Sports, architecture and disco in MacGuffin magazine
We delivered the ‘ball’ issue of MacGuffin to Stack subscribers in October 2018, and since then I’ve heard loads of praise for its fascinating storytelling. The magazine’s particular genius comes from its ability to uncover the extraordinary tales that lay behind ordinary objects, and for this video I wanted to give a sense of the range on offer.
For example there’s the story of William ‘Fatty’ Foulkes, the goalkeeper who signed to Chelsea football club in 1905 and unwittingly helped to invent the modern ballboy. As his nickname would suggest, Fatty was a big man, and Chelsea tried to accentuate that by having him walk onto the pitch accompanied by two small boys. The boys would then stand on either side of his goal, and when they started to retrieve stray balls for him, they proved that they were able to speed up the game while allowing the big man to conserve his energy, and a new pitch-side position was born.
MacGuffin is full of similarly strange stories surrounding the hardships endured by the inventor of the biro, the effects induced by disco balls, and the ill-fated adventures of the ‘terranauts’ who spent two years living in Biosphere 2 in the early 90s. Of course if you haven’t already read all this for yourself it means you’re not a Stack subscriber, so you should definitely check out our subscription options. MacGuffin costs £14 in the shops, but we deliver our magazines to your door for just £7 – the best way to enjoy the best independent magazines!
