(Another copy of that 1934 cup final programme, described as worn and foxed but complete and legible, was offered as part of a mammoth sports sale held on December 10-11 by Mullock Madeley in Sutton Coldfield, where it fetched £220). Top footy prices in Southsea were £660 apiece for tickets to the 1926 final in which Bolton beat Manchester City 1-0 and to the final of the following year, in which Cardiff beat Arsenal by the same score.
In the Sutton Coldfield sale, an official FA sheet signed by all members of the England team that beat Scotland 7-2 at Wembley in 1955 made £500, while another signed by players in the side that beat Brazil 4-2 in the following year – among them Byrne, Wright, Edwards, Matthews – was bid to £880.
On December 9, a collection of Aston Villa programmes, dating from c.1907-1923 and mostly in fine condition, had been offered in Richard Winterton’s Sutton Coldfield salerooms and sold for a total of more than £5000.
In a sale held on December 9 by David Lay of Penzance, a copy of Sir Walter Grindlay’s The Art of Golf, an 1887 classic of golfing literature that was unaccountably valued at £30-50, made £780, while in the Mullock Madeley sale, a programme for the 1971 World Heavyweight Championship fight at Madison Square Garden between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier (right) made £210.
When Pompey and Wolves knew better days...
Portsmouth are just hanging on in the Premiership at present, but they too have had their glory days, and in a December 10 sale held by Nesbits of neighbouring Southsea, this programme (right) for the last pre-war FA Cup Final of 1939, in which they beat Wolves 4-1, was sold for £400 (a ticket for that game made £135) and another for the 1934 final, in which they had been beaten 2-1 by Manchester City, was bid to £450.
