THE EARLIEST GAA match programmes were never intended to be a souvenir, or take the form of a collector’s item.
They were designed to fit inside a coat pocket and were actually considered useless once the game was over. Some programmes even instructed people to dispose of the document after the conclusion of the match.
The concept of keeping match programmes as a memento of the day didn’t arrive until the 1950s. And yet, some have been preserved and are displayed in a fascinating new book entitled ‘GAA Covered’ which traces the evolution of the match programme through the years to the present day.
One of the earliest examples featured in the book comes from the 1913 All-Ireland hurling final between Tipperary and Kilkenny. It was recently sold at an auction for €11,000.
John Kelly.
John Kelly.
The author of the book is John Kelly, a primary school principal from Carlow, who is a lifelong collector.
“I would estimate somewhere over 5,000,” he tells The 42, when asked for a current tally of the programmes he keeps in his house.
Kelly is a lover of all sports and brings a match programme home after every fixture he attends. But his collection is built mainly from GAA matches.
“Of course, they’re all in chronological order, by competition and stuff like that. They start to take up a little bit of space after a while, but it’s mental really.”
The match programme for the 1939 All-Ireland hurling final between Kilkenny and Cork.
Up until around a year ago, Kelly had accumulated match programmes dating back to 1970. He wanted to keep expanding his collection, attempting to gather programmes from even further back in time. However, he discovered that match programmes from games in the pre-World War II era were scarce, and the inspiration for a book grew from there.
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“Some of the programmes may not have been printed. Some of them might have been lost in the journey through time, but they just never survived,” Kelly explains.
“As a collector, my aim for the book was to see what would a full collection of these programmes look like if it could be compiled? So, I started to work back as far as I could through the years.”
With no central archive available, Kelly relied on private collectors to conduct his search. He assembled them all into a database and called out to their homes to scan a copy of the programme.
A welcoming and supportive community of like-minded people greeted him with every inquiry for access.
“We have a couple of WhatsApp groups, and we have two programme fairs in the year where we get to meet up and swap and sell programmes,” Kelly adds.
The 1947 All-Ireland football final between Kerry and Cavan was played at the Polo Grounds in New York.
“If you put it in a kind of a GAA scenario, you’d have programme collectors that are junior, intermediate, and senior. I’d be a kind of an intermediate level, but it was trying to get in contact with the guys that are the senior collectors. These are the guys that would have the programmes back into the ’30s and ’20s, and possibly even into the 1910s.
“It was making contact with one of them, he was really enthused by it, and he passed my name on to the other guys. It just fell into line then after that. They all thought the project was a great idea, and they were happy to let me do it.”
Today’s match programmes differ greatly from the earliest iterations, both in terms of size and scope. Interviews, statistics and player profiles are mainstays of the product that current fans can purchase both online and in the GAA grounds on matchday.
‘The GAA Covered’ outlines how the first match programmes simply listed out the teams, players and match officials. They also contained information about train times to help fans plan out their journey to and from the game. The cost of a programme for the 1920 All-Ireland finals was one penny in old punt money. Within 10 years, that price increased to two pence.
Another interesting aspect of the book refers to the unofficial programmes, or ‘pirate programmes’ as they were sometimes known. These originated in the 1920s and 30s, and came from local printers. The idea behind the production of such merchandise was to provide fans with reading material for long train journeys to games.
To distinguish these from the official versions, the name of the then-Ard Stiúrthóir, Pádraig Ó Caoimh was added to the cover of the programme for the 1930 All-Ireland final along with the words ‘Clár Oifigiúil.’
There was a noticeable improvement in the quality of match programmes in the 1960s.
“I clearly remember going to my first All-Ireland back in the 70s, and on the way down to Croke Park, these guys were selling the Pirates,” Kelly recalls. “I was asking my dad to get one, and he said, ‘No, we’ll wait till we get to Croke Park, and we’ll get the programme.’
“If you’ve seen the Pirate programme, it’s very easy to tell the difference, because the print is of very low quality.
An example of a pirate match programme from 1963.
“I think it was in the 1990s, when the GAA began to take more control over their intellectual property rights, then these began to fade out.”
There could be a sequel in ‘The GAA Covered.’
The feedback has been positive so far and if this becomes a hit, Kelly could certainly be planning another edition in the future. Like every book, he agonised over the details he was forced to omit, including the decision to not include programmes from Ladies football and camogie games.
That could very well provide the inspiration for Volume II.
“I think there’s a great follow on book there for LGFA or Camogie to do a women’s version,” Kelly concludes. “I don’t know how easy or difficult that would be.
“Most of the collections I have seen were male collectors and there were only men’s programmes. So, I’d have to try and locate somebody that might have a collection of LGFA or Camogie programmes. There might be a nice book in that.”
