As soon as I heard about this book being released, (from the editor of the Leyton Orientear fanzine, no less!), I was absolutely desperate to read it. My formative football obsessive years coincided almost exactly with the explosion of the football fanzine movement in the latter half of the 80’s and into the 90’s. As a result, I have been a huge enthusiast of these quirky, humorous, DIY fan-produced publications ever since I used to buy “When Saturday Comes” outside Prenton Park on a Friday evening in my teenage years.
The book starts in the mid-80s when the fanzine movement was in its very nascency. At the time, being a football fan and attending matches was nothing like it is these days. Supporters didn’t have any say in the way that their club was being run, or indeed any voice at all, and the grounds themselves were neglected and decaying, if not downright dangerous.
Of course, this was at the height of football hooliganism and the horrific tragedies at Valley Parade and Heysel. The government, the media, and the general public who weren’t fans of the not-so-beautiful game, looked down on it and those of us who followed it. As the Times infamously described it, (in a quote that has been incorrectly attributed to Margaret Thatcher), football was seen as a: “slum sport played in slum stadiums increasingly watched by slum people.”
As well as outlining the emergence and rapid growth of fanzines across all parts of the country, this fascinating book chronicles a seismic shift in football history. From those dark days of 1985, through the Hillsborough disaster and the completely unacceptable cover-up/ blaming of innocent fans, to the implications of the Taylor report in response, Italia 90, and the birth of the Premier League.
The book uses quotes from a broad range of fanzines from a huge variety of clubs, big and small, to tell the story. It absolutely drips in nostalgia for a bygone era of football culture that has been all but completely eroded in the modern game.
If, like me, you lived through that era then it is a book you simply have to read. For those that found football fandom more recently, then it will provide a fascinating insight into the way that things used to be, as well as how us fans felt as football changed beyond all recognition.
Football Nerd
