Twenty-one years ago popular STAND fanzine was established because Doncaster Rovers were teetering on the edge of existence, and our founding editor believed ‘the other fanzines that were around were being too easy on the club’s owners and its plight.’ In short, we were set up to speak up and to speak out against those who didn’t uphold what the game and what our clubs were about. Continue reading “Twenty isn’t plenty in football’s unending banterfication”
Last summer, as I sat down to attempt to write an article for this fanzine, a retweet appeared in my twitter timeline. It had a picture on it, a picture of a grin in a suit, pointing at a massive yellow screen, smugness and glee smeared over his face like birthday cake on a toddler, as he gestured at a number. Continue reading “On Deadline Day, Banter and all-out Greed”
As I sat down to write this, a retweet appeared in my timeline. The picture within it showed a grin in a suit, pointing at a huge yellow screen, genuine smugness on his face as he gestures at a number. £800,550,000. An obscene amount of money. The national debt of Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic combined. And, ludicrously, the amount spent by Premier League football clubs in the latest transfer window. With three hours still to go. This isn’t football; it’s commodities trading. Continue reading “Why Non-League Day will always be more important than Deadline Day”
At the start of Doncaster Rovers’ fixture at Hillsborough earlier this month the Radio Sheffield commentary team voiced their surprise that the entirety of the upper tier of the Leppings Lane End was not completely awash with red and white hoops. Mickey Walker couldn’t believe that the away end was not packed out for a derby game. However, Walker’s opinion, and that of the match commentator, had been voiced with no knowledge of the prices Rovers supporters had been asked to pay. £29 or £30 for adults and £18 for juniors is quite frankly a ludicrous price to be asked to pay for a lower second tier fixture between two teams from the second poorest county in the UK. And, it was a price which rightly many Rovers fans refused to pay. Continue reading “Not Going Away; On The Cost of Watching Football”
Issue 60 of the fanzine went on sale at Saturday’s game against Shrewsbury. As a taster to what you will have missed if you failed to get your hands of a copy we bring you Glen Wilson’s editorial on modern football pricing and consumerism. Continue reading “Editorial: Finding value for money”
popular STAND fanzine 