Rovnosť a Petržalka DO TOHO

Saturday 27th April 16.15: Percy Main Amateurs 1 Heaton Stannington 6. Things couldn't get any worse, apparently. Saturday 27th April 19.15: Newcastle United 0 Liverpool 6. Really, I wish I'd been in Bratislava at the Football Against Racism Europe (FARE) conference, "Free Kick for Equality." As requested, I submitted an outline of a paper for this conference, but it only made it to the reserve list and wasn't selected. I was disappointed as I could have seen my old side FC Pertzalka draw 1-1 with Slovan B. To make up for it, here's the outline of a paper I could have given, if I'd been aked to -:

Almost 14 years ago, on 19^th September 1999 my team Newcastle United beat Sheffield Wednesday 8-0, which was their biggest win since beating Newport County 13-0 almost 53 years previously, in what was my late father’s first ever visit to our stadium, St. James’ Park. Sadly, I did not see any of the 5 goals our record scorer Alan Shearer plundered in the 8-0 win, as on that Sunday I flew from Newcastle to Prague and then on to Bratislava, to start a job teaching English to Slovak students at Akadémia Vzdelávania in Gorkeho. 

Just less than 2 weeks later, on 2^nd October 1999, I saw my first game of football in Slovakia when a deflected 63^rd minute strike by full back Martin Baliak gave visitors Petržalka victory away to Slovan.  The last game I saw in this country was on 20^th July 2005 when Petržalka overcame a 2-0 first leg loss to defeat Kairat Almaty 4-1 after extra time at Senec’s ground. The fact that both contests were momentous victories away from the traditional, historic and incredibly beautiful home ground of the Slovak side I fell in love with at first sight, makes me despair even more that, at the moment of writing (18^th February; the 77^th birthday of Dr. Josef Venglos), my beloved Stary Most stadium is no more and Petržalka lie bottom of Division 3 West. However I am led to believe that there is reason for optimism, in the shape of the club’s new ground south of the Danube, back in Petržalka; though as someone who spent 2 years resident in Ružinov, the proximity of the temporary former home at Rapid’s old ground on Mierova, would have been particularly attractive for ease of access for those Sunday 10.30 kick-offs I grew to love.

It was not the quality of play that attracted me to support Petržalka; rather typically, that 1-0 triumph over Slovan was followed by a thoroughly terrible 4-0 humiliation by Košice the week after. However, that particular game was my first visit to Stary Most and, despite the worst efforts of players of the questionable standards of Martin Kuna or Tomas Medved, it was the beauty and atmosphere of the stadium that immediately held me in thrall; though the black and white strips didn’t dampen my ardour very much it has to be said.

The fences at Slovan and running track (as well as utter absence of either crowd or atmosphere) at Inter’s Pasienka home did not appeal, despite their relative proximity to where I lived. Instead, I opted to take bus 50 to Stary Most, where the green seats that came to cover 3 sides of the ground were then only on one side, with small covered sections behind each goal and a bizarre building that contained changing facilities, offices and what else I do not know, that always resembled a Mississippi riverboat steamer to me. In front of this white, concrete structure which boasted an unfeasible number of balconies to watch the game from, towards the goal furthest from the river, half a dozen assorted English teachers from Akademia Vzdelavania and the British Council made it our home.

We came to call this section Swearers’ Corner as the most dominant voice among the crowd was the incredible, incessant obscenity of Petržalka’s most loyal fan, Laco and his equally profane daughter, who both kept up a continuous stream of invective throughout the entire game, which could be directed at officials, opposition players or, on one memorable occasion after selecting the utterly immobile Martin Kuna in central midfield, manager Vladimir Weiss. However amidst the endless utterances of debil, hajzel, kokot and many other more extreme insults that would undoubtedly result in arrest for anyone uttering them on a street corner, Laco was a source of deep and profound football knowledge and insight. He also, unknown to him, taught me 99% of the Slovak I ever learned.

