Part III of heritage volunteer Pete Slater’s trilogy of articles based on his research into football fanzine history. You can hear Pete talk about that research at a research showcase coming up on June 26 – part of the programme for the Voice of the Fans exhibition, a co-production from Leeds Libraries and the British Library.

You can also browse the full event programme

We’ve discussed how we created ‘The List’, what is we think the first and most comprehensive catalogue of all the football fanzines that have existed for sale on the British Isles. The List was created as part of the preparation for Voice of the Fans, the exhibition on football fanzines and fanzine culture at Leeds Central Library in the summer of 2025. Today we’ll introduce you to some stats from The List (Note, these were correct at time of publication, but we’re still finding fanzines and adding to the list)

The Premier League(s) of Fanzines

Maybe these classifications will change because of these blogs. We’re still discovering more zines and, in some cases, reclassifying ones on The List if we find out that there was some nefarious ‘official’ club interference going on for example.

Age
Fanzines in this table must be still publishing in print so first and foremost, congratulations to Hit The Bar, the first and so far only fanzine to hit 50 years old. Incredible support through thick and thin for one of the great footballing outposts of the isles.

What is remarkable about this classification is that only four of the 20 are ‘big’ clubs. This proves once again that the meaning of ‘big’ in football and fanzine world is not literal. As the perfect example of this, Leyton Orient deserve a special mention as they have TWO fanzines in the Premier League! Plus there are two ‘non-league’ sides here, Hereford and Merthyr, still going after all these years, with Barrow not long back in the league structure as well!!

Some of the fanzines in this top 20 are still edited by their creators, some onto the third generation of troops manning the barricades.

Chapeau to each and every one of you but especially to ‘little’ Carlisle United and the team behind the venerable old man, Hit The Bar, we suspect you might be champion for a while yet (Well, at least nine years anyway).

Number of issues published
Once again, a truly astounding table, perhaps more skewed to better supported clubs with broader reach in this case. That makes Middlesbrough’s Fly Me to The Moon’s achievement even more remarkable, as is the fact that this landmark was reached without anyone realising in the game vs Oxford the 19th March this year. We’ve interviewed editor and all-round good chap Rob Nicholls for a elsewhere (published despite him refusing to promise not to mention THAT FA Cup semi-final again)

In this case not all these fanzines are still going, an asterisk * denotes the ones still in print. As with age, there are a remarkable number of smaller clubs in the table and it’s truly amazing that Stoke manage to have two fanzines in the Premier League by this classification.

Fanzines produced per club
Our final Premier league table for now, once again this table is surprising. Though dominated a little more by big city or successful clubs, it’s interesting that most of these zines listed were published when many of these clubs were outside of their glory years and in many cases outside of the top-flight. Further blogs will explore the reasons for this.

The Big Hitters
As mentioned, the oldest continuously in print fanzine is Hit the Bar, the Carlisle FC fanzine running since 1974 and still going strong!! A great fanzine and a brilliant achievement.

However, during our research we’ve discovered a fanzine that existed way before even Hit the Bar was a twinkling in Carlisle’s eye. The oldest true (independent, volunteer writers, self-published) one club fanzine we have found is a Celtic fanzine, The Shamrock from 1963. We’ll be publishing a full article about the search for this holy grail soon. (You can see a 1963 issue of The Shamrock in the Voice of the Fans exhibition – our thanks to the National Library of Scotland for loaning this item).

The oldest general football fanzine was Foul, created in 1972 and in existence until 1976 before PC Plod got involved. There will be separate blogs and articles about all of these in the next few months.

Generally speaking
The total number of fanzines we have listed as being for sale in the British Isles is currently 1,705. I’ve seen estimates saying there were around 2,000 fanzines which might be a bit high, but we are still finding more.

In the English League structure there have been 928 fanzines with 308 in the English non-league structure. Only four of the established big clubs today appear in the top 10 in terms of number of fanzines per club.

In the Scottish Senior structure we’ve found 195 and a further 36 in the Scottish Junior leagues, with Hearts seemingly having had the most prolific writer fanbase across the British Isles.

There are 71 still in print with eight of those resolutely in print form only.

The oldest fanzine still running online is Hob Nob Anyone, Reading FC (since 1994)

First Women’s Super League fanzine was Manchester United’s Barmy Article, while Chelsea and Arsenal also now run print editions. (You can see an issue of Barmy Article in the Voice of the Fans exhibition – our thanks to editor Andy Slater for his generous donations of fanzine issues and other assistance during the exhibition research stage. You can read more from Andy elsewhere on the Secret Library Leeds blog).

Six fanzines covered an English Football League and a non-league team at the same time, while four covered an EFL team and one Scottish Football League or Welsh team.

Two Sunday League teams we know of had fanzines with one U-15 side at a local club also having a fanzine.

There are 202 fanzines that moved online (Some of these are inactive, a web page but nothing posted for years).

Most remote fanzine is Wombles Downunder, an AFC Wimbledon fanzine still going after 39 years from Australia. The most remote in the UK was The Harmsworth Roar covering Wick Academy, a Scottish Junior league team, produced in John o’ Groats ((Though sometimes unsurprisingly they covered other clubs in the region to fill pages). The fanzine from furthest down the pyramid we found is Shrimpers Review, the  Harwich and Parkeston fanzine, written by the youngest editor, then aged just 13.

Finally and this is a real doozy, Celtic still have FIVE printed fanzines, with only one more club (St Johnstone) still having one!!

The Final Whistle
Football fanzines live on in the digital world, finding 71 still in print was a revelation. Leeds, Carlisle, Celtic, St Johnstone, Hereford, Merthyr, Shamrock, Manchester United, Middlesborough, Watford and Sunderland amongst many others still have print fanzines. Bradford City and Salford don’t run a printed match day mag any longer but have very strong print fanzines!

What has the list achieved? It seems to be the first time this has been done so comprehensively. That’s important, fanzines marked an important change in the history of print and the media, one that still affects our culture today.

There’s more to do, I’d like to inventory all collections in the UK to add any missing issues to the list, documenting centrally where all available copies are stored. It is important because these fanzines are still a joy to read, some of the humour is quite sublime and they are an important reminder that protest is crucial in terms of our history and our future.

Go out and find them – or come and see us physically at the Central Library; metaphorically via the blogs at https://footballfanzineculture.blog; or on the socials: Facebook or Bluesky @fanzinefc.bsky.social

Finally, if just one person realises what a fantastic, diverse, underused and unappreciated resource libraries are because of this research then I’ll be happy. They are a treasure trove of physical and online information, views, news and history and you will absolutely miss them if you don’t act to stop them disappearing. (Just like fanzines!)

*At time of publication, the list features over 1,700 individual football fanzine titles. Get in touch with us at the Central Library, or directly with Pete via his blog, to access the latest version of the list