Because you'll need it to fork out for the umpteenth football mag that's on its way:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/aug/12/pressandpublishing

But the latest football magazine on newstands, Football Punk - from the Golf Punk stable - is aiming to challenge Four Four Two for the title "thinking man's soccer mag" with some daring content - including "at home with" interviews that wouldn't look out of place in Hello! or OK!

Immediate thoughts of a companion publication to WSC are just as immediately dispelled when reading that.

The name 'Lovejoy' is on the heading of this magazine. I think that tells you all you need to know about it.

Exactly what I thought. 'Thinking man' and 'Lovejoy'? Oil and water.

Wasn't GolfPunk owned by a former footballer? Remember reading something but can't exactly recall who it was.

Edit: actually, did a quick search and it appears that the player in question is Phil Babb. No wonder I couldn't remember.

Looking at the GolfPunk website, it doesn't sound too promising what with Bunker Babes and a poll question of 'vampires are the best golfers but they never get to show it.' Obviously, living abroad I haven't witnessed the horrors of Tim Lovejoy but, I'll take your word that it is pretty awful.

Still, I'll probably end up buying the first issue I see.

Which one of you is RobThird then?

Suffice to say the presence of the word 'Punk' in the title is enough to stop me ever buying a copy of this.

I'd nail my scrotum to a feisty saltwater crocodile before I'd buy or read anything that sees Hello! or OK! as a style to aspire to.

Weird that that article describes Shoot! as "laddish". They must mean "lad" in the 1950s sense of the word.

Also, this is the thinking man's football magazine: http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/championsmag/index.html

"including "at home with" interviews that wouldn't look out of place in Hello! or OK!"

Leicester's programme used to have this sort of stuff - highlights included Robbie Savage's hall walls adorned with his girlfriend's sketches of him naked, Darren Eadie's Grand Prix-worthy lawnmower and Matt Jones reclining in white silk pyjamas, surrounded by candles, in front of a backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. They stopped the feature some time after we went shit, and they realised that fans might not want to see what their ticket money bought for Trevor Benjamin.

"The name 'Lovejoy' is on the heading of this magazine. I think that tells you all you need to know about it."

As a somewhat obsessive fan of the roguish antiques dealer this Tim Lovejoy chap is starting to annoy me more and more. I get false hopes that the series coming back whenever I glimpse 'Lovejoy' in headlines around the place.

I could see the point of Golf Punk; the public culture of golf was all pringle jumpers and business chaps doing deals and retirees. It didn't want to address the fact that a lot of young men like golf, play it and watch it, so GP came in to address that. It's safe to say football doesn't suffer from such a mismatch between the aspirations of young lads and the public culture of the sport.

Sounds like it could be almost as good as ICON.

I think at least one of the people behind Golf Punk were heavily involved in 90 Minutes, by far the best of the products of the Nineties football magazine boom.

That doesn't necessarily fill me with hope for this magazine but I'll sneak a look in WH Smiths I suppose.

Harri Saer wrote:

QUOTE:
I think at least one of the people behind Golf Punk were heavily involved in 90 Minutes, by far the best of the products of the Nineties football magazine boom.

Hawksbee? Goldstein? Wills???

Dan Davies, I think, who was usually pretty good in 90 minutes and Goal (which was also excellent).

holy buckets, i'd forgotten all about 90 minutes - and i used to get the sucker delivered once a week when i were a nipper.

google image search/ebay proves it existed, and was strangely prescient: