Quite incredibly, since I published a list of all fanzines still in print a couple of weeks ago two (2) NEW fanzines have been in touch, Oldham’s BTBPAS or Beyond The Boundary (Park Alert System) and Sheffield Wednesday’s Everywhere and Nowhere (E&N) Between them they cover the whole spectrum of fanzine styles, from the old-style DIY cartoons and fun model to funny reminiscences with more serious pieces about a club’s current plight. Both are brilliant and you can get them here.
https://www.weareoldham.co.uk/shop
https://linktr.ee/everywhereandnowherefanzi
BTBPAS is inspired by the original and classic fanzine from the late 80s, Beyond The Boundary, the people who brought you the brilliant feature “Inside Sully’s Fridge? (https://footballfanzineculture.blog/2025/11/13/great-fanzine-features-of-our-time/ ). It features contributions from original BTB founder Pete Mason so I asked him why he has returned. His answer was really interesting “I was asked if I wanted to contribute to it by Matt who runs the We Are Oldham podcast and Youtube phone in. The idea was to get word out about the podcast etc. Matt also wanted my permission to use the name. There have been quite a few people delighted that it’s ‘back’ but there’s still an awful lot who have no idea what it is. I’ve enjoyed the process of putting it together which is considerably easier than it was back in 1989 but I’ve still to be convinced that it will become as popular as the original was. Having said that, the talent involved in this relaunch is impressive, so I have high hopes for it.”
It is only in print and mainly available at Boundary Park but they do have some leftovers. You have to buy it in print because the pod people have said “Physical copies only, no digital copies will be made available, so please don’t ask.” Interesting approach for digital content providers but quite right and for sure I am absolutely delighted it’s back.
Over the Pennines, E&N editor Peter Holmes explains why he started a new Sheffield Wednesday fanzine last August; “The main reason was that I (and lots of other fans for that matter) was fed up of all the negativity that surrounded the club because of what was happening with no communication to the fans, expensive season tickets & merchandise, no new signings and long standing players being allowed to leave, staff and players not getting paid, the threatened closure of the North Stand because of safety issues – it really was one thing after the other and I just wanted to try and put a few smiles back on peoples’ faces”
Wednesday also has a tremendous history of fanzines, now up to 16 over the decades covering a lot of categories; Great names with War of The Monster Trucks, One of a handful of father and son editorial teams with Just Another Wednesday and a now famous contributor providing cartoons in A View From the Eastbank.
I could tell you what’s inside these fantastic journals but then you might not buy them so just take my word for it and get your purse out. With stuff like “What were the Good Times Like” “Frugal Fan of the Month” and a brilliant “back of a head in the crowd” competition in BTBPAS and “Ask the Fan”, the story of the 1995 Intertoto Cup and much more in E&N you need to get on the print bus. It’s worth getting E&N issue 1 for the cover art alone. (Highly recommend a follow of @FootballArtCLee on twitter as well)
Sadly though, at the same time Preston’s The Nose Bag (@tnbfanzine) announced it will close at the end of the season for perfectly understandable and all too familiar reasons.
This on top of their recent bomb scare (REALLY, read about it here https://footballfanzineculture.blog/2025/11/06/excuses-excuses/ )
Old Friends
Equally as important for research this week, the British Library catalogue service is back up on line…now I know you will have already looked through it for 48 hours solid like me and so will have also discovered other “new” fanzines that we hadn’t heard of before; The mysteriously named LYAL from Limerick AFC, Flint Town’s The Silkworm, Chelmsford’s Give us a C, Preston’s Deepdale Invincible, Staying up and you know We Are from Coventry (catchy title lads, probably short lived, published in 1998 they went down in 2001 and have not returned to the gilded heights). This has also confirmed the existence of 4 copies of We Hate Jimmy Hill a Scottish fanzine from 1992 which I am very pleased to hear.
All of these reside a couple of miles away from me at the Boston Spa British Library site so I’ll be dusting my bike down asap. These are just 5 of the 12 we’ve added to the list this week, now at 1783 with 76 still in regular print which brings me to something rather worrying, it appears that the British Library only has 488 distinct football fanzines listed..
So this week I thought we’d dip into the little snippets on the list or in my collection and explain why some fanzines started and ended quickly or in sometimes unsettling fashion in the hope that our new entrants don’t befall the same fate.
I’ve Started So I’ll Finish
The internet obviously played a hand in print zines disappearing or barely even existing in some cases. Hull’s 3 O’ Clock At Kempton issued just 3 print copies before becoming a webzine but as I’ve demonstrated before, the “web” is not infallible, this was last updated in January 2004. (it did return as a blog in 2008 now also gone and is also just about vaguely still on Twitter)
There were a lot of short-lived fanzines. We’re developing a categorisation of “I am the one and only” for single issue zines and for the more prolific “Less than Famous 5” to include in the searchable features of the list. For example, Oxford fanzine Mad Ox Review lasted one issue only, you can only assume they realised how tough it was to produce a fanzine.
