The Independent effectively having to function under siege from sacked print workers picketing outside. "The Independent" attracted some of the staff from the two Murdoch broadsheets who had chosen not to move to his company's new headquarters. Launched with the advertising slogan "It is. Are you?", and challenging both "The Guardian" for centre-left readers and "The Times" as the newspaper of record, "The Independent" reached a circulation of over 400,000 by 1989. Competing in a moribund market, "The Independent" sparked a general freshening of newspaper design as well as, within a few years, a price war in the market sector. When "The
You Are The Ref for the strip for the first time in over 20 years, which was published in "The Observer" newspaper. Later that year, a book was published collecting the history of the strip. In 2008, "You Are The Ref" also appeared on the BBC's Euro 2008 blog, and on the website of "The Guardian". In its most recent incarnation it relied on reader submissions for the three questions posed each week. As well as the illustrated questions, each strip includes a portrait of a well-known footballing person. New full colour feature strips were produced for "The Observer" until 2016 and a new