wearethesouthstand
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- Joined
- 5 Feb 2008
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this is dante, formerly of the fightback and occasional contributor to king of the kippax. i have watched this thread develop and i have tried to stay out of this but i want to step in now, as it feel i have a duty to explain to people who weren't there what things were really like and why as a group of fanzines we were never wholly together and always falling out.
whilst i don't say noel bayley was a bully (although he did try to intimidate me at times) , my first hand experience of him was that the falling out between various parties was down to him.
i don't know anything about noel and blueprint ( i wasn't involved with the fanzines then) but my first experience of noel was a positive one. i pitched up outside the north stand one night with 20 hand stapled copies of a magazine i put together in my bedroom. he smiled and straight away asked me if i bought blueprint - to which i said no - and then he bought my first copy. (he was obviously carrying it on with blueprint then, this was near the end of 1993, we beat everton 1-0 with a carl griffiths goal..) it was the one with howard kendall on the back with the message "one more scouser on the dole". noel liked it very much and said it was funny. he did a review in his mag (which i didn't want him to) but still said it had made him laugh and his last words were - buy it. Which was great.
i have to say here at this stage, i did the fanzine because i was influenced by what was going on with the swales out campaign at the time but enjoyed writing and wanted to write about something i love which is city. (soulboy on here made a flippant remark about all fanzine editors being in it for the money - whilst it's true that when i sold fanzines those were the days when i could afford to go to every away game - i go to a quarter of them now - but the reason i got involved was because i had a burning ambition to do so ... soulboy was just saying that for a reaction, and hopefully he himself will share his thoughts on the fanzine war... won't you ???)
anyway, i ended up writing a column for king of the kippax for a couple of years which probably put me in noel's bad books... guilty by association i suppose...but noel would have a pop at me if i was ever selling kk, which was only 3/4 times a season, he would say "why are you selling that shit"
eventually with college out of the way and with city in freefall i decided to bring out the fightback, which ran throughout the late 90s. i lived in sale and went to my local printers in sale - anthony wood ltd - to get copies done. it just so happened noel used the same printers, i wasn't to know - and noel then phones me up at work slagging me off saying "why are you nicking my printers, why don't you go somewhere else"
it was always stand-offish between me and noel because i was mates with one of his brothers and noel thought his brother was "siding" against him, where in reality he wasn't doing anything off the sort, he just wanted to stay out of it and could probably see that noel's problem with me was that i used to write for dave wallace , which in his eyes put me in the dave wallace camp.
i had some contacts at the club and was of the opinion that if francis lee stayed on as chairman we would end up in division 2, which we did do. i was saying this as early as the summer of 1996 when we had been relegated out of the premier under alan ball. as a result my fanzine and myself ended up being the main face of the campaign to get rid off francis, or at least encourage him to resign so that he may be at least be remembered as a great former player and city hero rather than terrible chairman. we went public with a lot of things we knew but whereas the swales out campaign had the support of all the fanzines at the time, noel's mag wasn't behind the lee out campaign. not all fans supported our campaign - people would come up to me and say "why don't you get behind them". also our problem was that we couldn't trust anybody else. if we couldn't trust francis who could we trust ? so we didn't back anybody else. at the time i was 23 and up against a brick wall because i had people who just wouldn't have it that lee was making things worse and then i had noel taking pot-shots at me in his mag every month, ridiculing the campaign or making jokes out of my name.
with noel it was all personal.
dave knew that at one time i felt king of the kippax was a bit of touch and i would tell him so. i said "it's like a fanzine for old people now !" - he would interrupt my column with his editing or poke fun at how many chins i had this week but we'd never fall out about it, we can still get on now but everything with noel was took personally and made into something personal. he liked my magazine when it was a handful of copies being sold. at our peak in 1998 we'd shift 1400 so it was a bit more competition for him. he didn't like that and he didn't like me. in my final fightback i even said my experience of why the fanzine lads don't get on is because of noel, he's fallen out with everyone else and now he's fallen out with me.
he used to get leanne to say things to you whilst selling, gary phillips to say things whilst selling . he's get his people to blank you.. that was my experience of him. if i was with my mates he'd shout over "you think you're hard when you're with your mates"... and if i was on my own he'd say "you're not so hard without your mates round you"... it didn't need to be violent to be bullying - it could be just verbals which was my experience of noel really.
even when i started on the city mag he would slag us off in his teletext column "arsenal away, it must have been a big game if dante friend went" - i have all the copies of work i have done at our house and i have read through them again. when i have had a pop at noel it's simply because he's been having a pop at me for a few weeks beforehand.
so why go public with all this ? well, i was a fanzine editor but also involved with the fanzines for 10 years. 1993 to 2000 with the fightback and king of the kippax and then i was "mr blue sky" in city til i cry for a couple of years in the 2000s. i have stood there in all weather with the other fanzine lads - apart from blueprint - although there was one season when me and this charming fan were both selling (94?) and in the main i got on with everyone although it was a bit stand-off ish with franny fowles (are you blue or are you blind) and these days i get on great with the chips and gravy lads, see tommo everywhere, but at the time they thought i was a bit of a "troublecauser" and that might have been a negative impression given to them by noel.
noel you have had some personal stick on here which isn't nice. i know it isn't nice because i used to get it off you !
one half of me thinks, don't post anything, let things go but then after reading all this i just think fanzine readers would find it interesting , what went on. this thread turned sour on page 11 when noel said dave "wants to be in the limelight" - i just feel that's how these things start, dave wallace's people then come on the board, then blueprint and then it all goes off again.
no doubt noel will respond in kind and give his side of things and i would be interested to hear them. in fact i would like him and dave wallace to say where they feel it went wrong between them as well and maybe it would give us all closure as i feel his problem with me was that i was dave's mate.
