Parks to Pitches: Non-League football zine based in Kent
Medway’s Christian Obray on his non-league epiphany and passion for the printed zine
When Christian Obray describes the rise of Through the Turnstile of Non-League Football and its print spin-off Parks to Pitches, he still sounds faintly surprised that any of it exists at all.
“Out of absolutely nowhere, I sort of birthed Through the Turnstile,” he says, recalling a moment in early 2024 when a modest football blog developed into a passion project to celebrate non-league football.
Christian, who works for Kent’s Arriva Buses, began with little more than a sense of frustration. As a long-suffering Gillingham FC supporter, he watched the club slide into “a rough patch… where the whole fan experience had just sort of completely been forgotten about”.
But through his day job, something unexpected happened. Arriva’s community work took him into the heart of Kent’s grassroots game, with clubs inviting him along on matchdays. What he found astonished him.
“… it’s been set up just to bring eyes on non-league and give people something to enjoy.”
“If this is non-league football, and this is the experience we’re getting here, why is that not better, or at least the same, at a professional league club?” he remembers thinking. The answer, he discovered, was consistent across the country. Non-league wasn’t just welcoming - it was vibrant, community-driven, often better value and, increasingly, a refuge for fans fed up with the Premier League’s prices and polish.
He wrote an article exploring why fans were drifting towards the lower tiers, interviewing some 25 people about their journeys.
Christian Obray (Image by Emma O’Connor)
More than a matchday read
What followed was a new direction for football blogging website Through the Turnstile as it pivoted to deep-dive features on the non-league game.
The first profile was Chatham Town. “I wanted them to know more than a fan would,” Christian says. He interviewed directors, supporters, volunteers - anyone who could help paint a complete picture. Soon building a community of contributors, he had a sounding board for his next itch. The response was immediate. “People were saying ‘You should do more of this’… I was, like, ‘Why not?’.”
A lover of print and “the tactile book in hand”, Christian wanted something tangible. So he launched Parks to Pitches, a 40-page magazine printed in runs of 450 copies.
“I knew it had to have a non-league crossover, so it had to be programme-sized,” he says. “I just wanted to give another element to non-league football that wasn’t there.”
The magazine’s model is also uniquely collaborative. Christian approached clubs with a simple offer: for every magazine sold, buyers would receive a free ticket to a home game. “Once they’re through the turnstile, they’re going to be buying drinks, they’re going to be buying food and they might even come back again… win-win.” Clubs jumped aboard and sales of the mag quickly exceeded expectations, with reprints needed for the first three issues.
Each edition centres on a different club, from Great Yarmouth to Corinthian Casuals and Warrington Town, but the content stretches far beyond the pitch. There are interviews with CEOs “in the hot seat”, double-page features on charities (“the next one, Angels United, formed from the worst circumstance of baby loss, but the story is incredible”) and long-form pieces highlighting inspiring non-league stories. Groundhoppers, predictably, loved it.
At the end of 2024, Christian and the project won the award for the Best Non League Editorial at the Football Content Awards, less than a year after launching.
What Christian has tapped into is the growing fashion of fans disillusioned with the top flight, seeking something more real. “Prices and the lack of entertainment in the top leagues have pushed people more… at non-league it’s such a more relaxed atmosphere. You can even have a drink next to the pitch.”
For families especially, he says, non-league offers something priceless. “These guys on the pitch, they’re the superstars. After the game, they’ll sit with the families in the clubhouse and chat with them. Kids get to meet their heroes.”
Kent’s non-league scene is booming, too, with Whitstable Town, Sheppey United, Ramsgate and Maidstone United all enjoying high-profile cup successes. Christian recently asked Denise Richmond, head of the Kent FA, whether more EFL clubs (there’s only Gillingham and Bromley) would help the county. While more pro clubs would of course promote the county’s footballing prowess, her answer suggested that the non-league scene in Kent being especially strong was a selling point in itself.
For all the growing attention, Parks to Pitches remains a DIY operation. “It’s just me and my partner… we print all the labels at home and stick them on ourselves.” But Christian enjoys that intimacy: “It’s a sense of achievement - you get to physically see it and pack it.”
As for the future? He isn’t chasing fame or scale. “I’m not looking for it, but it would be lovely if it boomed. But, really, it’s been set up just to bring eyes on non-league and give people something to enjoy.”
INFO: tttonlf.com
