A Venn diagram of people who created fanzines and music lovers would be more or less a circle. Less likely to be a circle is the Venn diagram of music lovers and people who heard Brian Clough sing.

Anyway, there were many ways of supporting music, comedic lists, promoting and writing about it or naming the fanzine after it. So here are some more examples of that creativity, some good, some baffling.

20 Forest Favourites

 Cherry Red records did a lot of brilliant things, and then there was this. This advert appeared in issue 32 of the brilliant Forest fanzine Forever Forest in 1996

Key tracks include “We’ve Got The Whole World In Our Hands” by Paper Lace, “You Can’t Win Them All” by Brian Clough, You’ll Never Walk Alone by Viv Anderson and Trevor Francis, ‘Marching to Munich’ by Karle and the Heidelbergers featuring Chris (the mouth) Ashley and songs from the supporters. As one clearly insane/sarcastic reviewer on amazon puts it; “This is the best album I have ever heard since Queen’s “A Night At The Opera!” (Now I know!). The Riffs are quite Metallica esque and the whole production is incredibly slick. Colin Cooper proves himself as an amazing guitarist throughout and Stan Collymore could guest as Lars Ulrich anytime! The amazing vocal delivery of Stuart Pearce shines throughout and he finally proves himself as one of the rising musical talents in the country! This is the album of the decade and you must own a copy!”

You will be pleased to know it still appears on Spotify in all its glory so go and listen now! (After you’ve read this? – Ed)

Terrible chants

“I have an extensive collection of Shrewsbury’s A Large Scotch” is not something you hear very often but that’s why you read these blogs. Issue 14 from March 1994 does not disappoint wrt ‘music’. They list their top 5 chants in honour of some past players who even they admit had ability on a par with their songwriting skills (Come on, Gary Shaw was bloody great in his pomp lads)

Top 5, 10 or 20. It’s a Page filling list

Fanzines and music fans love lists; best of, top 5s etc. The Christmas 1990 edition of Viz like general football fanzine The Lad Done Brilliant contained some absolute classics of the genre with handwritten titles but typed lists, it is almost as it the title was an afterthought.

These are about as poor as you will see, Deakin? I assume that is Deacon, the Queen guitarist. As for Martin Van Allen and Newell Order…Jesus wept, though “Paul Reaney and Renato” on the Leeds Utd chart is terrible and brilliant at the same time.

From lists it’s not a big leap to made up teams, in this case from issue 1 of Hartlepool’s Monkey Business in 1991. In a spectacularly named feature “Panic on the Streets of Hartlepool or The Smiths XI” They list all the Smiths they can remember who have played for the Pool. “Looked more like a coach driver” is crueller than any jab Morrissey ever made. Great work by Elvis Costello’s glasses.

What’s in a Name

It might just be me, but the title Bring The Noise! seems optimistic for Swindon and the county ground but apparently it prevails as a rallying cry amongst fans. I am assuming for the sake of a rare Rap link to fanzines that the lads behind it were fans of Public Enemy. The playlist that appears in this issue doesn’t exactly scream rap fans though. Oh well.

“Creative” writing

National Pastime was a more serious fanzine run by the same people that ran The Banker at Lincoln. Launched as football mania hit the country after Italia 90 it contained interviews with Graham Taylor and MPs calling for change in the game but that’s not why we’re here.

Inevitably, music would also be included with issue 1 carrying a gushing review of a James gig which included these 3 very slightly forced metaphors about players. The first, Gazza comparison sort of stands up but could be said of most players/bands…worse was to come though.

This Gary Lineker penalty bit. Ooof, smashing a penalty straight through the crowd? It’s not Sergio Ramos we’re talking about here. It gets worse though with them eulogising a song apparently about the Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police.

All of this is nothing when we then get to the bewildering and clunktastic finale. “Flattened the opposition with one hand tied behind their back?” “If God made Manchester” In the spirit of tired metaphors I’m issuing a straight red for this and adding …sit down. (Jesus Christ almighty – Ed)

BLAMMO!

These lads and lasses went on to become hot Britpop act Speedy, no, I hadn’t remembered them either but they were apparently featured twice in Jo Whiley sessions. PLUS I tracked down the fantastic facts that 2 of the former band members are now even bigger stars; Singer Philip Watson is an architect and Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds and drummer Bronwen Stone is an archaeologist. If that isn’t enough, for many years she ran Antics, an antiques shop on Ecclesall Road in Sheffield.

I’d like to think the Gallagher brothers would have ended up in similar roles if Oasis hadn’t taken off. They must have been fanzine fans though because in 1989 this ad for Drastic Plastic appeared in far too many fanzines to mention here.

Unknown Pleasures

It’s not immediately clear why they did this as a cover for the fanzine as August 2007 when it was published wasn’t an anniversary for Unknown Pleasures, but it is a beautiful fanzine cover from Everton’s When Skies Are Grey (WSAG)

WSAG always covered music and great articles like this one about what was happening in 1979 give a hint about the cover. “Friends of ours” includes word about Art Garfunkel, Howard Devoto, Gordon Lee, Roddy Frame and…Mikael Arteta. Blame WSAG for Arsenal winning the title this year!

There are other articles about 1979 and the decline of vinyl sales since, a feature called C30 C60 C90 minutes where readers could send “tapes or cdrs in” with their own mix tape.

There is also a review of the Time Machine LP, a sort of greatest hits of Shack (Formerly The Pale Fountains) a brilliant and largely forgotten album, well if you like shoe gaze indie anyway. I’ll include the review here because of the fantastic names dropped and great references from that era.

WSAG was unmistakably an excellent football fanzine passionate about Everton but the cultural side of things being covered by articles like this provided a great counterbalance to the more strident Everton bits. It’s something a lot of big team fanzines did not get right at all so kudos to WSAG.

The Vinyl Whistle

Football fanzines borrowed heavily from music for names but also covered music in a series of different ways- lists, supporting local venues, records, carrying adverts for and reviewing bands. Some of this was a cheap way of filling space or getting a few quid from an advert to stem the losses, some of it was to advertise very ill-advised CDs with Brian clough “singing” but most of it was simply to tell you about their 2^nd love, music.

It was a good way to sell more zines and all of it was creative, funny (sometimes inadvertently) and well meant and for the author at least always gave a rounded balance to a fanzine. We’ll be back some time with another music special including an extensive gig review of X Mal Deutschland, if you know, you know.