In March 2014, Newcastle’s first and most enduring fanzine The
Mag ceased publication after 288 issues and almost 26 years. In the
eyes of many of us who had developed both writing skills and a shared anti
conformist supporter vision in the pages
of it and several other defunct NUFC fanzines, this unfortunate event seemed to indicate a
troubling state of affairs, whereby a club the size of Newcastle United no
longer had an independent, printed vehicle for fans to articulate their opinions,
especially as other inspirational publications from Barnsley (West
Stand Bogs), Stoke City (Duck), FC United of Manchester (A
Fine Lung) and the game in general (The Football Pink), not
to mention this fine publication, have established themselves, proving that the
renaissance in vinyl sales is not the only nostalgic consumer area for the
middle aged fan, or indeed teenaged and
twenty something hipsters, to divest themselves of disposable income.
Newcastle United are not a successful football club. However
we are a newsworthy club. Emotionally charged debate about the owner, manager,
playing staff and potential future ownership and direction of NUFC fill the
page after page in the local press, as well as immeasurable and interminable
tracts of cyber space. However, the death of The Mag left a yawning
chasm in terms of fan directed print media, which The Popular Side is
seeking to plug, as well as addressing the tragic underutilisation of writing
talent in the Tyneside area.
The plan for an old-school A5 fanzine was developed by a gang of us over a few post work pints in
The Northumberland Hussar one Friday night in June 2014. Like all good
revolutionary movements, we set our ideological parameters before seeking
converts. Paradoxically, our first decision was there would be no editorial
line; all opinions, other than an obvious no discrimination and no platform for
fascists policy, would be welcomed. We wished to be inclusive rather than
exclusive, hence a ban on swearing, a refusal to print anything either
anonymous or libellous and a wish to be constructive that meant we wouldn’t
deliberately upset anyone. The right to reply is also sacrosanct. Finally,
having been quoted £180 for 200 A5 28 page fanzines, we decided to be a not for
profit publication, so we eschewed advertising and set a break even cover price
of £1, as we had decided to run such a tight ship, there would be no free
copies, other than to contributors.
Through word of mouth, we contacted 15 of the best NUFC
supporting writers we knew, none of whom were professional sports journalists,
who signed up to our vision of a low-cost, low-fi publication that could be
bought on the street or in bars before and after the game. Several had written
for The
Mag and other publications and were keen to be involved. Again, as part
of our focus on cost-cutting, we decided against selling the magazines in shops,
as their 40% cut would push our price up; a compromise we were not willing to
make.
In addition to the policy of no adverts and no merchandise,
we decided not to have a website, though mainly for aesthetic reasons. At the
end of the 2012/2013 season, the Newcastle fanzine Toon Talk stopped physical
publication, but limped on for 3 subsequent issues as a free download. The main
problem those of us involved in that venture found, was working with the
software, which meant the finished article was nowhere near the product we had
envisaged. This taught us we are writers and not designers; consequently, The
Popular Side is a word processed document, with black and white photos,
often taken on mobile phones, exported into PDF format and then printed. It
isn’t lo-tech, it’s no-tech. In all seriousness though, we concentrate on the
written word and I can assure you the standard of our contributions is
extremely high. Essentially, we are a
democracy; that’s why we list our contributors alphabetically, as nobody is more
important than anyone else and I was delighted not to have to write anything
for issue 1, as it proved there are sufficient people out there who care enough
about their club to put their thoughts on paper.
When the Premier League fixture list came out, we identified
the home game against Man City on Sunday 17th August as the launch date for
issue 1. We established a Twitter account (@PopularSideZine) to publicise both
our existence and, following discussions with friendly landlords, which pubs we
were available from. A dozen of us assembled on a breezy Sunday afternoon
outside the Tyneside Irish Club, ready for the inevitable home defeat, but more
concerned about how the fanzine would fare. Lo and behold, having worried the
venture would fall flat and that I’d be stuck with a huge amount of recycling, we
sold out of every copy, meaning we had a decision to make about what happened
next.
Clearly, there would be an issue 2, so we decided not to
reprint the first issue, but to sell the PDF via PayPal for £1 (payment to iancusack@blueyonder.co.uk) and
have sold a further 20 in this fashion. In
future, paper copies will be available for £2 (inc P&P) the same way. The
profit we have, unintentionally, made on issue 1 means issue 2 will be longer
and have a bigger print run. Even though we have identified 9 potential issue
dates for 2014/2015 our continued existence is dependent on two things;
firstly, contributors sending us articles and secondly, people buying the
fanzine.
We made mistakes with issue 1; failing to number the pages
or state it was a Newcastle United fanzine were two of them. The font wasn’t
consistent and we failed to mention the price on the cover, but we’ll learn
from that. At The Popular Side, we have no egos, personal agenda or business
interests to pursue; this is all about Newcastle United and the complicated
truth winning out over simple lies. Feel free to jump on board our vision.
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