If you want to read considered opinions about why <insert name of manager> should be sacked, or why <insert name of player> should be loaned to MK Dons as punishment for poor performances, then you are on the wrong website. If we can turn it into a joke, then that’s a different matter!
Print History:
The first issue of Up The Arse! was published in October 1992.
It consisted of items originally written for The Gooner‘s North Bank Times, which the editor didn’t think were funny enough. Looking back, we have to concede he was right!
However, undaunted by this rejection, two parody fanzines, “One-Nil Down, Three One Down” and “The Goner“, were also written and handed out free to an unsuspecting audience. Bizarrely people seemed to like them so we wondered what would happen if we asked them to pony up cash for more.
The working title of the pilot issue was “…And Going Off Is Number 11” – a reference to Anders Limpar constantly being substituted. In hindsight that would have been a rubbish name but thank goodness we didn’t go with the bloke who sat in front of the editor in the East Lower at Highbury who would shout “Come on the Arse!” every game. That would have just been gratuitous filth!
We’ve had fun over the years. Our run in with Hewlett Packard made the computer press and led to them dumping their sponsorship of T*ttenh@m H*tspur*.
* Editor’s note: This may not be 100% accurate, but it’s how we like to remember it.
Other successes include:
- The editor reviewing Spurs web sites on BBC Radio Five’s “Big Byte”
- Successfully surviving the bad taste cover of issue 9
- Avoiding arrest when a Policeman objected to the editor shouting out “Up The Arse, Only 50p”
- Outing Kate Hoey as a Cockney Red in Private Eye.
- Dodging the threat issued in front of several Police Officers by Alan Esparza of the “Arsenal Action Group” (sic) to burn the editor’s house down over an article in issue 36.
- Getting ourselves on the blocked email list of the Premier League’s lawyers.
Web History:
The web site was started in December 1995 when we were the first Arsenal Fanzine on the web. The original pages were on CompuServe! We moved to Demon Internet in September 1996 and relocated to Active 24 in August 2000, mostly because they weren’t based in the UK and so permiting the Arkell vs Pressdram defence when confronted by angry readers, organisers of top division football leagues and enormous multinational computer companies making threats remove our jokes from the internet.
Our Spurs Clock made its first appearance in 2000. We expect it to still be running in 2061.
Criticism is always welcome. We need a laugh at this difficult time.