Printhead

I love my job; I wouldn’t exactly say that I love work per se, but I do love my job. It is rewarding and an honour to be paid for what I love doing. It wasn’t always this way; fifteen years ago I’d do almost anything to stop more than the merest fraction of my mind being occupied by what I was paid to do, as I felt resentful giving any of my mind’s capacity away, but as I’m a devotee of Philip Larkin, it seems that as I’ve grown older, I’ve unconsciously replicated the emotional journey he made between “Toads” and its successor companion piece “Toads Revisited.” While I’m not yet ready for Cemetery Road, I find that the older I get, the greater the amount of energy work takes out of me and consequently my stated interests / hobbies /obsessions (Real Ale, literature, obscure Indie music, non-league football and loony left politics) are being squeezed by the sheer amount of effort it takes to keep body and soul together by doing my job. Clearly, something has to give and while football is obviously sacrosanct (Monday 27 August: Team Northumbria v Hebburn Town, Bedlington Terriers v Ashington, Tuesday 28 August: Birtley Town v Chester Le Street, Wednesday 29 August: Whitley Bay A v Percy Main Amateurs, Thursday 30 August: Newcastle United v Atromitos, Friday 31 August: Team Northumbria v Newcastle Benfield, Saturday 1 September: Whitley Bay v Bedlington Terriers, Sunday 2 September: Newcastle United v Aston Villa, Monday 3 September: Team Northumbria v Penrith, Tuesday 4 September: Whitley Bay v Sunderland RCA), this is why I take September and January off the drink each year to allow my head to recover, why I’ve already decided to pass up the opportunity of seeing gigs by Patti Smith, Plainsong and Allo Darlin in early September, why I’ll not be at the 20th October Coalition of Resistance demo in London and why, sadly, I feel unable to read a book for personal pleasure from New Year to Whitsuntide each year.

I must read, at a rough guess, 250,000 words a week when I’m at work (which means term time and all holidays, bar the Christmas break); the level of concentration and critical awareness needed to plough through that amount of prosodic verbiage and still come up with cogent and evaluative comments for each chunk digested is not an onerous task, but still is one that requires a responsible, sentient response. After so much reading for profit, I find that reading for pleasure needs to be unchallenging in the main; metonymic moaning about Newcastle United and banal cyber chatter will do for me in autumn, winter and spring. Consequently, I park books at my bedside until the last week of May each year and as the students wrestle with exams, I relish the chance of finally being able to read what I want until September arrives.
Actually, that’s not strictly true; I’m so polite, I can’t turn down books proffered with the usual, predictable insistence that “you must read this; you’ll love it.” I point out I’ll not be able to return it until June, but often that works in my favour as my rusty critical faculties and tired eyes are knocked in to shape by these literary equivalents of pre-season friendlies, as I feel beholden to get these books out the way before I start on what I really want to read. So, what was on the Cusack bedside cabinet this summer?

First up was Brian Kennedy’s exhaustive tome on League of Ireland football, “Just Follow the Floodlights.” I’d borrowed this from my mate John McQuaid, having to get it read so as I could take it back to him on 31 May when I flew over for the first of my 2012 Irish pilgrimages. Kennedy’s book is useful; indeed I found its existence profoundly irritating as it knocked my idea for my proposed second book on the head. However, Kennedy’s book falls between two stools in that it is neither a detailed account of a season, even though all the games took place in 2011 and he visits every League of Ireland ground, nor is it a scholarly historical account of the game of football in Ireland, either from the late 19th Century or post Partition, depending on the defining political and geographical compass of the book. Kennedy doesn’t touch on the game in the Six Counties, other than describing the quality of hot dogs in the Brandywell and the idea of discussing any links between sport, politics and cultural traditions in the whole island of Ireland is way beyond his remit. Perhaps this subject is the book on football / soccer in (the Republic of / Northern) Ireland that needs to be written in the future.

Also related to Ireland was a novel loaned to me by my friend Ceri; “The Cove Shivering Club” by Michael Curtin, who was a name unknown to me prior to early June. Frankly, I’ll not be searching out any more of his stuff. Suffering from bad editing and a surfeit of minor characters, picaresque interpolations of little interest to the reader or relevance to the plot and a damp squib of an ending, it was part nostalgic Bildungsroman, with the emphasis on “dung,” and part dull examination of gender politics in Celtic Tiger Ireland. Curtin’s book appears to have disappeared without trace after an initial printing; I hope he has learned to write with more discipline in the interim, as I see he has other books out there, which I don’t intend to read.

A borrowed book I loved was “Rip It Up: Post Punk 78-84” by Simon Reynolds, which talked to me in minute detail about the bands  who meant so much to me in my formative musical years and who, as I approach 50, still dominate my Ipod. The Gang of Four, Wire, The Mekons, The Raincoats, Cabaret Voltaire, The Fall, Pere Ubu and a litany of others on Rough Trade, Fast Product and Postcard were the soundtrack to Reynolds’s upbringing and while he doesn’t include himself in the narrative, I can imagine he’s talking on behalf of thousands of teenage, pseudo-intellectual wannabe intellectual artistes who listened fervently to John Peel on transistors underneath pillows in darkened bedrooms as the Winter of Discontent ground on in the real world. This book is definitely highly recommended; cheers to Knaggsy (High Heaton’s Number 1 Killing Joke and Dancing Lessons fan) for lending it to me.

The final borrowed book was the touching and incredibly important “As If,” by Blake Morrison, which examines the James Bulger case and subsequent trial of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. It is a tough read, but a rewarding one; Morrison manages to be sympathetic and outraged, without being vengeful in his prose. Published back in the mid-1990s, one can almost sense the mantra “tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime” seeping through each paragraph. However, we live in less tolerant times and the concept of rehabilitation for offenders seems to be as immoral in the eyes of the press and media commentators as revenge was after the Bulger case. Perhaps it is time for Morrison to revisit this subject for his elegant prose will certainly prove that society would benefit from understanding more and condemning less.

