August 1981, MTV went live for the first time. (Everyone knows the first track played but what about the second?) In his pre-Glasnost era President Reagan gave the go-ahead for U.S. production of the neutron bomb, and IBM introduced the first PC for ‘ordinary users’. IBM model 5150 was supplied with 16kb of RAM and Microsoft’s MS-Dos software and had a base price of $1,565 (The equivalent of $5,626 today).
All of this was of course overshadowed by the appearance of issue 8 of Queens Park FC Supporters Association fanzine The Web. ISSUE EIGHT ALREADY! Great header, absolutely brilliant. So, this week’s blog will look back at this issue to see what one of the earliest fanzines looked like and what has changed as we take our second 2000 words from one fanzine challenge.
A New Beginning
Before we start, we need to recognize the trailblazing nature of The Web when it started in 1980. This is a fully recognizable fanzine and they seem to be the first amateur club to have one (August 1981 would see Barrow’s Soccer Scene arrive in England) Hit the Bar appeared at Carlisle in 1975, Cheers at Meadowbank Thistle (semi pro at the time) in 1978 and Terrace Talk at York in 1981. So, to put that in context, at the time there were only 3 other professional clubs with fanzines like this that would be mimicked by the hundreds of fanzines that came later in the 80s.
There were a few other statistic and supporter groups around producing superb self-published material at West Ham, Hearts and Leeds, mainly for supporter’s clubs. Some of these, notably Crossbar at Leeds (started 1979) were not averse to criticising the club or publishing articles about how to cure hooliganism and we’ll come back to this “proto” fanzine movement another time.
The ‘Europe Here We Come’ Edition cover is very optimistic in tone, though fixtures with Clydebank, Clyde and Berwick describe better the rather more grounded season ahead.
The picture of the previous season’s 2nd division championship team celebrating before packed terraces at Hampden is wonderful, no stage constructed or signs with sponsors names needed. Some great haircuts and I suspect most of that bottle would be drunk rather than sprayed about. I managed to find a colour version taken at more or less the same moment, what a kit that was.
This was the first return to the 2nd tier 1st division for The Spiders in 25 years and though they have bounced around largely in the 3rd tier, the introduction of professionalism at the club has seen them now on an extended run in the Championship. An incredible achievement for a team that was amateur until 2019.
Cheer up lads
A new season is on us though and even a letter from mum can’t cheer our heroes up. The editorial gets stuck right in and highlights the problem the club faced, players disappearing without fees being paid along with Bobby McSkimming deciding to bugger off to sunnier climes. FYI, Irvine studied for qualification as an insurance broker whilst playing for Queen’s Park and the caption below Mick Gillespie’s picture refers to his departure to Pollok and not his hair. That shirt/collar/inset/badge is a thing of beauty even in grainy black and white.
The letter from mum is a piece of its time, chores, meals, telly, ironing and signed ‘She Who is Rarely Obeyed’. It does hint at the ramshackle nature of the Queens Park Supporters Association, shining a light on the “boardroom” and appearing on a startling yellow sheet, the third colour already used by page 5. Thankfully today many more mums will be joining the QPSA at the game, The Spiders have a women’s team and the father of spider people better be doing a fairer share of the chores.
Technology and advances
Staying on the change theme and with this being a fanzine there is an apology and suggestion that you correct The Spider’s facts and figures from issue 7.
There are also a couple of pieces about programmes, the first looking forward to an improved bumper 40 page edition and explaining that old chestnut that clubs used against fanzines so many times, they were not trying to compete with the official journal.
If anyone has a copy of the 1965-66 programme for the Queens Park – East Stirlingshire clash, then Frank is possibly still awaiting your call (The Spiders won 1-0 on April 12th 1966 if that helps)
There is also a superb article starting with the words that are startling at this distance in time and the subject at hand “Thanks to the miracle of modern technology”. Hector suggests people shell out £25 for a 2-hour long VHS of a game vs Cowdenbeath. Yes, it is the first time in 25 years the club has made it to tier 2 but oh how time have changed. “the tapes are naturally in colour” is such a great line, the thought that this had to be explained has me in stitches! I assume all others formats means Betamax and “The retail value of these cassettes would be in the region of £40” is another slightly overenthusiastic phrase and despite video recently killing the radio star it has commentary from Radio Clyde D.J Mike Maclean.
Our heroes peak with the line “Whilst many of you will not possess video-recorders at the present time” the delivery time of a month would allow you to get down to your closest branch of Radio Rentals with time to spare.
Jokes
Being a fanzine there are jokes, in this case some rather tame attempts to suggest England might not have won the world cup via the medium of John McEnroe.
The prickly nature of football supporters is covered but I’m not sure the full ferocity of what fans might have been shouting is revealed, the editor was a teenager at the time and his mum was watching.
My Angel is a Centrefold
There is a surprisingly good photo as a centrespread, certainly a cut above most fanzine photos of the time. The claim that “approximately” 2000 Queen’s fans were present can’t be verified easily. Their average attendances at the time were around 500 and the 19 sprinkled about the terraces in the background leaning against crush barriers with draped scarves don’t suggest “wild” just yet. It is a great action shot though.
For the record Gerry McCoy, whose head is obscured here would finish top scorer for the club this season with a heady 17 goals (for comparison, in the 2002-02 season the Spiders joint top scorers only managed 5 each). After 20 goals in 53 games for Queen’s, Gerry would go on to make 290 more appearances for the like of Hearts, Partick, Clyde, Falkirk, Albion and Dumbarton scoring 117 goals in 290 appearances. And the Spiders didn’t get a penny, let’s not start on Alan Irvine or Andy Robertson’s careers.
