Over the next few days, expect to read a multitude of odes written by bloggers from the UK regarding the demise of Shoot Magazine, the popular British football publication which owner IPC announced it would be shutting it down at the end of this month.Shoot! was a hugely popular weekly football magazine aimed at children. Launched in 1969, the magazine featured plenty of pull-out posters and was a huge hit in the 1970’s and 1980’s.Without a doubt, it’s lasting contribution to football wasn’t the magazine itself but was the infamous league ladders that were shrinkwrapped inside the summer editions in preparation for each new season of English football. The league ladders were a masterful marketing idea by Shoot. You had to purchase all of the summer issues to ensure you’d receive the blank league ladders table as well as all of the team names that had to be perforated and inserted into the tables.The concept was that you would use the league ladders throughout the season and update it as each week’s matches concluded. For all of the years I collected the league ladders, I never once made it past October. Even for a little teenager like myself at the time, it was too tedious. But every summer, I still looked forward in anticipation of getting the new league ladders.In the late 1970’s after I was first introduced to Shoot Magazine, I always looked forward to the weekday morning when the latest issue would arrive at my local newsagent. I would scour every page, rip out the posters of my favorite teams and would tape them to my bedroom wall, much to the chagrin of my mother.
However in the early 80s, I changed my allegiances from Shoot to a new magazine that was published in the UK named Match Weekly. Match featured detailed statistics in a pull-out section which was something completely new at the time. The publication took what Shoot did well but improved upon it. The irony is that Match is still around and doing well in the UK, while Shoot has now met its demise.Please share your memories of Shoot Magazine by clicking the comments link below.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Those league ladders were the best. Watching Final Score Saturday afternoon and trying to catch everything so you could update your ladder as soon as possible. I haven’t read Shoot in 20+ years (getting old now) so I’m not sure I’ll miss it (would love to find some old copies of Roy of the Rovers though…mom threw all mine out years ago).
One thing though, modern versions of the league ladders can be found here. http://www.michaelwray.co.nz/ They are spreadsheets which are really just 21st century versions of the league ladders but for big kids.
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You are a bit presumptious… Shoot is still in the shops, it just changed publisher!
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no its gone now but i now get match which is still good
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One site keeping it real is http://www.football4sale.com
You will find 100s of past football magazines on there.
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I would say that the You Are The Ref feature was terrific and an iconic image of the times as were the weekly ’signed columns by George Best, Kevin Keegan and others…
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Hola, am argentinien, I would like to know if I could find contact with an old friend of mine called Chris Davies, I know he was a journalist of the magazine SHOOT almost 27 or 28 years ago, we were great friends but we lost contact since many years ago, we stopped our connection after the Malvinas/Falklands war. If you could get me his e-mail address I will really appreciate it too much, muchas gracias !!!!!!! from Buenos Aires.
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Don’t know if this is the same Chris Davies, http://journalisted.com/christopher-davies
Good luck!
Rob
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Do you have the shoot magazine from the nottingham forest euopean cup 1989 ?
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I am writing in memory of my former room-mate, the late Mohamad Sofian Bin Yusof who was a great (you can say, ‘fanatic/obsessed’) fan of the soccer magazine-SHOOT. We were both high school students at Terengganu Science Secondary School at Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia from 1976 to 1980. While we never study in the same class, we were in the same dormitory in the Second Year (1977) and the Third Year (1978).
Mohamad Sofian’s interest in the SHOOT magazine was so great that he made sure he would not miss a single weekly edition. Through it, his knowledge about English soccer was so deep and extensive that it would put many Briton or Englishmen to shame. Unlike many who would only limit their interest to the respective team they supported or confined to established teams in the top division, Sofian’s knowledge even reached to those about the other teams in the lowest divisions as well. Friends and relatives who used to study in England told me that, with such knowledge, Sofian could have easily won a famous, big-prize Football Quiz TV Program in UK if he participated.
I have one particular fond and amusing memory of the man. As full-time school boarders then, we were allowed to go out of the school campus to town only twice a month. When Sofian had used up his quota, he would start to find people to buy the SHOOT magazine for him. Knowing this, we would intentionally and playfully hide ourselves just to give him a short ‘fright’ before giving ourselves up.
After the Fifth Year Examination (SPM-Malaysian Certificate Of Education) in 1980, we parted. I never met the man again after i went back to my home-state Sarawak. I furthered my studies in a local university. While there, i learned through our mutual friends that Sofian had died at a young age after succumbing to cancer.
I was looking for the Shoot Official Web-Site to relate my acquaintance with the unique and remarkable man. To my shock, horror and despair, I have just now learnt that the SHOOT magazine had also closed down and no longer in publication. Why?? Some kind and caring individual(s) could have muster all efforts to salvage it then. What about REVIVING it now? Because it is rich in traditions and history which should be allowed to live on and on. It meant so much to a loyal reader like Sofian and probably many others like him, too. I am pretty sure that, if Sofian were still alive today, he would be very, very sad. Thank you.
To the former publisher of the SHOOT magazine (anybody can relay to them?), if you care to express your appreciation of my late friend’s support and readership, you can also contact me through my personal cell phone number : 60-16-8734909. Hussain-Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.
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pls were can i buy the shoot monthly or weekly magazine now,pls sm 1 should help
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