Sad demise of a piece of history

SAD news arrives that the oldest football publication in the world may cease to be after over three centuries of publishing.

What is now the Nationwide Football Annual began in 1887 as The Athletic News Football Supplement and Club Directory, just 16 pages and no little gamble given the first Football League season wasn’t until 1888. Yet it endured. It became The Sunday Chronicle Annual in 1946, The Empire News Annual in 1956, The News of the World Annual in 1965 and carried Nationwide’s name from 2008.

It’s a Football Yearbook that can be kept in the pocket; four by six inches and now over 500 pages, carrying fixtures, squads, records, international caps, a whole plethora of information. And, yes, the internet has probably done for it. But excuse the nostalgia. Anyone with a copy of the 1984-85 edition may see a name they recognise as that year’s editor. I had just started at Hayters Sports Agency and it fell on me to put together what was then The News of the World Football Annual. It involved long days at a printing house in Dorking, where it was being compiled. A lot of responsibility for a 21-year-old but, thankfully, there was a template.

Many of the pages in books of records don’t change. The list of England matches won’t alter apart from a dozen or so games at the end. Same with the roll of title winners, or FA Cup holders. So you copy over from the previous year, but add a new line here or there.

And while the fixtures change, the format in which they appear doesn’t. So you copy that, too.

This is how the fixtures for the 1984-85 season in the 1984-85 annual — which were correct — came to be published beneath the headline FIXTURES 1983-84.

It’s a miracle, really, this journalism career of mine. Anyway, budding publishers should contact Randall Northam at randall@sportsbooks.ltd.uk if they fancy becoming part of football history.

And don’t worry, I’m not offering to edit.