Final whistle for Liverpool FC fanzine "Through The Wind And Rain"

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 acerbically articulate of fanzines devoted to the Reds.

And in the typical style for which he has become renowned he’s bowed out with blunt observations not only about his product but about 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 in which 96 Reds fans died. "That family thing for instance.

"The club is playing on that in their current advertising campaign where its 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."

As we talked over a pint under the portrait of Shankly in the legendary Albert pub next to the Kop, he was equally hard-hitting in explaining the reason behind his decision to call it a day.

"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 or you could leave your door open blah, bah, blah.

"All that bollocks."

"I always swore when I was 20 that I wouldn’t go that way. The Victor Meldrew syndrome of bad tempered rants.

"I tried, but . . . "

He was unrepentant too about the way he felt that the path his beloved club and football in general had followed since the fanzine’s foundation.

"If I thought it still had some validity then I’d keep it going but I don’t think that it has. Certainly, since last year, I feel as though I’ve somehow lost step. Maybe I’ve just got too old for it."

Almost perversely he brought out the final issue with two months to go with the Reds’ season still unresolved and the potential of a proper final farewell to readers left dangling in the air.

"To be honest, I’d already decided to quit before Hicks and Gillett came along," he confessed "I started to lose the plot a bit when the manager spends £10m on one player and everyone shrugs their shoulders and say that’s not much is it?"

He added: "Once they decided to sell the club I thought, well, we’re in it now. We’re on a path that’s been set out for us. Everyone has moaned and moaned and moaned about investment. So we’ve got it and wherever this takes the club you’ve got to go with it. Otherwise, start with another club or pack it in altogether.

"The hardcore readers liked the less positive viewpoint on things but I think in times of struggle the fans in general want something a little bit more upbeat with reassurances that everything was going to be all right. But it wasn’t."

To change tack was out of the question.

"The newer fanzines that have come through such as Boss, for example, have grown up with the way things have been commercialised in football over the past 10 years. But you can get set in your ways.

"I think back to the way the game was 20 years ago. And it was starting to get lost to us even then.

"Now you even get fans using the expression that "we’re not exploiting the brand."

"And these are the fans saying this!