Our History
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Tales from the River End - THE Dover Athletic fanzine.

In the late 1980s many crazes sprung up in football. Do you remember the inflatable bananas at Manchester City, which spread all round the country? All the other clubs then adopted their own design of inflatable: 'Harry the Haddock' at Grimsby was one famous one. I do remember a shark appearing at Crabble! However, this craze only lasted a couple of months before everyone tired of it. A year or two afterwards, everyone was producing fanzines. The idea was to produce a magazine written by the fans for the fans. This was as opposed to the official programme which was produced by the club, and had to be careful what it said for fear of upsetting the League, the F.A., referees, other clubs, players, and so on. Many fanzines overstepped the mark, and ended up banned from being sold in the ground, and a few ended up in court. 'Tales' did receive one solicitors letter, and upset a number of other clubs, but we are more mature now(?!). Many fanzines have fallen by the wayside, but 'Tales' has just celebrated its 52nd.issue, and we see no end to it in the near future.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?
The first two issues of 'Tales' were actually called the 'D.A.F.C. Supporters' Club Magazine', as that was what it was when it started. It soon took a change in direction, and with its new irreverent contents, a new name had to be found. It was thought of naming it after the childrens' TV show 'Tales of the Riverbank', with a slight alteration. However, our resident graphic designer of the time, Gazza the Groundhopper, gave it a 'from' instead of an 'of', and that is how it has stayed!

10 Reasons to dislike . . . .
This feature has proved to be another popular one. Unfortunately, it first appeared in 'Dover Soul', and when they stopped producing any more issues, we pinched the idea, and carried it on. Click on the link above for some of the clubs that we have taken a dislike to over the years: