When I was a kid there were plenty of football magazines on every newsagents shelves. Today there are few! Charles Buchan's Football Monthly, Shoot!, Goal have long disappeared.
The Internet revolution has certainly helped kill an industry that saw most young lads and adults rushing to the paper shop every week for their copy of Shoot! Or Goal!
Goal was the first magazine that I got on a weekly basis. It was read by children and adults and was a must read for all Soccer fans. It was an impressive publication and included some impressive pictures to go along with the various articles it published. It ran into the late 70's when it was eventually merged with Shoot! In the nineties a short lived magazine using the same title could be found on news stands.
Shoot! Had already swallowed Football Star and now had merged with its main competitor. If featured Star writers such as Billy Bremner, Kevin Keegan and Alan Ball. Every pre Season I would rush to get the issue that gave away the free league ladders. This was a gift given annually during all of it years as a weekly.
Shoot! Eventually moved to a monthly format like another magazine it incorporated, Soccer Monthly! The final print editions were when it returned as a weekly, but as a poster magazine aimed at younger fans of the game! Shoot! is now an online magazine available by subscription.
Match Weekly launched as a rival to to Shoot! and for many years had a similar format, however a glance at today's version will show that it's gone down the poster magazine route.
Match of the Day used to be a monthly magazine based at the older reader, it's now too a poster magazine for kids.
Ninety minutes was a shirt lived magazine in the nineties at a time when weekly publications were starting to be hit by advances in online technology.
Today apart from kids poster magazines, the choice is between long established titles such Four, Four Two and World Soccer or independently produced titles like When Saturday Comes and Late Tackle! Some clubs do produce their own glossies too.
How I do miss Goal!
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