“It’s not the programme mate”

'Hull, Hell & Happiness', the first Hull City entry into the brave new world of fanzines was first launched on 28th September 1988. The thirtieth anniversary appears as good a time as ever to do a bit of reminiscing...

An early afternoon in late-September 1988. My boss just stood there, his face bearing a rather nonplussed expression as countless sheets of amber paper, adorned with a picture of Hull City kit-wearing comedian Jasper Carrott, continued to drop into the office copier’s output tray directly in front of him. After what appeared an excruciatingly long wait he simply said, “I won’t ask” and left the room. I heaved a sigh of relief. Although I was still on my lunch-break, a charge of using works’ equipment for private business was probably enough to get me severely reprimanded or even sacked. It had been a close call. The first Hull, Hell & Happiness had nearly been strangled at birth. Instead it went almost immediately from the production line (i.e. the works printer and long-handle stapler) to the streets around Boothferry Park, where I would be one of the “vendors” trying to sell it. As unlikely as it sounded I was embarking on a short-term career as a “purveyor of subversive literature”. Whatever next? And what’s more, I wasn’t even supposed to be going to City anymore. After eight years of watching football on a Saturday afternoon, I'd decided it might be nice to start playing again and so I'd signed East Riding County League forms for my local village club, Easington United.

My decision to give my Saturdays over to playing didn’t prevent me catching the start of City’s 1988/89 campaign. This in turn meant I could get to see one of my boyhood heroes in the flesh. Eddie Gray, yes the Eddie Gray was the new Hull City manager. It was a surprise appointment as most fans thought Dennis Booth was a shoo-in. Not only had he overseen team matters after Brian Horton’s sacking but he’d also been allowed to spend £100,000 on Watford defender Steve Terry during the summer (a move that would eventually see fans’ favourite Pete Skipper depart to Oldham). But, according to David Goodman (author of 'Look Back In Amber', the title of which was taken from a later City fanzine) Robinson wanted someone who wasn’t “too close to the club”. Gray was a hero of his and although The Don would later admit to have “done no research on him really” it was the “name in his head” he went for. The man in charge of Leeds on that first meeting with City at Elland Road back in September 1985 was in the Boothferry hot seat three years later. I was fairly giddy about the news and was determined to be a part of this new era in spite of my new-found weekend commitments. Gambling on postponements, scheduled blank Saturdays and midweek games at Boothferry, I reckoned I could do at least a dozen City matches over the course of the season. That surely still warranted recognition as a fan? Anyway, as things turned out, opting to limit my Tiger-trekking proved the right decision. This wouldn’t be a season to remember - well, not on the field.

The warning signs were there from day one. Manchester City arrived as favourites for promotion. Their large away following, complete with inflatable bananas helped generate an opening day attendance of 11,653 and an atmosphere that helped me ignore a stonking hangover, courtesy of the previous night’s Spiders cocktails. I watched the game from the Kempton (having renewed my Membership Pass despite my new Saturday plans). A City side including three debutants – Terry being joined in the starting line-up by fellow signings Lee Warren and John Moore – looked stylish enough in their new ‘Riding Bitter’ kit (albeit with still too much red in it) but their performance was less so. It was one of the most one-sided matches I’ve ever seen. So much so, that a mixture of disbelief and hilarity greeted Keith Edwards’ winning goal from City’s only effort on target. I went home thinking “lucky” Eddie might just be the man to lead us to the top flight after all.

Two days later reality kicked-in. On Bank Holiday Monday I was up and at ‘em early for the trip to Oxford. I paid seven quid to sit in the “infamous” Cuckoo Lane East Stand at the Manor Ground and watched City go down to a narrow defeat against Mark Lawrenson’s hosts, a team looking to make a swift return to Division 1. At least there were no missiles thrown on this occasion (as had been the case a few years earlier). Another defeat followed at Plymouth on the first Saturday in September and City would go on to win just three of their first thirteen competitive matches. It was a run of form ripe for the launch of a fanzine...

