Opinion: Fanzines are the heart and soul of United

If that seems like a strange thing to get emotional about, then I've a simple piece of advice for you: head back here at 8pm (GMT) on Friday night and watch the latest film in our One Love series. It’s all about fanzines, if you hadn't already guessed.

 

If you don't even know what a fanzine is, let me try and explain. Explain what they did (and continue to do) for me and thousands of other United fans.

 

I've been an avid reader of the leading fanzine titles – Red News, Red Issue and United We Stand – for more than two decades, since I was a teenager. Though Red Issue is very, very sadly now defunct.

 

But, to put it simply, all three were my introduction into the world of Manchester United's fan culture. Into what it really means to be a Red.

When I first started regularly going to United games in the early 2000s, I basically went to Old Trafford to watch the team I loved, and the footballing heroes I'd seen on telly. That was it, initially, and 'it' was great. 

 

But pretty quickly, I started to also pay attention to what was going on off the field.

 

Why were so many fans dressed in black, rather then United’s traditional colours of red and white? What were all those songs that people were singing about? What was the home end chanting at the away end? Why, at one game, was there a banner on the Stretford End saying '24 Hour Peterloo Peace People'?

 

There was very clearly a lot stuff going on that I didn't understand. In my defence, I was in my early teens; I didn't understand anything. Girls, clothes, algebra… you name it. 

 

But, believe it or not, fanzines were my path to greater enlightenment, and to a more obsessive, rewarding way of supporting Manchester United.

Red News, Red Issue and United We Stand were material manifestations of what was taking place on those stands, week in, week out, up and down the country.

Taking in the incredibly diverse articles contained within each of them, I started to realise that there was an entire community of like-minded people that were equally obsessed with United. An incredibly broad church of people from all over the world, with different personalities, different politics and different ideas, united by this mad passion for a football club.

 

The fanzines made me understand that football was not 'just a business’, contrary to what pundits and media commentators often mistakenly say. Reading RN, RI and UWS, you realised that this game, this club, was not akin to the cinema or the theatre, despite some shared characteristics. Instead, it was something that was ongoing; something that went back decades before you or I were born and will be here long after we've all gone. Something that could be a large part of your life. Maybe even the most important thing in your life.

 

In For the Love of the Game, our new One Love episode, you can see that with dazzling clarity.

 

Barney Chilton, editor of Red News, talks movingly about how much United has given him over the years. I'm sure Andy Mitten, who founded and still runs UWS, would say much the same. Mitten was just 15 when his mag started in late 1989, but is now a respected football journalist who still lives and breathes MUFC. UWS has been with him every step of the way.

 

But what these guys don't explicitly say within the film, of course, is just how much the fanzines they started have actually knitted the United-supporting community together. How much those fanzines have given to others. 

There’s numerous levels to their importance.

In the film, Barney and Andy both talk about how fanzines were badly needed when they first started in the late 1980s. There was a wave of similar publications starting all over the UK, in response to some of the appalling treatment dished out to supporters by a hostile government, apathetic clubs and unsympathetic elements of mainstream society.

Fanzines voiced these injustices, demanded change and continue to do so whenever problems arise. Mitten mentions the £30 away-ticket cap which supporters now benefit from. There are many other issues on which fanzines have led the resistance. 

 

From this perspective, it might seem strange that the club is making a film about a group of independent commentators, that often disagree with and push back against things the club tries to do. But constructive dialogue with fan bodies and, yes, criticism is vital for the club’s own health, however much that criticism might initially sting. And the dialogue is very much there: on the quiet, many players, former players and influential staff members have been avid readers.

 

But for fans, the fanzines are about something more all-encompassing than just club/supporter issues.

 

As a humble young reader, absorbing what was in these publications gave me insights into the club's history, the way political ramifications can affect football supporters, the way football intersects with fashion, music, our city and so much more.

I speak from personal experience when I say that fanzines can help United fans make friends, meet partners and find support in times of need. You’ve only got to walk up to Old Trafford on a matchday to hear the cries of ‘New Red News, out today!’ and see the hundreds of small interactions between sellers and supporters to understand how important these small cultures are to the feeling of brotherhood among Reds. 

At one point of the film, you can see an agonising phone clip of UWS seller John Ashton, soaked to the bone, on a particularly dank OT night. But the fanzines he's doling out will not just engage people at half-time, they will also make them feel part of something – not a customer who has bought a ticket for an entertainment event, but a participant in a decades-long culture that started in Manchester and has spread out to and intoxicated much of the inhabitable world.

 

You can see Barney and UWS’s Ant Shaw even share a friendly kiss on the cheek, after helping each other out with a logistical problem. You might think their two publications are competing against each other for sales – and they are, of course, in a way – but really, the focus is always the club and the community of people that support it.

 

And, even though many fanzines started with a punk, DIY ethos, Red News and UWS have become increasingly professional over the years, being nominated for numerous awards. Our club has also recently inspired the first-ever football fanzine for a women's team too, via the Andy Slater-helmed Barmy Article, which covers United Women's own distinctive supporter culture.

 

In the latest UWS, there is a superb interview with football journalist and FFP expert Nick Harris, plus a feature about a bloke who built a United pub in his back garden for a laugh. What a spectrum. It’s fantastic content, available each month for less than the price of a pint.

 

And in the modern era of knee-jerk reactions on social media platforms and hysterical vloggers, the fanzines are also an oasis of calm, witty and passionate opinions on United.

 

Read the fanzines and you get a broad look, from people who have sat down to think, consider and then articulate their views. That's of more value now than ever before, because it's absent from so much of the other communication we read and see about football and United.

Not many other clubs still have one operational fanzine in 2024, but United is fortunate to have several. Watch this film, and you’ll get a flavour of just how integral these printed magazines (which are also now available digitally) are to the health and happiness of Manchester United’s fan community.

 

Watch the episode, and then go and listen to the two latest podcasts released by UWS and Red News, respectively.

 

They cover one of the greatest moments of the last decade for any Red – United 4 Liverpool 3. Old Trafford.

The passion and the soul of Manchester United is right there in those joyous soundwaves, delivered by those who carry our club's flame from cradle to grave.

The opinions in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Manchester United Football Club.