Twenty years of Amber Nectar: How a brainwave at Boothferry Park became Hull City's longest-running fanzine Les Motherby and Andy Dalton have been running Amber Nectar since 1998 please log in to view this image November 29, 1997. While Hull City were lighting up an otherwise bleak season in the lower reaches of the Football League by beating Doncaster Rovers 3-0 at Boothferry Park, two of the 4,721 supporters in attendance hatched an idea from the South Stand’s terraces. “There had been a proper fanzine culture in the 1990s,” recalls Les Motherby. “I used to love things like ‘Tiger Rag’, ‘Hull, Hell and Happiness’ and ‘From Hull to Eternity’ but there seemed to be a void. “I was chatting with someone and said ‘There really needs to be another fanzine’. I didn’t mean I wanted to do one but Andy (Dalton) thought that’s what I meant. Straight away he said ‘I’ll do one with you’ and that was it. A week later we were in his mum’s kitchen trying to pull the whole thing together.” What began as a fanciful brainwave, however, has gradually turned into a City institution. Amber Nectar celebrated its 20th birthday last month and though the paper fanzines ceased printing in 2002, a dedicated website and weekly podcast continues to project the colourful opinions of Motherby and Dalton. From the depths of the Football League to the FA Cup final, Amber Nectar has been a constant plenty of fans have embraced. Such longevity is rare in the world of supporter publications and made all the more remarkable by the fact the pair were on little more than “nodding terms” when first launching midway through the 1997-98 campaign. Motherby, then 21, and Dalton, aged just 16 at Amber Nectar’s inception, had only ever seen one another at City matches or onboard Tiger Travel. please log in to view this image “It must have been a couple of months after we came up with the idea to the first fanzine coming out,” explained Dalton. “It was literally a load of photocopied sheets of paper. We had no idea if anyone would want to buy it. I think it cost us £350 for an initial run of 600 fanzines and thankfully we managed to shift them.” The first edition of Amber Nectar hit the streets ahead of City’s home game with Scunthorpe United on February 21, 1998 and its popularity soon grew. “At the time I didn’t have a job and Andy was a student so we’d be up until the early hours of the morning stapling these things together,” explained Motherby. “Then we’d on a street corner trying to flog them. It was a good feeling when they sold. “Definitely,” agreed Dalton, who had initially suggested the fanzine be titled ‘Terry Dolan’s P45’. “You’d get a buzz when someone would say ‘Is that Amber Nectar, is that a new one?’ and even more so when you’d see people reading one at half-time. Those were painful days to be a City but we tried to keep it light-hearted.” If supporters were enjoying the newly-launched fanzine during a spell that saw City flirting with relegation to non-league, the same could not always be said for the players. “After home games we’d go under the West Stand as soon as the door to the dressing room opened we’d chuck a batch in,” said Motherby. “We thought if we were going to slag them off it was only fair they had the chance to read it. “David Brown was reading one and Lee Bracey grabbed it off him and made a show of ripping it up in front of us. Marc Joseph didn’t like one edition either. We’d made it clear we didn’t rate him because he replaced Justin Whittle, who we adored, and it’s fair to say he didn’t take the criticism well.” please log in to view this image At the peak of its powers, Amber Nectar was shifting 1,000 copies of each edition but the rapid rise of the internet soon shifted the focus enough to end those print runs in 2002. “What kept us relevant was that we made the decision to set up a website almost as soon as the internet began,” added Motherby. “We stopped producing the fanzine because we got jobs and lives. I couldn’t be staying up until 3am stapling paper together. “What killed it for me was an issue after Jan Molby’s sacking where we tried to preview who would be next. We went to print and out of nowhere Peter Taylor got the job. I felt a bit of a fraud that day flogging fanzines speculating who might be next when Peter Taylor was already in the dug-out.” Dalton added: “I think you can make an even bigger impact now on the web. It’s the immediacy of it. “You’re not worrying about filling pages. We haven’t really got the time to be writing thousands of words like we used to so that’s why ‘Things we think we think’ has been a success. It’s 10 tweet-sized points just looking back at the week. We time it for Monday morning and it’s nice to see people reading it like they would do the fanzine.” please log in to view this image Perhaps Amber Nectar’s greatest triumph, however, was success at the Football Supporters’ Federation awards in October. Up against podcasts dedicated to Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Watford and Fulham, the Amber Nectar offering, hosted each week by Matthew Rudd and broadcast live on Periscope, took the top prize. “We hadn’t contemplated winning,” said Dalton. “We were probably more keen on the free bar. We were up against an Arsenal podcast, the Anfield Wrap that’s recorded in a studio. It was laughable that we won. Motherby added: “Matt had said he’d prepared an acceptance speech just in case and we’d laughed at him on the way down. “We probably won because of how we’d dealt with everything surrounding the ownership here. “I fully understand that the owners are in charge of a limited company but the football club has a broader belonging. We relentlessly commented on that, how the connection with supporters had been lost. It might have been Premier League football last season but not many supporters were enjoying it as they should have been.” So, should we raise a glass to another 20 years? “God, I’d be 61 by then,” said Motherby. “I lose patience with it every six months and think about stopping, but we’ve never come close to that. We probably only expected to do it for two or three years so who knows?” https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/twenty-years-amber-nectar-how-1378363
Who is who in the pic? I used to see the one on the right in the press box but never bothered to ask his name.
Well done lads. I usually agree with everything said in TWTWT, especially the comments on the Allams wrongdoings. Keep it up fellas
Don't always agree with them, but enjoy their podcasts and they've done a tremendous job on what started out as a stapled together fanzine. Well done to them!