Between October 1999 and June 2001, I did not miss a single Petržalka home game, though my last game was a wonderful 1-0 win away to Inter, where I was able to reliably inform the soon to depart Szilard Nemeth that Middlesbrough je hovno. My return to England coincided with an upturn in Petržalka’s fortunes; the Inter Toto Cup was reached the season I left and in 2004 the Slovak Cup was won, causing me to fly back to see the club’s first UEFA Cup tie against FC Dudelange of Luxembourg, as well as the small matter of a 3-0 home win over Slovan a few days later, which was of more than equal importance I must admit.

During the two seasons our group, which consisted of disparate English teaching expatriates aged from early 20s to late 30s and who were followers of Chelsea, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and Spurs to name but a few, watched Petržalka from Swearers’ Corner or indeed from any other part of the ground, we did not once encounter any hostility, aggression or indeed curiosity from Petržalka fans. Once a fortnight we turned up, paid our 15Skk entry, bought klobasa and either Pivo or Kofola depending on the severity of our hangovers and stood in our usual place. I suppose it helped that we mastered the two songs (both of which consisted of the same 3 words Petržalka Do Toho chanted at a slightly different tempo), but other than that we made no real attempt to either hide our nationality or our native language. It was not necessary to do so, as we felt under no threat at any time.

The day we played Puchov, Laco really came in to his own; as a former employee of Matador in Petržalka, he was deeply scornful of his ex-bosses sponsoring our opposition and was even more relentless than usual in his abuse. Never have I heard the adjective gumové used so often, nor spat out with such derision as Laco did that afternoon. If Petržalka hadn’t claimed a 94^th minute equaliser, I genuinely fear Laco would have exploded. Never mind the fact  we could have been watching Liverpool versus Arsenal in the FA Cup Final in The Dubliner that afternoon, Stary Most was the only place for true football action on a sunny May Saturday in 2001.

The fascinating thing for me that day was, despite Puchov fielding Central African Republic international Alias Lembakoali, the Petržalka support did not resort to any of the kind of racist comments I had heard used on a daily basis by my almost exclusively middle class, educated students and on my occasional visits to see Slovan. Undoubtedly Petržalka supporters regularly exhibited deep-seated regional prejudices towards eastern and indeed northern Slovakia (the latter could be concluded by the response Puchov had that day!!); though not once during my regular attendance at Stary Most did I hear racist abuse directed towards either opposition players or we non-Slovak supporters.

By racist in this context, I mean both the kind of casually prejudicial attitudes towards other races and ethnic groups that frequently peppered the conversation of bank managers, senior Government officials, wealthy industrialists and, most depressingly, university students who made up my classes at Akadémia Vzdelávania, as well as the direct, unequivocally offensive, hate-filled outbursts and chants that Slovan and, one horrible March morning, Nitra brought to Stary Most. As a serious aside, I wonder whether the fact that Inter Bratislava home games were without the level of racist abuse that could be discerned at the stadium across the other side of Bajkalska was because there were not enough spectators present to start a chant in the first place, or whether it was because the great Inter side of the turn of the millennium included a significant number of players who were ethnically Hungarian Slovaks. I ask that as a question I am unable to answer effectively.

What I did suggest, much to the horror of many of my middle class students who simply could not believe that we English would choose to watch Slovak football as none of them, other than a certain Stano Griga who I had the profound pleasure of teaching in 2000 and 2001, went anywhere near a football ground, was that the working class fans of Petržalka were providing me with an authentic insight in to the urban experience of ordinary Slovaks in a post Socialist, post Velvet Divorce and post Mečiar society. It is my profound belief that the famous quotation attributed to Albert Camus that Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football is as true now as when he first said it. My experiences following Petržalka may not have been uniformly rewarding on the pitch, but I feel I learned more about ordinary Slovak people, at a time of great social uncertainty, in football grounds than I could have done drinking beer in ex-pat pubs in central Bratislava.

There was, sadly, one bad experience following Petržalka. In April 2000, our band of followers swollen by guests from home, numbered 11 as we took the train to Trnava, where we would make up 55% of Petržalka’s travelling support. We lost the game 4-2, but had a great time drinking beer and singing our support. Sadly, it did not go down well with the home fans, who ambushed us as we returned to the station and attacked us. It wasn’t a serious assault; one black eye, one cut ear and one sore back, distributed among 3 unlucky victims. Why did this happen? I’m afraid I am unable to claim that Trnava’s finest hooligans believed that the cream of England’s troublemakers had turned up looking for bother. Certainly we were a timid lot, more likely to correct grammar errors than throw punches. Simply put, an amount of xenophobia and a desire to achieve alpha male status were the driving factors in this attack. Was it racist? I’m not sure. Trnava fans seemed accepting of their long-serving Cameroonian player Souleymane Fall and he played with distinction that day.

