It's big and it's clever

FA Cup Semi Ticket
Originally uploaded by Phil Stead

Well I never thought I'd see one of these. It arrived in the post this morning. And it's pretty big.

Like everything else these days, expensive things have got bigger so that you feel like your getting more for your money. Little things like memory sticks and watch batteries come wrapped in massive cardboard and plastic displays which need industrial secateurs to open them.

The FA Cup semi ticket isn't that big , but it's still too big to fit in your wallet. Or even your pocket. Fold it you say. Oh dear me. Do you realise what that will do to its resale value in 10 years time? A folded ticket stub will be worth only 60p compared to the £1.90 that a pristine stub will fetch on ebay.

Match programmes are priced at £6 each, roughly the same price as a paperback copy of war and peace. It will be full of adverts of course, and will make the English press's assumption that Jimmy Ffloyd Hasselbank is our star player when in fact we are normally crying out for him to be subbed after 30 minutes. But it will still be £6, and therefore must be large. Very large.

The largeness of the big match programme these days is a pain in the arse frankly. I got into programme collecting a few years back and got the folders sorted out. There's nothing better than a bit of cataloguing and I was in heaven. Until I got to the 1990s when Cup Final Programmes started to expand.

Since the turn of the century, the big match programme is almost uncollectable. It won't fit into a folder properly, and is more suitable for the coffee table. It's wrong I tell you. All wrong.

But who cares, I've got my ticket and I will be tucking it into my pants. There's plenty of room in there.