The Wee Red Book is an annual pocket-sized Scottish football publication by the Glasgow-based Evening Times, which contains both the following season’s fixtures in Scotland’s four senior divisions and lists of previous league and cup winners from Scotland, England and Europe.
The first edition was published in 1928 and today it is edited by sports journalists Fraser Gibson and Stuart Sandler.
The book is a mainstay of the season in Scotland and is the ”go to” almanac for pub and work arguments about the beautiful game.
The book was originally priced at sixpence in the 1920 and 1930’s [2 and a half pence] but by the early 1970’s, it was 50p before rising to 80p in the late part of that decade.
Although it hit the £3.50 mark in 2012, it has actually gone down in price to £2.99 [at start of season 2015/16] which is quite a feat in these days of rising prices.
It is usually 250 pages and it still keeps a blank page for ”notes” as its final page as was the case in the first edition. It has had imitators in England [The Rothmans Football Yearbook is maybe the closest book to the ‘Red’ South of the Border]
The Yearbook [a heavier in weight and bulkier tome editorially] was sponsored by the tobacco company from its inception until the 2002/03 edition, after which they withdrew due to pending United Kingdom legislation restricting tobacco sponsorship in sport.
SKY SPORTS took over as the sponsors in 2003/4 and still sponsor it and although the Yearbook is a respected publication that sells well it maybe lacks the charm and cult following of its Scottish counterpart THE WEE RED BOOK.