The football fanzine boom that spawned Hull, Hell & Happiness (or HH&H as it soon became known) was in its early stages. London-based When Saturday Comes (WSC), first printed in March 1986, was seen as the mother of such publications, along with the Birmingham-based On the Ball. Some of the earliest club ‘zines included Notts County’s The Pie, The Leyton Orientear and closer to home, The City Gent (Bradford) which, having been launched in 1984, claims to be “the longest continually produced printed fanzine in the country”. As more and more titles came into being, the bar was continually raised in terms of quality. Al Needham, writing in WSC twenty years later, had his opinion on why: 

“Of course, fanzines had been around since the late Sixties, but – apart from Foul!, the ground-breaking mid-Seventies dirt-sheet – they were exclusively put together by people desperate to work on the NME asking members of the Newtown Neurotics if they thought pit closures were a good idea or not.”

Hull City fans may well cite late-1940s publication Tiger Mag as one of the earliest supporters’ magazines but by the time HH&H first hit the streets it had been many years since they had had anything similar to read. The brains behind it belonged to Withernsea’s Andy Medcalf, a student at Stafford University, where he first mooted the launch of a fanzine in conjunction with fellow City fan Ian Websdale.  The duo’s aims were five-fold:

1)   To produce a fanzine dedicated to the activities of Hull City AFC, and to those of local music groups.

2)  To get as many people involved as possible by appealing for contributions.

3)  To print interesting/humorous articles, and also pieces which express people’s own personal opinions. We class ourselves as “independent” and are not accountable to anyone.

4)   To donate all our profits to Hull City AFC and The Hull Music Collective in some way. None of us makes any personal gain from this venture.

5)   To sell the fanzine in as many places as possible, to allow supporters to buy it wherever they live.

On gaining an internship at BP, Andy soon picked up on my interest in City (albeit one that could be described as ‘lapsed’ due to my new Saturday commitments) and asked me if I’d like to come on board. It seemed a really good idea...until that first encounter with the boss! Eventually we managed to produce 350 copies thanks to a succession of “working lunches” and staying back after hours. And although looking back now, some of that first issue’s content borders on cringe-worthy (not least my pen name of Grip 66) there was a real sense of achievement when the finished items were neatly boxed up and ready to go. The 44 pages were split between football and ‘local’ music, although as Hull Daily Mail reviewer Angus Young pointed out, The Cardiacs (“not remotely from Hull”) didn’t really warrant “three rambling pages”. A live review of Rush was equally dismissed, while both Andy and I acknowledged that four pages of flyers from local blue-eyed soulsters The Mighty Strike also came across as something of a cop-out. Overall, though, we felt we’d struck what appeared to be a good balance between life’s two greatest pleasures. We’d soon know for sure.

Wednesday, 28th September 1988 and a second round, first leg home tie in the League Cup against the Arsenal. Anticipation surrounding the appearance of our modest (i.e. tacky) first edition wasn’t quite as great as that for the visit of The Gunners and the return to Boothferry Park of one of its heroes of the early 1980s. It was four years since Brian Marwood’s last City game on that desperate night at Burnley. A move to Sheffield Wednesday had seen his career blossom enough to tempt the Gunners to spend £800,000 on him in March 1988. He was guaranteed a warm reception. But would our fanzine receive the same? If I’m being honest, I don’t think many people had a clue what it was. If I had a pound for every time the words “No, it’s not the programme mate” left my lips, as another unsuspecting customer attempted to pay me 60p in order to get Eddie Gray’s latest view on things, I’d probably have taken in more than we did in sales. But after a hesitant start and a bit of welcome local publicity, the first issue figures proved very respectable and within a week or so the initial print run had all but gone. 

On the whole, reviews were favourable both from City supporters and those of other clubs. When Saturday Comes called it “a very impressive first issue”.  It contained “plenty of good reading” according to The Arsenal Echo Echo, while the Hull Daily Mail described it as “a Hull of a good idea”. And we even earned ourselves a bit of publicity elsewhere, with pieces on the fanzine appearing in the Yorkshire Post. Even more beneficial was the coverage on the wireless, with an appearance on local radio’s Great Northern Rock programme to be followed in time by regular plugs on Radio 1. Indeed the only disappointments were the HDM’s refusal to allow use of their photographs and the attitude of the club itself. City’s initial refusal to sell the fanzine in the club shop was apparently in response to an article suggesting that Garreth Roberts was “perhaps past his best”, while a similar knock-back to our offer of player sponsorship was little short of ridiculous. As for the game itself, City lost 1-2, making the second leg fairly academic. But we still planned to go, if only to shift a few fanzines.

