Fan media - problem or solution

Harry discusses how in different ways, fan media has become part of the problem for both of Glasgow's big 2 clubs.

It’s Saturday, the 12th of September, at Ibrox. Rangers have just lost 2-0 to Hearts and Russell Martin is sitting in the press room of Ibrox Stadium. The questioning is harsh. At times it’s verging on vitriolic. The questioning is personal, it’s angry.

In days gone past, the manager would leave the chanting of the Ibrox baying mob and retreat to a press centre where the questioning would still be awkward, it would still be uncomfortable, but it would be professional. But on this day the guys asking the questions hate him and like the fans outside chanting for Martin to “get tae f’k”, these guys want him to ‘get tae f’k’ too, because these guys asking the questions are not professional scribes. This is football 2025. This is the curse of fan media.

Fan media has been around for circa 40 years. Historians may even suggest that it goes back further but the modern trend can be traced back to the fanzines of the mid-1980s, where suddenly the creation of printed magazines by the fans for the fans became accessible. And with the dawn of the internet, that morphed onto message boards, then fan sites the podcasts.