Staples, Satire and Protest: The Politics of Football Fanzines ft. Paddy Hoey

Football fanzines were once the DIY voice of supporters in Britain — photocopied, stapled together, and sold outside stadiums by fans who wanted to challenge clubs, authorities, and the football establishment. In this episode, Guy Burton and Francesco Belcastro speak with Paddy Hoey, senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University and author of influential research on football fan activism, including “The Future of Football Fanzines: Have They Lost Their Voice in this Digitalised and Deregulated Age?” and “From Fanzines to Food Banks: Football Fan Activism in the Age of Anti-Politics.”

Focusing on the British context, the conversation traces the rise of fanzines from the 1960s through their heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, when they became an important outlet for fan activism around issues such as ticket prices, policing, and the changing nature of the game — particularly in the turbulent years surrounding the Hillsborough disaster and the commercial transformation that followed the creation of the Premier League.

The episode also explores why these once-influential publications declined as football entered the digital age. From early internet forums to social media platforms like Twitter, many of the debates, humour, and fan commentary that once filled fanzines have moved online — raising questions about nostalgia, fan voice, and what has been gained and lost in the process.

Paddy also has a chapter on football in Glasgow in the forthcoming book, This is Our Game: From Barcelona to Buenos: Inside the World's Greatest Football Cities, edited by Joel Rookwood and Daniel Fieldsend, which will be out in May.