I’m a massive fan of Twitter; I like: the updates from
official sources of information, whether they be football clubs, newspapers or
bus companies, the asides and insights, ranging from the banal to the beatific,
from those who make their living in the fields of music (David Gedge; Norman
Blake), politics (George Galloway; Nancy Taafe), media (Lee Ryder; Michael
Crick) or football (Sami Ameobi; Joey Barton) and the chance to engage in
semi-serious social interaction with mates both old and new. One of the surprising
benefits of Twitter is the chance to interact with huge numbers of match
going ordinary Newcastle United fans, who I don’t know in real life, but who
provide reactions, both profound and profane, to events involving our club;
often as these events are unfolding in real time. Obviously I filter out
shoe-waving zanies, bile-spitting xenophobes and cretinous couch potatoes, but
my human bullshit detector is not flawless and the occasional shit storm of
stupidity breaks overhead, though that is sometimes unavoidable as Twitter
involves a great deal of “thinking aloud,” as we process events in the
search for significance.
Through Twitter, I came across one of the
most bizarre examples of sporting deceit imaginable on the afternoon of
November 4th, when Newcastle drew 1-1 away to Liverpool, when I discovered
there are those who engage in the ludicrous pretence of being present at away
games, when they’re actually watching them on television or computer in the
comfort of their lounge or spare bedroom.
I mentioned last week that I didn’t see much of the game at
Anfield because I was watching the FAI Cup Final between Derry City and St.
Patrick’s Athletic, but I did engage in some furtive second screening to see
how the Twitterati viewed proceedings. When tweeting from a hand held
device, the technological source of one’s thoughts is displayed, whether this
be Blackberry,
HTS or one of the marvellous range of portable gadgets from Apple
MacIntosh; consequently, during a game you can tell who is at home, by the
lack of reference to an operating platform (am I getting the hang of this
jargon?). However, this doesn’t allow for the basic human urge to tell fibs.
Post-match, those who had been updating reactions to incidents and events from
their phones, as if they were viewing proceedings from the Anfield Road end, suddenly
switched devices, taking to PCs and lap-tops to talk us through their journey
back from Merseyside. No doubt the final
whistle had been followed almost instantaneously by a decamping up the stairs
to “the study” on the pretence of “working on a document for that meeting on
Tuesday;” either that or there’s some mighty fine Wifi on Merseyside and all
along the M6 and A69. While I can appreciate that some people possess very fast
motor cars that can rapidly bring them on a Sunday night all the way from
Sandwell to the Sage in time to see Belle & Sebastian, I wonder just who
The Desperate Cognoscenti are trying to kid with their shape shifting on-line
shite?
Perhaps we have seen an epistemological rupture or break,
enacted by The Desperate Cognoscenti. Louis Althusser’s mate Gaston Bachelard
proposed that the history of science has been replete with epistemological
obstacles, which are unconscious structures that were immanent within the realm
of the sciences, such as the principles of division between mind and body. According
to Bachelard, the history of science has consisted of the formation and
establishment of similar epistemological obstacles, which had to be
metaphorically torn down to enable thought to progress. This act of cerebral
destruction, not deconstruction, is known as an epistemological rupture, where
an unconscious obstacle to scientific thought is thoroughly broken away from. Consequently, as well as accepting as fact the
assumption that watching an away game on television or the computer is now not
only as valid a way of experiencing the match as being there, The Desperate
Cognoscenti effectively state it is possible to claim that the act of viewing
any game from the comfort of home is de
facto the same as being there, resulting in the right to assume to the need
to metaphorically travel 150 miles home afterwards and record presumed events
that happen on this mythical journey, even if in reality you’ve only moved up
one flight of stairs. It isn’t The Burma Railroad and it isn’t Chairman Mao’s
Long March now is it? However, in their eyes, The Desperate Cognoscenti have
provided the on-line solution to the seemingly intractable problem of how to
know everything about the game, without being there.
The truly stunning thing about the Liverpool game was that
Robbie Savage called it right on Match of the Day 2; Coloccini had an
absolute disaster of a game. Having spent 75 minutes trying to kick racism out
of the game by booting Suarez at every given opportunity, he got as close to
him with an attempted stamp as he had done for the goal and had to see red. In
retrospect, it was almost a mercy killing; we got a point in a game we could
have won, but would have lost if the captain had stayed on. Colo was no better
in Bruges; floundering and flapping as he misjudged a dropping ball, in the way
he seemed to do every week in the relegation season, as they took the lead
following the kind of aimless punt forward Liverpool profited from and Pardew has
seeming fallen in love with as a tactic for us. Of course Coloccini was not the
only player to make an appalling error of judgement in that game; Krul’s
complicity in the second with the kind of slow motion dive Harper has based his
career on has been airbrushed from the media and Marveaux’s air shot from
inside the six yard box with an empty goal gaping wouldn’t be tolerated in a
Sunday morning 5 a side. On the positive side, Anita’s goal and assured
performance hinted at his coming of age within the team; let’s hope so.
