Early Boro fanzine history is quite sketchy. It is widely believed that the first fans publication to hit the McCain Stadium was 'The Scarborough Warning'. The earliest issue I have is issue two and from what I can gather it appeared in October 1990, although there's no actual dates anywhere in the issues I have to confirm this.

 

Written by a set of lads headed by Joe Kerr (most likely a pseudonym!), the fanzine was hard hitting at the running of the club and extremely sarcastic throughout. Indeed its motto, which appeared on the front cover was 'The voice of the terrace, with just a hint of sarcasm.' It was based from the Duchess pub on the Hovingham estate near the hospital, and issues were produced once every seven/eight weeks. The first few issues were small affairs - issue 2 being just 12 pages of A5, but as it grew it blossomed into 20+ pages.

 

Through the fanzine there were some great cartoons drawn by a guy called 'Sweep', including a scene set at the away end of the McCain Stadium in which a cage had been erected with swinging tyres and trees to 'make Hartlepool fans feel more at home!' The last edition I have dates from around Christmas 1991, issue 7. There's no telling if anymore were produced, as I have never seen an issue past this one.

 

At the same time 'The Warning' was going strong, a new fanzine with a different slant was founded. Nigel Hall, a Seadog from the Leeds area, along with others including Bernard Morris, began 'Beyond The 843'. This fanzine was different in many ways to the 'The Warning'. Firstly it was A4 size and large, with roughly 36 double sided pages in issue 2, the earliest copy I have. Secondly it was very a friends and in-joke type of affair, with many articlesand most of the humour devoted to the exiled Seadogs around the West Yorkshire area. If you knew the guys, you would get the jokes. And thirdly it's probably the only fanzine ever named after a bus route!

 

You see Nigel found the cheapest way he could get to Boro games from his base in Leeds was via the Coastliner Leeds to Scarborough Bus route - the number 843, which still runs regularly today. Nigel transfered to journey by car over time, but having met many Boro fans from far off places, 'Beyond the 843' seemed a good title.

 

The fanzine itself didnt last very long. From what I can gather it petered out before getting very far. The last copy I have is issue five which dated from August 1992, at a time when Boro had been in league football for five years and had become established in the lower leagues.

 

Perhaps the ungainly style of the fanzine helped contribute to it finishing, or perhaps the close-knit far-away-supporters-only stance made it inaccessible to other fans. Or perhaps some other reason was the contributing factor to its downfall. Nevertheless the fanzine stood up for Boro's 'Shed Singers' and throughout the copies I have there are many references to how the vocal support helps the club. Indeed Geoffrey Richmond himself sent a letter to the fanzine congratulating them on the support given at home and away. Showing maybe he did care a little bit!

 

Within 92-93 many things happened at the club. We flirted with the play-offs, but after being in 5th place at the turn of the year we finished well outside the top 7. This got Richmond's back up as he had promised everyone who had bought a season ticket for that year would receive a free one for 93-94 should we not make the play-offs. By April Ray McHale had been sacked as manager and replaced by Phil Chambers, but the damage had been done and stars like Tommy Mooney, Kyle Lightbourne and Mark Jules moved on at the end of the season.

 

Bright sparks were the League Cup run which disposed of Bradford, Coventry and Plymouth before a 1-0 home loss to eventual winners Arsenal, the 4-2 victory over York City in the derby, and Darren Foreman finishing joint Division Three top scorer with 31 goals to his name, including a hat-trick in the aforementioned derby match at the McCain Stadium. However he broke his leg in the final game and never fully recovered to make a full return to the first team fold.

 

So at the start of 93-94 Boro fans had no visible fanzine to use as an outlet for frustration and humour. As young supporters with a keen eye for writing Andy Kent, and I, James Hunter, saw the gap in the market as something we would like to fill. And we were very young - I was 15 and Andy was just 13. We were joined by Mark Blackman and Lee Young and throughout the summer of 1993 we set about work on 'Singing in the Shed' in Andy's house in Seamer, occassionaly stopping to have a kick about in Andy's back garden and to sample his mum's lovely summer's day lunches!

 

Perhaps the extra breaks we had eating corned beef sandwiches and fruitini's contributed to our lack of fanzine knowledge growing. Issue one - scheduled for release on the first home game of 93-94 - didnt actually appear until mid-September for a game against Shrewsbury Town.

