A WHOLE generation of Wanderers fans has grown up without the joy of reading a fanzine, a back-handed love letter from the terraces compiled by fans and sold before every game.
A staple of eighties and nineties football culture, the fanzine ranged wildly in terms of quality and tone, from tongue-in-cheek sarcasm to hard-hitting politics.
Bolton’s supporters were treated to some brilliant takes from the likes of Wanderers Worldwide, Here We Go Again, Now We Want Pele, Normid Nomad or Tripe and Trotters before the world wide web kicked in, and folk decamped to forums, message boards and social media to make their point.
Fanzines were – in a sense - a reaction to the mainstream media, with fans no longer happy to just read detailed match reports or interviews in the BEN, or to waste a few quid of ClubCall. And some were willing to put their time and money into filling that void.
In most cases, fanzines also countered the loutish stereotype with which football fans were still saddled at the time. Though content could often ruffle the feathers of the establishment, there were some genuinely fine pieces of writing being sold in the drizzle along Manchester Road.
So how wonderful to see that some of that writing has been given a 2022 update courtesy of another bastion of the fanzine movement in Bolton, White Love.
Along with the launch of a new website, original contributors Dick Smiley and Paul Hanley have produced a book entitled: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, detailing long-forgotten games from the late seventies up to the mid-nineties.
As the title would suggest, it is split into three distinct chapters. The first details minor triumphs – not the well-aired tales of Wrexham away or the Reading play-off final, but punchier, more personal stories, laced with humour and impressive detail.
The Bad is the first chapter’s antithesis – here we learn more about relegation against Aldershot, humiliation at Scarborough and other drab afternoons that the hardy few at Burnden will have tried hard to forget. Again, the diary-esque format works well, breaking each one down into a couple of pages, which makes it easy to pick and choose without worrying about a narrative thread.
The Ugly is the final chapter, which retells just how bad football had become before the Hillsborough, the Taylor Report and the Premier League’s glitz and glamour changed the face of the game forever.
In truth, there are moments that can be an uncomfortable read. The book in no way glamorises hooliganism, as some have done before, but you sense this section of copy is the one which has undergone the heaviest re-edit from the original versions.
If nothing else, it underlines just how ‘normal’ the violence around football had become and that even well into the nineties as the interior of stadia became more fan friendly, the exterior could still be a scary place.
For those who watched Wanderers home and away during the late seventies, eighties and nineties, there will be plenty to stir the memory banks. Faith is tested, pragmatism drips from every page, and every mention of Ian Greaves, Bruce Rioch and Colin Todd is accompanied with a giddy shiver down the spine.
For younger fans this is a history lesson, and a reminder how the themes of joy and despair come around a full circle at this wonderful football club.
To order the book (cover price £12.99) or back copies of the original fanzine, go to whitelove.co.uk
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