Shoot- a classic football magazine celebrates 50th anniversary.

Shoot- a classic football magazine celebrates 50th anniversary.

For those devoted followers of football magazines the 50th anniversary of 'Shoot' may well have caught us unawares. Some of us discovered the joys and charms of football magazines in the mid 1970s because in most cases we were the ones who longed for Thursday mornings when the magazine was ready to be picked up from the local newsagents. It was a weekly ritual and one we had no resistance to. We'd caught the bug and it had entered our bloodstream willingly.

We were the ones who couldn't wait for the following season's Football League ladders if only to find out whether our team were still in the same division as the one that had finished the previous season. It would prove to be the healthiest of addictions. Sadly 'Shoot' went the way of most of its contemporaries, a spiralling descent into obscurity never to be seen again.

Then one day Shoot lost its attacking edge, the 21st century arrived with a vengeance and Shoot disappeared from the shelves from our local sweet shops. The magazine had lost its marketing battle and the advent of fanzines had suddenly taken its place in the popular affections of football crazy male teenagers. We can only lament the passing of Shoot since it was the one football magazine that was easy to read, accessible and identifiable. We knew the players as intimately as our family, the uncles who would slump in sleepy armchairs on a Sunday afternoon and knew exactly the identity of the barber who used to cut Kevin Keegan's afro hair.

 The language was straight from the hip, no nonsense and uncompromising rather like those hard as nails characters such as Norman Hunter and Billy Bremner, both Leeds United defensive battleships who loved nothing better than a straightforward case of aggro, fisticuffs and the kind of physical engagement where grudges were permanently harboured and some of the more seemingly villainous types would wait outside football ground car parks in the hope of handing out sweet revenge.

There were fascinating articles about teams, players, managers, cheeky vagabonds, misfits, extroverts and playboys as well as the quiet and retiring types who might have preferred an evening of wine, classical music or chess. We loved Shoot because it was simple, totally without airs or graces and it reached out to football youngsters with the kind of hard hitting and well researched prose that only the boys from our neighbourhood could relate to.

In the early days there were columns from Kevin Keegan and Gerry Francis, Gordon Hill and Andy Gray in later editions. Both Keegan, Francis, Hill and Gray invariably pulled no punches with their often meaty but highly amusing opinions which often caught the mood of the nation at the time. Keegan was dynamic, busy, constantly involved at the heart of most of Liverpool's most vibrant attacking movements and always running at defences as if his life depended on it.

Then there was Gerry Francis, QPR's midfield general who controlled the middle of a football pitch in the way that the leader of a well drilled army would set out his very specific orders. Francis was Queens Park Rangers metronome, forever judging important matches, seeking space and then spraying those measured passes to his colleagues as if nature had ordained it.

Francis was also England captain and even though England manager at the time Don Revie was in the middle of a Saudi Arabia desert scheming his way out of England, Francis would  never let anybody down. In Shoot magazine Francis would deliver a weekly helping of good, old fashioned stories of young players who needed just a little encouragement and those whose potential would leave Francis breathless.

But right at the back of the magazine there was one constant that always left us with a faint chuckle or the gentlest of giggles. Every week one player from any of the old divisions one, two, three or four would be consulted on their favourite things in life. In the most hilarious of pen portraits, the varied and immensely talented likes of Alan Hudson, Tony Currie, Johnny Giles, Charlie Cooke, Sammy Nelson, Frank Worthington, Peter Bonetti and Peter Osgood would all unhesitatingly volunteer their favourite TV programmes, their preferred choice of food, music, clothes, animals and all of those outrageous celebrities who either infuriated or delighted us.

Regrettably though Shoot is no longer with us, a football magazine that seems to have passed its sell by date and no longer held in the high esteem that it used to be. Those were the halcyon days of  lovably colourful League ladders, the much anticipated fixture lists that some of us couldn't wait to get to hold of. Now we too could read about  the lighter side of the The Beautiful Game, often the comical and the farcical with a delicate garnish of the enlightening and the informative.

Now of course there is the still widely available and likeable fanzine known as 'When Saturday Comes'. 'When Saturday Comes' is a superbly intelligent and hugely engaging magazine with a deeply knowledgeable take on the modern game. Some have regarded 'When Saturday Comes' as one of those cutting edge and alternative football magazines where football fans with a genuine passion for the game are given the most comfortable platform to express both their views and innermost feelings.

There remains Match magazine, similar in format and design in as much that those teenagers that Match is targeted at are often the ones who want the very latest football news. It is one of those laid back, relaxed and frivolous reads with a gossipy, no holds barred language which continues to appeal to a captive readership who love to know all about their heroes favourite mobile phones are how many FIFA computer games they may have in their possession.

So there you have it. Shoot football magazine is 50 years old and the choice of the late and legendary England captain Bobby Moore as its first front cover, does bring a tear to the eye. While Moore was wiping his hand before lifting the World Cup for England, somebody must have been dreaming of the day when Moore's face would so rightly adorn the front cover for a boys football magazine. How far sighted they must have been. Certainly a genius.