Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
There are fewer printed fanzines now, but some of the best are still going strong two decades on. Mike Harrison reports
City Gent launched in October 1984 but had been discussed for at least 18 months. What gave it the final push was the fact that the founding editor, Brian Fox, was unemployed, so able to commit time, and sought a career in journalism.
There are fewer printed fanzines now, but some of the best are still going strong two decades on. Graham Ennis & Mark O'Brien report
When Skies Are Grey started in 1988, during that first heady rush of the fanzine boom. The aim, very simply, was to give supporters a platform. To this day, although the appearance of the mag has changed radically – we threw away the Pritt Stick years ago – that ethos has never changed. The fanzine and, for that matter, our website exist to let Evertonians have their say on about pretty much anything they like.
Belgian football is riddled with match fixing, retracted confessions and the accused suing those making the allegations, as John Chapman explains
Belgian football is in despair. Not only are the national team at their lowest ebb for 30 years, but the clubs regularly get thumped in Europe. Crowds have declined and a lack of investment in infrastructure means that watching a match such as La Louvière v Lierse on a wet winter night will be an experience you won’t forget and probably won’t repeat. Most top-flight clubs are run on annual budgets of £1.5 million. If they’re lucky, players receive contracts offering them around £1,400 per month. If they’re really lucky, they get paid. Chairmen try to keep the smaller clubs afloat by bringing in high-rolling sponsors, a risky business at best. Despite this background, money is being made in Belgian football. Unfortunately it’s going to a bunch of characters seemingly straight out of a Damon Runyon novel.
The decline of three o’clock Saturday football has claimed another victim, to Peter McParlin’s regret
On Saturday December 17, 2005, 110 years of Tyneside tradition came to an end when the last edition of The Pink, the Saturday evening results paper published by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle since 1895, rolled off the presses. The paper has become obsolete in an age when mobile phones can deliver instant goal alerts from hundreds of miles away. Who needs a late edition for the results when that little piece of gadgetry in your pocket can even replay the goals on its mini LCD screen? But to those of us of a certain age, new technology can never replace what The Pink, and its like elsewhere in the country, used to add to Saturday nights.
A new generation of football magazines has appeared in Europe of late, breaking the monopoly of established, establishment titles. The first of an occasional series looks at the subversion and humour attracting readers in France. Neil McCarthy reports
Publishing its 30th monthly edition in January 2006, S0 Foot is becoming firmly established as France’s main alternative football magazine with a print run of 80,000 and an estimated readership of more than 200,000. It’s not a mean feat, considering that French football is already largely covered by three mammoths: the daily L’Equipe, its bi-weekly stable mate, France Football, and the monthly Onze Mondial. L’Equipe and France Football both celebrate their 60th birthdays this year and Onze Mondial, France’s equivalent of Shoot!, its 30th.