It may surprise you that at the British Library we collect one copy of everything that is published in the UK and Ireland. From bestsellers to blogs and manuscripts to maps. This even includes football fanzines.
Our Boston Spa site, near Wetherby, is home to around three quarters of our collection of 170 million items – a collection that grows at a rate of around 8 km of shelving every year.
As well as making sure people have the chance to use and explore this collection in our Reading Rooms at Boston Spa and London, we’re opening up our collection further for everyone to enjoy in West Yorkshire with a programme of co-produced exhibitions, events and learning activities in the region.
In mid-2022 we conceived an idea to develop an exhibition focused on football fanzines that platformed the power of grassroots media and fan voices in sport. Using this to help widen understanding of the sheer scope of what the British Library holds, and how all types of publications are important to libraries and wider culture.
This resulted in Voice of the Fans, an exhibition co-produced by us and Leeds Libraries, that explored over 60 years of football fan-made media. It was important that the voices of creators and fans were at the heart of the exhibition. So, we assembled a diverse exhibition advisory group with local and national representation including zine editors and contributors. Leeds Libraries also recruited local volunteers to help research their own zine collections and to provide further fan insight – the volunteers have since won two national awards for this work.
The exhibition brought together Leeds Libraries’ and the British Library’s collections, including digital items that people may not realise libraries hold. Aside from printed material, the British Library is also home to the UK Web Archive, which collects many fan-led football websites which have emerged over more recent years. The Library’s Sound Archive also holds community radio programmes which cover local clubs at grassroots level.
Voice of the Fans showcased the influential role fan-led media has had on the game itself and how it’s viewed in wider society, media and publishing. These grassroots publications have also been a training ground for many people who later went on to become well-known professional journalists, authors, cartoonists and academics, including David Squiers and Irvine Welsh whose work featured in the exhibition.
Across the three-month run (9 May – 10 August 2025), we welcomed nearly 11,000 visitors to the exhibition and an additional 472 people to related events. The exhibition was also featured in national press including BBC Radio 4, The Athletic and When Saturday Comes.
However, we were always keen that the exhibition would be seen by an even wider audience. A pop-up display of panels from the exhibition has been touring branch libraries across Leeds since autumn 2025 and has been seen by over 9,000 more people. Most recently, the pop-up exhibition has been part of Bradford Literature Festival, which also hosted another Voice of the Fans-themed event. A version of the panel display is also currently on show in the Entrance Hall at the British Library in St Pancras, increasing national reach of the Leeds-developed exhibition and a fitting legacy to the project.
We’ve been really inspired by all the connections we made with football fans and fan-media makers, producers and creators, past and present, during the development of Voice of the Fans. Their input was integral and the resulting exhibition is a testament to the enduring power of football’s most passionate storytellers. We’re delighted to have been able to raise awareness of this important form of publishing and the role of libraries in preserving and sharing grassroots and independent publications, past, present and long into the future.
By Kenn Taylor, Senior Culture Manager North, British Library