football League games. Souvenir programmes are also collected as sports memorabilia, and rare FA Cup Final matchday programmes have fetched in excess of £35,000 at auction houses such as Sotheby's. Matchday programmes from early 20th-century hurling and Gaelic football games are also collected in Ireland, and a programme from the 1913 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final was sold at auction in 2018 for more than €2,000. Association football A tradition from attending a football match in Britain is to purchase a football programme along with a pint and/or a pie. Due to their initial expendable nature (like the ticket) it took many decades for the format to gain respectability as a collectible. Collecting football programmes became a common hobby among fans in Britain during the 1960s and from then on a number of specialist dealers began to appear.