The World Cup trundles on in it’s latest hideously bloated, dull incarnation so we’ll keep on trawling the archives for more Mundial news from fanzines past. Hell, I’m not sure if I’ll still have the energy to be doing this in 4 years time so we might as well make the most of it now.

Obviously we’ll start in the Midlands Combination League Division 1 in 2002 with Windmill Wonderland, the tremendous Leamington FC and their cover from issue 11. Do they mention their soon to be switched on floodlights on the cover ? No, but luckily for you you can read about that here https://footballfanzineculture.blog/2026/06/26/floodlightfriday-windmill-wonderland-leamington-fc/ Instead though we have the remarkable sight of club captain holding the World Cup though the subtitle “Never Mind The World Cup” gives a hint as to the veracity of this picture. Fake news? Been there, done that.

Cover spoofs appeared many times obviously. Ireland fanzine On The 1 Road suggested Sir Jack had persuaded Italia 90 winner Lothar Matthäus to play for Ireland at USA 94 in their summer 94 “We’re Going To America – You’re Not” special.

They also covered an excellent piece about the sacking of Graham Taylor, highlighting as fanzines often did how duplicitous the press were about all matters football.

Returning to Scotland and Alotta Balls issue 18 they carried a cruel caricature about “Scotsmen who won’t be going to Italy” for Italia 90 along with a piece called “Great Scottish Scapegoats” Not a worst XI ever but a savage summation of the “contributions” of players past. Steve Archibald, Don Masson, Graham Sharp, Bruce Rioch all get a slating as does even Billy Bremner for ‘holding on’ to a 2-0 lead vs Zaire. Classic fan bitterness and recrimination, at the heart of any good fanzine.

Bradford City classic, The City Gent issue 55 from October 1994 carried a newspaper clipping which, not surprisingly, didn’t copy very well into the zine. Never fear because the letter accompanying it explained that then Bradford manager Robin Michael Lawrence, better known as Lennie had turned down the chance to be a TV pundit for USA 94 to play cricket for win Division 5 of the Guernsey cricket league…5 divisions of cricket on Guernsey? Blimey plus what was Lennie doing living there, he’s been manager of Middlesbrough until May of 1994!? The photo is so badly reproduced that I can’t be sure if this is a joke or not, added to the mystery is Lennie’s lack of trousers (I’m sure it’s a joke BTW).

He is of course now assistant manager and non exec director at Hartlepool, presumably living somewhere more local like the Isles of Scilly. Ironically John Dewhirst, editor of the City Gent at the time now produces the most superb quality photozines, copies available here. https://www.bradfordiana.net/about

Tottenham fanzine My Eyes Have Seen The Glory ran a summer special in 1990 with the cover dreaming of a pre booking Gazza scoring the winner in the final…

Inside there are two newspaper clippings reminding us of Harry Harris, Today and more importantly that though Infantino is the devil incarnate, tearing football to pieces for his own personal gain, there have been other massive dickheads in charge for decades. is also a reminder that it was only 2001 that England became the first nation to introduce professional referees.. we had amateurs refereeing the greatest show on earth for decades (yes I know, Jack Taylor) and qualifiers might still be officiated by a part timer today.

My Eyes Have Seen The Glory also ran a great colouring in test for readers. Later in the fanzine they provided their own answers; Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No, No, No. I’d hope that you can do better.

This really was a World cup bonanza issue, there is even an article suggesting that the two Robsons Bryan and Bobby would ruin Gazza’s career. Fabulous, passionate fanzine stuff and complete bunk of course, Gazza needed no help from anyone to ruin his career.

..and finally a “reader” writes in with a yet another unkind comment about Peter Beardsley.

Let’s move to Italy like what Gazza did. Rigore was an extraordinarily well written fanzine about all things Calcio. This article from March 1993, 33 years ago makes interesting reading today, given that it’s now 12 years they reached the World Cup and 20 since they won it. They did scrape through to USA 94 and might have won had it not been for Diana Ross and Roberto Baggio’s penalty taking but their 2006 win must now be seen as blip (albeit a great one!) . Not having enough competitive games at international level has now morphed into that thought at club level with some people also claiming Scott McTominay’s subdued tournament is also related to Seria A now being a small fish in a big pool. Giancarlo Rinaldi deserves congratulations for editing a quite incredible fanzine, riding on the wave of Italia 90 and C4’s coverage it is superb, especially given that it was published from a semi detached house in DUMFRIES!

