Featured in #FloodlightFriday last week we’ve decided to return to the Winter 1990 issue 4 of West Ham fanzine Never Mind The Boleyn for reasons. We should point out at this stage that in true fanzine style this winter 1990 thing caused me some consternation as they clearly state inside that Lou Macari is manager. As well as being a chip shop owner Lou was Hammers manager from July 1989 to February 1990 so I’m guessing it was published in January 1990..which I suppose is technically winter 1990 but surely winter is..anyway, it had a fancy but impractical A4 size with pink cover and (theoretically) more about the contents on the wrap around back cover.
The name is an obvious musical reference as is the typeset for the name. This is one of only two fanzines we’ve seen named after a Sex Pistols records with Notts County’s No More Pie In The Sky (Never Mind the Forest, Here’s the Magpies) the rather more convoluted reference.
Published from Acton, Never Mind the Boleyn was one of 23 West Ham fanzines we’ve traced and though its light shone bright it only lasted 4 issues. With an editorial named after a Haircut 100 song they don’t seem very punk all of a sudden but the reasons for their likely demise is covered well and also has a great review of early Hammers zines and what fanzines were or weren’t to become. They also seem disheartened that they haven’t managed to smash the system…wait till you see what’s happened since lads!
Before they get to the stuff away from football there is an op ed expressing despair at the state of the team/club/leadership..36 years later and history repeats, at least back then it was just complacency.
There is a rather unkind spoof ad asking for donations for donkeys in distress with a picture of possibly Stuart Slater who played for the club at that time. If anyone has other ideas please get in touch, my extensive collection of “West Ham squad 1989-1990” photos isn’t a great help. There is a very crude joke in another West Ham fanzine Fortune’s Always Hiding about why Slater might be called donkey but that’s not our style.
There is a spoof newspaper piece about famous Hammers photographer Steve Bacon leaving the club because there is no prospect of them scoring soon. Steve also features with his own comic strip in FAH so one day soon we need to get round to reviewing that.
This is the 90s so of course there is a crude and much deserved cartoon about Thatcher.
Moving away from football there is an eating out guide to Green Street. Unfortunately you can’t go and try it out yourself as it is now a clothes shop.
Finally, to confirm its status as a fanzine and also to confuse you further there is protest..this time to try and get Don Topley into the England test side. This didn’t work but in researching this blog I did find this extraordinary tale “employed as an MCC Young Professional at Lords in 1984, he was selling scorecards one minute, and then the next fielding as 12th man substitute fielder for the 1984 Lord’s Test match involving England vs West Indies. During this game, Topley gained notoriety for a splendid one handed catch on the boundary from a shot by Malcolm Marshall that did not count, as his foot was on the boundary rope”1
If you have a passing interest in cricket you might have heard of Don’s son, Reece Topley.
It’s a real shame NMTB lasted just 4 issues. It was a refreshing attempt to get away from tried and tested diatribes and crude jokes and has some great little pieces with a sense of the surreal. There is a lot more in the fanzine than the stuff covered here today and in the floodlight edition but this is a mini blog. It’s not quite as chaotic and aggressive as the Sex Pistols perhaps but like them its a candle that burned very brightly and quickly. If Tom Easterling and Keith Paulin are still out there, we salute you.
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