Albion fan John programmed for a sort-out

John Nicholls had so many football programmes that he was forced to put them in storage to prevent them cluttering up his home in West Bromwich.

But now thanks to ITV's Aggie MacKenzie, and a film crew, the storage unit has been cleared out and his precious programmes sorted.

Mr Nicholls has always been fascinated about the history of his beloved team, and a few years ago set up his own website in tribute to them- www.westbromwichalbionhistory.co.uk. He said: "Through the website people kept selling me programmes and I just slowly built up a collection. In the end I had around 4900."

In amongst his collection there was a 1974 programme signed by George Best, an FA cup final programme from 1954 complete with tickets, and his oldest one which dates back to 1948.

Mr Nicholls who is a transport manager did keep them carefully stored in plastic wallets and folders in his bedroom at his home on the Yew Tree Estate, but they just became too many.

The 54-year-old father-of-three said: "It got to the stage where my wife Wendy couldn't see over the pile of programmes in the bedroom, so I knew something had to be done."

In June Mr Nicholls put all his precious programmes into storage to get them out of the way.

That was when he contacted the programme Storage Hoarders about his unusual collection.

In August Scottish TV presenter Mackenzie and her ITV team came into help and Mr Nicholls was coaxed into sorting out his programmes.

He was also helped by an antiques expert who was there to turn the programmes he wanted to sell into cash.

Mr and Mrs Nicholls will appear in the episode of Storage Hoarders due to be aired on Friday January 11 at 2pm.