For show notes, and to see images from Zerox Machine and other books discussed in this episode, please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/zerox-machine-the-big-book-of-british

And, while there, please subscribe to receive regular updates on this and other Tony Fletcher podcasts and writings.

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Matthew Worley is Professor of Modern History at the University of Reading, where he is gainfully employed studying punk and post-punk culture. (Yes, it’s a thing these days.) To this end he has just published an arguably definitive new book, the culmination of many years’ research, Zerox Machine: Punk, Post-Punk and Fanzines in Britain, 1976-88.

Across almost 350 pages and approximately 140,000 words, Worley takes an unprecedented deep dive into the subculture of the British fanzine scene, drawing on access to an incredible number of publications – six pages’ worth are cited at the end - and direct communication with many of the editors. Most importantly, he straddles the thin line between an authoritative research project with the kind of thought-provoking analysis one would expect from a Professor of Modern History, with a book that you average Joe and Jane ex- or current- fanzine editor can read and relate to without reaching for a Thesaurus.

Zerox Machine is published in the UK by Reaktion Books:

And in the US by University of Chicago Press:

For show notes, and to see images from Zerox Machine and other books discussed in this episode, please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/zerox-machine-the-big-book-of-british

And, while there, please subscribe to receive regular updates on this and other Tony Fletcher podcasts and writings.

https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

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With Andy Lyons (WSC), Mike Harrison (City Gent), Kevin Whitcher (The Gooner.) For links to and pictures of these fanzines, to post comments, and to read more related writings and podcasts, visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/the-fanzine-podcast-ep-25-40-years

For over 40 years now, football fanzines have run parallel to music fanzines in the UK, growing out of the same alternative pop culture as did the punk and new wave zines of the 1970s, as evidenced perhaps by the fact that the best known and longest-running of the non-denominational zines, When Saturday Comes, took its name from a song by the Northern Irish new wave band, The Undertones. At their peak in the late 1980s, it’s estimated there were at least 300 such football zines publishing regularly in the UK.

Where the football zines differ from the music ones is in loyalty. If When Saturday Comes is like an alternative to the glossy football magazines the same way that a long-running music fanzine like The Big Takeover, which was featured on Episode 21, can be seen as a more authentically independent voice than a Spin or Mojo, the majority of zines serve more like alternatives to their stated club’s official program. In this context, the Arsenal fanzine The Gooner, whose Kevin Whitcher joins us on this episode, is like a Taylor Swift fanzine, economically removed from the subject it is writing about but passionate about it all the same, while Bradford City’s City Gent, whose Mike Harrison, also featured in this episode, would be more comparable to a zine dedicated to a cult band that refuses to go away – Guided By Voices or Teenage Fan Club, perhaps. Even as football fan culture moves largely online, to YouTube channels and podcasts, there will always remain a dedicated, if “discerning” audience, that is willing to read articles and opinion pieces that bring the banter of what we once knew as the football “terraces” in print.

Kevin and Mike are joined here by When Saturday Comes’ co-founder and ongoing editor, Andy Lyons, for a conversation that discusses the various zines’ origins, their rise to influence and prominence, their engagement and effect on the game they support, and how they keep going after four decades and several hundred episodes a piece in the face of the younger fans migration online.

The episode also discusses the tragic fire that took place at Bradford City’s ground in May 1985, at which City Gent editor Mike Harrison was in attendance. While we don’t get into any horrific detail, I do want to let listeners be prepared.

Thanks to Richard Edwards and Peter Mountford.

Sign up for Tony Fletcher’s weekly newsletter, long weekend read, and for exclusive access to archived interviews, including those from his Keith Moon biography, at tonyfletcher.substack.com.

Theme music by Noel Fletcher. Logo by Greg Morton.

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Please visit (and subscribe to) tonyfletcher.substack.com for more writings on zines and beyond.

In this episode, Tony offers a short update on the Fanzine Podcast's future episodes and some of the activities around the zine scene before using the opportunity of being in the UK for a while to revisit the debut episode of what was then called The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast, "From Classroom To Clubs." The episode was summarised at the time as follows:

For this debut episode of The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast, Tony Fletcher connects with three old friends who all played an important part in the Jamming! school days, and each of whom wrote an introductory piece for The Best of Jamming! book. They are Richard Heard, Jeni de Haart and John Matthews, and over the course of a lively group call, they discuss

• the onset of punk,
• the birth of Jamming and why John Matthews declined a role
• first gigs at The Marquee on Wardour Street
• a shared love of The Jam
• Jamming's eclectic tastes - including The Fall, Scritti Politti, Killing Joke and more
• attending the Setting Sons recording sessions
• Apocalypse
• selling fanzines at gigs
• being taught 'Teenage Kicks' on guitar by The Undertones
• the violence surrounding the tribalism of the late 1970s
• the influence of John Peel
• fave gig memories
• and why those years mattered so much and why they are all still friends

The Best of Jamming!: Selections and Stories from the Fanzine That Grew Up 1977-86 is published by Omnibus Press and available from all good book shops.on Sep 23 in the UK/EU, and Dec 2 in the rest of the world.

More information and online purchasing options available at:

TonyFletcher.net

OmnibusPress.com

Meantime, if you're a former fanzine editor interested in contributing to the Guest Ex-Editor project, "The concept is to bring various zine scene alumni out of retirement for one or two pages. Contributors might use their page(s) to revisit memories of their old zine, re-evaluate it, resurrect it (maybe with a modern twist to reflect where life has taken them since), or pilot a brand-new zine idea." Write to Alison via confessionsofanexzineeditor@gmail.com

Zerox Machine: Punk, Post-Punk and Fanzines in Britain 1976-88 available now in the UK from Reaktion Books https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/zerox-machine

Matthew Worley's Facebook group Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change

https://www.facebook.com/groups/267152449995279

'The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast Theme' is by Noel Fletcher. Copyright reserved.

The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast logo was designed by Greg Morton, who also assisted with editing.

The Best of Jamming! book cover was designed by Martin Stiff.

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