I am opposed to racism, xenophobia and all prejudicial behaviour, in life as well as in football grounds, but I am also profoundly aware of the causes of prejudice among ordinary people; unemployment, poor housing, disengagement and alienation from society come together in the poverty of aspiration that is the root cause of disenfranchised fans, who were not born this way, singing abusive songs in football grounds across Europe. Such behaviour must always be condemned, but those displaying this behaviour can be helped to see the error of their ways; as football fans we are part of a vibrant cultural movement that is diametrically opposed to the divide and rule politics of the bosses and ruling elite. I am now, and have been for my entire politically conscious life, a Marxist. For me, the solution is clear; the complete and utter eradication of the Capitalist system is the only effective solution to prejudice and hatred in whatever manifestation it appears. If my conclusion is seen as anachronistic or abhorrent, I make no apology for that, though I beg indulgence and forgiveness for my terrible use of the Slovak language.

Horseplay

The latest spirit-crushing snippet of gossip about Newcastle United that dribbled in to the public domain on Tuesday 23^rd April was the news that Papiss Cisse had suffered a cracked rib in the Europa League quarter final defeat to Benfica almost a fortnight previously. Predictably the story was prefaced by doom-laden, hysterical headlines, screaming how “relegation-haunted” United faced a “striker crisis,” as Cisse could be out for the rest of the season, despite the fact he has played the entire 90 minutes of both league games since suffering the injury and will almost certainly be available for the run-in, no doubt swaddled in some kind of protective Kevlar undershirt. Sadly, as far as Newcastle United, the “worst side in the country” for “attacking set-pieces,” having failed to “notch” from a “staggering” 282 corners this “campaign,” are concerned all “news” is bad news at the minute, whether it is factual, probable or even mendacious fantasy on the part of journalists too chicken-shit scared to continue asking why Sunderland have a self-proclaimed fascist at their helm.

Even more depressing, a growing number of our supporters are seemingly keen on embracing the nightmare scenario of relegation as final, incontrovertible proof that Pardew was a fraud from day one. Perhaps tellingly, almost without exception, those who took to Twitter following the West Brom game to demand his removal changed the subject of their tweets to a discussion of the relative merits of contestants in Britain’s Got Talent an hour or so later. Now I realise I may be overstating things here, but any male who voluntarily watches such a programme, whether under a veneer of irony or not, has surely forfeited the right to discuss our club’s fortunes and may soon face the reality of their front door going off its hinges at dawn as part of the on-going Operation Yewtree investigation.

While Portsmouth fans can still rejoice at the fact that, despite their demotion to League 2 as a final, damning legacy of the Redknapp Years, less than 5 years after winning the FA Cup, just as his latest “project” QPR slip out of the top flight, the Pompey Supporters’ Trust has taken ownership of the Fratton Park club (and the £9m Premier League featherbed landing the club is still entitled to), as far as Newcastle United are concerned, it is impossible to polish a turd. Being frank, this season has been fucking terrible, with the occasional positive blip (Bordeaux, Wigan, Chelsea and Southampton at home, as examples) shining out like diamonds in the mouth or a corpse, or the reflective chitinous, carapaces of a plague of dung beetles, basking and feasting on the enormous lake of skittery shite that has been Newcastle United in 2012/2013.

