Casual as Fuck and other stuff.

Being a footy team started up mainly by like minded Brits, I thought it would be a novel idea to produce a team fanzine.
I have always fancied myself (as you might have already worked out) as an amateur writer and was a big fan of other footy and music fanzines. In a homage to the Inspiral Carpets "Cool as Fuck" logo I came up with "Casual as Fuck" and used Shaggy as the first Casual icon because we had so many pot smokers in our inner circle, it just seemed to fit. And so the first t-shirt and fanzine cover was born.
All the shirts I designed (usually with the help of Neil Eastwood) sold out and to this day players still ask me to make more.
The fanzines were a great format, sometimes offensive, I would also use it as my printed "soapbox" to air my views, but it was always funny, even if I do say myself.
My favourite issues were the ones featuring "grant kirkham letters" , under a pseudonym I wrote a bunch of strange and amusing letters to various people in the footy world, the responses were rare but often hilarious as the recipient was oblivious to the wind up.
The highlight of this experiment of mine was after I wrote one to Tommy Smyth at ESPN he talked about it during the live broadcast of the Champions League Semi Final between Man United and Juventus and even gave Paul Nicholl a mention saying that Newcastle United were after signing him for the FA Cup Final.
The shirts apart from the Inspiral Carpets were inspired by various things, I am a big fan of pop art/culture and "stole" ideas from that including Oasis, The Sex Pistols, The BBC, Andy Warhol, The Wedding Present, Eric Cantona, football hooligans, scouse band Cast, La Coste and many more. My literary idol Oscar Wilde once said that "Imitation was the highest form of flattery" I think he was onto something.
Anyway the above is a collection of some of the shite I produced over the years in connection to the Casuals FC.
Maybe I'll run a team again some other time and get creative again with a few more zines and footy shirts.