Before we get going again...
An editor's note
Chips for a Quid is written pretty much anywhere I can sit down.
Office chairs, train carriages, library desks, departure lounges, bus shelters, waiting areas, pub booths, cafe tables, hotel bars. Some of the 100+ issues were compiled in a tiny spare bedroom two miles from Y Cae Ras, others were put together in an apartment in Barcelona, or a Starbucks in Northampton, or on a flight crossing the North Atlantic Ocean. Scrawled iPhone notes still exist from a brainwave I had for one edition whilst eating a fry-up in the Isle of Man.
As long as I have an idea and a place to perch, a new edition of CfaQ has the main ingredients it needs to blossom from a blank page into something semi-coherent and fully ridiculous.
The fact the newsletter is assembled here, there, and everywhere is quite fitting, I think, given that CfaQ isn’t really about a single place at all. It’s about the experience of being a Wrexham supporter. And we’re everywhere, aren’t we? Always moving. Our lives revolve around the club - orbiting Y Cae Ras like planets around the sun - but each of us follows our own rotation between kick-offs, eventually lining up together at 3pm Saturday to sing, laugh, scream, whinge, debate and drink… and then cycling back to do it all over again. From one generation to the next.
Inside every CfaQ issue - somewhere amid the garbling - is the same message: Reds are pretty serious about this silly obsession of ours, and we don’t really want to make any apologies for that.
Given how most of my affection is reserved for writing and football, it’s surprising it took me as long as it did to put pen to paper. But more surprising still is the reception CfaQ has received. My friends, family and partner have been hugely supportive from day dot, but I never really believed CfaQ would transcend my inner circle, never mind the fanbase, or the country. Incredibly, writers of other fanzines have sent kind notes, American visitors have approached me in the Tech End to shake my hand, and readers from thousands of miles away have quietly upgraded to the paid tier to support my work. Some followers read, ‘like’, and share every issue mere minutes after it is published. That doesn’t go unnoticed.
We’ve entered that part of the year now where our promotion-winning heroes are all grey and withered after getting mullered in Vegas, and people on social are swearing on their lives they just saw Jamie Vardy and Gareth Bale buying jeans in Chevron, so this seems as good a time as any to pause for a moment and give thanks.
Hopefully it doesn’t sound too saccharine to express gratitude to everyone who is reading today. It’s been a pleasure. Here’s to many more.
Diolch yn fawr.
Gaz.
Great reading thank you. Always enjoy the quality of the writing! Merci!!