1974 was a momentous year for the Arsenal programme: every issue became FULL COLOUR! Well, to be precise, the front cover and the middle pages of the 16 became full colour, the rest of it remained resolutely monochrome. The price rose from five to ten new pence as a result, which no doubt caused people…

By summer 1973 memories of trophies were starting to fade slightly, despite the good second place finish in the League in May, and the new programme cover for season 1973-74 could only feature pictures from the previous year’s league matches, including the one at Old Trafford, and the losing FA Cup Semi Final match against…

For the 1972-73 season the programme, still retailing at a bargain price of five new pence for 16 pages, featured a cover design showing pictures from the previous season’s FA Cup Final (v Leeds) and what appeared to be a Highbury match against Spurs. As before, the cover pictures remained unchanged throughout, but inside the…

In the 1971-72 season, for the first time in four years the front cover of the Arsenal programme was markedly different to the previous season. Inside was admittedly much the same, but the cover – still the same one for all matches, bar the date and opponents of course – now featured a new layout…

This is the first of a series of articles looking at Arsenal programmes through recent decades. These were first published in The Gooner fanzine. It was only really in the late 1960s that the programme developed from what you might call a ‘statistical pamphlet’ into a magazine, with most of the features we associate with…