Backpass Magazine has a Herefordshire Connection

Are you one of those football fans that likes to reminisce over the good old days? If so, a new football magazine might bring back even more memories.

Backpass, the retro football magazine, was launched last Autumn and issue 4 was recently released. And unusually for any magazine, let alone a football magazine, it is based in Herefordshire.

Bulls News recently caught up with the editor Mike Berry who lives near Kington, not too far from Edgar Street.

Our first question was to ask how Backpass came into existence.

It was my idea, spawned from too many nights in the pub reminiscing about football in the ‘old days’. It was launched in October 2007, but only available on subscription or through the post for the first three issues. Issue 4 (Summer 2008) is now available in newsagents, including selected WH Smith shops. Early sales have been very encouraging.

Before Backpass did you have a connection with football:

I had a season with Shrewsbury Town as a schoolboy, and then played non-League football (as a striker) for Banbury United and VS Rugby (now Rugby Town). I have been a journalist for 28 years, and during that time I covered Northampton Town for over 10 years (I saw the famous Sunday game at the County Ground in 1992 in which Hereford had four players sent off) and then wrote for the Daily Telegraph.

Kington seems miles away from the world of football. What brought you to the area?

My partner and myself have bought a small cottage we are doing up. I covered plenty of cricket in Herefordshire in the 1990s (I used to write on Minor Counties for many years) and I took a real liking to the area.

So what is Backpass:

It is a serious, quarterly retro magazine dedicated to football in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. We have numerous football ‘celebrities’ now subscribing to the magazine, including the likes of Graham Taylor, John Motson etc. Among our regular features are Memories (of former players), Remembered (a tribute to a late player), Cup Classics, Foreign Fields (famous European games), Reporting for Duty (the first-hand account of covering football during the period), On the Spot (a question and answer session with a former player), Dream Team (the all-time best XI of a notable footballing personality), Programme Collection (a feature on a programme from the 60s, 70s or 80s), Great TV Goals of the Seventies and Eighties, Insight (a personal look at a team from the period through the eyes of one of the players), Season in Focus (two to four pages on one season), Obituaries and much, much more. Amongst those former players who have featured in the first year are Charlie George, Chris Chilton, Frank Large, Gary Sprake, Chris Kelly, Just Fontaine, Phil Neale (the cricketer-footballer not the Liverpool full-back) Ted MacDougall, Bobby Smith, Terry Conroy, Peter Storey, Willie Johnston, Colin Bell, Alan A’Court, Adrian Heath, Chris Nicholl, Malcolm Macdonald, Alan Birchenall and Ricky George. More details can be found on the website at www.backpassmagazine.co.uk Issue 5 is due out in October and will have a feature on ex-Hereford player Tony Larkin, currently in Beijing as the manager of the England Blind Team at the Paralympics.

How do you decide what to publish:

I decide and commission all the articles, though I have a small editorial team who come up with a lot of good ideas.

You mentioned you had approached Hereford United about publicity for Backpass:

I wrote to both the manager and the secretary asking if they would be kind enough to publicise a two-page Ricky George article (in Issue 3) in the club programme. As you never knew about the magazine, I can only assume it was never mentioned!

Are you a Hereford United supporter - (if not shame on you living near Kington!)

No I am a Leicester City fan, though don’t see them too often these days. I watched Hereford regularly as a journalist, mainly when they played Northampton Town.

You'll have a chance to see both teams when Leicester City visit Edgar Street on April 11th:

I'll look forward to the game.

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