Julie Pritchard 1966-2026

Julie Pritchard
16 April 1966 - 17 February 2026

Born in Bristol but long adopted by Nottingham, Julie was one of the most distinctive voices in late-20th-century football writing. When she launched Brian in 1988, largely because she’d “waited for someone else to do a Forest fanzine, but no one did”, the landscape of football writing and indeed supporting was overwhelmingly male, frequently narrow in tone and rarely welcoming to women. Julie did not set out to make a point about that; she just ignored it. What emerged was an iconic ‘zine shaped by a punk-inflected cut-and-paste aesthetic — literal scissors-and-glue production, typewriters salvaged from junk shops, layouts that felt gloriously on the brink of collapse.

Brian had the chaotic energy of a gig flyer, combined with wit and insight. It didn’t always work; some pieces were better than others. Julie took risks and trusted instinct. And, at times, certainly published bits just to fill space, faced with a tight deadline! There were quirks, foibles and obsessions; the long-running Brian Rice Appreciation Society, in defence of the ‘whipping boy’ of the time, being one of them. Julie refused to polish when rough edges felt more honest. It was though, ‘literate’ in its way. Undeniably, Julie was a gifted writer – a real talent and hugely influential on many of us who still put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. She was extraordinarily well read in the broadest sense and a veritable human football encyclopaedia.

That DIY spirit mirrored Julie herself: she was a one-off, a free thinker with little interest in conforming to expectations of how a woman in football should behave, write or organise. She gathered contributors who did not always see themselves as writers and coaxed from them voices that were sharper and braver than they imagined. Community was not a by-product of Brian; it was the whole point. That and to provide a voice at a time when football supporters were universally thought  of as nothing but thugs, not deserving of one.

The Brian community found its spiritual home in the much-lamented Newshouse (The St James’s Street variant), then the epicentre of many people’s worlds. On matchdays and long midweek evenings in between, contributors, musicians, dreamers, drinkers, oddbods and assorted Forest obsessives would cluster there. Julie was the social glue for much of that congregation; a character amongst characters, not through force of personality, but through curiosity and generosity. She listened and she connected. She remembered who should meet who and brought many people together. Many of the friendships formed in that room, near the pool table, accompanied by the world’s greatest jukebox, under the supportive wings of hosts Pete and Pat, have endured for decades. In a pre-digital age, before forums and social media, she built a living, breathing network the old-fashioned way: face to face. In the pub and down the match.

Though proudly Bristolian (Rovers inclined) and spending much of her late teens and early twenties in that London, she was wholly devoted to Nottingham and to Forest. For several years she missed virtually no matches — home or away — travelling across Britain and abroad, including pre-season tours around the world. There was mischief too. The time when Brian Clough was denied a well-deserved Manager of the Month award after confronting and belting pitch invaders, Julie and fellow Brian contributors presented him with a gallon of whisky as a substitute tribute. Clough, with a glint in his eye, reportedly referred to her with amusement as “that cheeky young minx”. She liked that!

Her commitment to, indeed obsession with Nottingham Forest was absolute and never faded. Julie and partner Rob still had season tickets, did most away matches and enjoyed several of the European adventures this season. Most recently, only days before her passing, plenty of her friends met and toasted her in bars in Istanbul, recommended by her. Julie’s knowledge and recall of bars globally was as impressive as that of football. Need to find a nice little boozer in Armenia and who scored at Chelsea away in the Full Members Cup 1989? Julie knew. Chapman, Gaynor, Pearce and Parker by the way, but I had to look it up.

Music ran parallel to football throughout her life. Julie’s first fanzine as a teen, Dreams of Children, was dedicated to The Jam. Later, Julie shared a particularly close friendship with The Pogues, whose blend of romance and rebellion -  not to mention a fondness for a bevvy -  suited her perfectly. Gigs were less events than gatherings. Her partner for many years was the late Darryl Hunt, the band’s bass player, who was deeply supportive of Brian in its formative years. Hunt’s earlier connection to Nottingham, through the celebrated, cult 1970s pub-rock/ proto-punk band Plummet Airline, added another thread binding Julie’s musical world to her adopted city.

Julie also carried what she jokingly called her “big secret”; though those of us close to her always knew about it. Eventually. She was quietly proud to be the daughter of Lee Sheridan of Brotherhood of Man fame and  - while it didn’t really fit the image – talked fondly of being a ten year old at the side of the stage as they won the Eurovision song contest in 1976. That heritage was woven into her love of music, even if she wore it lightly and without pretence. Her dad, Lee, her mum, and her sister were constants in her life — a loving family who grounded her adventurous spirit. For all her independence and irreverence, family mattered deeply to Julie, and she spoke of them with warmth and fierce loyalty.

Beyond punk and Save All Your Kisses For Me, she carried a lifelong love of Northern Soul: all-nighters, dance floors, obscure 45s spun with reverence. That scene’s devotion to discovery, obscurity and emotion resonated with her. Julie loved an underdog and Northern songs are full of them. She was drawn to the overlooked and the unfashionable, whether that meant a lower-league away end, a Belgian title outsider, or a forgotten B-side.

In later years her football horizons widened even further, notably through fanatical and genuinely profound love of Royale Union Saint-Gilloise; on adoption hopeless Belgian lower leaguers, later unlikely top-level champions plying their trade in the big European competitions. Sound familiar? They play in the Brussels suburb of Forest and hate Anderlecht  too, which maybe explained something.

There were wider travels still, joining the merry band of maybe a dozen or so who persistently follow the Gibraltar national team to some of Europe’s less obvious outposts. For Julie, football was never merely the match; it was the journey, the friendships and the stories carried home.

In recent years, Julie found something that gave her immense happiness and peace: her relationship with Rob. With him she had truly found a kindred spirit and soulmate. It was a partnership built on shared curiosity, humour, music, travel and football; but more than that, on deep mutual understanding. To see Julie so content, so settled yet still so full of spark, was a gift to those of us who loved her. Rob brought her joy, and she brought him the same in return.

What endures is not only a pioneering fanzine, preserved for posterity in digital archives,  influential in shaping supporter-led publishing, but a way of doing things: instinctively, generously, with humour and without a hint of entitlement, arrogance or conceit. Here in Nottingham and far beyond, there are and will continue to be groups who gather — in pubs, at gigs, on terraces — because Julie once brought them together. That restless, creative, quietly defiant spirit remains her lasting legacy. The cheeky minx!

In 2024 LeftLion worked with Julie on a National Lottery Funded project to digitally archive the entire back catalogue of Brian fanzine from 1988 - 1996. You can read them all online on the Brian Fanzine website.

You can also read some of Julie's more recent writing about Forest in our monthly Left Brian column