Popular Culture: Football fanzines and local history journals

Popular Culture:  Football fanzines

 
I WAS talking to a couple of friends recently on the subject of football fanzines.   Zines, as they’re more popularly known, differ from the glossy promotional bumpf put out by the big clubs themselves.  They’re put out by fans for fans and are usually full of match and team analysis, gossip and humour: often at the expense of their chosen team’s local rival.

 
The conversation began after one of them had come back from Glasgow with a copy of a Rangers FC zine called NUMBER ONE.  It looked great – a full colour cover and over fifty glossy pages.  John remarked that NUMBER ONE must be one of the few remaining zines on the go.  Only a few years ago it seemed as if every football team had one or two zines attached to it.  Where did they all go?  I suspect that they may have been replaced by fan websites.

 
I certainly remember some local football fanzines.  The Linfield zine, The Blues Brothers was unique in that it also followed the fortunes of two other teams playing in blue, Chelsea and Rangers.  Where Cornerboys Collect was another, though I honestly don’t remember which team it supported.  It might have been Crusaders, but I’m sure somebody out there knows. The Wee Red gave its allegiance to Cliftonville and Our Wee Country supported Northern Ireland.  Do you know of any others? Drop me a line at kerrscorner@ulsteronline.org.uk  In the meantime anyone interested in getting hold of a copy of NUMBER ONE can have one by sending a cheque/Postal Order for £2.50 to (made payable to Number One Fanzine):

 Number One Fanzine, PO Box 9025, Larkhall ML9 1YB, Scotland.  Tell them you heard about it in Kerr's Corner.

 
Volume One, John Clancey’s bookshop in The Haymarket between Royal Avenue and Gresham Street, used to sell local fanzines.  Unlike the soulless Waterstones chainstore, Mr Clancey likes to give small presses a shop window for their publications.  Poetry and local history feature strongly here. It’s worth your while dropping in to see what’s in stock.

When I dropped in the other Saturday, there were booklets from Glenravel Publications, Glenwood Publications and Rushlight Publications.

 
Glenravel Publications published a terrific large format booklet, Terry O’Neill’s Belfast a few years ago.  Many of these articles first appeared in Belfast Magazine, which is also stocked by Mr Clancey.  Centred mainly on the New Lodge and Sailortown areas of North Belfast, Terry O’Neill’s reminiscences ring true for many folk of his generation.  As some-one who has worked in and around the port myself, for nearly thirty years, I can identify with these stories.  I even knew some of the characters he writes about in his articles.

 
Since 1972, Joe Graham has been producing his own little historical and cultural magazine, Rushlight. Lately, he has branched out into videos, DVDs and a website.  The latest issue runs to thirty-two pages.  Great value at only a pound!  Copies can be had from Volume One, the Inisfree newsagent in Castle Street or the Academy newsagent at Antrim Road end of Hillman Street.  Check out the website on www.rushlightbelfast.com

 
Mr Graham has been asked by the St Kevin’s School Commemoration Committee to compile an oral history of St Kevin’s Boys’ School on the Falls Road.  The old school is due to come down later this year.  A two-day exhibition is planned for the school in the last week of April.

 
Another recent publication from the Shankill-based Glenwood Publications stable is Walk on By, a photo-essay book dedicated to the Orange marching tradition.  Lots of interesting pictures and two fascinating looks at this tradition from the perspective of a Dutch-Laotian visitor and an Ulster exile currently living in England.