The Smiths split up in 1987, but apparently nobody told their fans. In 1990, thousands descended on Manchester for the annual Smiths Convention, where perfectly sane adults travelled from around the world to stare lovingly at prisons, railway bridges and youth clubs because Morrissey once mentioned them in a song. One fan flew all the way from California to visit Strangeways Prison. Another declared Morrissey to be the perfect human being. Not a Nobel Prize winner. Not a world leader. Morrissey. To everyone else, it was a coach trip around some fairly grim bits of Manchester. To Smiths fans, it was a pilgrimage. Proof that if you're charismatic enough, you can convince people to cross oceans to admire industrial infrastructure. The band may have split up three years earlier, but the cult of Morrissey was just warming up. #TheSmiths #Morrissey #TheWordTV #ManchesterMusic #Madchester #BritpopBeforeBritpop #MusicHistory #90sTV #AlternativeMusic #IndieMusic #Manchester #JohnnyMarr ...