WHAT IS GROUNDTASTIC?

THE BACKGROUND

Groundtastic is a magazine dedicated to the ever changing world of the football ground.  It was founded in 1995 by Vince Taylor, Jon Weaver and Paul Claydon.  The first edition went on sale in March of that year and since then the magazine has been produced on a quarterly basis to coincide with the seasons of Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring.  The magazine is the only one in the UK solely dedicated to football grounds and has built up a reputation as a source of information on all grounds whether new, old or defunct.

THE PRODUCT

A typical edition of the magazine consists of 80 A5 size pages which are packed with news, information and up to date photographs of new developments.  There are also regular pages concentrating on news from the Premiership and Nationwide League, Non-League, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Europe and the rest of the world.  Features include 'Run Aground' which is a desert island discs type look at the favourite grounds of certain readers and Venue Master where the questions of readers are answered by our resident ground experts.  The rest of each issue is made up of a variety of articles and features on different aspects of stadiums.

THE LOGO

The illustration above shows the official Groundtastic logo.  This is actually a drawing of the famous main stand at Great Yarmouth Town's Wellesley Road ground, which is one of the oldest in the non-league football world.  We thought it was a fitting logo as it is a magnificent old stand with bags of character - something you'll be hard pressed to find in the modern 'off-the-shelf' structures of today.

THE NAME

It was thought up by the prospective editors of the magazine on the Northern League grounds weekend at Easter in 1994. What started as a 'gap in the market' discussion about the lack of a dedicated football grounds magazine, eventually led to the first issue going on sale at the annual event one year later.

THE EARLY DAYS

After the successful first issue, things moved quickly with good reviews in the football media generating masses of interest (see Do They Mean Us? for review material).  Before we knew it we had produced the first six highly successful issues.  These first issues were sold at £2 each and were simply photocopied using basic technology.  By the time we got to issue seven we knew we had to improve the print quality.  Enter Circle Services of Southend who took on the task of printing the magazine from issue seven onwards.  Gradually the quality of the magazine grew with the advent of powerful and cheap(er) personal computers.

THE FUTURE

Nothing can stand still too long in the modern age.  We aim to move with the times but still to produce a well researched and quality product at an affordable price.  There are still barely no adverts amongst our 80-odd pages and we hope top keep it that way.  Things can only be improved by the advent of the internet and E-mail as the speed of and timeliness of information can only be enhanced. 

In December 2000 we brought in a new age for the magazine with the introduction of  glossy paper and a splash of colour.  This new-look was well received with the circulation reaching 1,000 for the first time.  

At the time of writing (Nov 2003), the magazine is nearing nine years since it's inception.  Our circulation has topped 1,500 and our reputation has grown enormously.  We hope to be around for many more years yet!