£10k match programme found in former West Brom historian's old collection
It is the stuff of dreams for any collector – an old football programme signed by the England team and now valued at £10,000.
Football author and historian Tony Matthews hit the jackpot more than 30 years ago when his wife Margaret bought a job lot of old programmes from someone who just wanted to clear out his garage.
It turned out that the match programme for a 1953 clash between England and Hungary was worth many times the rest of the batch combined.
Hungary, then the world's number one ranked international side and on an unbeaten run stretching 24 games, won 6-3 in front of a Wembley crowd of 105,000.
Former West Bromwich Albion historian Mr Matthews, who worked for the club for 30 years, remembers little of the time that Margaret paid for the programmes, other than that there were 4,000 of them in a garage in Evesham and it took three trips to get them all.
The couple used to live in Kinver and Wall Heath but have since moved to Spain.
All of the Hungarian side had signed the programme as had most of the England team.
Mr Matthews made arrangements to visit the others whose names were missing whenever West Brom had an away match in their area.
Most of the players, apart from Jackie Sewell, Sir Tom Finney and Jeno Buzansky have since died.
Mr Matthews, aged 70, said: "At the time I was collecting programmes, trying to reach the milestone of one million. I used to advertise locally asking for any football programmes. The most I bought in one go was 40,000."
As a collector Mr Matthews got to know the values of various 'big match' programmes, particularly the ones with autographs.
He said: "Regarding the England-Hungary production, I had various valuations done, by serious collectors up and down the UK, and the initial price given was £4,000. Later it was valued at £5,000 when it was 50 years old in 2003. One person in north Wales wanted to buy it there and then.
"I went on to the Antiques Roadshow in 2008 and this time it was valued, there and there, at around the £6,000 mark, but since then more players have sadly died and therefore the price has increased and now it is insured for £10,000."
Mr Matthews, who lives in the Cabrera mountains in Spain, said he intends to sell the programme once his wife agrees.
The programme is never sent anywhere and is kept under lock and key.
Last year Mr Matthews learned that he was the world's biggest-selling author of football books with 123 published. His books include West Bromwich Albion: The Complete Record and England Who's Who: 140 Years Of English International Footballers.
He has two more currently being compiled and three in the pipeline for 2015.
The father of five acquired his one millionth football programme in 1983. His collection included a copy of every Albion home programme ever printed.
