If, like me, you remember the Green’Un Saturday night football paper, printed in Ipswich, you probably do so with fondness.
It was a regular read and fun part of Saturday evening and Sunday morning for many fans of football, both professional and non-league in Suffolk and north Essex – and for a period of years I was editor of it.
Looking back, it was a happy time for me and the many who worked on what was a close-knit Green’Un team. Saturday night sports papers were the norm then, some originating as early as 1910. And they were all over the country, from Manchester to Portsmouth, Ipswich to Sheffield, Norwich to Sunderland.
And back then, while much of the paper was put together during the week, it was always a feverous Saturday afternoon that followed as the last few pages were ‘put to bed’ – live match reports involving not just Ipswich Town and Colchester United but masses of non-league reports t’boot.
It was 1997 I was appointed editor of the Green'Un in Ipswich and from then on, five years of fun and frolics followed – I was lucky enough to be editor at a time when George Burley's Blues got promoted into the then Premiership in 2000 and finished fifth a year later. Great results on the way to Wembley 2000, then even greater ones a season later... halcyon days.
Not that the Green’Un was all Ipswich Town.
Non-league played a very big part in its success and I’m still convinced that while the paper, which was out on the streets by 6.15pm on a Saturday night, didn’t contain every single local football result, it certainly contained more local match reports that one can find now, either in print or on-line on a Saturday night at the same time.
However, it was Ipswich Town’s success (or not) that determined big shifts in sales.
One of my highlights as editor was when Ipswich Town beat Norwich City 5-0 at Portman Road in a Division One clash.
It was February 1998 and the Blues and Canaries played on a Saturday afternoon back then – perfect Green’Un timing! An Alex Mathie first-half hat-trick put Town on their way to one of the best Derby Day victories ever. Bobby Petta nabbed two in the second half.
The front page poster page that happy Saturday night was ‘BLUE HEAVEN’, with Mathie and Matt Holland starring joyfully down the camera of our Green’Un snapper who was positioned perfectly for such a celebration. It was pure joy.
That night we upped the print circulation run from 14K to 18K and nearly sold the lot.
Ipswich Town’s relationship with the Green’Un was always strong and we had many players write columns for us on a regular basis, including Mark Venus, Mathie, Marcus Stewart, Richard Wright dabbled a couple of times and Kieron Dyer – who continued to write for the paper, even after he had been sold to Newcastle for £6m.
We just changed the name of the column from ‘Special K’, to ‘Haway the Lad!’
One interesting story from that time was when Kieron called me from his hotel room as he waited to be picked up for what turned out to be his England debut versus Luxembourg in 1999.
He had just left Town that summer and we hadn't spoken that week because he was on England duty. But he called that lunchtime and we quickly did his column right there and then, before he went on to star for England that afternoon. Would that happen today? No!
Alan Brazil, a well known host of Talk Sport these days and former Ipswich Town star striker, began his journalistic career with a column in the Ipswich Green'Un.
Many Ipswich and Colchester players used to get the Green'Un on a regular basis, George Burley and David Sheepshanks were avid readers. And although I don't know for certain, I would think many Ipswich Town managers used to read what was considered the 'football bible' in Suffolk.
Indeed, for 85 years the Green’Un, or Football Star as it was originally called, delighted and informed Ipswich, Suffolk and East Anglia’s football folk.
Back at Carr Street, in Ipswich in the ‘50s and ‘60s, huge queues were readily formed as the Football Star rolled off the presses on a Saturday night, at the old East Anglian Daily Times offices in the town.
For many people, it was the first time they knew how Ipswich Town had got on! For most, it was certainly a first look at that day’s national and local results.
Well loved and well respected, a move onto green newsprint from the original white heralded a new name, Green’Un, and it wasn’t until green newsprint was considered ‘environmentally unfriendly’, as well as expensive, did it revert back to white newsprint in the ‘90s.
Contributors of non-league club notes from all over north Essex and Suffolk, with nom-de-plumes such as ‘Rhode Island Red’, ‘The Ploughman’ and ‘Ben The Dog’, delighted with their contributions on a weekly basis, as well as a mass of ‘junior notes’, from clubs in the lower echelons of non-league.
Youth football was getting bigger too and it proved an ideal opportunity to print youth team photographs and match reports.
I had realised the importance of non-league at a very early stage of my editorship and I was also fortunate because my deputy was the experienced Neal Manning who, despite covering the halcyon days of Ipswich Town through the Bobby Robson era and an exciting spell as Colchester United reporter when the U’s were in the Conference, was now reporting on non-league. And he never did anything by halves.
If he was covering non-league, Ipswich Town or Colchester United, then he gave it both barrels – and I loved him for it.
I was invariably always in the office on a Saturday afternoon and Neal was always at a non-league game, so we used to go out on a Tuesday night together to watch a non-league match and meet committees, players, managers and chairmen – many of whom I still have good contact with today.
Yes, back then you didn’t wait for a ‘tweet’ to tell you the news, you went and met people and found it.
In non-league circles, the FA Vase was an important competition, but became very special in my eyes. Again, I didn’t know much about it when I took over as editor, but soon got into it and enjoyed it thoroughly.
The region had huge success in the competition too and I covered five finals, three with AFC Sudbury, one with Tiptree United and one with Lowestoft Town throughout the 2000s, sadly never seeing one of them victorious.
When AFC Sudbury met Tiptree in the Vase semi-final of 2002 – with one obviously guaranteed to be in the final, myself and Dave Vincent - another esteemed Green’Un colleague - took sides to promote each club... I was on Tiptree’s side... And ‘we’ won 2-0 on aggregate to get to Villa Park and the final against Whitley Bay – which ‘we’ lost 0-1.
But it wasn’t just about the Vase finals at the likes of White Hart Lane, the Boleyn Ground and the new Wembley Stadium, among others, I was on Vase duty in earlier rounds too, at the likes of Devizes, in Wiltshire, with Maldon Town and Ampthill Town, near Luton, with Hadleigh among many Vase journeys made over the years.
One Vase highlight I remember and a big coup for me as editor involved Sudbury Town and Sudbury Wanderers before their merger in 1999.
Neal and colleague Elvin King both covered the two Sudbury's Vase clashes on the same afternoon with Town and Wanderers at home in the last 16. Our photographer Warren Page skipped at half-time from the Priory Stadium, where Town were playing then, to Brundon Lane, where Wanderers were in action.
It made two double-page spreads that evening and was hailed in the business at Archant as ‘brilliant’ local football coverage for a Saturday night sports paper.
And we got more sales, as you can imagine..
The FA Cup wasn’t as big, or as financially important in the early millennium as it is to our non-league clubs today, while it is only in recent times the FA Trophy has become more prominent in Suffolk, with so many clubs moving up the pyramid.
Non-league remains close to my heart and if I had a quid everytime someone has stopped me at a ground and said, 'can’t you bring that Green’Un back, Mike?,' I’d be a rich man.
Sadly, in 2008 the last print edition of the Green’Un, here in Ipswich ended and with it went something that will never be replaced.
Around the country Saturday night ‘Football Specials’ were knocked on the head as sales diminished and the Internet took over.
At their peak however, the Saturday Night football specials were fantastic newspapers.
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