Why I paid £95 for an old programme, but noted the price in code

I bought two treasured programmes this season and put them in cellophane in my programme album, the best one, not the rubbish one. Neither is an Arsenal nor a Spurs prog. I do go to their home games all the time, but I buy a programme only once every four games: have you seen the prices, and the contents?

At the last Spurs home game, against Liverpool, it was one of my days for splashing out, but I nearly threw up when I opened the prog. In the middle was a pull-out poster, two feet long, a triumph of colour printing and clever binding - of Gary Doherty. Gawd, if there's one name I don't like to see on the team sheet, it's him, especially when they stick him up front.

What a lump. Probably a lovely person, helps old agents across the road, gives generously to people not on £20,000 a week - but still a lump. Over the years, Spurs have specialised in lumps, some of whom the crowd have grown to love, in an ironic, patronising way, such as John Pratt, Ronny Rosenthal or today, Steffen Freund - lumpen players who try hard. All teams have them. Some teams are full of them. Crowds like to have one, to prove how kind we can be, picking on someone talentless to cheer rather than jeer. Doherty is in the latter category.

So I won't be giving the Spurs guide VIP (Very Important Prog) status, unlike my treasured two. One is an Everton programme for 1910 and the other is for West Bromwich Albion of 24 August this season. Can you guess why they are so special? While you think about it, let me tell you about programmes. They didn't have them at first, in 1863 when the FA was formed. They appeared in the early 1870s and were simply team cards, usually given free to important guests. The clubs started sticking adverts on the back, making a bit of money, then selling them at a penny apiece, by which time they had expanded to quite a few pages.

By the 1900s, many clubs had excellent programmes, such as Chelsea's, up to 12 pages, full of jokes, poems, competitions, news cartoons, wittily and professionally done. Programmes made a lot of money for the clubs, so much so that there were often pirate progs, which the fans were warned against buying.

My Everton 1910 programme has 16 pages, lots of reading and information. I bought it at auction, from Sports Programmes, for . . . let me see, I write the price in pencil and in code, so my wife never knows how daft I've been, then I forget the code. Just as well. I seem to have paid £95, a bargain, but it is in tatty condition. A pristine one would fetch twice that.

I'd been looking out for an Everton or Liverpool programme from this period for some years, as they have an unusual distinction in English football history. The top of this prog says: "Everton and Liverpool - Official Programme". This is because for several decades, they had the same programme.

If Everton were at home, as they were on Saturday 16 April 1910, then the programme was mainly about them - but the same prog also carried Liverpool information and details of Liverpool Reserves, who were also at home that afternoon, just across Stanley Park. Next week, the reverse would happen. The programme contained a column called "Everton Jottings", written by Blue Shirt and one called "Anfield Happenings", written by Redshirt. Amazing to think that for so long, such deadly rivals managed to share a programme. If only clubs were as friendly today.

West Brom's prog for 24 August 2002 was their first in the Premiership, so that makes it interesting - but the real attraction is its size - a hundred pages, the first hundred-page prog in Britain. It's a brilliant production, 81 per cent editorial content, yet costs only £2.50. A better bargain than most glossy magazines. All Premiership progs are fat and glossy these days, a reflection of the healthy state of football. A magazine called Programme Monthly, which I have by my bedside to read during Thought for Today, has this month acclaimed West Brom's prog as Programme of the Year. Well done, Baggies.

Sunderland get low marks by charging £2.50 for only 48 pages, and so do Spurs, charging £3 for 60 pages. When four of those pages are devoted to Gary Doherty it's not exactly a bargain, unless you happen to be his mum . . .

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