Remembrance of mags past

[historyman]

Remembrance of mags past

In an issue of WSC many years ago, there was an article by a contributor who recalled going to an interview for a staff post on a magazine - it may have been a music magazine.

The editor who interviewed the budding journalist stared in disbelief when the interviewee told him of his love for Wimbledon and how he was a regular at their matches. At that time, 'going to the football' was about as trendy as declaring an undying love for Margaret Thatcher.

So imagine the surprise a few years later, during the early years of the Premier League, when this editor turns up in a new role as chief of one of the new trendy football magazines.

I wish I could remember more of the details of that story, but it does make you wonder how many of those involved in these now defunct magazines truly loved the game of football.

[Sam]

Remembrance of mags past

EIM wrote:

Anyone read that new glossy thing, I forget what it's called. I want to say Pretty Green, but that's Liam Gallagher's clothing label, isn't it? Green Soccer Journal? Christ, I don't know.

It's fucking terrible anyway. Written by people who don't really know much about football, I think. Or maybe they know fuck loads about football, and nothing about being a football fan.

I picked up a copy out of curiosity when I was in England over Christmas, and it is really spectacularly bad, isn't it? Vomit-inducing.

henry wrote:

a lad's version of FourFourTwo

Surely that's what FourFourTwo is for?

[Third rate Leszno]

Remembrance of mags past

historyman wrote:

.....it does make you wonder how many of those involved in these now defunct magazines truly loved the game of football.

This is a train of thought that seems to be quite common, not just with football journalism but also with my other sporting obsession, motorsport. I've often found myself thinking along exactly these lines.

Amongst the readership, the fans, there's a lot of, well.... it's not really snobbery, but it's an insistence on authenticity, on writers having been steeped in their subject since childhood, having been taken to a match when they were still in the womb, having been to that Tuesday night game at Crewe in 1989 when the away crowd was in single figures.

Like I say, I fall into the same trap myself, but if someone can write well, and does their research meticulously, and is prepared to be enthusiastic and learn about their subject, why should it actually matter if they're a johnny-come-lately who has no history or previous love for their subject? Really speaking it shouldn't, but for a lot of people, it does.

[Magik]

Remembrance of mags past

Reading the thread from the old board made me sob quietly when i remembered about Sportspages on Charing X. It's also good to know how many languages do the ursus collective speak.

[NHH]

Remembrance of mags past

I've got PDFs of every Foul! bar issues 1-5; keep meaning to do a weekly blog on one as its released. Never get around to it though.

[treibeis]

Remembrance of mags past

Elfmeter was an excellent read. The Exploding Vole's brainchild, I believe.

[Er Liquidatore]

Remembrance of mags past

90 Minutes was absolutely crucial to my early adolescence. I used to have to hide it from my mates on the bus every week, and they'd always rifle through my bag looking ot get their hands on it.

[Guest]

Remembrance of mags past

Antepli Ejderha wrote:

The Onion Bag was a fanzine in the mid 90s that disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced, can anyone else remember it?

Absolutely! What's not widely known is they actually released a shameless cash-in video, featuring comedy, erm, gems such as Gordon Honeycombe talking about the new stand at Maine Road being named after Colin Bell (groan) and something called Bestyvision, which was basically a camera with a foggy filter staggering around a pub. As a 17 year old, it seemed like £8.99 well spent at the time. For shame.

I also read Goal!, and found it a decent read.

[JVL]

Remembrance of mags past

SamLKelly wrote:

EIM wrote:

Anyone read that new glossy thing, I forget what it's called. I want to say Pretty Green, but that's Liam Gallagher's clothing label, isn't it? Green Soccer Journal? Christ, I don't know.

It's fucking terrible anyway. Written by people who don't really know much about football, I think. Or maybe they know fuck loads about football, and nothing about being a football fan.

I picked up a copy out of curiosity when I was in England over Christmas, and it is really spectacularly bad, isn't it? Vomit-inducing.

Indeed. Saw that at the airport the other week and was taken in by the superficial similarity to 11 Freunde. Halfway to Frankfurt, it became very clear that it was nothing like it... won't be buying that again.

[G-Man]

Remembrance of mags past

What's wrong with 11 Freunde? I reckon its excellent, provided you more of an Anorak than Kutte.

[Er Liquidatore]

Remembrance of mags past

Not exactly a magazine, but does anyone here remember 'Standing Room Only'? It was a TV programme on early evenings on BBC2 (I think). I can barely remember anythig about it apart from the title, and that I enjoyed it. Anyone else?

[JVL]

Remembrance of mags past

G-Man: nothing wrong with 11 Freunde at all, it's one of my favourite football magazines! I was referring to the Green Journal thing being a disappointment...

[Gangster Octopus]

Remembrance of mags past

442 from 2005.

[Jorge Porbillas]

Remembrance of mags past

Er Liquidatore wrote:

Not exactly a magazine, but does anyone here remember 'Standing Room Only'? It was a TV programme on early evenings on BBC2 (I think). I can barely remember anythig about it apart from the title, and that I enjoyed it. Anyone else?

I think it was presented by Damon something or other - a Scouse bloke who used to be in Brookside? He presents one of those wallpaper-daytime-tv-property shows now!

I have at least the first 20 issues of Goal, Total Football and FourFourTwo clogging up the spare room we pretentiously call a study!

[Antepli Ejderha]

Remembrance of mags past

Er Liquidatore wrote:

Not exactly a magazine, but does anyone here remember 'Standing Room Only'? It was a TV programme on early evenings on BBC2 (I think). I can barely remember anythig about it apart from the title, and that I enjoyed it. Anyone else?