Admittedly, there are mitigating factors (a scandalous, though predictable lack of investment last summer and an injury list that stretches the bounds of credibility for starters), though I somewhat doubt the end of season DVD will be in great demand among the faithful. Much as it pains me to say it, there is a growing realisation and grim acceptance on my part that Pardew’s level of culpability for the fact we lie 16^th and are a potential 3 points above the drop zone with 4 games to go, is perhaps higher (and indeed exponentially increasing) than I had previously thought. Undoubtedly, we have some very good players; contrary to the worthless barking of idiots on line: Anita, Ben Arfa, Cabaye, Cisse, Debuchy, Gouffran (the latest target of sustained volleys of immoderate, contradictory and determinedly populist abuse from the yellow polo shirted cyber boo boys), Santon, Sissoko, Tiote and Yanga-Mbiwa are not “shit,” though nor is Marveaux a second Lionel Messi. However, injuries, lack of form and, it must be concluded, muddleheaded tactics and sub-standard coaching, have left us in the parlous position in which we now find ourselves. There are some bloody good footballers playing bloody awful football because they’re being asked to fulfil roles that are either utterly unrelated to their natural game or for which they have no redeeming talent. Yet this is not the Newcastle United of last season, in terms of spirit, product or personnel.

I am not in the business of deviously rewriting history for the sole purpose of being a wise-ass after the event; it is my contention that last season Newcastle United played really well and deserved to finish in fifth place. Yes we rode our luck. Yes Pardew made gambles that by and large came off. Yes we had two strikers who each hit an impressive hot streak of form. However, our manager successfully responded to events on and off the pitch, produced the goods by and large, and was rewarded with the Manager of the Year award. I may not have agreed with that accolade at the time, but neither do I feel his talent, such as it is, has completely deserted him this season to the extent that he should be replaced; I do have residual faith in his ability to turn things round, as it should be remembered that when we kicked off against Arsenal in 2012/2013, huge sections of our support were both seething with anger at the perceived lack of a replacement for Carroll (this was before Ba had played a game) and tipping us for relegation, which should put a fifth place finish in some kind of context. Ironic isn’t it? The first two seasons after promotion, we worried about going down, especially after Hughton was replaced, eventually finishing 13^th and then 5^th, at which point we all expected the side to be effectively strengthened and to kick on, but we have found ourselves bouncing between 11^th and 16^th in the table from November onwards.  It simply isn’t good enough. The football, which has been deplorable at times, and this is the crux of the matter, does not effectively utilise the talents of the players we have.

It has taken me more than 10 days before I could begin to express a cogent opinion on the events at St. James’ Park on Thursday 11^th and Sunday 14^th April; two crucial fixtures that had the whiff of a season-defining experience about them and in both, we came up short, one bravely and once repulsively. I didn’t make either of them; Whitley Bay v Spennymoor United had me in its thrall on the night of the Benfica second leg. Great game it was too; Spenny came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 with 3 goals in 7 minutes. While the talk on the terraces at Hillheads was either of events at SJP or the death of Thatcher, I thought of former Northern League secretary and Evenwood FC devotee, Gordon Nicholson, a man who had been driven, broken-hearted, to his grave in 2005 when the rump of the recently defunct Spennymoor had played fast and loose with club ownership rules by resigning from the Unibond, merging with Evenwood in the way the Sudetenland merged with Germany in 1938, then expunging all traces of a club that had been formed back in 1890. Followers of the Scottish game will recognise parallels with Airdrie United’s parasitical annexation of Clydebank.

The Europa League quarter final was a big, big game; that much was clear by the absence of Tomi Ameobi from the Whitley Bay squad. Arriving home from Hillheads, aware we were leading, I saw the last 30 minutes; gasped at Ben Arfa’s late effort whistling over the bar and groaned as they broke and equalised. Suitably chastened, I watched the whole game from start to finish and, being dispassionate, I would struggle to say we deserved to go through, but our second half showing was enterprising and spirited enough to say we ought to have won the game; the lateness of the equaliser rendered it almost irrelevant. We were out anyway. I was so disappointed by this as, Taylor’s idiocy and Santon’s aberration in Lisbon apart, I thought we’d been both professional and efficient in the knockout stages and could possibly, dare I say it, have won it. This game, rather than the Mackem fiasco, knocked the bollocks out of me and I’m still gloomy about it now. The Benfica game was the first NUFC European home game I’d missed since Roma in 1999, when I was working in Slovakia; glumly, I wonder when we will qualify for Europe again, if ever.

