Soccer memorabilia such as kit, caps, medals, badges, programmes, sculptures, books, posters or silverware can be valuable, especially if they are old or associated with famous players.

Mr David Convery, football specialist at Christie's, believes the Irish soccer market is "relatively untapped at the moment. We're thinking of going over to do maybe a roadshow or a tour. There's probably some good kit over there as well that we don't know about."

The general public tends to have things like programmes, books or "football collectables like postcards or trade cards that they have collected as kiddies and grown up with or relatives have died and passed them on".

Trade cards include cigarette cards. "John Player did cigarette cards and did Irish cigarette cards as well, you know, [featuring] past Irish players. Things like that they can have, tucked away in the attic. Now if their family were past players then also they may have some memorabilia, probably kit or medals or caps or shirts, that sort of thing," Mr Convery says.

With so many Irish players in top teams internationally, he believes there's quite a high chance of there being valuable material in Ireland.

"The most desirable items really are kit or caps or medals awarded to Irish players. They can range from Republic of Ireland or a Northern Ireland strip worn by a particular player. It could be worth anything up to between £300 and £1,000. It depends on the player."

For instance, in a forthcoming auction on September 24th, "we've got a George Best cap that was awarded to him I think in the late 1960s" which is expected to fetch between £3,000 (€4.470) and £5,000 sterling. Unsigned, it was awarded to Best for home international matches against England, Wales and Scotland. "George Best would certainly be in anybody's world eleven as a player." says Mr Convery.

Shirts from famous players tend to be worth a few hundred pounds. For instance, a jersey worn by Danny Blanchflower, another famous Northern Irish international player, fetched about £400 sterling at auction last year. A shirt comes up now and again of Irish players playing for English teams, such as Steve Staunton and these "are worth about a couple of hundred pounds as well", he says.

With so many Irish people, North and South, supporting English teams like Manchester United, Liverpool or Leeds, Irish readers could well have valuable items associated with these teams. "Certainly Man U is one of the favourite teams supported by the Irish public. Anything Man U-related will have a higher price than anything else. It is the most collected club," says Mr Convery.

"Modern stuff like signed footballs from the recent treble winning side, that's not worth a lot, say £80 to £100." But older items such as programmes from the 1930s are worth £100 plus per programme or from the 1940s about £50 plus each. FA cup winners' medals are worth about £3,000 to £5,000. A championship medal should fetch about £2,000, depending on the player. Caps can be worth a couple of hundred pounds plus, again depending who owned it.

Christie's record for soccer memorabilia is £28,000 sterling, for the sheriff of London shield, a forerunner to the charity shield played by London clubs. The record for a programme is £11,500 for a 1915 FA final programme, played between Chelsea and Sheffield Wednesday at Old Trafford.

He believes that modern players' jerseys could be a wise investment. They are "being collected to be invested and maybe sold later on, hopefully for profit. That's the whole point of it."