So, as June moved towards July, it was time for me to reduce the pile of unread books from years gone by that had gathered dust on the bedside cabinet. Firstly “Twenty Years of the Nobel Prize for Literature,” given to me by a departing student, Wendy, in 2009, was tackled. Surprisingly, I found it intriguing and rewarding; Harold Pinter’s “Art, Truth and Politics” was as inspiring a read as I had all summer, though I also found myself touched by the words of Imre Kertesz, VS Naipaul, Gao Xingjian, Wislawa Szymborska, Nadine Gordimer, Joseph Brodsky and Wole Soyinka. It is a book I shall use in my teaching and one that humbled me to read.

I’d had Andrew Marr’s “A History of Modern Britain” since 2008, but the size of it and the freshness of the TV programme (and many of the events mentioned in it) in my memory put me off, not to mention the fact my dad and I were devotees of the programme and discussed it in detail each week. However, when my son Ben announced it was on his A Level History reading list, I knew I had to get to grips with it. If you don’t mind Marr’s voice, which leaps out from every line, and his cynical libertarian politics with their streak of intolerance for state interventionism, then it is a rattling good read. Is his analysis of post war Britain the correct one? I take as my text Xhou Enlai’s 1971 response to the question whether the French Revolution had been a success; “it’s too soon to tell.”

It was not too soon to finally read Tim Parks’s superb account of “travels around Italy in search of illusion, national character and goals,” which is how he subtitled his book “A Season with Verona,” that minutely and magnificently analyses the club’s ultimately successful fight against relegation in 2000-2001. I’ve not been to Italy and pay only scant attention to Serie A, but this book had me gripped from the start to the finish; perhaps what Parks has that Brian Kennedy and Michael Curtin lack, is the true author’s ability to manipulate words to portray and describe situations, characters and their significance. “A Season with Verona” is a glorious book, as is Anthony Cronin’s “Dead as Doornails,” which I bought myself as a treat in Dublin in August. It is an account of the 1960s Dublin literary scene; Behan, Kavanagh, Brian O’Nolan and a cavalcade of minor talents drink, snipe, brawl and ponce their way through a decade of wasted promise. Cronin, who is still alive aged 84, laments the dissipation of talent and the squandering of energy in the wrong fashion, while offering lucid literary analysis of the work of people who were his best friends, but who were all dead as doornails by the end of the 1960s. This is another book I’d recommend.

Three rubbish non-fiction ones I wouldn’t are now to be discussed. Firstly, Jim McDowell’s banal and exploitative “The Mummy’s Boys: Threats and Menaces from Ulster’s ParaMafia,” in which the notorious lush who edits the NI rag “The Sunday World” retells the Peace Process in the north of Ireland, to suggest his attempts to stagger away from the public bar of “The Duke of York” were the reason why the Loyalist paramilitaries decided to decommission their weapons. Simplistic and narcissistic by turns, it is a colouring book compared to the writings of Peter Taylor on the subject. Another load of rubbish is “Hotel Nirvana” by Melanie McGrath, a formless, shapeless account of travels in New Mexico, Texas and California among New age communities in search of spiritual enlightenment. She doesn’t find it and I only read the book on account of the fact she shares a name with my mate Declan’s wife. Equally awful is “Hang The DJ: The Alternative Book Of Music Lists” by Angus Cargill, whereby he’s asked a whole load of his mates, who wouldn’t even qualify as Z List Celebs, other than David Peace (when the hell is the final episode of the Tokyo trilogy coming out, eh?) to give their all-time Top 10 tracks, providing there’s some spurious premise behind the choice; theme tunes, murder ballads, instrumentals, great guitar solos, whatever. It’s a half decent idea spoiled by a lack of cohesion in the execution, but frankly more suited to a pub discussion than a book.

In the world of fiction, I continued my intermittent appreciation of Iain Banks, with his sadly dated, but superbly structured and compelling “Complicity,” combining unhinged yet deeply moral serial killing with chronic illness for the narrator. Like all Banks’s books, I was drawn in by his taut prose and unexpected plot elements. I should read more of his stuff I know. I read Mike McCormack’s “Crowe’s Requiem,” a tragic love fable set in Galway, because many years ago I’d read his short story collection “Getting It in the Head.” Similar to that book (and Banks in a way), a gallery of young grotesques deal with their doomed existence by paying homage to a trinity of booze, fags and fucking. Crowe’s imminent death at the end had me almost in tears; surely the mark of a good book is one that draws you in. Joseph O’Connor I can take or leave; his detective fiction appeals, while his historical intellectualism bores me rigid. “The Salesman” was a gripping read; a deeply flawed narrator living through terrible personal tragedies, struggles with the concept of revenge and reconciliation with his daughter’s attacker. The fact I knew the setting (O’Connor’s beat is Dalkey to Bray) made it seem so real, I struggled to put it down.

A book I initially struggled to pick up, out of fear of being let down (despite everyone I knew saying it was as great as could possibly be expected and then some more) was “Skagboys.” In the end, Welsh’s brilliant prequel to “Trainspotting,” with the minute personality details explaining that earlier book so much more clearly than on first reading, had me wishing it was longer. I truly hope Welsh returns to the same gallery of characters when they approach their 50s or later; how on earth do they turn out? It is almost too sad that we just don’t know.

The final 5 books I read were all by Cormac McCarthy. Having fallen in love with “No Country for Old Men” and “Blood Meridian,” I needed to read all his works; if I get through “The Border Trilogy,” I will have done. Not all of his work is of the same standard as the first 2 works mentioned, or even “The Road.” In reverse order of quality, “The Sunset Limited” is a fairly formulaic prose drama that examines questions of morality, regarding life and death; it needn’t detain us much. “Outer Dark” has the elements of gothic grotesque that recur in his other novels, but without the narrative force or breath taking turns of phrase we are used to; in effect, it is juvenilia. “The Orchard Keeper” is about a juvenile, but is an interesting account of prohibition in the land of hillbillies, with an utter lack of the grotesque that normally accompanies McCarthy’s descriptive passages.