As regards the Mackem game; without putting too fine a point on it, I’m always pessimistic about this fixture. The signs were all there; I’d seen a negative progression from beating Fulham to drawing with Benfica prior to this one. I’d been aware we’d won 4 and lost 3 of our post European games, so expected the score to be evened up. Worst of all, there was the incessant, swaggering overconfidence of so many of our fans, which reminded me of nothing so much as the Mackems prior to the 5-1 in October 2010. In the days leading up to the game, I’d received official NUFC emails about such subjects as Newcastle United onesies, garden gnomes and 1995/1996 style replica away shirts; a preening, lackadaisical attitude permeated club, team and fans.  Pride did indeed come before a predictable fall and I hated being right in this instance. Obviously the club have taken the defeat to heart; I received an email the day after the game offering 30% discount on “official NUFC suitcases.”

While morons like John Madjeski and Dave Whelan fawned over the twitching corpse of Thatcher, urging football authorities to hold a minute’s silence before games for someone who was eloquently described by a Wigan fan en route to Wembley as a disgusting woman who was solely to blame for the destruction of the north of England, Newcastle United (and don’t delude yourself that if Wynyard Hall had still been in charge he wouldn’t have insisted on compulsory wailing and breast beating as the minimum acceptable levels of mourning required before fans would have been allowed in to SJP) kept Thatcher’s memory alive via the legalised ticket touting operation Viagogo that enabled “fans” to “work with” the club’s “official ticketing partner” by flogging seats for the Mackem game to other supporters of NUFC for north of £150. This is the Free Market and it is truly sickening.

While both Craig White and Charles Green have been drummed out of Ibrox and are facing stern questioning by the Procurator Fiscal for the creative accountancy on show at the Huns, no such interrogative phrasings will be deemed necessary for anyone concerned with the leisure society equivalent of the South Sea Bubble that is making a mint from NUFC’s legal Ebay scam. Sadly, other than some superb investigative work by the eloquent and indefatigable tt9m on Twitter, the Viagogo scandal passed the vast majority of Newcastle fans by, as they began premature crowing over the assumed massacre that lay in store on the Sunday. Literally dozens of profiteering deals were concluded for tickets at five or six times their face value in the days leading up to the Mackem game; it made me angry, though perhaps not furious enough to punch a horse. I’m more annoyed with the mountebanks than the mounted police.

During the game itself, I busied myself by alphabetising about 400 assorted, non-league programmes we’d been given at Percy Main FC, while listening to proceedings on the wireless. Come full time, desolate and depressed, I hit the roads for a restorative cycle around the coast. While North Shields seemed full of plastered middle aged women in replica shirts shouting at each other outside the Alnwick Castle, that didn’t make it any different from a normal Sunday, Tynemouth was depressing. Around 5pm, Front Street consisted of bad tempered, well-built men with shaved heads and slightly too tight, expensive grey, short sleeved shirts shouting profanities into mobiles outside The Salutation, while simultaneously chain smoking and eyeballing anyone who crossed their path; it was a horrible atmosphere, but at least it wasn’t a full scale tear-up.  

In the aftermath of the game, all I’ve had the courage to watch are the goals and while no blame can be apportioned to Rob Elliott as he was forced to pick out 2 stunners from the net, Tim Krul should be ashamed of himself for letting Sessegnon’s tame bobbler trundle past him. As regards, the radgies who somehow seemed to think that setting fire to rubbish bins on Pink Lane would make up for losing 3-0 to one’s bitter local rivals, the only point I’d make is that if you can’t handle defeat, don’t follow football; simple as that. Obviously only a tiny number of them had been at the game, so the idea of issuing banning order to them seems completely pointless; instead we ought to take season tickets away from anyone caught mentioning Britain’s Got Talent on Twitter. I’m not trying to excuse the pissed-up idiots who pelted bottles up and down Westgate Road, but I do wonder whether anyone has entertained the thought that the Coppers were so ready to give it out that day because they were on a high testosterone footing, as Thatcher’s funeral was just around the corner and they were tooled up and ready for action.

As regards the £10m disgrace of a publicly funded ceremony for the most evil public figure this country has ever seen, I was fully behind William Blake, who despised St. Paul’s and felt Westminster Abbey was the better building. Sir Christopher Wren insisted his tomb in St. