There’s a special kind of magic going on in a fanzine, and it’s a magic stitched together with pritt-stick, scissors, tippex, photocopiers, late nights and DIY stubbornness.

For 26 years, Derek I’m Gutted!!! has been that magic in print for us Vale fans. It’s not glossy, not corporate, not smooth. No, it’s better than that, way better. A labour of love made of paper, staples and sheer bloody-minded commitment. A piece of Vale Park culture produced not by a media team, but by Andy McCormack and his cohort. Ink on their hands, Vale in their hearts.

Fanzines have always been more than something you bought for a quid outside the ground or in the pub. They are community in physical form – passed from hand to hand, tucked in coat pockets, quoted in pubs, argued about in the stands. Every issue a conversation starter. A protest. A celebration. A sigh. A laugh. A sly dig in the ribs. A reminder that football is ours.

For me personally, Derek has always been something I save for my own small rituals – a quiet solo pint or two, a train journey where I can finally switch off, those rare moments where the world stops leaning in and lets you breathe. It became something I turn to when I want a bit of peace, a bit of headspace, or just a reminder that solitude can be a gift rather than something to fill with noise. In that sense, it’s always been the perfect companion: calm, steady, and completely mine for as long as I need it.

Unfortunately time hasn’t been kind to fanzines. The internet swallowed the territory they once ruled. What used to take days of cutting, editing, printing and hawking can now be dashed off in 280 characters, liked, scrolled past and forgotten within minutes. And in the end, perhaps that’s the real loss: in a world where we’re tethered to our little screens, endlessly refreshing the feed, we have less time, and even less inclination, to hold anything as stubbornly physical as a fanzine in our hands. Plus, as Andy himself admits, he’s knocking-on a bit now and it’s a lot of work. All good things must eventually come to an end.

I still have a bunch of Dereks going back years. They’re full of nostalgia, little souvenirs – like old matchday or gig tickets. Physical keepsakes. Things we don’t have anymore. Do you remember how bad things were under Lee Sinnott or Dean Glover or Michael Brown? Jim Gannon and the chaos? Shysters like Peter Miller and Perry Deakin running the show? Dive into your old collection of Dereks and all those memories come flooding back. Whether you want them to or not.

And that’s why the end of Derek I’m Gutted!!! hits so hard.

Behind every issue is Andy. Rain or shine. Home or away. There he is, leaning on his pulpit on the Hamil Road, or pacing with that stack under his arm, selling the fanzine he crafted with care, humour, sarcasm, and a sharp eye for the absurdity of life with, and within, Port Vale.

He’s as much a part of matchdays as the pints of Titanic Ale in The Bulls Head, the confusion in the eyes of opposition fans as they try to work out when it’s safe to cross the road from Market Place over to the Wedgewood Big House, the smell of burgers on the Hamil Road, the slow build of the crowd, The Wonder of You when the players walk out, the huge queues for a piss whenever we get over 7000 punters in the ground. Andy didn’t just create and sell a fanzine, he inhabits it. He lives what it stands for. He’s kept alive a tradition most clubs lost years ago – a living thread between generations of fans, a voice unpolished and unfiltered, exactly as football should be.

And what goes into producing all this? the hours writing, the endless editing, the photocopier wrestling, the lugging of bulk packages, the cold fingers outside grounds in midwinter, the relentless need to believe that this mattered enough to keep doing it.  And it did matter. Because every copy sold was a small act of resistance against football becoming just another packaged product (Does everyone get those emails from Vale about the ‘matchday experience’? Wanting our views on everything other than the actual match itself! Football as a corporate commodity. It’s just bullshit all that. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about whether or not the Oatcake van was in the Fan Zone, things like that really don’t matter when we’re near the end of January, rock bottom of League One, and have won just four league games all season).

So yes, I’ll miss Derek I’m Gutted!!! I’ll miss seeing Andy in his spot on the Hamil Road. I’ll miss that sense that something handmade, something human, was still part of the matchday. I’ll miss the feeling of walking into the ground with something that belonged to us – truly to us – in my pocket. Twenty‑six years is a hell of a run. A testament, really, to conviction and endurance. Sisyphus pushing his rock up the mountain. Vale can do this to you!

Andy, thank you. You’ve given us something rarer than goals or signings or even wins: you gave us a voice. And in the age of content, where everything is digital and disposable, you kept alive the brilliant, stubborn, scribbled‑in‑the-margins spirit of what a football fanzine truly is. Derek I’m Gutted!!! may be ending – I’d put money on us having another edition, the way this season is panning out we’ll need another, and remember – the crayons haven’t been put away just yet! – but the ethos behind it remains. Because the best parts of football aren’t found online. They’re found in people like you.