The evolution of what we now know as the modern football magazine started with weekly newspapers which had high football content. Then came “Boys Papers” the newspaper with only football content but were aimed at the children’s market featuring short stories on football matters (the forerunners of comics). Finally in the 1950’s we had what a modern reader would recognise as a football magazine.
The first sport based newspaper was the Athletic News established in Manchester in 1875 as a “weekly journal of amateur sport”. In 1886 James A. Catton began to contribute football reports for the newspaper. He initially used the pen name of “Ubique”. Later he took the name “Tityrus”. Catton eventually became the editor of the newspaper and was acknowledged as the most important football writer in Britain. The first season of the Football League began in September, 1888 and James A. Catton responded by publishing The Athletic News on Monday instead of a Saturday. Much to the delight of Catton, Preston North End won the first championship that year without losing a single match and acquired the name the “Invincibles”. In 1891 sales reached 50,000. Two years later he had doubled to 100,000. On the 22nd August 1900 the increasing popularity of football meant they renamed Athletic News to Football Chat, but that only ran till 5 December 1900 (Nos. 26-41).It changed name again to Football Chat and Athletic World and stuck with that name until 1907.
Over the years it continued changing the name:
Athletic World and Football Chat 19 March – 23 April 1907: Nos. 323-328.
Continued as: Football Chat, Cycling and Athletic World-6 August – 31 December 1907. Continued as: Athletic World, Cycling and Football Chat 7 January 1908 – 28 April 1909: Nos. 366-434.)
The Athletic News continued to prosper and by 1919 it had a circulation of 170,000. As one football historian, Tony Mason, put it by the end of the First World War “the Athletic News was the voice of football and the paper of the discerning football enthusiast.”
By the late 1920s Sunday newspapers such as the News of the World and The Sunday People devoted about 25% of its space to sport. Most of this involved reporting on football. The Athletic News tried to compete with this type of coverage but in 1931 it accepted defeat and merged with The Sporting Chronicle.
In 1911 the “Football Players Magazine-Official Journal of the Association Football Players Union” was launched under the editorship of Evelyn Lintott. A very far sighted move with the Football League and Football Association many years away from producing their own publication. There is an argument for this to be classed as the longest running football magazine as it became “Soccer: The Official Journal of the Football Players Union” in 1947 under the revitalising influence of Jimmy Hill. The Union became the Players Football Association under Jimmy Hill’s stewardship and their magazine “Footballers World” launched in 1993 and continues to this day. (Based on my own subjective definitions as it was aimed at their own members rather than a mass readership I will actually award the football magazine longevity award to “World Soccer”.)
All these pre-war periodicals were still missing the crucial element of full colour photography; in 1931 the first newspaper colour photo was printed in a The Times. In 1937 magazine publishers started printing in colour. Odhams launched Woman with high-quality gravure printing, which was Britain’s first full-colour magazine.
The first British Football magazine that fits my criteria of colour, football only content, quality paper and being available at the newsagents was Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly in September 1951. (A special mention should go to the December 25th 1948 issue of “Sport Weekly” as it featured a full colour team picture of England on the front cover.)
CBFM would be the first to feature colour on the front cover every issue. Amazingly with so many major publishing houses around he launched independently as Charles Buchan’s Publications Ltd based at 408 The Strand, London WC2.It continued for 274 issues until the final issue came out in June 1974.
Raich Carter’s Soccer Star started a year later after CBFM on the 20th September 1952. In the summer of 1955 the Raich Carter logo was dropped and it ran as Soccer Star until 19th June 1970 when it merged into “World Soccer””.
World Soccer was the world’s second oldest monthly football magazine when it started in October 1960 and is today the world’s longest running football magazine as it is still being published by IPC, with a monthly circulation today of around 52,000.
The 1960’s and 70’s were the golden era of high circulations and many famous magazines were launched:
“Jimmy Hill’s Football Weekly” (27th October 1967 – April 24th 1970)
“Goal” ( 16th August 1968 – 1 June 1974)
“Shoot” (16th August 1969-June 2008)
“Striker” (10th January 1970 to 4th March 1972)
“Book of Football”(1969)
“Inside Football” from August 15th 1970 until the 26th February 1972
“Scorcher” (Footballs first comic) (10th January 1970 – 3rd July 1971)
“Match” (6 September 1979 –Present)
“When Saturday Comes” (March 1986 – Present)
“90 Minutes (October 1990 -17th of May 1997
“Four Four Two” (September 1994 – Present)
It’s amazing to look back now on the circulation figures of 250,000 a month back in the early 1960’s achieved by Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly, still more than the current big three of “World Soccer”, “When Saturday Comes” and “442” can muster in total.
Soccerbilia Website (www.soccerbilia.co.uk)
We have thousands of football magazines in stock covering 70 different publications. This includes complete runs of Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly, Soccer Star, Jimmy Hill’s Football Weekly and World Soccer.
Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly. ( www.charlesbuchansfootballmonthly.com)
A complete run of Britain’s first football magazine – with every issue fully catalogued.
Know someone born between 1932 and 2000, who is football mad? Why not buy them the perfect present of a football magazine from the week or the month of their birth?