NOT the Programme

This is a football fanzine. It is not a matchday programme, neither is it a newspaper or an official club magazine. It's title, as you can see from the flash running down the left hand side of the page, is Heroes & Villains. It tells of the trials, tribulations, and occasional enjoyments, of supporting Aston Villa F.C. Inside this magazine you will find many articles which will show you what supporters think of the current state of affairs at Villa Park at the end of December 1993. As you can imagine by recent results, they aren't too happy. That said, the team will probably, by the time this goes on sale, have won their last three games and he heading back up the Premiership table. Also included in this edition are features on memorable games of the past, the redevelopment of Villa Park, racism in football and what it's like to support the Villa when you live almost two hundred miles away. There is also a large amount of ridicule and sarcasm aimed in the direction of other football clubs who we don't, for one reason or another, like very much and in whose misfortunes and pomposity we rind great amusement As you can see from the bottom or the page this is issue no. 28, it's on sale in January and February of 1994 and costs one pound. Normally we would put colourful, glossy photographs on the front cover together with witty captions in an attempt to make the magazine look more attractive to the reader. However, we have changed the format for this issue. There are three reasons for this. First, the previous way was getting a bit boring and we decided to go for something different. Second, it's never been done in a fanzine as far as I know (the idea was actually lifted from the cover of an album by XTC called Go 2) and I was interested to see how it would look and what people's reactions would be. A bit adventurous, but what the hell. Third, we are running out of glossy pictures to use and witty captions to put on them and the people who now take all the photos we would like to feature keep using words like 'copyright' and 'legal action'. So there you have the reason why you are taking a long time to read this page rather than the usual three seconds it takes to buy the magazine, smile briefly at what is on the front and then go straight to page two. This of course only applies if you are a regular purchaser of Heroes & Villains, in which case you are almost certainly a Villa supporter and buying it at a match. If this is the case, then thank you for keeping faith with us and helping the magazine to have been running for as long as it has. If you are not a regular reader, then it may be that you are looking at this in a shop where it is sold, such as Sportspages or Piccadilly Records. If you are in such a place, will you please tell the staff to put it in a more prominent position so that more copies will be sold, and also to pay us the money we are owed. Thank you. Will you now stop reading the cover and put the magazine down. Here we have given you a problem, particularly if you don't like what you are still. Because if you do stop reading and don't buy this magazine then you will be doing what we have told you to do. If, however, you do buy it then you will be doing what we wanted you to do in the first place. So we cannot lose. There is probably a fancy advertising/marketing term for this, and no doubt people get paid a lot of money for being able to use it properly. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. If I was, do you honestly think I'd he standing outside Villa Park in all weathers selling this thing when the pubs are open ? One of the things which particularly annoys me when selling on matchdays is when people think it's the programme. This is despite the fact that the last time programmes were sold on the streets outside Villa Park was in 1975. Point this out to them and they often reply that it's the first time they've been to Villa Park for twenty years. This is all very well if it's an important game, but when it's Wimbledon a week before Christmas then my credulity is stretched to breaking point. One benefit of a cover like this is that nobody, surely, can look at it and think it's a programme. If you make this mistake, please return it from whence it was purchased and identify yourself as the least intelligent person in Western Europe. If you've got this far you're probably thinking about buying it. Go on. It's only a quid.

Taken From the front cover of issue 28