It is time for another thought / writing exercise that proves little except that fanzines are packed full of social history, excellent writing, mysterious bodies and stories, excellent design and that we need more print not less…so quite a bit then. Here are 2,271 words based on one fanzine.

Issue 6 of the brilliant Stenhousemuir fanzine The Duffle appeared in October 1994 with one of my favourite covers of all time, a beautiful ramshackle attempt that is a design classic.

First things first, Terry Christie is manager, a stalwart of the Scottish lower divisions and the man who gave this particular fanzine its name. Apparently whilst Terry was manager from 1992-99 (and still working full time as a headmaster as well) he seldom appeared in the dugout without a duffle coat on.

Now I’ve seen many people saying that this began when The Warriors beat Aberdeen 2-0 in a famous cup game…but that was in February 1995 and this issue of The Duffle is from October 1994. The coat received national attention after the famous win in 1995 but once again, a fanzine is ahead of trend. Terry takes up the story “I had a nice overcoat – a Crombie, I think – but I thought I’d take Max’s because it had a hood” he told The Scotsman. “When we beat Aberdeen it was all over the newspapers and I started feeling jumpy if I didn’t have it, so I always had it with me, even in the height of summer.” It’s rumoured that the Scottish Sun even ran a competition to win a duffle coat in his honour. How famous was Terry Christie? Not famous enough in my opinion, his autobiography is still available for a bargain £6 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-Teacher-Football-Autobiography-Christie/dp/1521882355 he had a street named after him and here he is in the duffle.

We’ll return to internet “facts” later but the editorial is a well balanced piece resigned to a season of mid table mediocrity with even the Stirlingshire cup already out of reach and it’s only October. The lot of 90% of football fans, a fact that seems to have been forgotten in these days of Sky hype and bullshit podcasts.

This balanced view is perhaps not surprising, the club have only two league trophies in their 142ish years and both came along in 2024 (There is some doubt about the first six years as to whether they were just a cricket club or even another club entirely called Heather Rangers). Despite their 2024 triumphs Wiki describes perhaps the most exciting period of the club’s history thus “In the early 20th century the club had a brief spell of success, winning the Scottish Qualifying Cup twice in 1901 and 1902. In 1902–03, the club reached the Scottish Cup semi-final, losing 1–4 at home to Rangers. “

This balance is ermm balanced by a cartoon later in the fanzine covering a 4-0 league cup reverse to at Terry Christie’s alma mater Meadowbank Thistle.

The Sten or Stens…attracting fans

22 miles from Glasgow and 32 miles from Edinburgh and about 20 minutes to each by train it must be an eternal struggle for Stenhousemuir to attract fans but a crafty way to attract the next generation was developed by this fan, albeit fans based in Dublin and using a tactic that not all parents might have been happy with.

Teuchters

In 1993 the SFL, by the narrowest margin, voted to reorganise into four divisions of ten clubs, hence creating two further places and finally allowing Highland League teams into the top tiers. This was quite a change, for over a century the lowland/central belt clubs had resisted the move because they didn’t like the cold perhaps? In the 1960s, Clydebank FC Chairman Jack Steedman declared that Highland clubs would get into the SFL “over my dead body” and in 1973, pursuing a rare single vacancy, Edinburgh works team Ferranti Thistle edged Inverness Thistle by a single vote..you get the picture.

Now Stenhousemuir is not exactly in the middle of a metropolis or one of the big Scottish teams but they still feel that they can punch down on Highlanders in this piece asking where all the ‘Teuchters” have gone. For those of you from England, teuchter (pronounced teewkh-ter) is a word used by city folk or Lowlanders to describe someone from the Scottish Highlands, a Gaelic speaker, or anyone from a rural, country area..though I know plenty of people in Glasgow who would consider Stens to be teuchters! There might be something a bit tongue in cheek about this as it’s also accompanied by a lovely little dig at St Johnstone hero “Sergie Baltacha”

This is followed up with a wonderful story about an awayday to Brechin. The title alone, “Tales From a Big Hedge” is worth the admission fee though I’m not sure everyone in Brechin is a farmer. Classic fanzine reporting.

The lads must have been having a laugh when describing Glebe Park because here are some photos of Ochilview in 1987 and today..not that much difference.

Hero of the piece Steve Constable appears later in the fanzine as well, this time the Sun have tracked him down at home and picture him with one of those quite horrific velvet headboards so popular at the time. Not sure he met Paula and a reminder DON’T BUY THE SUN!

There is a final kick at Brechin with this commentary on an ad in the programme. Rutland are still around and available to “Create solutions for your pasture fence”

Glebe Park is still much the same which, in these days of corporate boxes, is a good thing though the beech hedge only runs half way along the ground now. Glebe briefly enjoyed internet fame when, in 2019, the groundskeeper went way above and beyond with this miraculous and quite brilliant pitch treatment.

Changes

This small piece appears and is accompanied by a letter folded into the middle of the fanzine. I tried to find the 38 Club today but the best I could come up with were some comments on a forum in 2017 that basically boiled down to “Why would anyone do that?” What? Just look at Glebe Park above, yes the Sten(s) ridiculed it in 1996 but it’s the sort of ground that is now considered a classic. The 92 Club down in England have no recollection of them but informed me that many 92ers go on to try and collect the Scottish grounds as well.

