FORGET ticket prices or the cost of rail and coach travel to away games, there is a more damaging aspect to finances as a football fanatic and that's memorabilia.

When once the club shops were small office-like appendices to a club's ground we are now swamped with megastores that offer almost anything you like in your club's colours.

Want a Wanderers toilet bag? Tick. How about a Liverpool toothbrush? Done. Why not go the whole hog and kit the whole bathroom out in claret and blue for your love of Burnley?

Now that's where the money can go without you even acknowledging the new lightweight feel to your wallet.

Of course, no-one is ever forced to buy branded souvenirs but it is a rocky road once you start down that path as a youngster.

Rather like the hesitation you have in ditching the lottery numbers you have had since Camelot first spun the coloured balls, there is a similar feeling of commitment to your regular matchday routine.

This is not just about superstition – it is a habit that has gone beyond the realms of normal behaviour.

My own downfall is the matchday programme, though I have also dabbled in the world of pin badges in my time.

From the moment I bought my first opposition club badge at Sheffield United I decided to buy one for every new ground I visited – whoever I was watching, be it leisure or on duty in the press box.

Now, 89 badges later, I cannot stop until I get my last two of the current '92' - Colchester and Plymouth being the elusive absentees on my felt-covered pin board.

Still, at least that will end the spending once they are in the collection.

Sadly, my addiction to buying a programme every week still goes on into my forties.

I reckon I could have paid off the mortgage had I stopped 20 years ago. I might even have been able to afford a bigger home so I could fill a room with boxes and boxes of programmes, magazines, souvenir posters and books.

I know my parents would gladly pay for the shipment out of their loft which is weighed down that much they might soon be living in a bungalow.

Time and again they threaten to bag them up and send them to the tip. I won't let them.

While there is a spare cardboard box around, I will have programmes to fill it.

Now, where is that badge board buried?