As expected the second leg was a low-key affair; the Arse completing a 5-1 aggregate win in front of a seventeen-thousand strong crowd that included just a few hundred from East Yorkshire. Old Trafford the previous year this was certainly not. But then again, City were not the side of twelve months earlier. According to Andy’s next HH&H editorial, results simply reminded us that “nothing’s really changed…we follow a crap team”. But at least now we had a half-decent fanzine to support! Several names would come to the fore over the next few issues - Gary Hook, Gary Clark, Jeff Pullen, Tim Allison and Kieran Burns - as a sort of core team to be relied upon, with plenty of others willing to chip in with excellent one-off contributions.

From those first few lunch breaks spent covertly using the office copier eventually grew what came to be regarded as one of the more professional looking fanzines on the market, one that would become a firm favourite among the football and music fans of Hull (local mod band Chase Ambition even penned a song titled “Hull, Hell & Happiness” though I can’t claim with absolute certainty that it was done with us in mind). Ironically, it was this initial success that indirectly led to the first piece of adverse feedback, courtesy of our decision to use the proceeds of Issue 1 to get subsequent editions printed professionally. Choosing Sheffield-based Juma Printers riled a few people who felt we should be supporting local business.  But Juma ticked all the boxes. They were cheap, they already printed a whole range of football-based publications and owner Martin Lacey was a fanzine editor himself. They knew what we wanted. The result was a much more professional looking magazine. Issue 2 came out in late November and despite the increased production costs, at 50p for 44 pages it remained an attractive proposition. Sales were better than for Issue 1.

Along with the standard fanzine fare, HH&H was lauded in some quarters for its slightly offbeat content, such as our “Auntie Social” problem page and “An Outsider Writes In...” in which we invited submissions from supporters of other clubs. In future issues we would gain access to City’s players for interviews and we also had pieces in which managers of The Tigers’ opponents could pen their thoughts. We even set aside space for local grassroots clubs and this, alongside the music content, helped set us apart from many other efforts.

Football fanzines were deemed newsworthy and HH&H continued to attract plenty of media attention. The Yorkshire Post came calling on Boxing Day when we joined forces with The City Gent ahead of the Bradford game at Boothferry in a united front against the Government’s planned membership scheme. We took about a thousand signatures in a move that appeared to be well received by all with the notable exception of Hull City themselves. When a club director eventually deemed our delegation worthy of a visit, it was in order to tell us he disagreed with what we were doing - despite the club having publicly stated its opposition to the Scheme.

We shouldn’t have been surprised. Our relationship with the City regime would prove a strange one. On the one hand they were (belatedly) glad to accept our player sponsorship, they would eventually agree to stock HH&H in the club shop (quite a coup back then) and they allowed us to conduct player interviews. On the other they would often distance themselves from this new, unofficial mouthpiece. An item in Issue 2 aroused Don Robinson’s displeasure to the extent that we were summoned to a meeting with him at The Royal Station Hotel. There he slated us over a cartoon depiction of a penis and scrotum that bore a rather uncanny resemblance to Robert Maxwell and carried the accompanying caption, “Not all Chairmen are arseholes”. Robinson was less than pleased with this portrayal of his “good friend”. He ordered us to apologise publicly and threatened legal action should anything similar appear in future. Although the rest of our talk was amicable enough and finished off with a handshake, The Don left us under no illusions about what he would or wouldn’t tolerate…and the drinks bill!

By issue 3 (Jan/Feb 1989) I had replaced Ian as Andy’s co-editor and helped produce a whopping 64-page edition, for which we had to up the price to 60p. The increased quantity (most fanzines averaged 24 pages) and quality was beginning to produce better sales. We were shifting nearly 1,500 copies, which was about a quarter of City’s average home crowd at the time. We were also selling well outside the city, in Nottingham and Glasgow as well as two London outlets (Sportspages bookshop and Rough Trade records). Joining the ever-growing Alternative Football Network mail order list also had a positive effect. It wasn’t enough to make a living from but at least we could dream of doing so should City ever hit the big time. 

