football rambles

One of the best things about a visit to Orient is the fanzine that they produce. Yesterday, I got my hands on the brand new edition and it wasn't a disappointment. The highlight of this edition was probably an interview with Shaun Batt.

On Saturday I picked up a copy of 'Heroes & Villains'. The cover shows the image of Andi Weimann when he scored the opportune winner against Man City and ran to the Holte End before the ball had even reached the back of the net. Funnily enough, you can't tell if the mood of the fanzine is optimistic or pessimistic. After a fantastic home win against Man City, came a draw against Hull and then an abject defeat to Spurs. No wonder Villa fans are suffering from Schizophrenia. As well as the usual Blues baiting there are some decent enough articles, some of the highlights are an interesting article on how technology has changed our relationship with football; more on the 'safe standing' campaign that Villa have been the most instrumental in pushing for; an article on when Villa signed a rugby league player in 1912; a look at the reasons for not following England and Di Canio's ill fated reign at Sunderland. There's also some stuff on tactics, philosop...

After picking up a copy of Heroes and Villans at the last Villa game I was at I promised to keep a look at for fanzines when I went to league grounds and as our bus parked up by the lads selling the Leyton Orientear fanzine on Saturday I decided to get a copy. Leyton Orientear is one of the country's longest running fanzines having been first published in 1986. Fanzines seem to have a longer running tradition at clubs where fans have a right to be disgruntled and Leyton Orient definitely fit into that category. In this edition there is an interesting article on Laurie Cunningham, who may have found fame at WBA started his career off at Orient. He was one of the Baggies' players who helped fight against racism in the 1980s and met with an early death in a car crash after moving to Real Madrid. Apart from that there are a few interesting comments on football and its slippery slide as a whole. There is also an article on the proposed move of West Ham to the Olympic Stadi...

A few years ago when I wasn't living in Britain, I wrote about fanzines and the importance they had played and speculated about their decline: (http://footballrambles.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/football-culture-fanzine-culture.html) However since my return I hadn't bought a fanzine until yesterday. Back in the day I read them pretty religiously and never missed a copy of 'Heroes and Villains' or later 'Never loved Ellis'. In fact I went as far as to write my dissertation on it and with the social change that was going on in football they had an important role to play culturally as a whole or dealt with issues affecting certain clubs, i.e. 'The Mag' (Newcastle), 'Not the View' (Celtic) and 'King of the Kippax' (Manchester City) or were just plainly hilarious 'A love Supreme' (Sunderland), 'Forever Blowing Bubbles' (West Ham) and 'Bernard of the Bantams' (Bradford City). Nowadays football fanzines are less in evidence...

Fanzine culture in British football was most prevalent in the 1980's and early 1990's. At this time it was often very easy to find 2 or 3 publications on sale at most top league grounds. However, times have changed, so I was surprised to see that the fanzine of the year for 2007 - 2008 is up and running albeit sponsored by what seems to be another anachronism The Football Pools . I haven't been back to Britain for nearly 3 years, so I can't say how important printed fanzines are, although last time I was there I noticed that The Oatcake was selling like hotcakes at Stoke and Clough the Magic Dragon seemed to be doing a roaring trade at Burton. It's true that the British public as a whole have always been keen to get their hands on printed journals, as newspaper circulation in the UK compared with other European Countries illustrates, but in recent years the Football Pinks and Greens from various cities that formed an integral part of Saturday evening have fallen by...