Theme: Society & Culture | Content Type: Journal article

The Future of Football Fanzines: Have they Lost their Voice in this Digitalised and Deregulated Age?

Paul Breen and Paddy Hoey

nathan-rogers-_iMBEfd1zGk-unsplash

Nathan Rogers

| 1 min read

Football fanzines once stood at the vanguard of fan activism. Historically, they have served as the voice of supporters, largely independent of the clubs they are associated with. Indeed, a recurring characteristic of these fanzines is that they often challenge and question authority. In the halcyon days of past decades, they proliferated and often acted as a powerful vector of change within football. Increasingly though, they have been pushed to the margins, for a number of reasons, ranging from the increasing digitalisation of media to the growing distance between fans and club owners as a consequence of the money that's now in the game. Football's inexorable drift towards deregulation means that fanzines alone can no longer act as agents of change and challenge. They need to work in synch with supporters’ groups in order to make their voices heard. More than that, this needs to happen not just at a local, but a national level, so that supporters from top to bottom of English football's shaky pyramid are seen to speak with one voice. Perhaps above all, there is a need for independent regulation of the game's governance.

Read the full article on Wiley

Need help using Wiley? Click here for help using Wiley

  • image-20170302-14682-u8ynjb.jpg

    Paul Breen

    Paul Breen is a Senior Lecturer and Digital Learning Developer at University College London, author of books including The Charlton Men.

    Articles by Paul Breen
  • Screen_Shot_2016-03-04_at_12.47.54.jpg

    Paddy Hoey

    Paddy Hoey is a Senior Lecturer in Media Culture and Communication at Liverpool John Moores University.

    Articles by Paddy Hoey
Volume 96, Issue 2

Latest Journal

Volume 96, Issue 2

This issue features a collection titled 'Governing from the Centre Left' edited by Deborah Mabbett and Peter Sloman. In this collection, authors including Claire Ainsley, Jörg Michael Dostal and Eunice Goes examine how centre-left governments in North America, Australasia, and Western Europe have dealt with recent global pressures, and consider what lessons the UK Labour government should learn from its overseas counterparts. Other articles include a commentary by Ben Jackson titled 'Poverty and the Labour Party'; John Connolly, Matthew Flinders and David Judge on 'How Not to Deliver Policies: Lessons in Undeliverability from the Conservative Governments of 2019–2024'; Stewart Lansley on 'Wealth Accumulation: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'; and Coree Brown Swan, Paul Anderson, and Judith Sijstermans on 'Politics and the Pandemic: The UK Covid-19 Inquiry and Devolution'. A selection of book reviews feature Victoria Brittain's review of 'Palestinian Refugee Women from Syria to Jordan, Decolonizing the Geopolitics of Displacement' by Afaf Jabiri, and Anna Coote's review of 'The Care Dilemma: Caring Enough in the Age of Sex Equality', by David Goodhart.

Find out more about the latest issue of the journal