Author: Peter Slater

  • An interview with the CEO of Google appeared on the BBC this week, interesting only for the fact that one tech’ company is finally coming clean on what utter rot AI is when you are searching for facts or even…

    I’m Sorry Dave, I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That.
  • This week I opened the Cardiff fanzine Thin Blue Line issue 67 from 2008 which covers a story I though must have been a spoof about Hamburg SV opening a cemetery for fans, a cemetery shaped like the ground with…

    Great Fanzine Features of our Time.
  • Recently I stumbled across this fantastic exchange on twitter. It seems ridiculous but it was presented in such a matter-of-fact way that it must be true.. As other editors wrote in to enquire if everything was OK this got me…

    Excuses, excuses.
  • In a previous blog to we looked at protest and protest culture on a national level in football fanzines; anti-racism, anti-Thatcher, the appalling state of grounds, police behaviour, anti ID cards, anti-discrimination and much more. Fanzines also focussed on local…

    I’d Like To Make A Complaint
  • Icymi (as the kids say) this is now officially an award-winning blog, well the research that goes into it is anyway. No big deal or changes, you just have to call me Sir now or something. Thanks to everyone who…

    Fanzines, Pies and Awards.
  • Someone once said to me that a true fanzine shouldn’t have any adverts in it as that meant they weren’t truly independent. I disagree with this fundamentally, we’re not talking some big corporate titan selling their latest unnecessary crap here,…

    The Mad Men of Football Fanzines
  • We have many historic Meet the Editor interviews lined up but I recently came across an almost new print fanzine in Scotland when editor David Martin got in touch and started to tell me the fantastic story of Allez Les…

    Meet the Editor; Allez Les Blues!, St Johnstone.
  • “These autonomous publications used for staging, communication and the construction of collective identities…they meant self-empowerment, the overcoming of isolation and the constitution of a social and cultural community.” Football fanzines writ large…except that quote is from a rather weighty academic…

    Who, Why and What?
  • “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” is a commonly stated phrase supposedly invented by Mark Twain, but it was actually created by Benjamin Disraeli…statistics being used incorrectly, oh the irony. I suppose we shouldn’t complain,…

    Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
  • When people ask me what my favourite fanzine is it’s impossible to answer, there are just so many to choose from BUT I always recommend people look at lower league fanzines in general because they were often the best in…

    The Way We Were; Social History in Fanzines