I realise I’m being daft by seeking to discuss the game
itself. The Bruges fixture was clearly not about football for the vast majority
of those who made their way over there. Whether you were a jested-hatted zany
with 23 on the back of your replica shirt, or a Stone Island attired
Bender Squad veteran, affecting the kind of thousand yard stare perfected by
Peter Mullen in Tyrannosaur, the whole glee club outing was a glorified stag
do, where beer, brawling, balladeering and bad behaviour was the order of the
day. However, it must be stated that unlike the Caring Club’s trip down the
Durham coastline on the rattler, no trains were trashed, employees assaulted or
bogs smeared in shit; the legendary class, dignity and panache of Newcastle’s support
was overwhelmingly in evidence for the whole time, or so I’m lead to believe.
Unlike The Desperate cognoscenti, I wasn’t there.
I like a drink, rather too much if I’m honest, but I like
football more. If I’d been there, I’d have attended the game totally sober as I
don’t like to watch football under the influence as I find it difficult to get
a proper perspective on events. Post-match, it’s different; there’s nothing I
like to do more than quaff an ale in The Town Wall, while observing The Desperate
Cognoscenti in their £400 hi-viz anoraks reinventing themselves as time-served
casual icons, swapping bon mots about
socks. However, if I’d been in Belgium, I doubt I’d have ruined the memories of
seeing my team play by drinking myself to a standstill before kick-off.
Obviously I still tweeted that I was on
the peeve with Jacques Brel, Plastic Bertrand, Hercules Poirot and Tin Tin,
eating moules mariniere and drinking Leffe.
The truly remarkable thing about tweeting from your phone if
you’re a supporter of Newcastle United is that you can actually find time in
between the torrent of junk emails from the club to register your thoughts.
Even during games, I find myself bombarded with automated communications,
offering the chance to book executive boxes for home games, or entreating me to
buy execrable NUFC branded onesies or
the loathsome Howayman outfit. When these arrive during a single goal home
defeat to West Ham, where the post Bruges hangovers on the pitch and off it,
made us easy pickings for The Hammers, it didn’t do my mood any good.
Admittedly we’ve only lost a game and not seen the season disintegrate, as some
seek to claim, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth, especially when I
reflect on the fact I’ll probably not see another home game in 2012. I’ll
definitely be missing the Swansea and QPR home games, because of Percy Main
commitments, as well as things looking dodgy for Wigan (work) and Massive Club
citeh (Hibernian v Motherwell was just too tempting).
My interest in local amateur football is the best way I know
to get Newcastle United and the emotional upset they cause me out of my head;
on Friday I’d seen West Allotment Celtic and Morpeth Town share 8 goals in a
sparkling contest at Blue Flames, while the day after that, Percy Main won 4-3
at Wallsend Town. The weekend’s big non-league stories in the region might have
been Whitley Bay’s astonishing 8-3 victory over Penrith and West Auckland
seeing off Darlington 2-1 with a last minute penalty in the £10 game (where
even Mike Amos found the anti-Traveller songs of The Quakers to be “bordering
on racism;” does that mean we’ll see anything done about it? In the same way as
Stuart Pearce has announced he “trusts” the Serbian football authorities to
sort out the fall-out from the England Under 21 game last month, don’t bother
to watch this space would be my advice…), but for Percy Main the headline news
was the departure of our boss Gareth Allen, who leaves with all good wishes. We
have to move on and I did on the Monday night to see Team Northumbria get the
better of Guisborough Town (including Jamie Poole, the player who escaped
censure for his foul-mouthed, racist tirade aimed at Benfield’s Jordan Lartey
back in January) 8-7 on penalties after a 2-2 draw in the Northern League Cup,
with the match finally ending at 22.22. At least I got away an hour earlier on
Tuesday, when South Shields overcame Alnwick Town 4-2 on a calm, temperate
evening. It was the first time I’d been to Filtrona Park in 6 years and I
thoroughly enjoyed it.
