Tranmere Rovers(H).24/08/63.

This little programme from 1963 is the one that introduced David Dusting to us. I happen to believe that it's a classic example of a simple football programme that contains pretty much all you need to know. With the benefit of hindsight, time and extra cash, another seven or eight pages could have been added. Beyond that no real need.

That's in contrast to Fleetwood's whopper on Saturday which, as Felix pointed out, had seventy-six pages. Much of the content was excellent; some of it repetitive and dull. The design was clear and striking in places but, elsewhere, the text was almost impossible to read. Indeed, I was reminded of when I worked on producing information booklets for young people. A guiding principle was to follow disability guidelines about the clarity of text especially when it's set against a confusing background. A fair few football clubs should follow this pathway and cut out all this over-designed fancy nonsense.

I guess I'm starting to despair of football programmes, too many of which are elephantine in size and generally overblown. Too often they simply come across as part of some vanity project. They could be done with being kept simpler.

Maybe that's a plea from somebody who is overrun with fifty years' accumulation of programmes. Once you've started; it's hard to stop. You either buy a programme for every game or none at all. There doesn't appear to be any middle ground. Obsessives and enthusiasts know and recognise these things. We may need help.

Yet these are complaints I hear from many people now that a pile of programmes from half-a-dozen games takes up the same space as a large-format paperback on your book shelves. And, when I go to non-league games, I see how an albeit technically inferior effort actually does the business at less cost and takes up less space in the process. Last night I was at Frickley Athletic v FC United. You can't say that Frickley's £1.50 programme was anywhere near half as "good" (whatever that means) as Fleetwood's monster. But it did the job and I was happy with it.

So maybe it's time to launch a Campaign for Real Football Programmes based on the notion that a more straightforward publication (half the cost; a third of the pages; lower quality paper; less design) would be sufficient for most games at whatever level. I realise that needs to be balanced with advertising revenue and the rest. Nonetheless I reckon much of the superfluous material can be put online. Furthermore, I believe some clubs are now offering downloadable programmes. Perish the thought if it goes over to that completely but a halfway house arrangement may have merit. I wouldn't really care if the online version had extra "exclusive" material provided the paper version covered the basics.

Call me old-fashioned but, after all, it's a football programme not a coffee table glossy magazine to be found at the dentist along with Country Life.