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

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.