At the two games listed above, the talk among the crowd was
of developments involving two local football figures: firstly, James McClean,
who chose not to wear a poppy as the Mackems crashed to their usual defeat at
Everton. I’ve no time for McClean, who seems to be this decade’s Keiron Brady
without the talent but with more ego. However, I am a pacifist. Consequently,
I’ve never worn a red poppy in my life, though I did used to wear white ones
when they were briefly available about 20 years back, so I’ll say fair play to
McClean for standing up to the unsavoury tide of militarism and the
fetishisation of the armed forces, so prevalent among the on-line Tyrannosaur
tribute acts, that I find so repugnant. Fight War Not Wars, as
Crass said back in the day.
And then there’s Mark Clattenburg. Despite the fact he’s
been stood down for three successive Premiership fixture cards without an
official syllable being uttered regarding the progress of any investigation in
to these allegations against him, it seems as if his case may be moving towards
a conclusion. The Metropolitan Police have decided not to investigate him any
further as “no complaint has been made,” which is legally fairly cut and dried.
Of course the lack of a criminal conviction is no guarantee of indemnity from
the football authorities, as John Terry can confirm; incidentally, his serious
injury on Sunday in the game versus Liverpool meant that the day wasn’t a
complete write-off. As bonehead racist moron Gareth Kirkham faces criminal
proceedings for his monkey gesture at Stamford Bridge against Manchester United
in the game 3 days after Clattenburggate, the FA continue to
drag their heels over claims that Clattenburg used “racial” language to John
Obi Mikel and Juan Mata. The referee claims Mikel misinterpreted the phrase “I
don’t give a monkey’s” and vehemently denies calling Mata “a Spanish twat.”
Chelsea FC; fighting racism since October 27th 2012…..
I would like to extend my hand in friendship to Juan Mata
and I would hope he has put his other hand in his pocket to help out the club
where he started out; Real Oviedo. The Guardian’s Spanish football
correspondent Sid Lowe, a journalist of impeccable morals and superb erudition,
acting as a counterbalance to the loathsome, preening David Conn-Man and
mendacious, prattling Lousie Taylor, spread the case of Real Oviedo’s imminent
demise on Twitter. As a way of saving the club, now mired in debt
following relegations and boardroom incompetence on a massive level, a cash injection
has been sought, not in terms of a fan buy out sadly, but by means of a share
issue that runs until November 17th. You can buy shares here and I’d
urge you to do so; http://www.realoviedo.es/yosoyelrealoviedo/
The share issue may not be the ideal solution to the
problems of this club and others in Spain and the rest of the World, buckling
under the weight of debt occasioned by recession and incompetent boards or an
effective way forward, but a £10 donation to help keep a club afloat is a decent
gesture. Certainly it’s probably less opportunistic than the Ebbsfleet
adventure under the auspices of www.myfootballclub.co.uk
which I invested £35 in a few years back. Ebbsfleet are still in The Conference
and still managed by Liam Daish, but the numbers of investors / subscribers to
the project has dropped off markedly. The reason for that is probably far more
to do with a lack of emotional and geographical attachment to a club from the
road to Tilbury Docks among the initial members of the project; personally I
couldn’t even be bothered to go and see a team I was an equal part owner of
when they played at Gateshead, much less travel to see them win the FA Trophy
at Wembley. It seems churlish to point out that the discredited NUST may have
had plenty to say about Plymouth Argyle in the past, but nothing at all
regarding Ebbsfleet or Oviedo, but I’ll say it anyway. NUST seem happy to send
out almost as many unsolicited emails as the football club do, almost all of
them appropriating Bobby Robson’s famous comments about Barcelona at the drop
of a hat -:
“What is a club in any
case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to
represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing
departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of
belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps
for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed
stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it,
falling in love.”
Sadly NUST seem high on romantic idealism, low on tactics
and utterly devoid of any grasp of the importance of current, unfolding events.
Meanwhile, Oviedo streamed their 1-0 win over Real Madrid C last Sunday (wish
I’d seen that instead of the West Ham game) and are rewarding anyone who buys a
share with free entry to a game, on production of their share certificate,
which looks like the best possible reason to visit Asturias in the future. All
together now; we hate Gijon and we hate
Gijon. We hate Gijon and we hate Gijon. We hate Gijon and we hate Gijon. We are
the Gijon haters.
However, if anyone out there believes I’m being soppy or
romantic by my gesture to buy a share in Oviedo, can I just say that I
recognise what is far more important in the broader scheme of things, is the
success of the General Strike in Spain on Wednesday November 14th.
Workers standing together to fight back against austerity and social repression
is far more important than how much beer you get down your neck in Belgium or
who wore what on their jersey at the weekend; to claim otherwise is pure
poppycock…
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