The lads at Red Issue weren’t afraid to speak their minds as we’ll see from Volume 2 issue 9 from April 1990. The cover pokes fun at city manager Howard Kendall and is quite prescient as Howard would jump the City ship later in the year to return to his wife at Everton.

These were still dark times at United with the arrival of Fergie yet to pay dividends , their lowest league finish since relegation in the 70s, the big money signing of Neil Webb and on the pitch arguably the biggest entertainment that season had been provided by Michael Knighton juggling the ball in front of the Stretford end. So be prepared for some serious opposition baiting, but remember that there were deeper reasons for the lads to be in a high dudgeon. Even Fergie wasn’t protected. The editorial calls for his sacking if they lose to Oldham in the upcoming FA Cup Semifinal…we all know what happened next.

Scouse hating/bating covers many pages, here are just 2. A claim that I don’t remember that Liverpool wanted to keep the copy of the cup being retired and a very well made cartoon claiming that King Kenny has made Rushie pregnant amongst some more much more distasteful and libel worthy stuff. It’s not all oppo hate though, the comment that “This is the worst United side since Sexton’s mob” belies perhaps some of the reason for the rage but nothing can really excuse repeating an outrageous slur from the Sun.

There was a lot of stuff like this in big city/club fanzines at the time and it is tiresome and depressing reading it now, especially when it is surrounded by a lot of brilliant creativity but this was 36 years ago and things were different.

It’s not just the opposition though, Martin Edwards also comes in for a lot of deserved abuse after his ridiculous decision to accept the bid from Knighton and the general state of the ground (here we are 36 years on with more farcical ownership decisions and a crumbling ground. It’s interesting to look back at crowds that season, United averaged 39,078 for the season with a low of 26,698 in October vs Portsmouth. such was the dreadful form of the team that year this came just 2 months after the season high of 47,245 vs champions Arsenal in August. No tourists to boost the attendance numbers in those days.

The back cover also has a go at Edwards via the medium of Sparky, top scorer that year. Perhaps it is Brian McClair?

And in this day of booming tannoys and DJ/Personalities ruining the pre match experience it’s great to be reminded of the days, even at Old Trafford, of some incompetent bloke announcing the wrong player of the same player twice.

There is a sensational claim to be selling more that Maxwell’s gutter press and having introduced a new word to the OED. Both false we suspect but we haven’t had the time to check, it’s very funny though.

There are some impassioned pieces about Norman Whiteside’s return to OT with Everton. I suspect these might not be genuine letters given the way the rest of the fanzine was but in any case the perception that Fergie pushed him out of the club is clear to see. Since then revelations have revealed that Fergie helped Whiteside get a higher wage at Everton than he had ever been on and also stories of whiteside turning down tabloid money to dish on Fergie…fake letters and misconceptions in football fanzines…who’d have though it eh?!

Lets finish with another great cartoon, this time the surreal and very amusing “Brian McClair and his amazing talking belly!”.

There is and always was much to like about Red Issue but it did cross lines on a number of occasions. We’ll come back to them again at a few points, they might have been OTT but they were consistently vehement in their criticism of what they saw as wrong and were proved right on much of it.