North Ferriby United

Attending football in the 80’s and 90’s as a teenager and into my early twenties, I would look forward to the shouts of the fanzine sellers on my way to the stadium. It was halcyon days for the fanzine scene, as titles such as Amber Nectar, On Cloud Seven, and Hull, Hell & Happiness added to my experiences of life on the terraces at Hull City. It could be argued that at the time, reading the fanzine was preferable to watching the dross served up on the pitch, but in a way this just added to the various fanzines, it gave them something to comment on and complain about. Believe me they had plenty of ammunition !

My love affair with Hull City ended in 2008. Football changed, and so did I. However, one thing that didn’t change was my love of fanzines, although by now many were deviating away from printed form and into computer forum’s. My formative years at school were spent staring out of the windows, particularly during I.T lessons, so the whole computer version never appealed to me. Call me old fashioned, but there’s something about the look, feel and smell of a freshly printed fanzine in your hand.

By 2010, and after a brief sabbatical from football, I found myself back watching my local non-league side North Ferriby United, then of the Northern Premier League. “Proper football” as many of us in our 40’s like to refer to it as, it was almost reminiscent of the game I’d grown up watching. Six years later, and I’m still here, shouting on my new love, stood with a dozen or so other disillusioned Hull City fans.

Throughout all this, the fanzine has always been my staple diet of football. Away from the sanitised club programmes, ‘zines have long told the real story of what’s going on at club’s. Indeed one of the new fanzines on the block, Stand AMF, was my first inspiration to actually start writing myself. I got in touch with an old mate from my Hull days, Dom Taylor, now producing the matchday programme for NCEL side Bridlington Town. After a few text messages, I started doing a regular column, 5/600 words every Home game. It was a start, and soon became quite a passion. I had a few compliments via Twitter ( always a relief ) and so started “pimping out” some of the more generic stuff  to other fanzines. Within a year I had stuff kindly printed by the good people at Barnsley, Stoke, Bradford and Wigan to name a few. Half a dozen pieces in Stand followed, followed by a piece in high street magazine Late Tackle.

By the start of the 2016/17 season I was still churning stuff out for Bridlington’s programme, Seasiders Review ( 3 years running NCEL Programme of the Year ). I had an idea to launch my own fanzine, and at first thought of doing one to cover all the local non-league sides in the East Yorkshire area. However, logistically this would prove impossible. I simply couldn’t spread myself that thin, nor guarantee that there would be sufficient interest from the club’s. I had a chat with Dom, and he agreed to be my production man, his computer skills far, far in advance of mine after years of producing Seasiders Review. Fired on by this, I put a shout-out on Twitter for help. Within 5 minutes I’d had half a dozen positive replies of assistance with articles. Within a week, I’d contacted a local printer and got a price for producing 100, 28 page, A5, full colour mags. We were in business ! View from the Allotment End was born.

It’s now late April ( as I type this ) and in just over 3 month’s time we will put out North Ferriby’s first ever fanzine. I decided to delay the start of the ‘zine until the start of next season for two reasons. Firstly to give us time to drum up interest. So far we have a Twitter account ( @VFTAE ), Facebook page, and have just handed out 200 flyers during the game with Telford. And secondly, because at this moment in time we are 2nd in the league - National League North - and guaranteed a Play-off place, With a bit of luck, we may start next season in the National League, in which case we will gamble on 200 copies of our first run. The mag will sell for £1.50, and be produced quarterly. If it proves successful then we may try to get 6 issues done in the season. Any profits generated ( should it sell out ) will be banked, and at the end of the year all the money will be donated to a local junior football side, perhaps providing them with a kit for the following season. That’s the plan anyway. Along the way we plan to do badges and keyrings, again all profits will go to a charity. At the request of my Co-founder Dom, we have decided that will be Prostate Cancer UK. It might not be a massive amount, but every little helps, We have also started a 2nd initiative just this week, something to keep us busy and in the limelight before production. We are offering advertising space to local business for £20. This money will go towards a “Breakfast Club” scheme run by a local school, that insures 6 underprivileged children are fed every morning ( for a month ) before school starts. So far we have had 3 pledges of support, a fantastic start, even before a word has been printed.

If the ‘zine fails to sell, then Issue 1 will be the only issue. I’m hoping that won’t be the case, as we have some good ideas and fantastic writers in place, as well as pledges of help from other fanzines. The feedback I’ve had so far tells me it will sell, so it looks like I’m in this for the long haul. At least I won’t die wondering whether it would work or not ! Come the first Saturday in August, I will find out……..

Darren Norton