Yesterday of all days, the anniversary of Hillsborough news came through that Sheffield Wednesday are to be docked 15 points at the start of next season because the people buying the club aren’t offering to pay enough money to the crook Chansiri to take over. Well done the EFL, superb timing you massive idiots.

To try and balance this out a little I though this week’s blog should shine a light on something more positive about Hillsborough and the club, the rich history past and present of Wednesday fanzines.

We’ve found evidence of 17 fanzines for the Owls with names ranging from the simple Out of the Blue and All Wednesday to the sublime Boodle – Taking The Wednesday Into Insanity.  From Blue and White Wizard to Dink and Cheat! from Home Alone to Medalian Atkinson

There were perhaps three standouts though, Just Another Wednesday, Spitting Feathers and A View From The Eastbank.

JAW was one of the few father and son produced fanzines with SF and AVFTEB shared a few things, one of them being an artist providing illustrations and cartoons who has gone on to be world famous, the one and only Pete Mckee.

This leads us nicely to the present-day and Peter Holmes, the erstwhile editor of AVTFEB thankfully just won’t go away and has now started a new Wednesday zine with the excellent Everywhere and Nowhere currently on issue 8 (buy it here https://everywhereandnowherefanzine.myshopify.com/  it’s worth it for the artwork alone)

A remarkable achievement so we interviewed Peter about his experience…

PETER HOLMES  (A View From The Eastbank and Everywhere and Nowhere)

Right here goes, apologies if I waffle – it’s an occupational hazard especially when I’m writing about football and my beloved Sheffield Wednesday!

From the outset I need to point out that I’m a publisher by trade – I publish four local lifestyle magazines in and around the South Yorkshire area – so publishing a fanzine is sort of a busman’s holiday if you get my drift.

To start with your bullet points, well Everywhere & Nowhere ticks all of those boxes in my opinion – I could do it – having done it before in the Trevor Francis years, it certainly filled a gap for fans as Wednesday haven’t had a fanzine for many, many years. Everywhere & Nowhere is far better than the official programme in many respects, our local press/journo’s is excellent to an extent, but they do still side with the club on most matters it has to be said – which is not good at times (especially having been through traumatic times in recent years).

In my earlier years I ran a very successful fanzine called ‘A View From The East Bank’, but sadly this had to fold as my work commitments meant editing a fanzine and everything that goes with it were no longer possible. This was in the days of Trevor Francis being the manager, a hugely successful period for the club, and for the fanzine it must be said.

Why did you start your fanzine?

During the 25-26 close season it became apparent that this season was going to be like no other. Our former Chairman had stopped investing, and he was taking every penny he could out of the club and from the fans. As you can imagine the effect of this was that 99.9% of all social media posts, the radio phone-ins and letters to the local press were just full of negativity. To add to this as a club one by one players left (because they weren’t getting paid on time – 5 months out of 7 they had their wages paid late – this was also the same for the club staff as well, the likes of the admin team, the cleaners, the ticket office staff etc).

In the end I, like many others, was just sick of it all and it got me to thinking that we need some (any sort of) positivity to lift the general mood amongst the fans. Now bearing in mind the situation with players leaving, the highest season ticket prices in the Championship, a Chairman who clearly had a dislike for any sort of discussion about ‘his’ club – then this was always going to be difficult. 

I’d already got lots of ideas for articles & features in my own head that I wanted to publish and I knew that I’d get absolutely zero assistance from the club – that didn’t bother me that much to be honest because the Wednesday Supporters Trust had already started their ‘Not a Pound in the Ground’ campaign and the fans got well & truly behind it. The fans bought little to no food & beverage on the concourse, no programmes, we had two very successful match boycotts – one of which was the live TV Sky game vs Middlesbrough. So with those factors in mind the launch of Everywhere & Nowhere had a head start and a good platform to work from. However when I launched the fanzine I promised the readership that it would be full of positivity and there’d be no mention of the former Chairman. In the circumstances that was always going to be a tough ask – but it’s been achieved and the fans acknowledge that in their articles and through buying and subscribing to the fanzine.

What’s the story behind the name?

At the start of every game home & away Wednesday fans always sing the Jeff Beck song ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ – yes I know Aston Villa & Wolves also sing it – but we did it first – honestly! So it’s a sort of ‘subconscious’ free advertising each match! That’s a sort of semi-serious answer I suppose but when I was thinking of a name for the fanzine I wanted the name to be something that every Wednesday fan would be able to relate to, so really it was a no brainer I suppose.

What was the most important thing to the fanzine and its team at the time? (humour, camaraderie, the need for a voice?) 

All of the above and more besides, but I suppose it was to try and put a smile back on the faces of the fans by not talking about the Chairman & maybe looking both back on happier times and looking forward to brighter days ahead. At the time we all knew as fans that the end was close in terms of going into administration, we knew as a group of supporters & everyone has now accepted that League One is only a matter of weeks away. But the main thing was that we rid the club of the Chairman. That’s now been achieved and we move on – with a sense of nervous excitement is the best phrase I suppose.

What was your favourite article/campaign?

I don’t really have a favourite piece, but what I do have already is a group of regular contributors – two artists that supply the most amazing cartoons & artwork – who are second to none and produce some outstanding pieces of work each month for me. As well as these two guys, I appear to have a steady stream of contributors who churn out some great thought-provoking pieces each month for me.

What sort of criticism did you get/ what’s the oddest complaint you ever had?

I’ve not really had any of that at all – not sure of that’s a good or bad thing? I suppose it’s good really.

What is your funniest recollection?

My funniest recollection was from the days of my old fanzine ‘A View From The East Bank‘. At the time the late Trevor Francis was the team manager, and he was under a lot of pressure for the side to improve performances, but he was making some strange selections or team changes, and no one could understand why and it certainly wasn’t helping him. So, I ran an article in the fanzine querying these ‘strange selections’ and asked the question in the article if he should still be in charge.

I was sitting at my desk at work in the office one day and the phone rang. My colleague answered and his face was a picture when he called across the office and said to me that it was Trevor Francis asking to speak to me. It wasn’t the 1st of April, so I answered the phone a little tentatively, but it was him. TF introduced himself and asked me to ‘ease off’ with the criticism as it was getting to him and some of the younger players. 

You have to remember that in those days Wednesday were in the Premiership and the fanzine that I ran carried a fair bit of weight to it with over 3,000 copies an issue going out. These were the days long before social media of course and in some respects the words written in the fanzines had more longevity to it, whereas today’s social media posts can be forgotten in a matter of seconds. The chat with TF went on for around 15 minutes and we discovered a range of topics from selections to injuries that had been kept under wraps. It would never happen today of course, but looking back now it was pretty amazing and amusing I suppose.

(FFC note; We looked back at a few copies of AVFTEB and though this probably isn’t the article Peter refers to we thought we’d include it to give you an idea of his always balanced work back then along with a regular cartoon mocking the chairman and manager)

Still going? How have you persevered for so long? Or why did you stop?I had to stop due to a job change (but thankfully he’s back again! – Ed)

What role do you see fanzines as having today?
I think it’s a mixture of light-hearted banter, memories of happier (and indeed some sad) times, gallows humour is always important and of course offering a voice to everyone – within reason.

Do you still have old copies in the loft somewhere? Go on, admit it.!Yes I’ve got them all in binders and I’m very proud of them and often look through them.

How many times a week did you get asked “Is that the programme mate?”Loads although I’ve recently tried a few weeks as subscription only – that could well be changing very soon though.