FROM OUR EDITOR
So much for a newsletter ... Josh Easby I feel like the bloke on television’s Grand Designs who tried to explain how his multi– storeyed mansion came about: “I was building a shed and just got carried away.” This 40–page digital magazine started out as a newsletter for members of Friends of Football. Now that FoF is firmly established and starting to grow its membership, our committee decided we should work harder to communicate our activities. Up went a website — it’s at www.friendsoffootballnz.com for those who want to check it out. We began a Facebook group (just search for Friends of Football NZ). But we knew it was time to start a newsletter. Such is the enthusiasm for Friends of Football among its committee, the ideas came rolling in. We could include stories about events we’ve got coming up. We should highlight any milestones achieved by people in our sport and recognise them. After all, one of our group’s aims
is to celebrate the successes of people in football. Building and preserving the heritage of our sport is important to us, so any newsletter should try to remember the past, and in a positive way. And we should give readers the opportunity to see some of the best stories and photographs from publications and match programmes around the country. Yes, it was going to be some newsletter! FANZ is the result of our enthusiasm and our ideas. Thanks to modern technology, we have been able to create a digital magazine that we hope will have a wider audience than those who are members of Friends of Football. We hope it wins the support of the football fraternity, especially those who publish match programmes or take
www.friendsoffootballnz.com
OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF FRIENDS OF FOOTBALL
photographs at matches — we want them to share their best work us, so we can reproduce it here. We’ve done this in this, our inaugural issue, by reproducing Enzo Giordani’s excellent feature on Newmarket Park, in which he made good use of photographs by Dave Barker when the Park was in its prime. We’ve also included a guest column from Football Dad, a writer whose identity is closely guarded in the Waikato/Bay of Plenty where he shares his parental footballing dilemmas with readers of The Range, which is WaiBOP United’s matchday magazine. So if you have content you want to share through us, don’t be shy — contact me at josh@ hurricane–press.co.nz. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the first issue of FANZ. And feel free to tell your footy mates about our newsletter ...
facebook.com/friends of football nz 3