Today we travel to Lincolnshire and 1990 to sample just some of the 40 pages of From Behind Your Fences a revered Boston fanzine. Looking at issue 7 a fanzine from a “provincial Conference outfit” it is easy to see why for 60p this was considered a bargain though “not on sale to anyone without a sense of humour”

The editorial is 3 pages of densely packed text of incredible detail about the club, the season, various disciplinary issues, the board and managerial issues. If you are writing a definitive history of Boston United 1988-1990 let me know and you can have a full copy but for the sake of a mini blog like this the first few paragraphs illustrate perfectly the turmoil the club was in and the incredibly fervent support behind the production of this fanzine. George Kerr was removed as manager in 1990, his final managerial job after spells at Lincoln, Grimsby, Rotherham. His younger brother Bobby captained Sunderland to their famous 1973 FA Cup win so now you know.

The shape of things to come is announced with this silly but vaguely amusing cartoon about Welling and with a newspaper clipping from the Independent no less, fame indeed as FBYF were mentioned in a serious newspaper.

There are a number of these clippings for “Incredibly Crap Teams of Our Time” I marvel at the patience and time it must have taken to compile these pre internet.

There is a “Most Stupid Chant of the Season” award which does seem to ignore the certainly that these were in fact ironic. Still, good to have them recorded for posterity

Normally I steer clear of match reports in fanzines, they are the one area where I feel fanzines let themselves down, often brief and far to factual but not here in FBYF of no, we get a magnificent warts and all report on what was a disastrous 6-0 reverse. It is superb, commentary about the English language and turnstile shenanigans, a complaint about the programme, clearances hoofed into “the garage forecourt across the road”, Orwell and a players sing song it is a breathtaking description of a despair inducing away trip.

Great sendings off of our time is a feature that sadly only occasionally shows up in fanzines and when you read this one from an FA Cup tie vs Bury which culminated in the police being involved you will understand my sadness at this state of affairs. The absolute definition of getting your retaliation in first.

World football? You got it with this great little article about various shenanigans in the wacky world of South American and African world cup qualifiers. The Chile bloodgate affair I remembered though not the detail about a flare allegedly being thrown 80 yards by a female who was subsequently paid $12,000 to appear naked in a magazine…

The Algeria-Libya match? Well the truth is stranger than the fiction that appeared here. Libya weren’t 2-0 down, Colonel Ghadaffi and his cohorts cited an alleged threat by the United States to bomb a pharmaceutical factory in Rabta (which the US claimed was a chemical weapons facility) and refused to play so Algeria were awarded the match 2-0. A 2nd announcement was then made in which Gaddafi claimed that Libya wanted to “award our Algerian brothers the two points” as a gesture of gratitude because Algeria had supported Libya during recent American bombing threats. The truth appears to be that fearing that the game would trigger massive rioting in Tripoli and complicate diplomatic relations, Gaddafi chose to pull his team out entirely…who knows but this appearing in a fanzine for a provincial GMVC team? Superb.

As I filled out my log of posts I realised that this is the 2nd issue of FBYF that has appeared in FOTD format. For that I make no apology, just look at the ground covered here and these items are just a few from the absolute mayhem contained within, the tip of the iceberg and I’m sure when I forget that a second time we will return again to this magnificent journal.