“Child of God” is grotesque to the point of nausea, but it is also bleakly comic and unerringly crafted. I loved this book, mainly because it was so horrible, but the book I loved most the whole summer was McCarthy’s beautiful, elegiac semi-autobiographical masterpiece “Suttree,” which I’d rate higher than “Blood Meridian” in his personal oeuvre. A simple narrative involving a disenfranchised fisherman, living in Knoxville, Tennessee, who befriends the marginal and the mad, then watches them struggle on before falling by the wayside. Suttree survives, but knows he must move on and, dignified, humble and wise, the book ends as he prepares to do so. This is the finest book I’ve read all summer.

I go back to work next Monday; “The Border Trilogy” is 1,037 pages long, unread and on my bedside table; I’d best make a start.

Unpublished 1: Around The Grounds 22/08/12

Last season, every time a Percy Main home game fell victim to the weather, I put the stuff I'd done for the programme that would not now see the light of day on here. This season I'll do the same. However, the game versus Wallsend Town on 22nd August did go ahead (we won 5-3), but the programme didn't appear because of a computer malfunction. Regardless of reason, here's the piece I wrote for the programme -:

We should now be three games in to the Northern Alliance season, but the incredible rain of Wednesday and Friday last week has, as ever, caused havoc with fixtures. As a result, only 5 teams have played all their fixtures; poor Shankhouse have only managed a single game and that was a 3-0 defeat away to Carlisle city. The Cumbrians sit proudly on top of the Premier division after 3 straight wins, the latest of which was a single goal victory over a Hebburn Reyrolle outfit still looking for their first point. Amble and Harraby have 100% success rates, but didn’t play yesterday, while Whitley Bay A moved up to fourth with a 4-1 win over Rutherford, who prop up the division. Champions Heaton Stannington are 5^th, with 2 wins out of 2, the latest being a 2-0 success over Seaton Delaval. The other game to take place in the Premier Division on Saturday 18^th, saw Wallsend Town continue their unbeaten start with a 2-1 win over Killingworth sporting, despite having 2 players red carded in a fiery encounter.

In Division 1, the pace setters are Cramlington Town, who are benefitting from a long break after last season. Having opted out of the Supplementary Cup, they finished competitive action at the back end of March and have come roaring out the blocks with 3 straight wins, including a 2-0 success away to Cullercoats on Saturday. The other high flyers are newcomers Northbank Carlisle, who have also taken 9 points out of 9, the latest coming from a 2-1 success at Forest Hall. Heddon, who we face in the Northumberland FA senior Benevolent Bowl on October 6^th at Purvis Park, were inactive yesterday, but have 6 points from 2 games. Morpeth Town, who are here on September 22^nd in the George Dobbins League Cup, were trounced 6-1 at newly promoted Hexham on Saturday. Chemfica went one better, defeating a Bedlington Terriers side who’ve lost all 3 games and languish at the foot of the table, 6-0. The other 2 games saw a brace of 2-2 draws; Ponteland United being held at home by Gosforth Bohemians and Willington Quay Saints playing out a similar scoreline with fellow promoted club Red House Farm at the Barking Dog.

Things are tight in Division 2, with only new boys Wooler (3-1 victors away to fellow rural outfit Alston) and North Shields Athletic (who fell 2-0 victims at home to debutants Birtley St. Joseph’s) having played their full complement of 3 games. Wallsend Boys Club are top, having collected full points from 2 games, having beaten Longbenton 2-0 on Saturday, taking over from the inactive Wideopen. The other games saw 8 goals shared in a 4-4 cracker between Blyth Isabella and New Fordley, while Swalwell and Newcastle Benfield Reserves had a more modest sounding 2-2 draw at Derwenthaugh Road. The final game saw last campaign’s wooden spoon side Cramlington United win 3-0 away to Grainger Park Boys club at Newburn Leisure Centre. It is very early days yet.

That message must also be the mantra of Newcastle Benfield boss Perry Briggs, who saw his side dumped out of the FA Cup last week by a returning Durham City side and then fall 3-2 away to West Auckland. Whitley Bay started their league campaign with a 2-1 success at Billingham Town. Team Northumbria lost 2-0 at Spennymoor in the Craven Cup (the Northern League Charity Shield); then fell 3-0 to the same opponents in the league. Astonishingly, there was a sell-out crowd at Bishop Auckland, though it was for the visit of Darlington 1883, who prevailed 3-1 in their first game at this level since the 19^th Century. Gilford Park have changed their name to Celtic Nation, for some reason, and it was under this moniker they celebrated their first game in Division 1 with a 1-0 home win over South Shields. Not quite as impressive as Division 2 newcomers Ryhope CW, who won 7-0 away to Stokesley. North Shields lost 1-0 at Jarrow Roofing, after going out the FA Cup at Birtley Town in a replay and West Allotment Celtic drew 3-3 away to Seaham Red Star. In the Conference Gateshead were held at home 1-1 by Forest Green, in front of 531, while 494 saw Blyth Spartans lose 2-1 to Witton Albion.

The Semi-Midas Touch

First published in "toon talk" issue #10 in August 2012...

Let’s be honest, the biggest transfer of the close season was a long, tortuous process, involving many hours of fraught negotiations, whereby the deal looked to be dead in the water several times, only for interest to be resuscitated on an almost daily basis. Finally, after several weeks of to-ing and fro-ing, the player put pen to paper and a genuine Geordie hero centre forward has returned home to play in front of his own kind. Welcome back Anth Lormor; 22 years after Jim Smith sold him to Lincoln City, the lad has signed for Heaton Winstons in Division 4 of the North East Over 40s League, no doubt inspired by the journalistic double life of the team’s powerfully built keeper. Ahem….