If we branch out then it has to be Fantasy Football and the phoenix from the flames bit, the bowl of custard and a melon to make the world cup was genius.

[Guest]

Remembrance of mags past

Jorge Porbillas wrote:

Er Liquidatore wrote:

Not exactly a magazine, but does anyone here remember 'Standing Room Only'? It was a TV programme on early evenings on BBC2 (I think). I can barely remember anythig about it apart from the title, and that I enjoyed it. Anyone else?

I think it was presented by Damon something or other - a Scouse bloke who used to be in Brookside? He presents one of those wallpaper-daytime-tv-property shows now!

I have at least the first 20 issues of Goal, Total Football and FourFourTwo clogging up the spare room we pretentiously call a study!

His name is Simon O'Brien. Damon was his character in Brookside.

Standing Room Only was famed for the 'Supporterloo', and that's all i remember.

[kugelrund]

Remembrance of mags past

Oh for the old league ladders made out of slotted card and tabs for the teams that Shoot used to issue each season....happy days in the 70's or what!

They, or someone else, must've still been producing them much later than the 70's. As a student, my mate used to have two league ladders on the wall in his room - one had the actual league table, and the other the league table as played out every week by his own system of dice rolling, apparently with club squad-strength factors built in, and all sorts. He used to play the entire football league every week.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Remembrance of mags past

90 minutes also had decent coverage of European/international football, not exclusively about who Man U ought to buy either.

[Errorist Sympathiser]

Remembrance of mags past

I remember Dan Goldstein being always worth a chuckle in 90 Minutes. Also, I was a fan of Juliette Wills. Purely for her writing. Honest.

[E10 Rifle]

Remembrance of mags past

90 Minutes, for a while, did a genuinely good job of straddling the gap between more left-field stuff like WSC and the likes of Shoot and Match. It seemed the one post-1989 mag that genuinely filled a gap in the market.

FourFourTwo is, and always has been, insufferably boring as much as anything else. I wonder if anyone's ever read an issue of it, cover to cover, other than the proofreader. It's just chewing gum for BRC eyes, but dressed up to look a bit more 'serious' and 'heavyweight' than it is.

[treibeis]

Remembrance of mags past

They, or someone else, must've still been producing them much later than the 70's. As a student, my mate used to have two league ladders on the wall in his room - ...

kicker still produces them for the Bundesliga, at the beginning of every season. There's one on the wall of the office kitchenette about six feet from where I'm typing this.

[Taylor]

Remembrance of mags past

Er Liquidatore wrote:

Not exactly a magazine, but does anyone here remember 'Standing Room Only'? It was a TV programme on early evenings on BBC2 (I think). I can barely remember anythig about it apart from the title, and that I enjoyed it. Anyone else?

Coincidentally, my article in the new WSC features me banging on about this programme, albeit not with too much affection.

Indysleaze wrote:

I remember Dan Goldstein being always worth a chuckle in 90 Minutes. Also, I was a fan of Juliette Wills. Purely for her writing. Honest.

I'd just started working at Melody Maker when 90 Minutes was going, and would often catch sight of Juliette Wills in the canteen. Let's just say those pictures never did her justice. They used to send her to do all the face-to-face interviews with footballers, I seem to remember, which makes good sense when you consider that the other 15 interviews they'd have done that day would all have been conducted by mumbling thirtysomething blokes with mushy-pea faces. For some reason, they seemed to open up a bit when 90 Minutes came into the room.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Remembrance of mags past

I also enjoyed The Onion Bag, 90 Minutes and of course classic Shoot!... but the one mag no-one ever seems to remember, from the late 70s/early 80s, is Football Monthly. At least, I think that's what it was called. About half the size of Shoot! (A5, I guess), stapled and printed on quite thick, card-like paper, and included these brilliant diagrams of the goal of the month and the move that lead up to it.

My nan used to order it for me. I remember in my early teens when I sort of lost interest in football and got more into music, and she still used to buy it for me. I'd pick the mags up when I visited her, but chuck them in a pile unopened when I got home. I feel kind of guilty for that now.

[ursus arctos]

Remembrance of mags past

It's mentioned in the thread I linked from the old board.

I loved it, and I could only copies about three months after they came out in England.

I was also a sucker for those goal diagrams (I have a whole book of them).

[Ibn Pickthall]

Remembrance of mags past

Other than WSC and World football, the only footy mags I ever bought consistently were 90minutes and Match. The others I dipped into only sporadically; I hate FFT, it stresses me out to even look at the cover, as I did today in Smiths. It's one of the epitomies of what Valdano calls the media-lie of football.

I vaguely remember Football Monthly too, but I don't think I ever bought it, just browsed through other people's copies. I'm pretty sure that when FFT first came out there were at least 2 or 3 other rivals, but I can't for the life of me think what they were called.

In the late '90s my friend got invited to take part in some footy mag market research, and I went with him. The incentive was that we'd get fed, watered and get some freebies of other footy magazines and promos. It was terrible. They were looking at how to find little niches for a new footy mag and they seemed to have decided on some hybrid mash of serious footy journalism mixed with lots of detail on player and match stats, and gadgets and "fit birds" (some other invitee said this). It was all a total nonsense, and said something to the effect of this as they pressed us for concluding remarks. I said they may aswell include mushy peas as a free gift every month for its relevance to anything.

Juliette Wills? Wasn't she the one that was forever going on about how lovely Ian Walker was?