Hertsbleat

(Originally published in Percy Main v Shankhouse programme 15/01/11)

My mate Phil works in the oil industry. For the past couple of years he’s been in Kazakhstan, which has been a reasonable swap for Borat I guess; one unfunny middle aged politically incorrect workie ticket for another, so to speak. Anyway, Phil’s a Newcastle fan who hates watching the Magpies these days as it’s so stressful. Of course he hates other teams; Norwich City, as his mam always made the tea from a recipe idea in the Delia Smith cookbook every Friday, when everyone else on his street got their bait from the chippy, and Stranraer, on account of being stuck their 9 hours waiting for a ferry to Larne once. In fact, so profound is his dislike for the lads from Stair Park that he once knocked back a week’s overtime on the rigs to watch them at Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup years back, celebrating the Dons’ winner with unbridled fervour.

Personally I spread my net of hatred wider than Phil does. In no particular order I’ve contempt for sunderland, Everton, Rangers, Man City, Burragh, Hearts, Chelsea, Leicester, Spurs and so on and so forth. However, over the past few years, I’ve began to really develop a hatred for the poster boys of the chin-stroking, John Lennon specs wearing, polyversity Sociology and Media Studies cultural gauleiters among the espresso sipping non match attending cyber blogging community; I’m talking about AFC Wimbledon. Conversely I’ve started to adopt MK Dons as my second team as I really admire what they’ve done to bring football to that sporting desert. If the followers of AFC Wimbledon were so bothered about their side, they’d have watched them at Plough Lane, instead of following the egg chasers from Harlequins or Saracens instead.

Of course this season in the FA Cup there was a chance that the moral descendents of the 1988 FA Cup winners MK Dons would have played their UK Independence Party in lycra upstarts AFC Wimbledon in round 2. Sadly MK Dons misread the script by losing a first round replay at home to Stevenage, who won the play off between the unspeakable and the inedible by dumping AFC out in round 2, resulting in the reward of a home tie versus Newcastle United, which resulted in the kind of humiliating disaster that managed to knock the Mackems defeat at home to Notts County off the back pages. We’ll, we’d been there before hadn’t we?

Sunday 25th January 1998, FA Cup 4th round; Stevenage Borough (as was) of the Conference v Newcastle United of the Premier League. In a year that would see the Toongate scandal erupt less than two months later, with its unsavoury revelations of Freddy Shepherd and Douglas Hall’s attitude to Alan Shearer, not to mention the ludicrous sacking of Kenny Dalglish in August that year, this public relations disaster was perhaps the biggest fiasco in a whole series of wholly preventable own goals.

The moment the draw was made, after Newcastle had beaten Everton 1-0 at Goodison courtesy of an Ian Rush effort from 2 yards in a deplorable game, the Newcastle board and Dalglish started twisting that the game should be moved to SJP on safety grounds, which seemed like cowardice pure and simple, considering the team had finished second in the Premier League the season previous and played in the champions’ League not two months earlier. However the fact was in 1997, Stevenage had drawn Birmingham City at home in the third round of the cup, but had switched the game on police advice to St. Andrews, where they lost 2-0. The difference in 1998 was that Stevenage Chairman Victor Green, a wily self-publicist and typical boardroom tyrant, was able to play Newcastle and Sky TV off against each other. Murdoch’s money won out, under the guise of Corinthian fair play, and the game stayed at Broadhall Way, with a temporary stand erected to house the Newcastle fans, beamed out live on Sky. Prices had been increased to £25 to sit and £15 to stand from the normal cost of £5, supposedly to pay for increased stewarding. Odious, contemptible profiteering and no mistake! However, it worked, as the 8,040 crowd is a Stevenage record and higher than the ground’s current capacity.

One of my best mates from University Kevin lives in nearby Welwyn Garden City. He’s an armchair Arsenal fan, but fancied taking this one in. I trained it down Saturday morning, taking the opportunity to watch Barnet 3 Colchester 1 at Underhill, before heading up to Welwyn. After a pleasant night doing a few bars, Sunday dawned crisp and cool, so we made our way to Stevenage, about 15 miles north. Not having been there before, Kevin was told Broadhall Way was by The Roaring Meg. Naturally we assumed this to be a pub; it wasn’t, it is a shopping centre like Royal Quays or Silverlink. The only place to get a drink was Pizza Hut, where desperate Newcastle fans were ordering a dozen bottles of Bud to go with their garlic breads or soups of the day. We had a coffee then found the ground.

Back in 1987/1988, Newcastle had a temporary stand at the Leazes End while the Milburn was built; I never sat in it, as the Gallowgate Centre was my home in those days, but I refuse to believe it was as rickety as the groaning, shifting scaffolding and hardboard structure that housed me that afternoon. In the back row, typically enough; a plank of wood half way up my back was all that came between a 100-foot drop and me. The game, consequently and thankfully, was a blur; the returning Shearer scored a textbook header after 5 minutes from a Gillespie cross and we began to relax. Sadly, as is so often the case, Dalglish’s side went back in to their shells and invited the spirited home side to have a go on the awful, bumpy pitch. They did and Guliano Grazioli equalised. Thankfully it got no worse.

Coming away from the ground, it was obvious that the home support was largely made up of Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, QPR, Watford, West Ham, Man United and other cockney sides’ fans, all on the lookout for a cup upset. Obviously there may have been some real Stevenage fans, but they weren’t easily discernible. The real FA Cup story was to have been found 200 miles north the day before, when Tranmere had beaten sunderland 1-0, despite having a player sent off. Even more amusing, referee Rob Harris allowed Tranmere to substitute the sent-off Clint Hill. This became all the more amusing when the fifth round draw handed Tranmere an away tie against Stevenage or Newcastle. Unlucky Wearside!

Lucky Tyneside! Newcastle crawled home in the replay 2-1, with a Shearer double, when it seemed the first hadn’t fully crossed the line. This game provided me one of my toughest journalistic assignments; writing the match report from a Stevenage point of view for Non League Monthly, I was sat in the Press Box next to Ron Jones, who asked me not to smoke (I eventually took his advice in 2007) and Mike Ingham, who looked unnervingly like Peter Tatchell. In retrospect the £100 fee and chance to attend the Dalglish Press Conference (even if I couldn’t understand a word he said) made up for the sense of feeling a fraud and the tough 2,000 word assignment at the end of it.

So, 2011 and Newcastle United were away at Broadhall Way again, with ESPN picking this one out as their live game. As the FA Cup have now introduced the Ronnie Radford Award for Giantkilling, it was nice of Newcastle to obliging produce a craven, sickening non-performance to allow Stevenage to claim it for this year. “Walking In A Pardew Wonderland?” Not really.