There's a birthday celebration at the Riverside on Saturday when long-standing fanzine Fly Me To The Moon clocks up its 35th anniversary.
The fanzine is a labour of love for editor and stalwart fan Rob Nichols, and here's a history of one of English football's longest running fan publications.
Contributor Chris Bartley explains all...
On 26 November 1988, Boro got beat 1-0 against Sheffield Wednesday in a Division One game. Not a remarkable game by any stretch of the imagination on that beautiful hallowed Ayresome Park turf but it is what happened on the streets surrounding the ground that set tongues a wagging. Three football mad, literate young pups Andy ‘Gillandi’ Smelt, Robbie Boal and Tony St Pierre published Middlesbrough’s first ever fanzine. The editorial set out the aim: “our venture is quite simply to give a punters’ view of happenings in football generally and at the Boro in particular. It is to be hoped that you find our approach both interesting and refreshing.”
It was rattled out on a cranky old typewriter, was peppered with a few spelling mistakes and looked punky (which is a proper asset in my book) - but the 200 copies priced at 50p sold out quickly and that persuaded the editors it would be ‘easy’.
In November 1988, our current most long serving player Jonny Howson was only a few months old. Robin Beck was Number one in the charts with a song called The First Time (from a Coca-cola advert) and the Tories were in power with Margaret Thatcher the PM. The world was quite different in those days. If you wanted any printed Boro news, you needed to get the daily Evening Gazette, the Sports Gazette on Saturday or the Boro programme on match days. All three were invaluable portals into all things Boro. In the pre-internet world and everything that went with it, it was all we had. The fanzine culture however offered something wittier and refreshing and Fly Me To The Moon was a brilliant addition to the canon of top fanzines.
The initial esteemed editorial team passed the editorial baton on to Nigel Downing who then passed it on to the current editor Rob Nichols in the early 90s. It has featured a few excellent football writers, Daniel Gray and Harry Pearson, the legendary Radio broadcaster/writer Bob Fischer and even a top indie Pop star, Billingham born Paul Smith from Maximo Park. This Saturday’s fanzine will be no 640. Nearly 20 000 pages of football gold and by my reckoning 9 600 000 words. It has spawned a couple of annuals and a fantastic podcast too.
I started in 1991 with an article about John Wark and my excitement of our signing of a bona fide Hollywood actor (if you don’t believe me watch ‘Escape to Victory’ this Christmas.) I’ve never had a testimonial but I have acquired varifocal glasses which happens to anyone who squints too much and looks at computer screens for far too long. I’m an old timer for sure alongside fanzine veterans Uncle Harry and Rob. It is a truly cosmopolitan thing as we have writers from Leeds (the excellent Ramsgate Red and top class Speckyget) and Skegness (the amazing Shaun Rye). In a desperate attempt to lower the average age, I got our Thomas into this fanzine habit and my wife Angela designs the funky envelopes for all you lucky subscribers.
Fly Me is something to cherish and long may it survive. Here’s to the next 35 years!