Partick Thistle’s October 1993 issue 4 of the evocatively named Sick In The Basin carried a mournful report about the same qualifying group as Italy were in. Scotland had stuttered to a pitiful 0-0 draw with Portugal in the first home qualifier fixture for USA 94. It does seem a bit pessimistic given that this was only the 2nd tie in a 6 team (2 qualifying) group though Scotland had already been well beaten by Switzerland. The Ibrox mention comes because Hampden was closed for refurbishment and the crowd of just 22,583 tells you a lot about Scottish support at the time. The crunch match vs Italy was better attended by 33,029 but a repeated 0-0 result left Scotland with an insurmountable peak to climb.

The pessimism is driven of course by the prospect of missing a 6th consecutive qualification and was justified, they only beat Malta and Estonia in the qualifying group. Happily for our correspondent England didn’t make it stateside either. The Song for Hampden never took off, perhaps understandably. Its an interesting piece, club vs country not being a discussion for these Partick fans.

With Scotland’s return to the World Cup just past and stories of great friendships made in the US there is also this touching little letter on display thanking the Scottish supporters for their Euro 92 visit in Sweden. I wonder if the fella ever got his cap back, probably the least of his worries.

Think ticket scams are new at World cups? Well no, let’s look back at 2 pieces about ticket sales for France 98. These appeared in Coventry’s In Dublin’s Fair City issue 19 in September of 1998. The first describes the farce of ticket scrutiny and tout sales and the 2nd is the FSA promising to pursue Great Portland Entertainment or more specifically David Spanton who sold 40,000 tickets when he only had access to 2,000.

What was remarkable was that Spanton was a well known ticket tout before all this happened and even more incredible despite being jailed at least twice for similar offences he was caught again in 2014 selling official “not-for-resale” FA tickets and again in 2018 selling vastly overpriced Premier League tickets…20 years on he was still getting away with it. Makes you proud of the British justice system.

I mentioned that we’d be stuck between Italia 90 and Japan 2002 a bit because that was the nadir in terms of fanzine numbers but there are fragments outside this window, well, if you are a bit creative there are. How about this from the always superb Groundtastic, their bumper, 96 page Our Friends in the North Revisited edition from earlier in 2026. This special recreated an edition from 1996 to coincide with the legendary Northern League groundhop of that year, paying homage to lost friends, revisiting those still around and covering the games and grounds making up the 2026 hop, still an ever growing and superb institution.

The sharp amongst you will of course understand that this connects to the 1966 World Cup with two Parks, Ayresome and Roker making up 25% of the official venues for World Cup Willie and his associates. I’m sure there are other venues in the pages that were used for training but that’s an altogether greater research task for another day. For now let’s just enjoy ourselves with another North East link and enjoy the feature photo of only the 2nd brothers ever to win a World cup together, the Charlton’s civic reception in Ashington. Fanzine link? Well both brothers “appeared” in issue 2 of Ashington’s fabulous fanzine The Pit Pony Express ( https://footballfanzineculture.blog/2026/06/18/the-pit-pony-express-world-cup-special/ )

…flick further through this magnificent publication and you will find West Auckland Town’s evocatively named “Northern Metal Recycling Stadium”. NMRS or whatever it’s called is home to the winners of the first AND SECOND ‘World Cup’ and after trouncing Juventus 6-1 in the 2nd final West Auckland were allowed to keep the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy. In case you don’t know it, the story is beautifully told here on West Auckland’s history section. https://www.westaucklandtownafc.co.uk/history/#:~:text=Two%20seasons%20later%2C%20in%201911,of%20the%20soccer%20World%20Cup. The English Football Association being asked to nominate a world cup team but declining the invitation with David Beckham selling some of his sari’s and a sideboard to fund a World Cup trip might seem a bit far fetched but no more so than the actual story itself!

Final Whistle

Many fanzines hibernated for the summer but that doesn’t mean that the World Cup didn’t feature. Friendship, bitter rivalry, colouring in challenges, unkind Peter Beardsley jokes, terrible photos, colouring competitions, poetry and song, fanzines had it all and it wasn’t just restricted to your local club. The World Cup was a big talking point, great for filling space or fueling rivalry with other clubs.

Creative people, creative thinking, creative talent, football fanzines didn’t need and 86th minute thunderbastard from a talisman, they were always ahead of the game.