For balance re supporters here are the photos of the trophy lift in the main stand, looks like there were far more people there than on the occasion I ventured into that stand for a Spiders game in the early 2000s.
Never fear though, as this is a fanzine terrible photography is never far away. There is a reproduction of a photo of the championship winning team advertised for the bargain price of £2.50 despite the state of the copy.
The next bit of terrible photography can be excused though as it’s reproducing a 1956 team photo and a medal. Yes, it’s a history article, another staple for filling pages in fanzines down the years.
The article is called “The Story of the Battered Bowler Hat” and covers some quite startling parallels to the last time The Spiders returned to the 2nd tier. It mentions the article’s title is taken from Bob Crampsey’s book covering the history of Queen’s Park. (In fact it is the subtitle of the story of that season) Obviously this strange title lead me down a rabbit hole as the article doesn’t explain and I can find no record of what the battered bowler hat refers to. Some sources mention Queen’s Park fans wearing bowler hats way beyond it being a “fashionable” item but nothing about a battered one. The book is long out of print and going for £95 for a used copy but there is a one in the Mitchell library, so a trip beckons.
At this point a further and altogether more serious rabbit hole appeared. My late father-in-law used to wax lyrical about a player called Charlie Church who he used to watch. We were never sure what the connection to Charlie was beyond the fact that he lived in Mearns on the southside of Glasgow very near to my in laws. As is the way with these things we had assumed that Charlie had played for David’s team St Johnstone and never asked as these fantastical stories about flicks, tricks and goals against Celtic did tend to meander a little bit (yes, I know I am approaching 2000 words in a blog about the fanzine of an amateur Scottish side).
Anyway, when I had one last look at the team photo before inserting it into the blog there he is, Charlie Church himself, 2nd from left on the front row. So, you will be pleased to now know that Charlie played 260 games for Queen’s Park, scored 69 goals including 2 that knocked Celtic out of the Glasgow cup. (I suspect my father-in-law was there that day). I also know that Church was from a family of bookmakers, the first firm to offer fixed-odds football coupons. His wife likened his playing style to Henrik Larsson whereas the great man himself felt he was more Frank McGarvey and he was sent off in a 1958 match vs Stranraer that the Spiders lost 2-1, their goal that day being scored on his debut by none other than Govan High School teenager, Alex Ferguson1.
Creative Writing
And of course there was poetry, in this case SOS is about the controversy over what to do with Hampden at the time. Thatcher and Rangers get the blame, Thatcher had reneged on a £5.5m commitment from the previous Labour administration to revive Hampden, a decision made after advice from Rae Simpson, the Rangers chairman who wanted finals played at Ibrox. You can read more about this here2, if you are a certain age, you will recognise the usual suspects.
There is more creative writing in the description of an away day that twins New York and Cowdenbeath with a dodgy reference to the blockbuster TV series of the day Roots. Icy May weather, 10p transfers to the main stand, underground pie stalls, I’ll take ‘Beath over the Big Apple every time. The “toilet stop incident” sounds horrific and I’m glad it didn’t make the national news.
Even better are the musings of the sharpened stud, an op-ed that was a regular feature of the Web. Having won promotion he muses about the celebrations at the disco with a tremendous line about a trip to Alloa “Things like that almost make the daily hell of living worthwhile”. Keep it light mate!
Gone and largely forgotten
There are many ads in The Web;
David Henderson printers no longer seem to exist, “Beyond The Fringe” ladies and Gents salon now takes its place on the Clarkston road..a ladies and gents salon seems a bit outdated now as well. I can find nothing about the second to none “South side news”, its “weekly reports from school to kirk” now probably only existing on a dusty library shelf or microfilm somewhere.
J Moore Insurance consultants are now part of a larger company in Ross-shire and the Bradford and Bingley branch is now Rosha hair salon.
Almond Fabrications of Wishaw MIGHT still exist as there is an Almond engineering group that claim to have existed since 1979 but are now in Livingstone, just like the ghost of the aforementioned Meadowbank.
The exchange is gone, as are cash discounts for fanzine readers. The exchange is fondly remembered on a number of old Glasgow record shop forums and was known as “The shop with the bomb proof yellow stickers that never came off”. Proof is provided in a Facebook post with a picture of a CD copy of Born to Run from 2024 (The CD was released in mid 80s).
Final Whistle
Of course a lot has changed in 45 years, organisations like MTV wouldn’t get away with only playing white artists for so long for a start. Also thankfully 16kb of RAM, Thatcher and Reagan are long gone but sadly so are many fanzines (although in 1981 there were only about 3 or 4 running!)
Also gone are Queens Park fans getting easy preference on tickets to the Scotland – England home international, a new and you have to say potentially open to abuse scheme is being introduced.
What is surprising here, aside from the fact that an amateur club fanbase beat most fans of professional sides to the punch, is that The Web is an almost fully formed fanzine. Protest, poetry, travel, terrible jokes and acerbic wit, creative writing, local ads, social history, superb letters and not being quite A5 according to my scanner. It really has the lot except terrible photography, and it is all the better for that!
FYI, Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run” was the 2nd MTV track and that takes us to 2256 words.
Football Fanzine Culture 
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