The handwritten correction to the Queen of the South planned capacity is <Chef’s Kiss>. From what I can tell in the letter the organisation was founded in 1991 and have decided that they will not allow the 2 club expansion to affect their name. The letter doesn’t make it clear if they will expect people to get to 40 grounds before getting the badge or how people can prove they have done this.

It is obviously a great idea but it doesn’t seem to have taken off. Was anyone a member, does anyone have the badge? There are people who have completed this of course, with the Finniestone groundhoppers completing the task in the 2009-2010 season alone https://groundhoppers.org.uk/ and https://groundhopscot.wordpress.com/ currently trying to complete EVERY ground in the Scottish pyramid (currently at 165 of 292). As I say, I can’t find any trace of the 38 club but the 92 club is still going in England. https://www.ninetytwoclub.org.uk/index.htm

Fitba but not as we know it

As recently as 2022 Arsene Wenger and Ifab were considering kick ins to replace throw ins, he commented that free kicks and throw-ins were the “two big time-wasters at the moment. The target is to make the game more spectacular and quicker, and maybe with throw-ins you could play with your feet, in a limit of five seconds for example. But it has to be tested and then has to be accepted by the Ifab.”

Clearly Arsene wasn’t reading The Duffle in 1994 because back in 1994 this was tried out in various European leagues and The Duffle’s London correspondent had travelled to Hertfordshire to watch a game including kick ins. It’s an interesting piece highlighting the 90s era route 1 ethos in England with the type of short pass possession football we’re all now used to seeing not even a twinkle in Pep’s eye. The fact that the St Alban’s manager reputedly threatened to “substitute, fine and transfer any player using the kick in” is a lovely little insight into English football’s willingness to change. Wullie the Warrior highlights another problem in defending a kick in.

This just goes to show that football is SLOOOOOW to change, committee driven structures like FIFA recreate work for themselves over and over and over and experts like Arsene quite often don’t do research before they open their mouths. FYI a BBC piece on throw ins at the time gave this “please don’t change anything” result. Not surprising based on 90% of the insane/inane responses to stories on there.

Dancing in the Streets of Raith…

We all know this famous quote and how it has been rehashed/memed and reheated over the years, Jeff Stelling’s “They‘ll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight” being a classic but who really said it first? The accepted story is that it was Sam Leitch when covering a Raith game but there is no confirmation anywhere as to when or which game it was from. Here is what Goggle AI says;

The slight problem with this is that by the time of Raith’s Scotia League Cup final win in 1994 Sam had unfortunately been dead for fourteen years so he almost certainly didn’t utter it then and we probably won’t be able to get a quote to clarify matters either. Some say it was after the match that confirmed Raith’s promotion to the 1st division in 1967 but then again people also say that it was David Coleman or Frank Bough that day who uttered the words.

The other thing is that a look at his CV would seem to indicate that he isn’t obvious as a candidate. Born in Glasgow (Though some online sources say Great Yarmouth he was from a Scottish family) he certainly grew up in Glasgow and started his career at the Greenock Telegraph and as a football fan he would surely have been aware of Raith’s location.

The other thing is that he was a widely travelled print journalist in the 60’s covering a variety of sports being voted sportswriter of the year in 1967. Then in 1968 he was appointed editor of Match of the Day and Sportsnight so presenting doesn’t seem to have been his thing and as editor he would surely have been a bit more careful unless it was a very good joke. It is true that for several years up to 1974 Leitch presented and wrote the script for the Football Preview slot on Grandstand (later to evolve into football Focus) previewing the day’s matches but you can probably count on one hand the number of times they might have even briefly considered including Raith in their coverage.

Finally I’ve looked through a number of his obituaries from 1980 and not one mentions his gaffe. Perhaps this isn’t surprising but..

Why am I waffling on about this? Well, in a typical fanzine turn of events two things caught my eye on page 11 of Duffle. They have included a piece by a Raith fan about a 9-2 gubbing of Stenhousemuir from November 1985. What? Why? I can only assume they owed Geordie a favour. More importantly, by way of introducing this the author, a Raith fan, attributes the words to Kenneth Wolstenholme…Now I’m not saying that fanzines were always right, far from it but I’ve also seen various people saying it couldn’t possibly have been an English commentator. Why not? It certainly makes more sense that a BBC legend who covered mainly English games wouldn’t know where and what Raith is.

We’ll never know but as with Terry’s duffle the internet proves to be woefully inaccurate, ridiculously so in this case.

Back Cover ad

A classic of its kind, the social club is sponsoring the fanzine for the season and promise you a place to hang your duffle even if they don’t provide sandwiches. A free house but only serving the classics, McEwans and Tennants. I’d go be going for the Tartan special at 4.40 to listen in, I just hope they switched the telly off and listened to James Alexander Gordon at 5.

The Final Whistle

The Duffle is unfortunately long gone but the social club is still there, now called the Ochilview bar. More importantly the club has been a Community trust since 2009 and is thriving on the back of it. Their first league title in 140 years in 2024 was paired with winning the SWF division 1 title and followed by the men winning the 1st division play off final last season with The Sten currently sitting 2nd in the Championship.

The National Library of Scotland has issues 1-15 and I highly recommend you seek it out, based on the fact that this is a consecutive collection it might be that only 15 were ever made.

2000 words? Easy. The Duffle really is great fanzine stuff, jibes at not just opposition fans but the whole town, a season already over, doing FIFA’s work for them, the mystery of a famous expression, 9-2 drubbings, piss ups and appearances in the paper, a great name and cover, social and football history writ large..and that’s just the stuff I’ve managed to fit in here!