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

May 8 2008 by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

"What they mean, and should really be saying, is this is the club exploiting you. These people in charge are sitting back and thinking if these people are dumb enough to pay 40 pounds to watch a match they’ll be dumb enough to pay a lot more."

"Another thing is that I grew up with Shankly finding players such as Keegan and Clemence from nowhere. And there were other players later such as Alan Hansen and Ian Rush. Now I’ve got to listen to people saying that a manager’s been given £60m to spend on scraps."

Despite the exasperation, however, his fanatical support for the club could never die as was proved before Liverpool’s extra time defeat to Chelsea in last week’s Champions League semi finals

"I’d been quite blasé beforehand and said whatever happens, happens.

"But when the final whistle went, I was still completely gutted. The thing is that you may not even be in the ground but you’re still going to be somewhere, pacing up and down, biting on your nails or putting your shoes on in a certain way because that is what worked the last time you won. All that hocus pocus - you can’t just lose it."

What he has lost are the hours spent before and after the game when he and his team of faithful helpers - Barry, Billy, Mark and Chris - would hawk the fanzine from the four corners of Anfield.

Kelly’s speck was the corner of the Kop and the Centenary Stand.

"Sometimes you’d be standing there staring into space for an hour on end," he recalled. "The worst was against Forest in ‘98. It was like standing in the shower at home. It just bucketed down before the game. What made it worse was that it was the first day of issue, We didn’t have a car that day and we were left with all these boxes then the heaven’s opened. People were just legging it past you trying not to get wet.

"The best was the home game against Spurs in the 95/96 season when sales were at the peak. We sold 2,500 copies at just one match."

The other lows and the highs were expressed forcefully and articulately on the printed page of the fanzine and especially on Kelly’s supremely pithy Diary Page which will soon be compiled into a book.

"The most uptight I got was about the anti-football of Houllier. Grinding people into the ground, getting a result any old way and then hanging on for dear life. All I got from Houllier for three years was well we won didn’t we, so what’s your problem? I think you are entitled to a bit more. I began thinking if a result is all that matters, well in future I’ll just stay at home and watch Final Score or check the text or whatever and get it in black and white, ah there it is, one nil to Liverpool.

A pause and a laugh.

"Having said that, Houllier gave us one of the highs in the treble."

Another high was three years ago in Istanbul when Kelly temporarily conquered his fear of flying to see the Reds beat Milan in what has become lauded as one of the great games of all time.

"Even the comeback in that match would have been good enough for me. Even if we had lost after that I would have said just to have been there for that would have been great."

In the future what would be "great" for Liverpool FC is the following:

"I’d like to see one owner and a situation where we only charge our fans for a certain amount and no higher.

"I’d like us to go out and find our own players and not buy them off the peg. And I want see a style of play that gets people excited."

But?

"The reality is I think a lot of people are having to say I used to go to 30 or 40 matches a year but can’t because I can’t afford it anymore.

"I think that’s disgraceful but you either go along with it and treat football as a soap and revel in the freak show, which it now is, or resign yourself to it all."

On match days now. though, he and other faithful TTWAR contributors such as the Red Faced Ranter, Prometheus and Devil’s Advocate will simply sit and watch - reflecting, no doubt, that the golden age of football, like the fanzine, has passed away

As Kelly so succinctly rounded up as we downed a final Guinness: " I feel the same about football as I do with music when I ask the questions: Where’s me Sex Pistols? Where’s me Roxy Music? Where’s me Velvet Underground?

"Is there anyone, anywhere, who’s going to make the difference?

"And the answer is no-one and nowhere."