FANZINES THAT AREN’T US #2

When The Ball Moves (WTBM) is a Burnley publication that accepted a commendable but questionable exchange deal when the Lancastrians visited Falmer last month. Their hymn sheet is priced at £1.50 so the swap deal saw them lose out on a full 50 pence of theoretical profit. Many a time do criticisms get levelled at fanzines for their positive attitude towards themselves and the cover image with Sepp Blatter certainly suggests that us fanzine editors are rammed firmly up our own behinds.

From their Facebook page, someone has summed up WTBM (and fanzines generally) perfectly: "A fanzine written by Burnley fans for people who don't want to pay £3 for a proper programme."

Articles that appear in the early pages of this - issue 94 - are based on stat porn and historical themes. Both are enjoyable reads but when thinking about articles TSLR writes (we only read other fanzines to steal article ideas), the BHACHS quarterly publication takes on this task and delivers on stat and historical pornography well. In fact, one of the first issues of TSLR featured an article of historical interest but there just weren't enough jokes in it to be given a permanent spot.

WTBM has a corking piece on Burnley's football shirts down the years with marks out of ten given. This month they looked at their 2004/05 shirt. Now this is an idea we can steal - and got us thinking about one of our favourite websites. Other positives include an interesting book review (Underdog has a great front cover), a hilarious overview of the club's accounts, a great letter to Santa from a youf-ful Clarets fan, drinking plans for away days, more stat porn and some general bashing of the club's board.

But the coup de grace has to be the inside front cover with its brilliant array of Steve Kean inspired painted bed sheets. Well done Burnley fans, and well done When the Ball Moves...