In contrast to the fortunes of the team the fanzine continued to flourish during the early part of the 1989/90 season. National exposure continued to come via the football-supporting DJ’s of Radio 1. Spurs fan Simon Mayo gave issue 7 a plug on his Breakfast Show and John Peel regularly spread the word at the other end of the day. Indeed twice I had the pleasure of speaking to the latter during his late-night show, bringing him up-to-speed on what we were doing. The fact he appeared genuinely interested and not just paying lip service was wonderful. Locally, Andy and I were featured in the weekly Holderness Gazette and the HDM's Target publications. At one stage it appeared you couldn’t open a local rag without one or both of our ugly mugs smiling back at you. But by this time we were not the only kids on the block...

In August 1989 the first issue of On Cloud Seven appeared. “Dedicated to 85 years of under-achievement by Hull City F.C.” the fanzine’s title was inspired by Colin Appleton’s reaction when asked how it felt to be back at the club: “…Err, I’m on cloud seven, really…” The editorial explained the reasons behind this new addition to the fanzine world: “The Editors all enjoy making themselves comfortable in a pub, arming themselves with ale and embarking on intensive and increasingly far-fetched discussions about football. This magazine contains some of the fruits, ripe or otherwise, of such consultations…” That first issue set the tone for what was to follow. OC7 was a fanzine whose editors certainly knew their onions. It was a welcome addition to the City stable of subversive literature and the fact it didn’t touch music meant we were not in direct competition. 

As for Hull, Hell & Happiness, it would eventually last four years and fourteen issues, before the last edition rolled off the presses at Juma Printers in the spring of 1992. I wasn't involved by then. In the summer of Italia 90, Gary Hook and I had embarked on another project, one that resulted in From Hull To Eternity, an A4-sized publication that survived five issues and came to an end at about the same time. The reason for the almost synchronised finishes became apparent at the start of the 1992/93 season, when - under the rather grandiosely-termed "umbrella" Blind Faith organisation - a new fanzine was launched. Entitled Look Back In Amber it saw the collective brains between its two forerunners come together to provide City supporters with their latest alternative to the match programme. To show how far we'd come, we also got ourselves a monthly two-page spread in the Hull Daily Mail's Saturday Sportsmail edition, something that would've been quite unheard of back in the September of 1988. 

During this period 1988-92 it wasn't just fanzines that were produced. Gary's t-shirt operation proved particularly successful, the fanzine football team 'The Coasters' somewhat less so! There were several gigs (both benefit and otherwise) held at the legendary Adelphi featuring local bands, along with a compilation tape ('There's Something Stirring In King Billy's Bogs') produced in conjunction with Rangers' fanzine 'Follow Follow'. We struck up excellent relationships with fans of other clubs at a time when such things were a rarity (the one with the lads behind the Manchester Hearts fanzine springs to mind, resulting in the bizarre appearance of dozens of Hull City/Hearts half-and-half ski hats among the the Tigers support). Even the City players eventually bought into what we were doing, with subsequent interviews with Leigh Palin and Dean Windass being memorable more for what they told us off the record rather than what we could quote! Meanwhile, Northern Ireland international goalkeeper Alan Fettis became almost a walking advert for the fanzine movement, so close was his relationship with us (who remembers the visit of his brother and the 'First Northern Ireland Hull City Supporters Club'??!!). All-in-all, the fanzine years produced the sort of memories that would not otherwise have come with supporting Hull City. And for that I'll forever remain grateful. 

In time, a succession of City 'zines would follow in the wake of HH&H, From Hull To Eternity and Look Back In Amber. Among them, in no particular order: Tiger Rag (almost a direct successor to the Blind Faith publications); the weird and wonderful Fearful Symmetry; Gary's one-off Last Train To Boothferry Halt, The Three O'Clock At Kempton; T.O.S.S. (aka Tigers On Shit Street) and its successor, City Independent; and of course the marvellous Amber Nectar, now a thriving online 'zine. Meanwhile, outlasting us all has been the Hull City Southern Supporters' publication, Tigers Eye, still going and along with afrementioned titles continuing to spread the word among the Tiger Nation. Apologies to any I've missed. It's comforting to know that at various times over the past thirty years, when things have been far from rosy in the City garden, there has always been an outlet for those wanting to try and make things just that little bit more bearable. 

So tonight, as I prepare to listen and/or read more rumblings about the state of City on 'Sports Talk' and the various social media platforms, I will simply raise a glass and wish a "Happy 30th Anniversary" to my fellow "purveyors of subversive literature" at #hcafc. Cheers and thanks for the memories!