 

For a first effort from a bunch of lads whose average age was 13-and-a-half, and with no money except £3 a week pocket money, it wasn't too bad. We focused on 'Beyond the 843' and tried to keep it in a similar style. It was A4 sized and full of match reports and team sheets, and although nothing like a fanzine should be, we were very proud of it! If you have a copy of issue one you are very lucky! We only printed 50 copies! They were sold for 50p and from the club shop - which used to be where the stewards hut is now, just inside the main gate. Eric Pickup helped us along with the photo-copied effort and despite the 5 months work we had put in, a profit of £25 far out-weighed our pocket money, so we were extremely happy!

 

Issue two was a similar affair - A4 size and still produced on the whole with a word processor and a home photocopier. Still 50p aswell, although the print run had increased - to 75 copies!! However all the match reports were binned and more focus was put upon what was actually going on off the field - and that was quite a lot! Steve Wicks had come in as manager, the Raise the Roof appeal had been started to get a cover over the Seamer Road terrace, Geoffrey Richmond was on his way out following the season ticket giveaway which cost the club £100,000 and Tommy Mooney's transfer, and Boro had signed Craig Whitington and Shaun Murray for a combined fee of £75,000.

 

So quite a lot was happening within the club and after issue two quite a lot began to happen with the fanzine. For issue 3 the word processor and A4 style were dropped and a trusty old type-writer was used. The major differences from issue two though were the fact we had increased the print run to 150 copies, and also started to use the Duplicating Bureau in Manor Road to print the booklets.

 

Just 26 days had elapsed after issue two and issue three was a 24 page affair which we did well to fill. There is a separate section of the website focusing on every issue of 'Singing in the Shed' here. The fanzine ran for six issues over the 93-94 season but at the end of that season for myself and Andy school work took over, with me starting my GSCE exams. So we put it too bed and the club had no fanzine for 94-95!

 

Once September 1995 came around I found myself at Sixth Form doing GCSE re-sits. I hadn't fully concentrated in my exams as I was sat next to the most gorgeous girl in school for most of the exams. I will spare her any blushes by naming her, but I really do blame her for my lack of educational passes and consequent college re-sit courses!

 

By Christmas the college re-sits had started to piss me off - I couldn't see myself staying to do a year of Biology and Maths, and then another two years of A levels, so I started to skip college and eventually dropped out and got into working as a Labourer for a building firm.

 

I could have become a teenage drinker, down the beach with my mates swiging White Lightening in the spare time I had. But instead I started playing around with the new Microsoft Publisher package I had on my computer (which i had swapped with my brother in return for my bedroom) to further production on the fanzine I had started the previous summer.

 

In the summer before starting at Sixth Form I began designs for a new fanzine. My brother had bought a cheap PC with a publishing package and I started to see what it could do. By August 95 I had produced, mainly on my own but with help from Andy Kent, the first issue of 'The Seadog Bites Back!'. It was a small fanzine with 24 pages and low print run, but it set me off on a three year journey into the fanzine producing world. Three years which I would emmensley enjoy, producing 21 issues of the publication, which you can find here. 

 

So TSBB ran for 21 issues over three very different seasons, but it was time for me to move on. I was working more hours and having less time to produce the fanzine. A new relationship with a female non-football fan rather than a computer screen had also began to take up my time. Although as it turned out I got more sense and enjoyment from my monitor! So at the end of the play-off season of 97-98 TSBB was confined to the fanzine graveyard. I was asked by the club to help out with the programme in the season we went down and following a season as co-editor with Eric Pickup I took over the whole production for our first Conference season of 99-2000. The entire programme was designed by myself from scratch and you can find some samples of my work on the programme here.

 

So for five months Boro had no fanzine - and for five months Boro were in the middle of a boardroom battle as Anton Johnson took control of the club from John Russell and went about trying to wreck the club from within. Russell subsequently got the club back, but over the next few months the club would go through a major shake up which would include several people owning/not owning the club, the coming and goings of lots of players, managers and officials at Boro, oh... and the relegation to the Conference as well.

 

Boro needed a fanzine. The fans needed a voice to vent their anger and an outlet for humour to cheer us up. And there was one!!!! But unfortunately for English Boro supporters it wasn't much use to them! 'The Seadogs' was a fanzine produced by Rune Kjempenes, the founder of the Norwegian Boro Supporters Club. It was of course in Norwegian, and was more of an information based fanzine, with Player Profiles, statistics and the like. It's first issue was released in October 1996 and following this 4 a season were produced and sent out to the members of the Supporters Club.

 

I was sent copies in return for sending 'TSBB!' to Norway, but although I couldn't read them I'm sure they were a fantastic source of joy for Norwegian Seadogs! I have nine issues in my collection. I'm not sure if they continued to be produced, as I lost touch after 'TSBB!' was disbanded, and to be honest I'm not sure if the Supporters Branch over there is still going! But I'm sure it is and growing all the time! One more interesting fact of 'The Seadogs' is the front cover of issue six (right), which features a photo of then Boro Youth Coach Ian Kerr with Norwegian striker John Carew, who has become a top flight player in European Football. Not quite sure what he was doing training with Boro on the Mount, but why the hell didn't we sign him??! If anyone can shed any light on this please do so!!

