This week we’ll trawl through yet more great features in fanzines, looking at the quite incredible breadth and depth of fun, borderline insanity, outright stupidity but most of all the displays of passion and breathtaking creativity that appeared in football fanzines up and down the land.

FIGHT!

Where to start? How about a list of the 7 greatest punch ups of all time? Look no further than issue 31 of Sheffield Wednesday’s Spitting Feathers from 1997. Yes, yes Duncan Ferguson, Graeme Le Saux and Eric but Pele? What? The cleanest man in football (We’ll ignore the blue pill era)

Well, it happened and here is a picture to prove it from 1963. Much more than that I’m struggling to find, various sites with articles are around but a lot of it is AI drivel. Some say it happened 22 June 1963…then they say it was either a friendly or the Intercontinental Cup.  The score could be any one of 2-0 to Inter, a 2-2 draw or 3-1 to Santos though I doubt this last one as a few paragraphs before the “journalist” informs us that Inter had raced to a 2-0 lead. Anyway, the picture (if it’s real) does show Pele throwing a punch at Bruno Bolchi and in the pre internet days of 1997 the author of this article shows an admirable knowledge of fisticuffs.

Breakdowns

OK we’ve had a list of fights, how about a list of great breakdowns from issue 9 of Doncaster fanzine Raise the Roof in 1990. The lads seem to have had an extraordinary run of mishaps with Leon coaches, the questions you obviously ask is why they persevered so long…I think we all know the answer, and it involves the word cheap. Even so, 8 incidents of either missing games, nearly freezing to death, replacements buses at 5am and a fire on board doesn’t seem to have broken the lads’ resolve.

Statto

Let’s cross over into the world of stats now. I’ve mentioned before the superb statistical masterpiece that is Chesterfield reference site The Sky in Blue https://sites.google.com/view/cfchistory/home  I’m sure other clubs have sites like this but I’m a Chesterfield fan so this is the one I’m advertising. Even if you aren’t a Spireite fan you must be enthralled at the potential to browse the records of predecessor Chesterfield Town or look at all of Chesterfield’s

• Friendly matches
• Abandoned Matches
• Recurring results
• Win doubles
• Squad numbers
• Penalty Kicks against and shootout records

and many more incredible stats.

You will also be able to go back and update this superb piece that appeared in 1994 in The Crooked Spirite issue 48. It’s about substitute scorers and again, consider that this was written when spreadsheets were in their infancy. It’s brilliant in terms of the effort involved but also for incorporating a dig at the manager’s skills, the club’s transfer policy and local rivals..By the way, remind me to tell you about the kid who thought for years that Chesterfield’s nickname was Pirates based on his dodgy hearing and the Chesterfield accent.

Pit Pony of The Week

Ashington fanzine The Pit Pony Express was nothing if not a details-oriented organisation…well, they weren’t even that really, but they did at least once, probably only once in fact carry a Pit Pony of the Week in issue 2 from 1994.

We’ve already mentioned the super ads in this excellent fanzine ( https://footballfanzineculture.blog/2026/05/14/ads-infinitum-more-adverts-in-fanzines/  ) but I must return to a feature that appeared on the back cover of issue 2 as the picture has haunted me ever since.  Whether the editor did appear on The Word or not we’ve not been able to ascertain but I think we all know the answer.

Games

Board games appeared many times in fanzines, and we WILL get round to doing a blog about them sometime soonish but in honour of this particular creative cul de sac, this week we’ll present you with a ‘bored’ game carried in 2005’s August issue 16 of Norwich fanzine Y’army. Worthington’s BS Bingo could have featured for almost any manager/club over the years and in fact as we have moved into the era of press trained ultra dull press conferences could still be used today.

I’d all but forgotten about big Nige so looked him up and he’s living proof that a former player with no discernible talent for managing can go a long way in the cozy world of football management. His first job at Blackpool saw over 2 years of struggle before he left the club fighting to avoid relegation saying, “I have taken the club as far as I can,”[1] Well quite. Incredibly he was then appointed assistant to Howard Wilkinson with the England U21 team before he failed completely to establish Norwich as the first Premier League yo yo club.

