Firstly, regular listeners of my podcast will know I’m launching a new (old) football podcast next month.
The new show can be followed on both Twitter @shortswereshort and Instagram @shortswereshort
I knew the project would be a challenge because I’m going to be shining a light on lots of unfamiliar stories from that near 40-year window in football history the show is covering, along with more familiar tales. In terms of the unfamiliar, some are proving a challenge, albeit one I’m relishing. Of course, I’m going into this knowing many of the protagonists have either passed on or are very elderly now, but I wanted to enlist help to see if anyone who read boys’ comics in the 1980s, more specifically DC Thomson’s short-lived Champ, which ran from 1984-85 and featured the seminal football strip We Are United.
If the great Barrie Tomlinson’s work with Tiger and Roy of the Rovers showed him to be The Sopranos of UK football comic strips, then We Are United was The Wire. A more acquired taste perhaps, very different to anything that had come before it. I am keen to speak to those involved with the strip but am not having much joy. I know the artist Peter Fox has returned to Australia these days, does no press and doesn’t even have a PC. If it wasn’t for the fact I’m keen to talk to him, I’d admire his aversion to engage.
Meantime, DC Thomson have come back to me and told me the Champ editor was Peter Clark. I interviewed Peter back in 2003 when he was still at DC Thomson, and he kindly sent me quite a few We Are United stories produced after the comic’s premature demise, telling me he’d based it on Man Utd during the Tommy Doc era when they tumbled out of the top flight. 17 years on, my curiosity in that strip remains undimmed and I’m determined to bring it to the attention of a new audience, but 17 years is a long time ago now and he’s obviously left DC Thomson or more likely retired. There are of course hundreds of Peter Clarks on LinkedIn. Meantime, the writer was F. Baker. They have no more details for them and even if they did, couldn’t give them to me because of the Data Protection Act.
So I’m looking to see if there are any comic historians out there who might be able to shed light on this and put me on the right path to tracking down these both Peter Clark and F. Baker. Perhaps you can recommend some sites I can post my query on? With DC Thomson based in Dundee, it could be Peter Clark is still living up there. F. Baker, I have no idea.
If you can help, please message me on Twitter or drop me an email shortswereshort
