When Saturday Comes

September 2008 front cover, featuring Cristiano Ronaldo, Emmanuel Adebayor and Frank Lampard
Editor	Andy Lyons
Categories	Sport
Frequency	Monthly
Circulation	12,365[1]
Publisher	Richard Guy[2]
First issue	March 1986 (40 years ago) (1986-03)
Company	When Saturday Comes Ltd
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Website	www.wsc.co.uk

When Saturday Comes (WSC) is a British independent monthly magazine about association football. Founded in 1986 as a fanzine, it developed into a nationally distributed monthly magazine within two years.^[3]

The magazine emerged from the British football fanzine movement of the 1980s and has retained an emphasis on football from the perspective of supporters rather than clubs, governing bodies or the football industry. Its articles combine reporting and commentary with humour, satire and coverage of the social, political and cultural aspects of the game.^[4][5]

WSC has been identified by journalists and academics as influential in the development of modern British sports journalism and supporter culture. Contemporary academic work on football fanzines treated WSC and the emerging supporter movement as examples of supporters challenging established representations and structures within football,^[6] while later research has credited the magazine with helping to establish a knowledgeable, humorous and sometimes political form of football writing which influenced the wider national discussion of the sport.^[5]

WSC is edited by Andy Lyons, who developed the magazine with founder Mike Ticher during its early years.^[7] Ffion Thomas is deputy editor.^[8]

History

Editorial approach and influence

From its foundation, WSC positioned itself as an alternative to conventional football reporting. Its model was based on contributions by supporters and freelance writers rather than primarily on access to players, managers and clubs. The magazine continues to commission both professional journalists and amateur writers, including supporters writing about their own clubs and experiences.^[14]

A 2006 profile in The Guardian described the magazine's approach as "bottom up" football journalism and reported that senior newspaper sports editors regarded its supporter's-eye perspective as having influenced mainstream coverage. Guardian sports editor Ben Clissitt said that it had changed reporting of football by introducing the type of conversations supporters had after matches into newspaper coverage, while sports editors at the Daily Mail and The Independent also credited it with changing the portrayal of football supporters.^[4]

Ronay has similarly argued that the magazine's importance was less a matter of direct commercial expansion than its wider influence on football writing. In a 2011 retrospective he wrote that the fanzine culture popularised by WSC helped establish a style combining humour, critical scrutiny of football institutions and references to other areas of popular culture.^[3] A 2016 retrospective linked the magazine and the wider fanzine movement to the subsequent growth of football blogs, fan websites and more politicised forms of football commentary.^[7]

In 2019, Ronay described WSC as the only independent national football magazine to have survived the sport's major commercial expansion. He also highlighted its early coverage of subjects that later became prominent in mainstream football journalism, including institutional racism, the politics and governance of international football, and gambling's relationship with the sport.^[13]

A 2021 Guardian history of the relationship between football and British popular culture identified the emergence of WSC in 1986 as an important point in bringing football fanzine culture into the mainstream. Football historian David Goldblatt described its arrival as part of a change in the language and sensibility through which football was discussed.^[15]

The magazine has also continued to be discussed in academic studies of football culture. A study published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies described WSC as having pioneered knowledgeable, humorous and occasionally political football writing and argued that its supporter-centred approach helped shape a sports media culture in which supporters were treated as knowledgeable participants rather than simply consumers.^[5]

These assessments place WSC within a broader change in English football culture beginning in the 1980s, in which independent fanzines and organisations such as the Football Supporters' Association created new outlets for supporter opinion at a time when supporters had comparatively little representation within the mainstream media or football's governing structures.^[6]

Contributors

WSC has traditionally combined articles by football supporters with work by professional writers and journalists. Its open-submission model remains part of its editorial policy, and the magazine states that amateur and first-time writers are considered alongside established journalists.^[16]

A number of writers who later became prominent in British sports journalism published early work in the magazine. These include David Conn, Barney Ronay and Harry Pearson.^[10][17] Ronay later worked for the magazine before becoming a senior sports writer and columnist at The Guardian.^[13]

Other notable writers to have contributed include Nick Hornby, John Peel and Mark E. Smith.^[3] Hornby's contributions pre-dated the publication of his football memoir Fever Pitch, which became one of the best-known books associated with the changing cultural status of English football during the 1990s.^[4]

Comedian and television presenter Josh Widdicombe contributed numerous articles and reviews to WSC before becoming widely known as a comedian. His work for the magazine included historical season reviews, features on lower-league football and book reviews.^[18][19]

Andy Burnham, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in July 2026, also wrote for the magazine. In December 1997, while working in politics but before entering Parliament, Burnham contributed an article about proposals to move Everton F.C. from Goodison Park.^[20] Burnham later founded Supporters Direct, an organisation promoting supporter involvement and ownership of football clubs; Supporters Direct subsequently merged with the Football Supporters' Federation to form the present-day Football Supporters' Association.^[21] Burnham became Prime Minister on 20 July 2026.^[22]

The magazine has continued to use contributions from supporters who do not work professionally as journalists. Its annual writers' competition, established in 2012 in memory of contributor David Wangerin, is restricted to entrants who do not make their living from football writing.^[23]

Other media

Alongside the print magazine, WSC operates a website containing selected articles, reviews and material from its archive. Its digital archive contains every issue from the magazine's launch in 1986 onwards.^[24]

The When Saturday Comes podcast was launched in late 2019. It features editor Andy Lyons and writer Harry Pearson with host Daniel Gray, with deputy editor Ffion Thomas contributing previews of the magazine.^[9] By 2026 the magazine reported that the podcast had reached more than 70,000 listeners.^[1]

The WSC Supporters' Club operates through Patreon, providing additional podcast episodes and other material while helping fund the magazine.^[10] In 2022, WSC also began holding live events, including events at non-League football clubhouses.^[9]

The magazine maintains a photography archive documenting football grounds, supporters and other aspects of football culture, and publishes a weekly email newsletter.^[9]

References

External links

• Official website
• The Guardian: "When Saturday Comes – eyes and ears of football, and voice of the fans"
• The Guardian: "When Saturday Comes still shooting from football's fringes"
• The Guardian: "When Saturday Comes in peril should bother everyone who cares about football"