In recent years, the advent of the half-and-half scarf has become a subject to provoke the ire of English soccer purists.

The fact that these are often purchased by ‘day-trippers’ adds to the resentment, but their criticism is somewhat misplaced. Rather than suggesting divided loyalties between, say, Liverpool and Manchester United, they act as mementos of a special day out.

They have yet to take off in the GAA – perhaps less down to tribal reasons and more because the scarf was never part of the Gaelic fan’s wardrobe in high summer. At a time when your phone is your ticket, the humble match programme still serves as the best ‘I was there’ keepsake.

This was the key consideration when Jim Whelan from Kilkenny was asked to choose which match programme is his favourite. And as he has “a couple of thousand – too many to count” – it is a tough decision.

“There’s a few from games I played in myself,” Jim says. “We won a couple of intermediate county finals with Graiguenamanagh – they’re special.

“However, if I had to pick just one, I’d say it is the 1974 All-Ireland, when Kilkenny beat Limerick – that was the first one [All-Ireland] I went to.

“I had watched 1973 at home, when Limerick beat Kilkenny, and I have sporadic memories of ’74. I can remember walking in beside my father and buying the programme – it felt like a lot of money at the time but it was probably only 20 pence or whatever.

Little did young Jim know but that programme would become the first of many. Collecting was not something he set out to do, but rather a stealthy accumulation over time.

“No matter where I went to watch something – a hurling match, or my father was a great man for the dogs – if there was a programme, I bought it,” he says.

“It was pretty interesting to look back at it later, especially the hurling matches, you wouldn’t know all the players, the media wasn’t what it is now.

“My mother started keeping all the programmes for me. Then, when I got married, I was moving out to my own house and she said, ‘You’d better bring all these with you!’

“There could have been a couple of thousand programmes, all different sports but mainly hurling.

“It was maybe a year or two later, I was sitting down with some and thinking, ‘Jeez, I’ve got a few programmes here, I wonder whether I’ll be able to get a few more, fill up a few more gaps.

“I was able to do that with a few friends and then the internet came about and sure, I was able to fill loads of gaps then. So I kind of had the bug without knowing it.”

Kilkenny's Jim Whelan pictured with his vast collection.

Now, Jim’s ‘man cave’ houses programmes, magazines, scrapbooks and jerseys going back the guts of a century.

“For a couple of years, I opened the place up for Heritage Week, which is on every August,” he says.

“I did it [Heritage Week] for a few years – it’s the kind of thing that can run its course as everyone who is interested would have been there for the first couple of years.

“Transition years from the local schools also come up to look at the collection every so often and they always show a good interest, in fairness.”

As regards holy grails, he doesn’t cite a particular white whale but is always keen to unearth programmes from the early years of the U21 championship in the 1960s or forgotten grades and tournaments.

It serves to underline how one which may not seem to carry a huge demand can be very popular.

“I’m on Twitter and I’d stick up a programme every now and then,” Jim says.

“When Kildare were in the All-Ireland hurling preliminary quarter-final last week, I posted the programme from 1980, when they played Galway in the quarter-finals and my phone nearly went into meltdown with lads looking for it!

“Obviously, it’s too hard to find too many more but I would provide photocopies if someone wanted that.

“One I came across recently was from the 1947 All-Ireland football final, when Cavan played Kerry in the Polo Grounds in New York, which isn’t one you’d come across very easily.”

Each year, programme fairs around the country allow Jim to touch base with other collectors and engage in some “wheeling and dealing,” as he describes it. He hosts one in Graiguenamanagh in October, and another in Thurles each December.

There’s no doubting the passion of those engaged in the practice of collecting, but equally, Jim does fear that the day will come when the booklets themselves cease to exist.

“Nowadays, the programmes are available to download directly from DBA, the publishers,” he says.“You can order a hard copy online or a digital version, but the download wouldn’t interest me in the slightest.

“I was reading lately that a lot of the soccer clubs in England have gone digital with their programmes, it’s probably cheaper to produce, and I think the general trend is going that way.

“This generation of collectors, or the next one, that’ll be the end of it, because it’ll be all gone digital.

“It would be a shame if that happened, because there’s a collector in every county.” And as everyone knows, there’s nothing quite like the programme in your hand.