The British Fanzine Football Culture – Fans Know Best

There are only so many times you can count on an official publication before you get sick. Either some of the people working there start slacking off or they had poor content in the first place, and you start thinking that you can do a better job. For some people, this might be true, others just like criticizing people whilst consuming their content, thinking better is actually easy to do. This is a common thing in sports, just ask yourself how many times have you heard a comment like “even my grandma would’ve made that shot”. 

In Britain there are sports fans everywhere and plenty of sports to be a fan of. Football, in particular, is very popular and football fans can get into arguments with family members over which club they support. It is only natural that football fans would be among the first ones to start their fan magazines, or fanzines. Here is a brief look at the culture of British football fanzines.

Why Fanzines?

A fanzine is a fan magazine and it means a publication which is not official, but made by fans. This is a bit vague, because what makes a publication official? If you have a company, even though you created it five minutes ago, and it starts publishing magazines, then you are official, to an extent.

This is rather focused on fans being the ones who write and edit the content in the magazines, rather than experts or people who are considered to be experts in the fields. Fanzines were created because fans love their clubs and they wanted to write about the club to other fans. It makes the most sense. Now, given that some clubs had their own fanzines and others didn’t, made the ones with no fanzines less important. That is why almost every football club in England has a fanzine. 

How They Still Manage – Fanzines in the Online World

There were plenty of people who doubted that fanzines would survive in the online world. With how everything became digital, magazines, fanzines even, struggled to survive. Or did they? Those who are forward-thinking, saw the opportunity and moved their business online. That made the fans happy, as it was easier to access their favorite content. For those who still enjoy reading and touching paper, they could still purchase the actual physical magazines. For those who enjoy comfort and practicality over the sound of paper turning, online versions of fanzines are available, at least for most of them. 

Will They Survive Going Forward?

Is football likely to survive as a sport going forward? It most likely is, given that it is the most popular sport on the planet. With that in mind, fanzines are definitely going to survive, because with football come football clubs, who have millions of fans all over the world. When they get together, fanzines thrive. British fanzines are definitely going to be at the top of the list, given that some of the world’s most popular football clubs play in the English Premier League.

Fanzines have been around for more than 40 years and British fans definitely know their favorite sports and teams/clubs. The world is moving forward, but some things stay the same and fanzines will most likely be around, as long as there are sports and fans.