World Football Pages launched its first printed issue, May 2002, and never looked back, at least until economic uncertaintity led to the last printed issue, July 2005, after which we've done a lot of looking back. WFP continues to crawl about online with ocassional new articles and photographs, but the real glory was in the big, beautiful pages of hi-grade newsprint that reader, Charlie Wheater once referred to as "the best football paper I've ever read".
When the press stopped rolling, WFP was on newsstands across BC and shipped to hundreds of subscribers, many across country. It was loved by those who loved football, loved laughing, appreciated honest, no politics commentary and everything else we did to put a Canadian spin on the world's favourite game. And we did such with a fantastic cast of contributing writers who never earned more than a fresh cod for their efforts.
World Football Pages was a fine model of how a football rag should look and read, and yet it was in its infancy, and only ever on the cusp of everlasting greatness. We annoyed the 'establishment' because we told it like it was, and we failed to attract bigger sponsors worth their overly self-serving demands so in the end run, all that promise fell victim to the almighty dollar. There's a naysaying buggar in every corner but the undeniable truth was, in a Canada-wide sea of almost no options, WFP was a four-year bastion of the marvelous notion that Canadian footballers could be entertained and educated with wit and intelligence and a uniquely Canadian perspective.
This website will be topped up one day with a hundred articles and ten times as many photos from the printed days. Though I persoanlly know readers who've saved every issue they purchased, an online archive for generations would be nice. After all, we printed some genuinely, exclusively terrific material worth remembering, if only for a good laugh.
Chris J. Vaughan Griffiths
Madman at the Helm
World Football Pages
1631 Creekside Drive, British Columbia, Canada, V9S 5V8
250.754.6330
email: chrisvg@worldfootballpages.com |
