Bobbing Along Issue 1.
This is the story of 'Bobbing Along', a magazine I produced about Cardiff City from 1989 to 1993. Fanzines were all the rage at the time and within about a week of producing mine, Cardiff City had another three 'fanzines' on sale, all of which were good in their own way.
I never liked the title, which was decided at the last minute, and is something of a tribute to the Disney film 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' which I never liked, either. This reference was never mentioned anywhere, and set the tone for the magazine which was at times gleefully obscure.
The primary aim of this page is to preserve these editions. But it's also to explain a bit about why it was written and how it was produced. You should be able to click on the pages and read them. It's also something of a 'Redux' as I have been able to remaster the pages from the original page mock-ups, clean up the images and get a better resolution on the pictures.
I will also discuss the personalities, people and players of the time. Where necessary, I will be merciless.
Hold the Front Page (over a lit match)
The Front Page - an awful collage done with letraset and pen at the last minute of a needlessly self-imposed deadline. This was before the days of cut and paste. Instead, I had to cut and paste this together from whatever materials were at hand. Letraset was expensive.
Enclosed within are some thoughts on Cardiff City fight against relegation during the 1988-89 season. Back then, the only place you could read about the City was in the South Wales' Echo or the match programme, neither of which really reflected the joys of supporting City.
The Echo seemed scared to alienate the Chairman or supporters by actually holding an opinion stronger than, 'that 3-0 defeat at Hartlepool was a bad result in anyone's book.' They never mentioned the fans unless it was to report court appearances.
The match programme, given City's long run without success, was unjustifiably upbeat. (I do not consider the promotion from Division 4 the previous season as success, it was more like the start of a recovery. Like a recovery from leprosy.) And if they did feature supporters in the match programme at all, they were treated like they were on a 'Dying Wish' charity outing.
We could say what we wanted. We were fearless - our names and addresses weren't on it.
If you want to read more Bobbing Along Issue 1 and read a detailed commentary of the life and times of Cardiff City, it's here!.
Available from Amazon Kindle
No comments:
Post a Comment