WAS ON TARGET IN AGE OF
STEAKS AND DIRE STRAITS
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IN ASSOCIATION WITH
20
By
MATT
BARLOW
I
T WAS half a century
ago this week, on
August 16, less than a
month after the moon
landing and that giant
leap for mankind, when the
first edition of Shoot! hit
the shelves and launched
football fandom into
another orbit.
If that isn’t guaranteed to leave
a certain generation of football
supporters feeling nostalgic for
an era of muddy pitches, mullets
and bristling sideburns, and
depressed about the passing of
time, then nothing will.
The weekly magazine quickly
became an integral part of the
habit for those fans who grew up
in the 1970s and ’80s.
Its first edition featured Bobby
Moore on the cover, billed itself
as ‘Britain’s first all-action
soccer magazine for the young
supporter’ and cost a shilling —
that’s 5p today. And it produced
its first league ladders, an inspired
idea to produce pop-out, card
divisional tables to keep track of
the changing league positions inas Arsenal’s John Radford, who
told readers in the popular Focus
On feature how he drove a Ford
Mustang and enjoyed eating steak
in the Olympic Cafe in Neasden.
Steak was popular among pro-
fessional footballers in those days,
before they started going vegan.
As were Dire Straits and Phil Col-
lins among players in the 1980s.Most players wanted to meet
Muhammad Ali. Southampton
striker Mick Channon revealed he
would have been a racehorse
trainer if he wasn’t a footballer
and his dream was to ride the
winner in the Derby. Today, of
course, Channon is a trainer of
champion racehorses. Ever the
non-conformist, Everton’s PatNevin, when asked about the
most outrageous item in his ward-
robe in 1991, replied: ‘A short
black dress. It belongs to my wife
but she keeps it in my wardrobe.’
Vinnie Jones posed with a shot-
gun at his new £120,000 gaff in
Hemel Hempstead. All of this and
more can be found in a commem-
orative book, 50 Years of Shoot!,published by Carlton Books,
which reproduces classic pages
from the magazine, although only
up until 1992 and the arrival of
the Premier League. So, in fact,
it’s 33 years of Shoot!, but it’s
plenty of fun and provides its own
history of the game.
At its peak, the magazine was
selling 120,000 copies a week. In
2001, Shoot! became a monthly,
and then, after a brief return to a
weekly publication, in 2008 it
ceased production as a periodi-
cal. The title now exists online
only with special editions.
Competition from rivals Match
and expanding sports sections
within newspapers, coverage on
television and the internet ate
away at Shoot!’s audience and,
ultimately, limited access to stars
in the modern game, as well as
the growth of the clubs’ own
armies of in-house media,
rendered the magazine defunct.
It was a product of its time, and
what a time that was. England
were world champions and foot-
ball seemed so much simpler, and
finding out that your favourite
player’s favourite food was steak
cost only a shilling.SHOOT!
Star title: Bryan Robson with a Shoot! annual, Bobby Moore (top) adorns its first edition and
Liverpool’s Ian Rush providing an April Fool’s day cover when he ‘signed’ for Everton POPPERFOTOATION WITHr title: Bryan Robson with artitlelelee::::BrBBBrBrBrBBryayayayayannnnnRoRRoRoRRoRRobbsbsbsbsbbsbonononononwwwwwitititititititithhhhhhhhaaaaaShShShShShShShShoot!ShShoooooooooot!t!t!t!t!t!t!t!aaaaannual, Bobby Moore (top) adorns its first edition andannnnnnnnnnuauauauauallll,llllBBBBBBBBobobobobobbbbbybbybybybbbyMMMMMMMMoooooooooorerererere(((((((((ttototototottp)p)p)p)p)))))aaaaaddddododododorrrrns its first edition andan age when this was what passed
for ‘interactivity’. England were
still world champions and Moore
wrote about the season ahead
and the prospect of defending the
World Cup in Mexico.
Less than a year later and Moore’s
exclusive Shoot! column told
readers of the ‘ghastly nightmare’
which unfolded in Bogota, Colom-
bia, when he was accused of theft
and detained under house arrest
for four days when on the way to
Mexico City, before England’s
demise in the quarter-finals.
The big names rolled in for
Shoot!: managers Don Revie, Bill
Shankly and Brian Clough all
gave exclusive interviews.
George Best offered skills tips
and Kevin Keegan’s column told
the inside story on such drama as
his cycling crash on the television
show Superstars and Shankly’s
decision to quit Liverpool.
There was no other way for fans
across the land to find out the inti-
mate details of star players suchYEARS OF
SHOOT!
(^50) MAGAZINE
THE FIRST ISSUE WAS PUBLISHED
ON SATURDAY AUGUST 16 1969