In all seriousness, Anth’s signature for my bunch of over the hill has-beens and never-wases at the business end of the lowest level of veterans’ football in the area seemed a more likely occurrence than Andy Carroll returning to Tyneside, especially back on April Fools’ Day when the returning villain of the piece was booked for a dive, mercilessly taunted by those who used to adore him and then hauled off by Dalglish, for whom he had some special words of thanks. However, stranger things than Andy Carroll returning have happened; just ask Lee Clark or Mo Johnston. Obviously, the existence of the transfer window until the end of August means that any comment on where Carroll will be playing his football in 2012/2013 must involve a degree of speculation, though it is reasonable to assume that the choice of venues for his talents has narrowed with West Ham (having signed Malian striker Modibo Maiga, with whom we were linked this time last year) pulling out of the race.

On the surface, the end of the Demba Ba specific transfer window on July 31st suggests that Newcastle are now less likely to want Carroll back, even as second top banana at the club, despite the departures, with all good wishes of everyone associated with the Magpies, of Lovenkrands to Birmingham and Best to Blackburn. It was desperately unfortunate for Leon that he picked up a serious knee injury in pre-season and I fervently hope he gets back to full fitness soon, but frankly neither of those two (solid, honest, committed professionals they may be) is consistently good enough to warrant anything other than a peripheral squad place for any side aiming to finish above halfway in the Premier League. Yet, their departures do leave Newcastle light in terms of available attacking bodies for a season that may involve up to a dozen more games, if we are to have a decent run in the Europa League. Behind our Senegalese superstar duo, there is only the great enigma of Shola Ameobi as perennial benchwarmer and in reserve, the busted flush that is the discredited and disreputable Niall Ranger. While remaining in the bounds of reality, it is perhaps unlikely that a call will go out to La Coruna to call Francisco Jimenez Tejada back to his parent club; we are uniformly content for Xisco to wind down the final year of his NUFC contract in his Galician idyll.

At the end of 2011/2012, Newcastle United sold Leon Best, as has already been stated, as well as Frazer Forster to Celtic, where he had been on loan for almost 2 years, and then dispensed with the services of Peter Lovenkrands, Danny Guthrie, Alan Smith and 8 reserve and fringe players, of whom only Tamas Kadar had enjoyed significant game time for the first team, albeit not for 2 seasons.  I’m sad to see Guthrie leave as I was always a fan; he wasn’t the new Robert Lee we’d been promised when he arrived from Liverpool via Bolton in 2008, but he was a steady, reliable, safe pair of hands in central midfield (and a load of bollocks out of the wing, incidentally); I would have liked him to stay, but I can understand the appeal for him to be offered a central role at Reading. In contrast I was utterly elated to see Alan Smith leave the payroll; not only because his reported £60k per week wages were a final, damning indictment of the legacy of the surreal squandering of money that marred the Allardyce administration, but because in 5 years Smith contributed nothing worthwhile on the pitch, meaning it is almost a blessing he made only 94 league appearances (including 17 as sub) out of a potential 198. Many would say he made his mark, in a Ryder Cup non-playing captain kind of role, by chairing the no-holds barred inquest in to the 6-1 mauling at Orient in July 2009; I would counter that by suggesting any Newcastle fan would have assumed such a role for free, rather than the estimated £15m wages he pulled in during his time with us. Last season, Alan Smith played 6 minutes of Premier League football for Newcastle, at a cost of around £3m (assuming we still picked up the tab while he was away getting booked for MK Dons), which is a statistic that requires no further comment.

Looking dispassionately at the Newcastle United first team squad as it stood after the end of season departures, it was clear that the 3 areas that needed strengthening were: a full back, a centre half and a striker. The three names most often heard were: Debuchy, Douglas and De Jong. To date none of them have signed; indeed De Jong has gone to Borussia Monchoengladbach in the Bundesliga. As I write, Debuchy, after a fine European Championships, is in dispute with his club and Douglas needs to remain in Holland until such time as his citizenship is granted in mid-August. Being candid, I’d heard of none of them before June, but I’d welcome the two still allegedly available, because Debuchy is class and a clear improvement on Danny Simpson, while Douglas has to be a good bet, simply because he isn’t Williamson. I’d also welcome back Carroll, but with the caveat that this would only be in the absence of the availability of other credible options up top; remember though, we didn’t sign a striker to partner Demba Ba last summer and things worked out ok, both before and after Papiss Cisse finally arrived.

However, we have signed some players, though not in the positions where we most need strengthening:  Roman Amaltifano (winger; arrived from Stade de Rheims), Gael Birgirama (presumably as a replacement for Guthrie in midfield; from Coventry) and Curtis Good (centre back; Melbourne Heart). Clearly I’d not heard of any of them and I doubt many people reading this had either, though if we rewind 12 months the names of Cisse, Santon, Cabaye, Marveaux, Abeid and further back, possibly Ben Arfa, were utterly unknown to any of us. Thankfully, the bizarre insistence of ESPN on showing our half-paced kickabouts in Germany, Austria and Portugal against Monaco, Fenebache, Olympiakos and Braga (though Brazil v Honduras in the Olympic quarter finals at SJP won out over a shaky internet stream of the 0-0 against Den Haag) have allowed us sight of two of them; Amaltifano looks like a touchline-hugger who can sling over a good ball and Birgirama appears to be Tiote’s younger brother, so signs are promising. However, these are friendlies; 10 years ago the team would waltz off abroad and play half a dozen games against opponents you’d never heard of and Alan Oliver’s 2 paragraph report would appear in The Chronicle 72 hours after the game had taken place, so let’s not put too much of a store on the results or performances in such practice matches. Let’s just try and look at the bigger picture as it begins to emerge.