More? Why yes there’s more after failing to get the Leicester City job he wanted, he was appointed manager of Northern Ireland in 2007. At the time of his appointment NI led their Euro 2008 qualification group but Nige’ guided them to a comfortable third place finish. His reward… the Irish Football Association gave Worthington a two-year contract in 2008.

To be fair he then had moderate success at York culminating in a play-off defeat but the next season they were resting one place above the Division 2 relegation zone when N-Dog resigned uttering “In recent weeks, performances have not been up to my high standards and I take full responsibility for this”[2] This does ring a little hollow when you consider his previous record and the BS bingo game looks incredibly prescient when viewed from this distance.

The Tea Party

I recently produced the first of what I suspect will be a few #FOTD features on Stockport County classic The Tea Party. Issue 20, or more accurately, just a few of the many great bits of issue 20 appear here https://footballfanzineculture.blog/2026/05/18/fotd-the-tea-party-stockport-county/

One of the pieces that took my eye then was about legendary supporter Arthur who would situate himself “6 sleepers back in line with the left-hand goal post” before launching a tirade of abuse against, well, anyone who irked him. Letters and pieces about Arthur started to appear regularly in TTP and I might just come back to this and do an Arthur special at some point. There’s enough there in the multiple copies I’ve come across but for today we’ll focus on the fanzine honouring Arthur by starting a campaign to have a part of the ground named after him.

This piece appeared in issue 17 in 1992 about a “nice new gate exiting from the Pop Side on the wasteland behind” The comparison to the WG Grace gate at Lords is obvious. For the younger reader, these were the days when a new gate counted as a ‘major ground redevelopment’ or ‘huge investment’ by a club. Anyway, our heroes realise that the club will probably not move quickly on the matter so decide to take things into their own hands.

In the close season on 1993 an unofficial ceremony took place and The Arthur Gate was born. There isn’t a record of how long the sign remained intact, it being the close season the lads haven’t been back to Edgeley to see if it’s still there. It’s the thought that counts though and in my opinion it is one of the major travesties of all seater stadia that Arthur’s “stage” no longer exists.

The terrifically bad photo serves as a reminder that tomorrow is #FloodlightFriday

McBag

Swindon’s Bring The Noise disappeared after only 12 Issues despite a superb satirical comic strip called “McBag,” which followed the exploits of a Scottish player-manager who wore a bag on his head. Yes, you read that right. Despite the bag his goalscoring excellence included being a header of the ball par excellence.

The final strip of this magnificent creation is a fanzine protest classic, Maurice McBag has had enough of the apathy of Swindon fans and the club. His polemic laying bare to all the insufferable turmoil Swindon fans were going through at the time and the total and utter lack of interest from the club in improving fan experience. Ticket policies, ground improvements, a fake fan rep, tactics, poor performances, official and facilities for the disabled are all covered, even Roy of the Rovers, the most neutral of football men is invoked.

It’s a great reminder of the extraordinary creativity fanzine contributors and editors turned out on a regular basis, beautifully drawn and making your point in a way that no one could ignore. No idea what happened to this cartoonist, Steve Greer but I hope he made a career out of his talents. Google reveals Steve Greers enjoying careers as a Professor of Theatre and Performance, a Ufologist and a chap in Northern Ireland who served time for drugs, firearms and paramilitary offences. Wherever you are Steve, many thanks.

The Final Whistle

What can you say about all of this; The Arthur Gate, Pele fighting, McBag, Chesterfield’s Sub Scorers 64-95, breakdowns, pit ponies, bullshit bingo…all this in just 7 issues of the 1,840 fanzines we’ve discovered so far.

I know I keep using the word but my goodness, the creativity on display week in week out in fanzines really was unparalleled and deserves much more prominence that it gets. It really was a generation defining era of self-publishing and we’ll continue to do our little bit through these blogs to make sure it is curated properly, it’s too much fun doing this to stop anyway!

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[1] Gillatt, Peter (2009). Blackpool FC On This Day: History, Facts and Figures from Every Day of the Year. Pitch Publishing.

[2] “Nigel Worthington resigns as York City manager”. BBC Sport. 13 October 2014.