Barnet’s Where’s The Number On Your Back? Lasted only 1 issue because “Poorly produced and highly critical, its publication led to Stan Flashman banning the editor from the ground” A tale as old as time!
There were many spin off one offs, cup final specials of course, but also things like What’s the Story Cartoon Glory, a one off spin off issue of Southend’s What’s the Story Southend Glory. Editor Dave Knight explains that it’s all a bit of fun and they’re raising money for charity but the front / back cover double whammy and Buzz Fatgit Christmas gift set the tone in spectacular fashion. Lovely jubbly!
How about the glorious Tomato Soup and Lentils, a joint Arbroath/Leeds fanzine, yes, that’s what I said. It is a mystery and a joy, started by an Arbroath exile at Bradford University and ran for one issue before reverting to just being an Arbroath fanzine as the editor admitted he’d not foreseen the market difficulties ahead (There were already a couple of VERY well established Leeds fanzines at the time). The hand drawn Arbroath smokie and Peacock shaking hands on the cover is peak fanzine art and the name is bewildering. I love stuff like this, imagine how many times he had to explain it. (If you’re still out there, please get in touch and do so again!)
There were many more fanzines that got over the first hurdle but clipped it and stumbled on only to fall halfway down the track after a small number of issues. In what could only be described as ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time” Utd United was a Joint Fanzine from Dundee United supporter Philip Joyce and West Ham United fan Simon Matters. Why? Well, does it matter?
Apparently, the editors never actually met each other and conducted all their business over the telephone / via post. Despite the herculean effort it became yet another fanzine let down by the lack of supporting contributors coming forward and published just three editions.
Unfortunately for Simon this came shortly after another fanzine venture of his “The Eastend Connection” folded after two editions. It had a modest first edition print run of 75 copies but sold out on the first day at Sportspages. The 24-page second edition rose in price by 5p to 25 pence and had an increased print run to a sensational 125 copies. However, the fanzine then folded when West Ham threatened legal action against the editor for using the Hammer’s trading name and club crest.[1]
This Parrot is Dead
Fanzines shuffled off this mortal coil in various ways, usually quietly, sometimes with a whimper or even more occasionally a bang.
What we believe to be the first independent fanzine on the British Isles, Celtic’s Shamrock from 1962 stopped after 12 issues in 1963 for a simple reason. “Jock Stein, the board appointed him in 1963 and we started winning again, there was nothing much to moan about any longer” Fair enough, but this from a man who in the course of one issue called for a protest against the board, got so angry that he burst into verse half way through an article before reverting to normal prose later on, said Bobby Lennox (who went on to be the club’s most decorated player) wasn’t fit to wear the shirt and was prone to start match reports like this.
Where Were You at the Shay? a Bury fanzine, also felt that success should mean the end; Editor Craig Clarkson explained “The last printed Where were you at the Shay? was a celebration edition following Stan Ternent’s championship in 1997. It was never meant to be the last one, it just sort of happened that way. We’d laughed and moaned through several seasons and when all of a sudden you’ve been to Wembley and then had two consecutive promotions it seemed a little churlish to keep complaining.”
Coventry’s Twist and Shout ran for 191 issues and was thought of by some as the benchmark fanzine for the club. The print version was superseded by a twitter account but that states that it is “No longer associated with the fanzine since the owner disappeared.” Jeepers!
The last ever issue of one of my favourites, Rotherham’s Windy and Dusty laid out their reasons for stopping and it’s a great record of why fanzines stopped (and started!)
A “beloved” chairman has stuck around, and they can’t see things changing..another tale as old as time. It’s a beautiful piece, full of feeling, perfectly describing the sentimental maelstrom that we all go through and brimming with frustration, real Golden Gordon stuff.
Final Whistle
So where are we? One out two in seems like a pretty good formula and though we’re a long way from the peak in 1988 when at least 121 fanzines hove into view I’ll take it. We now have a new fanzine because a digital content podcast thought print would be a good to support their offering and another arriving because of that old foe, turmoil at a club.
Some things change; others do not. A constant though is the joy of researching not just the fanzines but the chaotic back stories as well, having researched this blog I now know that that a former owner of Limerick FC, Pat Grace, had the first franchise for Kentucky Fried Chicken in Ireland and that Sam Allardyce was appointed as player manager for the 1991–92 season. That alone is almost enough for another blog!
There were many and varied reasons for starting and stopping a fanzine, I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look back at a small number. It has reminded me that I need to get organised and write a blog about perhaps the best reason ever for starting a fanzine…Scottish Zine Scene and its successor, Fanzine Collector, were football fanzines about football fanzines…
Football Fanzine Culture 
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