****
Produced by Gill Books, ‘The GAA Covered’ is available to buy now
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From collecting over 5,000 GAA match programmes to converting a passion into a book
THE EARLIEST GAA match programmes were never intended to be a souvenir, or take the form of a collector’s item.
They were designed to fit inside a coat pocket and were actually considered useless once the game was over. Some programmes even instructed people to dispose of the document after the conclusion of the match.
The concept of keeping match programmes as a memento of the day didn’t arrive until the 1950s. And yet, some have been preserved and are displayed in a fascinating new book entitled ‘GAA Covered’ which traces the evolution of the match programme through the years to the present day.
One of the earliest examples featured in the book comes from the 1913 All-Ireland hurling final between Tipperary and Kilkenny. It was recently sold at an auction for €11,000.
The author of the book is John Kelly, a primary school principal from Carlow, who is a lifelong collector.
“I would estimate somewhere over 5,000,” he tells The 42, when asked for a current tally of the programmes he keeps in his house.
Kelly is a lover of all sports and brings a match programme home after every fixture he attends. But his collection is built mainly from GAA matches.
“Of course, they’re all in chronological order, by competition and stuff like that. They start to take up a little bit of space after a while, but it’s mental really.”
Up until around a year ago, Kelly had accumulated match programmes dating back to 1970. He wanted to keep expanding his collection, attempting to gather programmes from even further back in time. However, he discovered that match programmes from games in the pre-World War II era were scarce, and the inspiration for a book grew from there.
“Some of the programmes may not have been printed. Some of them might have been lost in the journey through time, but they just never survived,” Kelly explains.
“As a collector, my aim for the book was to see what would a full collection of these programmes look like if it could be compiled? So, I started to work back as far as I could through the years.”
With no central archive available, Kelly relied on private collectors to conduct his search. He assembled them all into a database and called out to their homes to scan a copy of the programme.
A welcoming and supportive community of like-minded people greeted him with every inquiry for access.
“We have a couple of WhatsApp groups, and we have two programme fairs in the year where we get to meet up and swap and sell programmes,” Kelly adds.
“If you put it in a kind of a GAA scenario, you’d have programme collectors that are junior, intermediate, and senior. I’d be a kind of an intermediate level, but it was trying to get in contact with the guys that are the senior collectors. These are the guys that would have the programmes back into the ’30s and ’20s, and possibly even into the 1910s.
“It was making contact with one of them, he was really enthused by it, and he passed my name on to the other guys. It just fell into line then after that. They all thought the project was a great idea, and they were happy to let me do it.”
Today’s match programmes differ greatly from the earliest iterations, both in terms of size and scope. Interviews, statistics and player profiles are mainstays of the product that current fans can purchase both online and in the GAA grounds on matchday.
‘The GAA Covered’ outlines how the first match programmes simply listed out the teams, players and match officials. They also contained information about train times to help fans plan out their journey to and from the game. The cost of a programme for the 1920 All-Ireland finals was one penny in old punt money. Within 10 years, that price increased to two pence.
Another interesting aspect of the book refers to the unofficial programmes, or ‘pirate programmes’ as they were sometimes known. These originated in the 1920s and 30s, and came from local printers. The idea behind the production of such merchandise was to provide fans with reading material for long train journeys to games.
To distinguish these from the official versions, the name of the then-Ard Stiúrthóir, Pádraig Ó Caoimh was added to the cover of the programme for the 1930 All-Ireland final along with the words ‘Clár Oifigiúil.’
“I clearly remember going to my first All-Ireland back in the 70s, and on the way down to Croke Park, these guys were selling the Pirates,” Kelly recalls. “I was asking my dad to get one, and he said, ‘No, we’ll wait till we get to Croke Park, and we’ll get the programme.’
“If you’ve seen the Pirate programme, it’s very easy to tell the difference, because the print is of very low quality.
“I think it was in the 1990s, when the GAA began to take more control over their intellectual property rights, then these began to fade out.”
There could be a sequel in ‘The GAA Covered.’
The feedback has been positive so far and if this becomes a hit, Kelly could certainly be planning another edition in the future. Like every book, he agonised over the details he was forced to omit, including the decision to not include programmes from Ladies football and camogie games.
That could very well provide the inspiration for Volume II.
“I think there’s a great follow on book there for LGFA or Camogie to do a women’s version,” Kelly concludes. “I don’t know how easy or difficult that would be.
“Most of the collections I have seen were male collectors and there were only men’s programmes. So, I’d have to try and locate somebody that might have a collection of LGFA or Camogie programmes. There might be a nice book in that.”
****
Produced by Gill Books, ‘The GAA Covered’ is available to buy now
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
GAA GAA Covered John Kelly page turner