 

But an English Boro fanzine wasn't too far behind in being formed. Regular 'TSBB!' contributor Jonathan Cooper and his mates James Marsden and Matthew Barnes came up with the brilliantly named '2's Company, 500's A Crowd!'. Following on from TSBB seven months previously, and indeed featuring musings from many of TSBB's contributors including myself, '2's Company' ran along the line of humour touched with seriousness, all packed in 36 pages per issue. Issue 1 in January 1999 came at a time Russell had just gained control of the club back from Johnson and Dave Cusack, and as such a lot of focus was put upon the off field occurences.

 

Four issues appeared in the four months before relegation - a great feat by the guys. But alas the fanzine could not help Boro's team and we were relegated in May 1999 with cries of 'We'll Be Back!'. Of course we now know the team hasn't returned to the league - far from it of course - but at the start of the first season back in the Conference '2's Company' re-appeared with issue five.

 

On page six of this issue appeared a letter from an unnamed fan absolutely slating John and Gillian Russell and their running of the club. The letter accused Russell of pocketing money from transfers and club funds and caused a mega upraw as the Russells were not happy about it. A disclaimer from the fanzine with the letter stated they were allowing everyone to have their views and that is why the letter was printed.

 

Russell didn't see it as anything but libellous and deformation of his character. He hauled the editors over the coals, threatening legal action and banning them from watching Boro. Following a meeting the lads agreed to print a retraction and also made a statement to the Scarborough Evening News about the article. Russell himself put out a reward to find the letter writer, and stated in '2's Company' that he would 'find the person and sue them for every penny piece'. I don't think anything was ever uncovered, but following issue six in October 1999, in which the apology and admission of a mistake in printed the letter was stated, the fanzine didn't appear again until the last game of that season.

 

However, it reappeared with issue eight at the start of 2000-2001, but with a new editorial duo of James Prethero and Mark Cooper. Issue nine appeared in October 2000, and issue ten followed soon after, but that season saw just three issues produced, most likely due to lack of contributions and lack of time.

 

Season 2001-2002 saw '2C' come back with a new editorial member on board - Geoff Osguthorpe. By this season Boro had a new manager following Neil Thompson taking over Colin Addison, and a new owner - Darrell Littlewood. Issue 12 of the fanzine was dedicated to the American Terrorist attacks of September 11 2001.

 

That issue also had a correspondance from Adam Pearson, the Hull City chairman. The letter was in response to one Jonathan Cooper sent to him following Boro's visit in a friendly in pre-season, which was printed in issue 11. Jonathan's letter expressed disgust that he had been asked to turn off his mobile phone ringtone during the game, as a steward said it 'put off the players'! Jonathan sent Pearson a letter stating he would like the entrance money reinbursed for the time it took to look away from the game to check his phone and the cost of returning calls he missed. Unbelievably Pearson sent him £2 from his own pocket to apologise for the actions of his steward and told him to spend the money on further phone calls! Proof that if you don't ask, you don't get!

 

Issue 12 is the last copy of '2C' I have in my Boro Fanzine Collection, and I am unsure how many more were produced after that one. It turned into a great little fanzine over time and it was a shame to see it go out of production.

 

So after four seasons without a fanzine we now have another one getting off the ground. Malton Seadog Matty Lawson, more commonly known for his plethora of Boro websites, his contribution to the Matchday Programme and a shocking fancy dress outfit at Exeter, has started new fanzine 'Abandon Chip!'. Issue one, with a cover designed by myself, was produced for Boro's final home game of the 05-06 season against Cambridge United, and has been welcomed into the Boro fanzine world with a great big hug! Over the next few seasons 'AC!' will drive onto great things like 'TSBB!' and '2C' did, and I'm sure it will eclipse both those titles in number and stature.

 

So there we are. Boro's Fanzine History in a rather large nutshell. If anyone has more information on any of the Boro publications listed above please let me know here. I shall add any further information I receive in separate articles below.

 

JH, May 1st 2006

 

BORO FANZINE TIMELINE

 

The Scarborough Warning - Oct '90

Beyond The 843 - Oct '91

Singing In The Shed - Sept '93

The Seadog Bites Back! - Aug '95

The Seadogs - Oct '96

Two's Company, 500's A Crowd - Jan '99

Abandon Chip! - April '06