I know this takes a great deal of faith in the judgement of those in charge, but I am prepared to implicitly trust the scouting network, management and executives of Newcastle United to provide us with the players we need by the end of August. I am also reasonably confident that none of our major players will be sold either. Since relegation, bar the farcical renaming of the ground that still festers like an open sore among all supporters of the club, Ashley and Llambias have not put a serious foot wrong in the running of the club, much as it pains me to say that. Indeed, and this is an argument for a whole different article, perhaps boxing Keegan in to a corner whereby he felt he had to resign (not that Keegan needs much persuading to jump ship), then treating Shearer so shabbily, before flogging Carroll and replacing him with Shefki Kuqi,  are decisions that have actually, and amazingly, worked totally in our favour. Let’s just hope that the return of Carroll, if it comes to pass, continues to prove the current owners have their semi-Midas touch, whether this is the result of luck, judgement or a combination of both.

De Banks

Oh all that on earth I wish for or crave

Is that my last crimson drop be for thee,

To moisten the grass of my forefathers' grave,

On the banks of my own lovely Lee.

I’m unable to state the precise date when my grandfather Patrick Henry Cusack, accompanied by his brothers Dan and Tom, left his home in Bandon, County Cork forever. What I do know is that if they had not chosen to follow the examples of millions of other poverty-stricken Irish the 19^th and 20^th centuries, by emigrating and leaving their own native soil for good, in the hope of a better future abroad, my life would have been very much different, had I existed at all.

Perhaps typically, they displayed that streak of wilful, contrary obstinacy that I have by the bucket load, in choosing not to seek their fortune across the Atlantic in Boston or New York, nor to join the huge numbers of Irish in London, Manchester or Liverpool. Instead, they came to live among the smaller in number, though fiercely proud and supportive Tyneside Irish community. Population statistics from the 1870s onwards show on both sides of the river, the percentage of immigrant Irish grew rapidly in Walker and Wallsend to the north and on the south bank in Jarrow and Felling, where the Cusacks came to call home and I entered the world on August 11^th 1964.

Almost 48 years later, on Friday 10^th August 2012, I made the return journey from Tyneside to the Banks of the Lee with my son and my ex-wife, flying Jet2 to the city of Christy Ring, Rory Gallagher, Jack Lynch and, in some far distant way, my ancestors. Of course it’s not true that I’d never been to Cork before; as a small child we once holidayed there, though I have no memory of that visit, back in the summer of 1971. However I have been informed that I apparently developed Chickenpox during my time there and the small scar above my right eyebrow is testament to the physical, as well as emotional and cultural, influence that the city on the Lee has had on me.

Other than ancestral longing and a fancy for a birthday weekend on the gargle, the main reason I’d booked this sojourn was a drunken conversation, very late on Sunday 3^rd June in the Newtown Inn, Maynooth, County Kildare, during my last visit to Ireland. Regular followers of this site and articles I’ve published over the years will know that my passion for League of Ireland football is undimmed by personal experience. Regular trips over the past few years, not to mention the monotonous regularity with which clubs have gone bust (including Monaghan United as recently as June), meant that, other than the Louth pairing of Drogheda and Dundalk, my assiduous attempts at visiting such sites of sporting excellence meant  I was only requiring Cork City to complete my Premier Division set. I’m not so fussed on completing Division 1 as yet, especially as question marks over the nature of senior football in the City of the Tribes and Mick Wallace’s VAT wranglings down in Wexford, may have some effect on the make-up of the 2013 League of Ireland.

Despite being a good 30 miles from Inchicore, The Newtown is a bit of a haven for St. Patrick’s Athletic fans and, having consulted a fixture list while in my cups,  one game stood out in particular; Cork City v St. Patrick’s Athletic on Friday 10^th August. Even better, the All Ireland hurling semi-final between Cork and Galway was taking place in Croke Park on Sunday 12^th. It was written in the stars; I had to be at both games, so immediately on my return I booked the flight out to Cork, then back from Dublin, having obviously checked the Under 21 international on the Tuesday was in Sligo (been there; done that) and the full international on the Wednesday was away to Serbia; news of my non-attendance at this being enough to make Shay Given retire from international football.

It seemed a fool proof plan; my good friend John McQuaid arranged to come down to see the game and the city with us, then booked the hotel rooms at the Park Radisson (well away from the kip the St. Pat’s lads would be using), sorted the tickets for Croker and we started to count the days. Unfortunately, we didn’t factor in the quality of St. Patrick’s Athletic as a Europa League team. Having disposed of Icelandic opponents IBV on away goals, it seemed unlikely they’d have the mettle to trouble Bosnian outfit Siroki Brijeg in the second qualifying round. However, fair play to the Pride of Inchicore; they drew 1-1 away and finished the job in extra time at Richmond Park with a 2-1 win. All of this was great for the Irish domestic game and, regardless of the fact they lost 5-0 on aggregate to Hannover 96 in the third qualifiers, it improved the Irish UEFA coefficient. Regrettably, it also meant that their game against Cork City would be postponed from Friday 10^th until Monday 13^th, by which time we’d be safely ensconced back up in Kildare.

Despair did not take hold at this point; Cork City had arranged a friendly with Blackburn Rovers for Sunday 12^th. Surely, this would be moved back to the Friday or even Saturday, because of the hurling, not to mention the Pats game on the Monday and my personal groundhopping requirements. Well, the club did move it; it had an hour earlier kick-off than initially advertised, so as not to clash with the efforts of Jimmy Barry Murphy’s side up in Croker. In the end, Blackburn won 3-1, in front of 1,386; I’m unclear how many of these were Darwen End psychos who’d caused the cancellation of a friendly in Holland the week before. However, one thing worth seeing would have been Morton Gamst Pederson’s zimmer frame celebration after he scored, in reference to Blackburn’s “Global Advisor” Shebby Singh likening the midfielder to a pensioner in a meeting with fans the day before.

