A new one-off Ipswich Town fanzine entitled Turnstile Blues is being launched this weekend by a group of fans expressing their concerns about the club's present situation.
Amongst those involved are ex-Dribble! editor Alasdair Ross, a member of the Supporters Trust Committee, and former Blue and TWTD editor and long-time contributor Gavin Barber.
Barber told TWTD how Turnstile Blues came about: "The thinking behind the fanzine is to be both a celebration and to stimulate debate — to celebrate what we love about Ipswich, express our concerns about how that can be preserved, and to raise questions about the current management of the club.
"We’re not any kind of official collective — though some of us have had links to the Supporters Trust and TWTD in the past — just a group of fans, of varying backgrounds, who’ve bonded over conversations in the pub and on Twitter.
"The idea of doing a fanzine came about because we wanted to do something slightly different from the current norm. The TWTD Message Board and Twitter etc are great ways for Town fans to have discussions with each other, but we wanted to do something that stood out a bit.
"There aren’t many print fanzines available these days so we hope that by producing a print edition, and standing outside Portman Road selling it that we’ll attract people’s attention and hopefully, by reading the fanzine, they’ll have some food for thought.
"Also, part of the basis for Turnstile Blues — the notion that as supporters we need to ‘reclaim’ our club, in a moral rather than a financial sense — is consistent with the original fanzine ethos.”
Editor Susan Gardiner added: "There are lots of great things about being an Ipswich fan - we want to celebrate those and do what we can to preserve them.
"Turnstile Blues uses humour and personal insights from Town fans to tell a story about what it means to be an Ipswich supporter, and raises concerns about the way that the club is currently being run.
"We hope it will be an encouraging reminder to Town fans about why we all fell in love with the club in the first place - and trigger some debate about the current situation.”
They say that Turnstile Blues, which is named after a comment made by chief executive Simon Clegg last season regarding the Portman Road turnstiles having been repainted, celebrates the best things about being a Town fan whilst raising questions about issues such as "the club's rising levels of debt, declining performances on the pitch, and poor communications from the chief executive”.
In addition to contributions from a number of Town supporters, the fanzine includes an article by Dave Boyle, who has written extensively for The Guardian and is the former chief executive of Supporters Direct, the umbrella organisation which provides support and assistance to supporters trusts.
Turnstile Blues is launched at 2pm this Saturday, 6th October, in the Greyhound pub on Henley Road with copies will be on sale outside Portman Road before the game against Cardiff City.
Mail order copies can be obtained from 58 Lonsdale Close, Ipswich IP4 4HD (cheques for £2 payable to A Ross). The fanzine will also be available online (in exchange for a donation to charity, the Depression Alliance) here from Monday 8th October. The fanzine can be contacted via Twitter here.