Once A Tim

Fanzines homepage

Details

Started: 1990
Ended: 1995

Background

Fanzine - Once a Tim

First published in 1990, ‘Once a Tim’ came to the forefront of the Celtic fanzine scene during the bitter fight to oust the Kelly and White dynasty from the Parkhead boardroom. It was begun with the sole aim of working for an overhaul of the then Biscuit Tin board at Celtic who were dragging the club down, it was the days of ‘Sack the Board‘.

Along with fellow fanzine ‘Not The View‘, ‘Once A Tim’ was a fierce & merciless critic of the Biscuit Tin board, and the fanzine’s founder Matt McGlone would go on to become a prominent member of the Celts For Change group.

This fanzine took on a far more aggressive & belligerent stance than the more satirical/humorous ‘Not The View‘, and ‘Once a Tim’ made a name for itself with its collection of great cartoons, illustrations, interviews with players, and no nonsense articles. Never one to sit on the fence, it was very much an ‘in your face’ style of fanzine, as against the more satirical ‘Private Eye’ format that ‘Not The View‘ adopted.

It its heyday it seemed to have the most fanzine sellers around the ground, and you could hardly miss them.

The fanzine continued to be published until 1995, by which time Fergus McCann had assumed control at Celtic Park. Editor Matt McGlone decided to end the ‘Once a Time’ fanzine at this point as he believed that its role was primarily to help fight and oust the old board, and it would be wrong to keep it going in light of their aim having being achieved.

For the general support, it was a shame to see it end so prematurely as it still had a lot of life in it. The internet wasn’t around then so fanzines still played an important part in communication between the fans, so the loss of even one fanzine left a huge gap in the support.

Matt McGlone would later be invited to write for the Celtic View, and later launched the Alternative View magazine.

Links