During the research for the Voice of The Fans exhibition at Leeds Central Library about football fanzine culture we’ve created a list documenting all the football fanzines that ever existed (1,704 and counting). The list contains an extraordinary amount of information about the football fanzines that did/do exist along with interesting snippets about their history.

One of the things we found was the strong connection between music, fanzines and football. We’ll cover various aspects of this in other blogs but for now, with time to kill one afternoon I decided for a bit of fun to create a playlist of songs that inspired fanzine names. An afternoon turned into an evening, then rolled on to the next day and anyway, the resulting playlist is here for your enjoyment, all 6 hours 21 minutes and 100 tracks of it. As with all classic records of the period the blog will be a ponderous, extended 4 side magnum opus with a gatefold sleeve

Poguetastic!

Let’s start with a simple connection as a taster; Nottingham Forest fanzine Brian is represented by Sally Maclennane, a great Pogues romp. Why? Darryl Hunt and Phil Chevron, bassist and guitarist of The Pogues used to sell Nottingham Forest fanzine Brian at the City Ground https://leftlion.co.uk/features/2024/05/interview-with-julie-pritchard-brian-fanzine-nottingham-forest-clough-pogues/

The Pogues also appear with Dirty Old Town because a fanzine recently launched for Salford FC The Old Dead Tree is named after a line in the song, the walk out music for Salford (They’re here, go and buy a copy @OldDeadTreeSCFC )

Puntastic!

There are many simple but equally brilliant puns on the list.

Burton Albion had a fanzine named Clough, The Magic Dragon after their most successful manager Nigel. Quite obviously a pun on the Peter, Paul and Mary ermm  classic “Puff The Magic Dragon” (More on the Clough family and fanzines later).

Highway to Hele, Torquay fanzine – Highway To Hell, AC DC classic. Have it!

Poppies at the Gates of Dawn is a still active Kettering Town fanzine which claims to be “Definitely one of the top 10 Kettering Town FC online fanzines” and freely admit that their name is a tribute to the Pink Floyd album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn incorporating the club nickname so the only listenable track from the LP, Bikes is on the list.

Hoops upside Your Head is a Shamrock FC fanzine from 1993 and one of my favourite puns, based on the title of the massive 1979 Gap Band hit “Oops Upside your Head”. This will bring back memories for many of being seated on a terrible provincial nightclub’s floor sticky with beer pretending to row. Ask your parents, maybe your grandparents.

I have absolutely no proof of this but in the spirit of fanzine puns I’d like to think the Celtic fanzine Bhoyzone!! (1996-2000) was the named after the incredibly successful Irish boy band Boyzone. If this isn’t correct I don’t want to know, No Matter What is a decent if cheesy pop ballad.

How about a fanzine named after a referee? Not just any referee but the first female official of an English professional game and obviously about a song at the same time? Let me present you with Ground Control To Wendy Toms a Woking FC fanzine.

Wendy Toms was English football’s first female official and in 1996 she became the first woman to referee a senior match in England, the Conference match between Woking and Telford United. The Cardinal Tales’ twitter account (@cardinal_tales) reports that ‘After 14 minutes Woking’s Andy Ellis became the first player to be booked in a senior match by a woman, for dissent. “It’s an honour”, he said!’ David Bowie is unfortunately unavailable for a comment.

I’m Sorry, What?

Let’s move on to some titles and stories that might leave you scratching your head at first before you gasp with admiration at the brilliance behind the idea.

One of the best fanzines/ fanzine names was Gillingham’s Brian Moore’s Head Looks Uncannily Like the London Planetarium, which ran for 18 years starting in 1988. The creators found that the club had had few celebrity supporters over the years except commentator Brian Moore who was formerly a director of the club, so it was decided to honour him in the fanzine title but how?  The title is a line in the Half Man Half Biscuit (HMHB) song “Dickie Davies Eyes” Well worth a listen, the video is available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCvs2w_Mjeg  More from HMHB later.

Kilmarnock FC still use the 1973 song “Paper Roses” by Marie Osmond as an unofficial anthem, played after victories in big games. This was also the title of long-lost club fanzine called Paper Roses.

The reason for the adoption of the song is a bit lost in time but one story is that it came about when a group of Killie supporters were travelling by coach to a game in Dumbarton and began discussing that not only did they want no part in the violence prevalent in Scottish football at the time but how they might make a protest. As they were talking Marie Osmond came on the coach radio singing Paper Roses and the fans decided here was a harmless twee tune, a perfect absurd song to sing, another brilliant example of the protest culture of fanzines and it’s still sung at Rugby Park today.

In fact, Marie Osmond visited the club in 2013 to thank the supporters for their enduring love of the song. Don’t believe me? Well, the story was covered by the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-21300458 (warning, includes video of Marie singing the song) plus here is an extraordinary video of Marie Osmond talking about her love of the club and the song at the event at the club in 2013! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olL6kgUt7tU

We now travel to Preston and a fanzine called 53 miles west of Venus. This is a lesser-known song by the B-52s, the line ‘53 miles west of Venus’ repeated 12 times with the classic chorus, Ooh, ooh-ooh, Ooh, ooh-ooh, Ooh-ooh Ooh in between. Why? Well, a 2-1 victory over Orient on April 25^th1987 saw Preston promoted from the Fourth Division. Interviewed after the game Leslie Chapman, scorer of the winner, famously said that he felt ‘53 miles west of Venus’ about scoring the winner and thus the fanzine was named. Yeah, I’m still scratching my head about this one.

Telfordhad a fanzine called Buck’s Fizz which was available in 1999 at the cost of 30p. That’s all I know but whoever you were, you are responsible for Land Of Make Believe being on the playlist. Damn you.

End of side 1

There are many more musical stories behind the name on the list, some possibly imagined by me but if you don’t take the chance to get Chesney Hawkes on a playlist then you’re dead to me. It is an eclectic mix for sure, we hope you enjoy it and hope you find the time to pop into your library soon and find out more things that you don’t know you need to know yet.

Side 2 will be released shortly.