i have nothing personally against noel now, although i did at the time... but i have moved on. it's all in the past but that's how it was for me.
whilst i don't say noel bayley was a bully (although he did try to intimidate me at times) , my first hand experience of him was that the falling out between various parties was down to him.
i don't know anything about noel and blueprint ( i wasn't involved with the fanzines then) but my first experience of noel was a positive one. i pitched up outside the north stand one night with 20 hand stapled copies of a magazine i put together in my bedroom. he smiled and straight away asked me if i bought blueprint - to which i said no - and then he bought my first copy. (he was obviously carrying it on with blueprint then, this was near the end of 1993, we beat everton 1-0 with a carl griffiths goal..) it was the one with howard kendall on the back with the message "one more scouser on the dole". noel liked it very much and said it was funny. he did a review in his mag (which i didn't want him to) but still said it had made him laugh and his last words were - buy it. Which was great.
i have to say here at this stage, i did the fanzine because i was influenced by what was going on with the swales out campaign at the time but enjoyed writing and wanted to write about something i love which is city. (soulboy on here made a flippant remark about all fanzine editors being in it for the money - whilst it's true that when i sold fanzines those were the days when i could afford to go to every away game - i go to a quarter of them now - but the reason i got involved was because i had a burning ambition to do so ... soulboy was just saying that for a reaction, and hopefully he himself will share his thoughts on the fanzine war... won't you ???)
anyway, i ended up writing a column for king of the kippax for a couple of years which probably put me in noel's bad books... guilty by association i suppose...but noel would have a pop at me if i was ever selling kk, which was only 3/4 times a season, he would say "why are you selling that shit"
eventually with college out of the way and with city in freefall i decided to bring out the fightback, which ran throughout the late 90s. i lived in sale and went to my local printers in sale - anthony wood ltd - to get copies done. it just so happened noel used the same printers, i wasn't to know - and noel then phones me up at work slagging me off saying "why are you nicking my printers, why don't you go somewhere else"
it was always stand-offish between me and noel because i was mates with one of his brothers and noel thought his brother was "siding" against him, where in reality he wasn't doing anything off the sort, he just wanted to stay out of it and could probably see that noel's problem with me was that i used to write for dave wallace , which in his eyes put me in the dave wallace camp.
i had some contacts at the club and was of the opinion that if francis lee stayed on as chairman we would end up in division 2, which we did do. i was saying this as early as the summer of 1996 when we had been relegated out of the premier under alan ball. as a result my fanzine and myself ended up being the main face of the campaign to get rid off francis, or at least encourage him to resign so that he may be at least be remembered as a great former player and city hero rather than terrible chairman. we went public with a lot of things we knew but whereas the swales out campaign had the support of all the fanzines at the time, noel's mag wasn't behind the lee out campaign. not all fans supported our campaign - people would come up to me and say "why don't you get behind them". also our problem was that we couldn't trust anybody else. if we couldn't trust francis who could we trust ? so we didn't back anybody else. at the time i was 23 and up against a brick wall because i had people who just wouldn't have it that lee was making things worse and then i had noel taking pot-shots at me in his mag every month, ridiculing the campaign or making jokes out of my name.
with noel it was all personal.
dave knew that at one time i felt king of the kippax was a bit of touch and i would tell him so. i said "it's like a fanzine for old people now !" - he would interrupt my column with his editing or poke fun at how many chins i had this week but we'd never fall out about it, we can still get on now but everything with noel was took personally and made into something personal. he liked my magazine when it was a handful of copies being sold. at our peak in 1998 we'd shift 1400 so it was a bit more competition for him. he didn't like that and he didn't like me. in my final fightback i even said my experience of why the fanzine lads don't get on is because of noel, he's fallen out with everyone else and now he's fallen out with me.
he used to get leanne to say things to you whilst selling, gary phillips to say things whilst selling . he's get his people to blank you.. that was my experience of him. if i was with my mates he'd shout over "you think you're hard when you're with your mates"... and if i was on my own he'd say "you're not so hard without your mates round you"... it didn't need to be violent to be bullying - it could be just verbals which was my experience of noel really.
even when i started on the city mag he would slag us off in his teletext column "arsenal away, it must have been a big game if dante friend went" - i have all the copies of work i have done at our house and i have read through them again. when i have had a pop at noel it's simply because he's been having a pop at me for a few weeks beforehand.
so why go public with all this ? well, i was a fanzine editor but also involved with the fanzines for 10 years. 1993 to 2000 with the fightback and king of the kippax and then i was "mr blue sky" in city til i cry for a couple of years in the 2000s. i have stood there in all weather with the other fanzine lads - apart from blueprint - although there was one season when me and this charming fan were both selling (94?) and in the main i got on with everyone although it was a bit stand-off ish with franny fowles (are you blue or are you blind) and these days i get on great with the chips and gravy lads, see tommo everywhere, but at the time they thought i was a bit of a "troublecauser" and that might have been a negative impression given to them by noel.
noel you have had some personal stick on here which isn't nice. i know it isn't nice because i used to get it off you !
one half of me thinks, don't post anything, let things go but then after reading all this i just think fanzine readers would find it interesting , what went on. this thread turned sour on page 11 when noel said dave "wants to be in the limelight" - i just feel that's how these things start, dave wallace's people then come on the board, then blueprint and then it all goes off again.
no doubt noel will respond in kind and give his side of things and i would be interested to hear them. in fact i would like him and dave wallace to say where they feel it went wrong between them as well and maybe it would give us all closure as i feel his problem with me was that i was dave's mate.
i have nothing personally against noel now, although i did at the time... but i have moved on. it's all in the past but that's how it was for me.