TTWAR fanzine calls it quits

[fred milne]

I've always bought this outside the ground. The diary section was particularly good.

 

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Through The Wind And Rain fanzine editor Steven Kelly calls it quits after 20 years

May 8 2008

 

by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

 

FOR nearly two decades, Steven Kelly has mirrored the title of the groundbreaking Liverpool FC fanzine he founded by standing outside Anfield in all weathers to sell it.

 

Now, after 79 issues, he’s blown the final whistle on Through The Wind And Rain, the longest running and arguably most acerbically articulate of fanzines devoted to the club.

 

“I’m still a season ticket holder but there’s no question that I’ve lost some of the feeling for the club because it’s lost some of the core values I thought it represented 20 or 25 years ago,” said the 49-year-old, from Bootle, who brought out the first issue in late 1989, the year of the Hillsborough tragedy.

 

“That family thing, for instance. The club is playing on that in their current advertising campaign where it says, ‘it’s not a badge, it’s a family crest’. But you wouldn’t want the ones who are running it into the ground at the moment as part of your family – they’re more like the Addams Family.”

 

He was equally hard-hitting in explaining the reason behind his decision to call it a day.

 

“Since last year, I feel as though I’ve somehow lost step. Maybe I’ve just got too old for it.

 

“In the end, it had just become a group of people moaning about things they have no influence over or can do nothing about. We were cracking funnies, but it was still coming across as like: ‘I remember the days when you could buy a loaf and a bottle of milk and still have change from sixpence’. All that b******s. I always swore when I was 20 that I wouldn’t go that way. I tried, but . . .

 

“I’d already decided to quit before Hicks and Gillett came along. I started to lose the plot a bit when the manager spends £10m on one player and everyone shrugs their shoulders and says ‘that’s not much, is it’?

 

“I grew up with Shankly finding players such as Keegan and Clemence from nowhere. Now I’ve got to listen to people saying that a manager’s been given £60m to spend on scraps.”

 

However, his fanatical support could never die, as was proved before Liverpool’s extra-time defeat to Chelsea in last week’s Champions League semi-finals.

 

“When the final whistle went, I was still completely gutted. You may not even be in the ground but you’re still going to be somewhere, pacing up and down, biting on your nails or putting your shoes on in a certain way because that is what worked the last time you won. All that hocus pocus – you can’t just lose it.”

 

What he has lost are the hours spent before and after the game when he and his team of faithful helpers – Barry, Billy, Mark and Chris – would hawk the fanzine from the four corners of Anfield. Kelly’s spot was the corner of the Kop and the Centenary Stand.

 

“The best was the home game against Spurs in the 95/96 season when sales were at the peak. We sold 2,500 copies in one match.” On match days now, he and other faithful TTWAR contributors such as the Red Faced Ranter, Prometheus and Devil’s Advocate will simply sit and watch with perhaps a certain amount of regret.

 

“But I’ll feel the same about football as I do with music when I ask the questions. ‘Where’s me Sex Pistols? Where’s me Roxy Music? Where’s me Velvet Underground?’ Is there anyone, anywhere, who’s going to make the difference?

 

“And the answer is no-one and nowhere.”

 

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0500liv...-name_page.html

[jon_hall]

Nice to see the post up with the old news as per normal. Surprised they found the time instead of putting the same letters in the letters page a few days later, or checking their grammer and spelling.

[oakie bob]

had a few drunken emails printed by steve over the years, will miss it

[Guy_Incognito]

First fanzine I ever bought, that. Used to love it.

 

Fanzines are all gonna die out soon, though. I've bought the odd one recently, but you can just find the same sort of stuff all over the internet. It's just essentially like a forum, but the posts are longer. Longer than most people's posts, anyway.

[johngibo YPC]

  fred milne said:

“But I’ll feel the same about football as I do with music when I ask the questions. ‘Where’s me Sex Pistols? Where’s me Roxy Music? Where’s me Velvet Underground?’ Is there anyone, anywhere, who’s going to make the difference?

 

“And the answer is no-one and nowhere.”

 

Eh? Whats he on about there?

[adiman]

I remember buying a copy before the City end-of-season defeat a few years ago when Schmeichel played a blinder. Ended up meeting Houllier after the game and he almost turfed me out of his office when he saw it. Had a particularly cutting caption on Heskey on the front. Before the web, fanzines were the only way Irish reds like I was then could keep up to date with the real stories even at a few weeks' remove.

[Boca]

He writes a column for the Examiner in Ireland every Wednesday. He's a miserable git but the column is still a good read.

[Falconhoof]

Its not the stopping of the fanzine that strikes me, its the way a staunch red of many decades is coming to the conclusion that the game isn't worth the effort any more. Its becoming a common theme and I wonder if its just a natural cycle of older fans giving way to a new generation or whether football really is losing its core fans.

[Cam]

  Ernest Blenkinsop said:

its the way a staunch red of many decades is coming to the conclusion that the game isn't worth the effort any more.

Nail. Head.

 

Sad it's going (the diary was fecking ace) but I haven't bought it for about 6 years. It just got too miserable & angry and the personal abuse dished out to Houllier & Heskey was a disgrace.

 

Is he keeping the website forum going? Hopefully another fanzine will tempt him into keeping the diary going.

[Guest Anders Honoré]

  johngibo YPC said:

Eh? Whats he on about there?

