Gunflash – The First Football Fanzine

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The History of Gunflash

Take a look at the front cover of the latest issue of Gunflash and you’ll see the following: Volume 66 Issue 570. I guess that many readers will not notice it or might glance just to make sure they’re reading the latest issue.

But think about it for a few seconds. Volume 66 means that this great magazine (or fanzine as it has popularly been reclassified) has now been around for 66 years – an amazing length of time when you consider how more contemporary fanzines have come and gone in that time.

I first saw a copy of Gunflash in the early 1980s when my one of my brother’s workmates gave me a huge pile of programmes, handbooks and the odd Gunflash (if you’re reading this, thank you Steve Gadsden). At the time I was into facts and statistics so I struggled to understand exactly what Gunflash was all about. That all changed last year when I bought a small collection of about 20 for a ridiculously cheap price on ebay. Read More →

Why Sepp Blatter Has To Go – The Arsenal Connection

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Anyone with the vaguest interest in football cannot have escaped yesterday’s news of the arrest of seven top FIFA officials on a multitude of corruption charges. For the vast majority of football fans the arrests were a shock, not because of the revelations but for the fact that it had actually happened. For years, FIFA has been the subject of many accusations of corruption, with the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals being the highest profile.

The organisation’s president, Sepp Blatter, has always managed to keep himself distanced from any alleged wrongdoing and continued to be supported by a large majority of members. However, yesterday’s arrests has to see him fall from grace. He has tried to spin the situation by saying that, although this is not good for football, it is good for FIFA that these alleged misdemeanours have been brought into the open so that they can be acted upon. He has tried to distance himself from the men that have been arrested but, and this is a big but, he has a big problem.
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The Arsenal FA Cup Media Day

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On Friday 22 May I received a surprise invite to Arsenal’s FA Cup media day on 27 May at the club’s training ground. I didn’t need too much time to consider whether or not I would be attending! This is my story of the day.

The itinerary stated that the first event would be Arsene Wenger’s press conference at 9am. I arrived about 20 minutes before this and was pleased to see some familiar faces in Tim Stillman and Goonerholic. Shortly after, Dave Seager and Darren Berry (a fellow warbler on the Arsenal unofficial 2015 FA Cup final song) turned up to form a quintet of bloggers.

Someone to talk to during the quiet moments

Someone to talk to during the quiet moments

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Interpretations of Arsenal’s Election to the First Division 1919

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Unfounded Accusations of Bribery

Mark Andrews and Andy Kelly

The keen of mind will have noticed that in the first part of this article, the name Sir Henry Norris was not mentioned once. This was because he played little part in the process of the election. In fact the really keen eyed would have noted that sitting on the committee of the Football League meeting was William Hall, equal partner in the Arsenal leadership. Equal, but much quieter. The pair took over Woolwich Arsenal in 1910, moving the club to Highbury and, eventually, bringing in Herbert Chapman.

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Knit your own Arsenal badge

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Well, not quite an Arsenal badge but an Arsenal Football Supporters’ Club badge.

I’ve recently been buying copies of football’s oldest fanzine – Gunflash. It has been going for more than 65 years having started in September 1949 by the Arsenal Football Supporters Club. The content of these publications is nothing short of fantastic: exclusive photographs, contributions from top journalists of the day, historical articles and a fascinating insight into Arsenal fans of yesteryear. And then there were the odd quirky items.

Gunflash - June 1950

Gunflash – June 1950

The Cup Final Souvenir Issue of June 1950 edition included a pattern to knit your own Arsenal badge.

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