Today’s fanzine of the day is South Riding issue 12 all the way from Barnsley in September 1991 with our heroes contemplating their 11th successive unsuccessful season in Division 2 (championship). I looked it up and to give you an idea their top scorer this year would be Andy Rammell with…8 goals. Oh dear, crowds would not be flocking to Oakwell.

The editorial is suitably gloomy after “Losing more games at Oakwell so far this season than we did during the whole of last season” Christ, they lost 5 of their first 7 games this season and it would be the 8th game before they won, no wonder our heroes are in a dudgeon.

Still, at least the press coverage of football in general and Barnsley Town in particular was improving..

There is blatant copyright infringement as you could expect from all self respecting fanzines, this time The Fat Slags are a couple of players who had been caught out clubbing at some point, Ges and Bas (Gerry Taggart?)

There is coverage of the terrible racism still prevalent in the game at the time, the horrific comments made by Crystal Palace chairman Ron Noades just reared their ugly head. It says something that the quote used here is just about the least offensive thing he said in the interview. How fanzines covered racism will be the subject of an upcoming blog.

There is further comment on racism in football with a piece on how football club’s “might” be run in smoke filled boardrooms.. “I’m not sure this club is ready for the 1990s yet” hits hard.

Fabulous fanzine, there are quite a few copies available on line as pdfs to see if you search. We’ll finish issue 12 with a tremendous fixture list for Barnsley United FC, a lovely spoof and ending as all fixture lists of the era with the date of the FA Cup Final nominally the end of the season. Not sure why many clubs ever bothered with that on a fixture list. “It’s not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It’s the hope.”