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Feature
THE ONGOING TRIALS OF A UK FOOTBALL PRINT MAGAZINE EDITOR
by Keith Bowden
3/9/2007
Michael Vick has a lot to answer for. Apart from his alleged animal cruelty – and somehow missing the point that being a multi-millionaire icon means you have to be careful who your friends are – his biggest sin, as far as I am concerned, is that he messed up my magazine.
Let me introduce myself, I am the editor of the only (now First Down has gone to the great presses in the sky) NFL and college football print magazine left in the UK (I use the word magazine somewhat liberally here, as we are a fanzine style publication).
We are nattily called FB&S;, which comes from the original Football Briefing, but with added Stuff.
The original Football Briefing began back in 1997, as a sister publication to the successful Baseball Briefing. You would have seen them if you used to visit SportsPages in London or Manchester (that has now scone, along with Fopp and BBC shops – where to shop now when visiting the capital?) The original editor, Trevor Kendall, ended it in 2005, but I offered my services, and he let me take over. I have been going for 36 issues now, and am entering the second season.
I took Trevor’s idea of subscribing to the Washington Post-Los Angeles Times wire (which also includes The Hartford Courant, The Baltimore Sun, New York Newsday and The Sporting News) and publishing their articles – weekly in the season, and monthly in the off. I see it as a product that you can take with you, portable if you will. I know that the net is the place to find football stuff, but you cannot take it everywhere (well unless you are dead flash). After all, when was the last time you read the internet in your smallest room (if you have a positive answer to that you might want to keep quiet about it).
I also decided to try and extend the magazine’s remit and include articles written by the readers, and we have had some great contributions – on trips to the States, card and shirt collections, and opinions in general. A forum, if you will, without all that I hate you, No I hate you stuff you get on certain online communities.
I am also the place where you can read a (hilarious, he told me to say) regular column from one Michael E Lawrence (hence him letting me write rubbish here).
I also decided to use my power and influence as a football editor (get me!) to try and talk to some UK football types. Many requests have gone unanswered, but so far I have managed to interview NFLUK MD Alistair Kirkwood (when the London game was still at the proposal stage), Gary Imlach (great despite a cold and a new set of teeth), Mike Carlson (as funny and intelligent as he is on the telly, and leading a double life as Michael Carlson), and Phil Wilding. Phil Wilding? He was co-host/producer of Phill Jupitus’ BBC 6 Music breakfast show and devoted Steeler fan. I spent a hilarious hour at a Starbucks round the corner from their studio talking football, the only problem was having to delete all the swearing from our conversation.
The readers have voted with their feet by resubscribing for another year, and lots of them have written nice things to me (I do encourage feedback, but I do ask for them to say something nice first – so perhaps they do not mean it). One reader actually said FB&S; has reached the very prestigious stage in his house of being the one product his wife has to ask his permission to recycle before she chucks it out. Trevor has also been kind enough to say “you’re doing it better than the old FB” which is very nice.
Anyway – if you are interesting in seeing this august portable publication, drop me an e-mail or snail mail and I will send you a complimentary copy.
BTW – We do not do photos (they are way too expensive). So if you are looking for posters for your wall we are not for you. We like to think of ourselves as a football magazine for people who can read.
So I will return here (if they let me) in between writing magazine stuff (I compile all the general news, and other little gems – to compliment the proper US articles) to continue to tell you the trials of a magazine editor.
Oh, I nearly forgot – Michael Vick’s sin against me. He did not have the decency to get indicted in time with my deadline. My July issue went to the press with the news that he was unlikely to be included in any charge. I very nearly included this in the headlines on the cover. By the time the mag had reached the readers (only two days later) he was indicted. Needless to say there are a few articles on him in the August issue (I could have included twenty – I restricted it to five or six).
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