However, fixture rearrangements meant that what was now abundantly clear was the only one thing to do in Cork on Friday night was drink, which I suppose was good for Sara; not that she’s a drunkard you understand, just that she didn’t fancy a League of Ireland game. No wonder we divorced eh? Anyway, the trip over was incredibly smooth, with Jet2 treating us like humans and not cattle on the way to the slaughterhouse the way Ryan Air does. We touched down, transited quickly, observed the statue of Christy Ring (the greatest hurler ever, apparently), then checked in to the hotel. A quick coffee and we were on the bus to the city. Goodness I was excited and a little nervous; this certainly felt like a kind of homecoming and I was delighted to be here.

Perhaps the feeling was mutual; the first bar we took in was the Oliver Plunkett, where the singer in the corner regaled us with “The Lakes of Ponchartrain” and “Roddy McCorley,” almost as if he knew my mind and my repertoire. He was a better singer though, so I concentrated on the Beamish at a very reasonable £3.00 a pint. I preferred its plain character to the slightly sweeter Murphys, which cost more. After a couple of beers and a bite to eat, we looked for other bars. I entreat you to avoid the awful Ovens Bar, which was like an O’Neill’s transported to a place where there are plenty of great, authentic and eccentric pubs.

Two of them you must visit are Charlie’s, on Union Quay, a real spit and sawdust affair that’s the closest I can recall to the Atlantic Bar in Portrush of 30 years ago. Charlie’s has a shrine to Rory Gallagher and appears to be a hub for live music; I will go back there I hope. The music was off for the boxing on Friday night, when Michael Conlan lost his Olympic semi-final. In the other memorable bar The Hibernian (or Hi-B) on Oliver Plunkett Street, it was mobile phones that were off. This crazy one room pub, upstairs from Minihane’s chemist and downstairs from the Cork College of Hairdressing is as eccentric a place as I’ve ever been in; it’s honestly like drinking in a 1960s living room. Another spot I must go back to.

We made it back to the hotel for late ones; no music and no conversation in the bar, as mute businessmen watched the US PGA in silence, while Friday trickled in to Saturday and I became 48. Up in the morning for a full Munster fry, we took a look around Cork. While it doesn’t have the Georgian elegance of Glenamaddy, I mean Dublin, it is a charming place and I will return sooner rather than later. It’s a good job we weren’t looking for Turner’s Cross, the football ground, though, as we didn’t find it; instead we came across Sunday’s Well, the home of Munster rugby, then began our journey north through the Jack Lynch tunnel.

Our first stop, still in County Cork was Mitchelstown, the home town of a dear friend of mine and massive Teenage Fanclub fan, Tom O’Grady, who died in May 2010. Frankly, it’s a no-horse town that is dying on its arse; you can see why he exchanged it for the bucolic delights of Luton. We got out of it fairly quickly then moved on through County Limerick, where the roads were choked with Hiace vans full of Stanley knives. In County Tipperary, we passed through the beautiful town of Cashel, making sure to take a bad photo of The Rock of Cashel, before heading on to Thurles.

Here the photo opportunities were of the spiritual home of hurling, Semple Stadium, which was of course closed and Hayes Commercial Hotel (including the Cusack Bar), where Michael Cusack formed the Gaelic Athletic Association on 1^st November 1884. From there we headed northwards through Kilkenny, Laois, Kildare and Dublin, depositing Sara at the Red Cow Hotel with Declan, Mel and the kids, who’d come inland from Dalkey to collect her. John, Ben and I then headed out to Maynooth, where I celebrated my birthday by staying in, as it has become a tradition of mine not to go out on my birthday. One interesting thing was the appearance of Paul Brady on Saturday Night Live; I may have missed him at the Sage in May, but he’s with me every step of the way when I’m back in Ireland.

Sunday was hurling day and we took the 12.15 from Maynooth to Drumcondra, along with most of the population of the county of the Tribes, or so it seemed. The actual attendance at Croke Park was only 41,582 in the end, which is about 50% full, presumably because many Cork fans hadn’t bothered to travel as they felt sure they’d lose. I’d guess that the crowd were probably 60:40 Galway to Cork, but as we made our way to the Cusack Stand, it looked more 99:1 Tribesmen to Rebels.  Declan, being a proper Galway bandwagoneer, ignored the highly entertaining Clare v Dublin Minor semi-final on the undercard, in favour of taking in Hibs v Hearts. I have to say I was delighted that the Hibees grabbed a deserved point, but it was important for Ben and I to take in the Minor game, as this was our first ever sight of hurling and we needed to try and get our eyes in. I supported Clare, on the basis that they weren’t the Dubs, but they fell agonizingly short, losing 4-14 to 2-17 after being in front most of the game.

I’m very pleased we saw the Minor game as it almost prepared us for the fastest and most furious sporting encounter I’ve ever seen; a game that saw aggression and confrontation incessantly on the pitch, but not a scrap of bother nor any taunting off it. To Declan’s delight and my disappointment, it was the Joe Canning Show as the Galway man grabbed a dozen points in a 0-22 to 0-17 win for his county, after the two teams had been locked at 0-11 each at the break. It was a privilege to see such action and skill at close quarters.

Rather bizarrely though, the half time entertainment was an exhibition game of Rounders, which is a constituent sport of the GAA. Both Ben and I had played exactly this sport in Primary School, without any knowledge or indication it was in any way Irish. If I’d known, I’d have been better at it, though I did play for Green house at Falla Park in the inter house competition, if that counts. Certainly the Rounders was more entertaining than the awful on-pitch entertainment, a Limerick band that may or may not have been the Hairy Bowsies singing “I’ve got a Hiace full of Stanley knives.”