 

we're never gonna win the league again.

[Guest flaps]

  Quote

personal abuse dished out to Houllier & Heskey was a disgrace.

 

crikey, you should have seen the thread about riise

[jimmylibel]

  Boca said:

He writes a column for the Examiner in Ireland every Wednesday. He's a miserable git but the column is still a good read.

 

I absolutely hate that column. Can't stand his writing or opinions.

[Kahnee]

  johngibo YPC said:

Eh? Whats he on about there?

 

Dunno. Roxy Music and the Sex Pistols are still going

[Cunny]

I've read TTWAR since the first issue.

I have a mutual friend of Steve's so get his column emailed to me each Tuesday.

Have to say I really like his writing. He is a miserable sod but he's funny with it and he does make a lot of good points.

[Cliff M]

I used to buy most of the fanzines. Made me depressed, so I stopped. The funnies don't outweigh the doom-mongering.

[kop205]

Stopped being a great fanzine a good while ago so fair play to him for calling it a day, it is the right decision.

 

I kept on buying it out of habit and I've a lot of respect for the fella in many ways but in the end the fanzine just became a mode of unloading all his angst and even despair at times. It wasn't happy reading and ultimately for me that is what a fanzine should be - an escape from the s**** that might be unfolding on the field or in the boardroom. TTW&R ended up taking itself far too seriously and stopped celebrating the fact that being a fan of Liverpool Football Club, regardless of what else might have been going, should be enough in itself to make the heart swell with pride.

 

Good luck, Steven. I was 12 when the first issue came out and in many ways TTW&R has charted my active match-going life so part of me will miss it. Like I said though, it is the right decision to finish up.

[Guest Snorky]

Sad to hear, this was the only fanzine I ever bought and even had a piece I wrote in it.

 

I think I've still got the first 10 or so editions in the attic.

[Guest GrandpaSimpson]

Such a depressing fanzine to read. You swear we were bottom of the 2nd division they way he'd go on. Even after we won #5, he still wasn't happy.

[fyds]

He's a true red, but a miserable git who's just getting older and more miserable and resistant to change. As for the 'Shankly used to get Keegan and Clemence from nowhere' He negates to mention Shanks also paid top dollar often enough at the time - Hateley, Evans, Toshack. As in his opinions, his memory is also very selective.

[Cunny]

  fyds said:

As in his opinions, his memory is also very selective.

 

no different to the rest of us then.

[Poolfrog]

  Ernest Blenkinsop said:

Its not the stopping of the fanzine that strikes me, its the way a staunch red of many decades is coming to the conclusion that the game isn't worth the effort any more. Its becoming a common theme and I wonder if its just a natural cycle of older fans giving way to a new generation or whether football really is losing its core fans.

Well, I'm older than him and I haven't changed my views on football in general or Liverpool in particular. His comments show that, as an individual, he's a bit of a whinger. I didn't choose to support Liverpool; it just crept up on me in the 50s and is now part of the fabric of my being. Irrespective of who owns the club or how much managers have to spend on players compared with the "good old days" (which never existed) a true fan - or "a staunch red" as you put it - sticks with the club come what may. "Staunch red" he clearly is not.

[Poolfrog]

  fyds said:

He's a true red, but a miserable git who's just getting older and more miserable and resistant to change. As for the 'Shankly used to get Keegan and Clemence from nowhere' He negates to mention Shanks also paid top dollar often enough at the time - Hateley, Evans, Toshack. As in his opinions, his memory is also very selective.

He also omits to mention that under Shankly we didn't win so much as a League Cup in the 7 years after we won the league in '66 until we won it again (and the UEFA Cup) in 1973. A very barren trophy-less period which those harking back to the Shankly era as some sort of golden age always conveniently overlook

[fred milne]

  Poolfrog said:

Irrespective of who owns the club or how much managers have to spend on players compared with the "good old days" (which never existed) a true fan - or "a staunch red" as you put it - sticks with the club come what may. "Staunch red" he clearly is not.

I don't know him from Adam but I don't see how his calling time on a fanzine means he isn't a true fan.

[fred milne]

  Poolfrog said:

He also omits to mention that under Shankly we didn't win so much as a League Cup in the 7 years after we won the league in '66 until we won it again (and the UEFA Cup) in 1973.

He probably omitted to mention it because it wasn't particularly relevant to the point he was making.

[Falconhoof]

  Poolfrog said:

Well, I'm older than him and I haven't changed my views on football in general or Liverpool in particular. His comments show that, as an individual, he's a bit of a whinger. I didn't choose to support Liverpool; it just crept up on me in the 50s and is now part of the fabric of my being. Irrespective of who owns the club or how much managers have to spend on players compared with the "good old days" (which never existed) a true fan - or "a staunch red" as you put it - sticks with the club come what may. "Staunch red" he clearly is not.

 

I've heard fans on here say simmilar things about losing the passion for the game. Loads of them are saying it, for all sorts of reasons. The game clearly isn't the same as it was, SKY have too much power, there's rolling 24 hour coverage if anyone in football farts, we have the whitewashing of anything that happened pre 1992, the ridiculous prices for tickets...etc.

 

Its not a competition about how staunch you are, but people are beginning to comment on how it doesn't feel like the same game and doesn't provoke the same feeling of togetherness.