Recently by Mike Chapple

IN NUMBERS, the contrast could not be more stark. In its heyday, the original Spion Kop could accommodate a heaving, swaying, singing mass of nearly 30,000 standing souls on its 100-odd steps.

On Saturday, the three step terrace of the "alternative" standing Kop, at Prescot Cables ground, may have contained only 200 at a push.

But that's where the differences ended, as the exuberant Anfield spirit was injected into the first home league game of AFC Liverpool, a new team of young Reds bolstered by the supporting values and principles of the past.

LIVERPOOL FC players may be physically fit, but now their supporters have been officially declared the "fittest" or sexiest in the Premiership - and that's official.

The club's supporters - whose high-profile fans include Daniel Craig, Angelina Jolie, Dr Dre, Mel C and Joss Stone - came top of the domestic table in the attractiveness stakes, following a study conducted by a TV channel and scouts from the top London- based agency, D1 Model Management.

High-definition footage, which is four times clearer than traditional TV images, was used to study faces in the crowd at a Liverpool home match.

For nearly two decades, Steven Kelly has mirrored the title of the groundbreaking Liverpool FC fanzine he founded by standing outside Anfield in all weathers to sell it.

Now after 79 issues, he's blown the final whistle on Through The Wind And Rain, the longest running and arguably acerbically articulate of fanzines devoted to the Reds.

And in the typical style for which he has become renowned he's bowed out with blunt observations not only about his product but about the club.

"I'm still a season ticket holder but there's no question that I've lost some of the feeling for the club because it's lost some of the core values I thought it represented 20 or 25 years ago," said the 49-year-old from Bootle, who brought out the first issue in late 1989, the year of the Hillsborough tragedy in which 96 Reds fans died. "That family thing for instance.