At full time, we wended our way back down through the truly blighted part of north inner city Dublin that is erroneously called Summerhill. I mused as we came on down through Parnell Square and the top of O’Connell Street and in to the safe haven of The Confessional Box for a pair of pints of Porter, that this is the part of Dublin the Irish government are keen the tourists don’t get to see. Smackheads, whores and all manner of poverty blighted marginals begging for loose change dogged our step as we went thence to the train from Connolly to Maynooth. A hungry feeling came over us stealing, so we took a spot of dinner in Brady’s, followed by the bizarre sight of the Olympics Closing Ceremony on RTE, in the Newtown Inn, surrounded by the same Pats fans as back in June, who were are still going to Cork for the game, despite it being on Monday. Luckily, Shamrock Rovers v Sligo had also been moved to the Monday so we had a game to go to in any event.

The next morning feeling rough, I persuaded Ben to join me on a tour of Dublin. It was a glorious day and would have made for a fabulous welcome home party for the Irish Olympic team, if that idea hadn’t been knocked on the head. Katie Taylor returned to a welcome in Bray, John Joe went on a pub crawl in Mullingar and the two Belfast lads had a low-key reception in the Titanic Centre. Presumably Cian O’Connor’s horse was somewhere around Parnell Square at a methadone clinic.

From Connolly, I took Ben up the Monto, down Talbot Street to the GPO, where we met Sara and Declan. Lunch in the hideously overpriced and poor quality Grand Central was followed by a wander over the river, past Trinity, up Grafton Street and on to St Stephen’s Green, to the fabulous Dublin City Museum. Everything on show has been donated and the elegant Georgian terrace is crammed full of touching, personal, nostalgic mementos of Dublin from the last 100 years. I implore you to go, as it pulls no punches about this enduringly fascinating, beautiful place that is, in all honesty, still actually two cities. Rather like Berlin in the 70s, there is a tremendous and jarring contrast between the two sides. In Dublin, it isn’t a wall that separates the two sides, but the River Liffey.

The poverty and drug abuse on the north side, compared to the ostentatious affluence on the south, should not be explained by 100 yards of water, but by centuries of the failures of capitalism.  The appalling legacy of heroin and unemployment in Dublin is most strikingly depicted by the hundreds of shuffling junkies on Da Nort Soide, many of whom have reached middle age, meaning they’ve been addicted for most of their lives, and who beg and plead from Talbot Street to Heuston Station; frankly it is appalling. I’ve always been aware of such shameful social conditions, but it was a real eye opener for Ben as we walked back through Temple Bar, along the Quay, over the Ha’Penny Bridge, past the Four Courts, through Smithfield, to Collins Barracks and the National Museum, before we caught the Luas to Tallaght for the game.

It was a beautiful sunny evening as we arrived at the end of the line. Of course I’m no stranger to Shamrock Rovers home games, having taken in the 1-1 with Cork back in June, as well as a 1-1 at Tolka Park v Derry in August 2007. My previous Tallaght experience told me the Maldron Hotel was the only place in the area for sustenance. As we took coffee in its luxurious lobby, I mused on how bizarre it would be for visitors to the Hilton in Newcastle to see the place rammed with football fans, never mind how bizarre it must be for football fans to enjoy pre match drinks in an upmarket chain hotel.

Reigning champions Shamrock Rovers started the game 10 points behind leaders Sligo Rovers and needed to win this one. Both sides were out of Europe, though Shams had reached the EA Sports League Cup Final and were in the FAI Cup that holders Sligo had been knocked out of by the now defunct Monaghan United.

With the game being on television, I hadn’t expected much of a crowd, so I was pleasantly surprised to see almost 5,000 in the 6k capacity stadium. As a point of contrast, 2,059 were at Turner’s Cross to see St. Pat’s steal a 1-0 win that kept them alive in the title hunt as they’ve two games in hand because of their European adventures.

Sligo, now managed by former Scunthorpe boss Ian Barraclough, looked really good; Jospeh Ndo in midfield is the best player in Ireland and didn’t waste a ball all night. Ndo was ably supported by Romauld Boco and Pascal Millien, while Ventre and Quigley, who scored a blinding goal to put Sligo ahead, were superb as well. Considering Danny North is out for the season and Rafael Cretaro was only on the bench, Sligo really do have a strong squad. They could have been out of sight by the break, but a fingertip save by Jansson from Boco right on the whistle kept Shamrock Rovers in it.

After the break, it all changed around once Ronan Finn curled in a beautiful equaliser after 50 minutes and Shamrock Rovers found themselves in the ascendancy. Sligo are cute though and Ndo took all the sting out the game as it headed to a tame draw that gave the visitors more pleasure than the hosts.

So, another trip to Ireland was over; I’d not been to any new grounds, but I had seen two great games, a pair of wonderful cities and a brace of deeply important museums. However, don’t be surprised if it is Cork that I head to next time I fly back to my spiritual home.

Prince Spiderbaby Huntley (16/03/96-03/08/12) RIP

Peacefully, at home, after a short illness, Prince was taken from us after a wonderful, fulfilling and deeply rewarding life. He was a beloved, adored companion for Laura and he will live in our hearts forever.

Goodbye Princey; love you forever xxxxxxxx

The Taking Part

International Football is not something that I’ve a great deal of experience of; strangely enough, the side I’ve seen the most is England Under 21. Back in April 1983, they played at St. James’ Park against Hungary, winning 1-0. I joined a fairly partisan crowd, for the express purpose of booing mackem player Nick Pickering. Of course, I was only 18 back then; when I was 30, in November 1994, Ireland visited St. James’ Park and I obviously attended to support the Boys in Green. We lost 1-0, but I managed to enjoy myself by booing the mackem Martin Gray.

While resident in Slovakia, I was able to see 3 games in the 2000 European Under 21 Championship finals; England 0 Italy 1, England 6 Turkey 0 and England 0 Slovakia 2, in a glorious, uproarious, raucous atmosphere. I wrote an article for When Saturday Comes about that one; read it here http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/99-Crowd-control-&-policing/3655-the-bratislava-pack .  Returning to Bratislava for another academic year, I saw their Under 21 draw 1-1 with Sweden at Dubravka in October 2000, before seeing the full international between the two sides end goalless at Slovan the night after. My other full international was at Trnava the following March, when the home side overcame Azerbaijan 3-1.

