PROGRAMMES spanning the life of the modern game, collected by a Suffolk football enthusiast, are to go under the hammer next month.The collection of 10,000 programmes ranging from international fixtures to league, cup ties and amateur football, annuals and handbooks, photographs and other memorabilia are expected to fetch a total of around £12,000 at auction.

PROGRAMMES spanning the life of the modern game, collected by a Suffolk football enthusiast, are to go under the hammer next month.

The collection of 10,000 programmes ranging from international fixtures to league, cup ties and amateur football, annuals and handbooks, photographs and other memorabilia are expected to fetch a total of around £12,000 at auction.

Gems and rarities include a host of programmes from Ipswich Town's early league games, and those from the 1966 World Cup Final and many FA Cup finals, as well as tickets to the big occasions.

The collection – which has been divided into 400 lots by Felixstowe auctioneers and valuers Bannister and Co – also includes cricket and tennis memorabilia, including a 1935 Davis Cup programme signed by the legendary Fred Perry.

The collection was the pride and joy of Jim MacKenzie, who reported on local soccer matches for The Evening Star and sister paper the Green Un for 25 years. He died earlier this year and the collection is being sold by his family.

Mr MacKenzie played as a centre-half for many years with Great Blakenham in the Premier Division of SIL, forerunner of the Ipswich and District League, and took up refereeing when his playing days were over. He took charge of games up to senior level from 1965 until 1979.

Alan Coy, a partner in Bannister and Co, said it was a fascinating collection and expected interest from all over the country.

Collectors and dealers have been told details of the sale – which takes place at the company's auction rooms in St Andrew's Road, Felixstowe, on November 4 – and phone bids are expected from specialists interested in the rarer lots.

"It is an incredible collection and with 10,000 items it has been quite a challenge to put them into categories and sort them into lots," said Mr Coy.

"There are some very interesting items and we are expecting wide interest. A lot of the older items will fetch good sums while the more modern programmes will make less. Often we are surprised by how much people are prepared to pay – some of the tickets go for more than the programmes."

He believed the collection in total could make between £10,000 and £15,000.

Ipswich Town items of interest include an Ipswich Hospital Cup clash with Aston Villa in 1939, the club's first game in the Southern League against Southend in 1938, and the last match before the war, September 2, 1939 when the town were facing their own arch rivals – Norwich City.

FA Cup Final programmes include several from the 1950s such as the fabled Stanley Matthews final of '53 – Blackpool versus Bolton Wanderers – and as well as the 1966 World Cup Final progammes, which today fetch £50 to £100, there is also a "pirate" version made by someone to cash in on the big day.