Back in England, in summer 2001, I accompanied the Chinese Under 18 football squad, for whom I was English language tutor at their base in Slough, to the Madjeski Stadium (having already taken in Rotherham 2 Crystal Palace 3 on my birthday – it’s a long story that I wrote up in When Saturday Comes and you can read it here http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/31-Players/3110-the-teachers-tale ) for the purpose of taking in England 4 Holland 0. Closer to my own fireside, St. James’ Park hosted England v Turkey in March 2003; I took Ben and my dad, who had worked in Turkey long before I was born, and none of us stood for the national anthem. Finally, I travelled to mackemland to support Shola Ameobi as England overcame Slovakia 2-0 in June of that year. My next, and most recent, international experience was the Ireland v Italy game in Sligo at the start of June that I blogged about at the time.

It isn’t that extensive a list of international fixtures it has to be said; in my defence I can say that I only really supported Ireland and Slovakia in any of the games I attended, though being neutral and attending just so I could say I was there is part of the reason why I was at Bulgaria 1 Romania 0 at St. James’ Park in the European Championship Finals in 1996. You’ll remember that tournament no doubt; clearly I wasn’t caught up with any of the 3 Lions on our Shirt bilge, as I was still smarting from Holland eliminating Ireland in a play-off the previous December. I did know, at an instinctive level, that I had to be at a minimum of one game in the tournament. Good job I was, as it was the game with the lowest attendance in the whole competition; less than 16k.

To explain this, the game featured 2 sides who’d brought the fewest fans and who, economically, were so stuffed by the cost of living over here, not to mention the ridiculous £30 minimum ticket price that many of them were forced to camp and couldn’t even afford to drink in pubs. Post-match I remember being in The Hotspur (we had a midnight extension in all bars in the NE1 area, which was unheard of Bohemianism in those Calvinist days) with jubilant Bulgarian fans who alternated between drinking a carry-out from the Co-op and minesweeping for slops. It had all started off to civilised as well; Chimay and croque monsieurs outside the late lamented Bier Rex in warm June sunshine. Still, at least I could say I was there.

Obviously, the current Olympics provides another opportunity for similar event spotting. For predictably contrary and curmudgeonly reasons, I’d affected a studied lack of interest in the whole proceedings, same as I had with the European Championships. Indeed, as the opening ceremony took place, I bored myself silly struggling to stay awake, watching a wobbly feed on the PC that kept me abreast of Olympiakos 1 Newcastle 1 in some low-key kickaround tourney at Faro in the Algarve. However, Danny Boyle’s superbly choreographed reanimation of the Post War Social Democratic Consensus inspired me to queue for football tickets at SJP on the Monday, but only after I’d watched Ryan Taylor’s free kick of the century win the highly important Faronese trophy as we beat Braga 2-1, not to mention feeling a slight flicker of jealousy watching Honduras defeat Spain at SJP on the Sunday night.

Monday morning saw me spending longer in the queue for tickets than I would in the ground itself. Perhaps the worst aspect of the wait was enduring Sir Clifford Ahmed of Laygate droning on in the background; still, at least I had my Ipod to drown out his inanities, and those of a tedious posh bloke who was welded to his mobile phone. I took the time to discover who it was I was actually going to see; I knew the Wednesday game would be Brazil versus New Zealand and that if they won that, they’d be back for the quarter final against Honduras on the Saturday.

I was delighted I’d not be seeing Team GB for a whole raft of reasons. Firstly, there’s the whole patriotism thing that leaves me cold. Secondly, there’s the issue of the worst football strip I’ve seen since Coventry’s chocolate brown away kit. Thirdly, there was the dismal spectacle of their truly atrocious showing in the warm-up game against Brazil. You could tell it was played in Smogland; a half empty stadium with the home side being crushed in to submission by vastly superior opponents who cruised through it all in first gear.

Most importantly, there’s the issue of the manager; I loathe Stuart Pearce. Punk fan he may be, but humourless, thick, nationalistic and dull is how he comes across to me. I’ve never had any time for him and disliked having to endure his presence in a black and white shirt as much as his hideous celebration after scoring a penalty in the shoot-out against Spain in Euro 96. However, as Team GB weren’t coming anywhere near Tyneside, I didn’t have to worry about him.

Wednesday 1^st August was the third anniversary of my dad’s death; a sad memory, but one I’ve now learned to accept. Despite warnings about needing to get there early, I had to go to the doctor’s, on account of impacted wax in the lug, at 2pm, so I didn’t get to SJP until 2.23pm, but I still made my seat by kick off. A great seat for £20 it was too; on an aisle, 3^rd row from the back at the Leazes end of the East stand, in line with the corner flag. The only drawback was Lord Ahmed in the row behind, but thankfully the football distracted me from him. Brazil, including Neymar, cruised to a 3-0 win. In fact, it could have been 6 if they’d wanted to score that many.

The atmosphere was rather too nice for me; all Mexican waves, photo opportunities (including me taking a snap of Maximo Park frontman Paul Smith in a Gremio shirt) and families sharing tubes of Pringles, but that was only to be expected in the context of the event I guess.  Indeed, Bradley Wiggins’s gold in the cycling was more a topic of half time conversation round me than the game we were all there to watch. Frankly, I enjoyed my evening with Winstons, now including former NUFC striker Anth Lormor, and our 3-1 victory over South Shields Catholic Club, allowing me to experience both ends of the football evolutionary scale that day.

Saturday will be a busy day; 10.30 Winstons v Mill View Club, 2.00 Percy Main v North Shields and 5.00 Brazil v Honduras. Read all about it here next week.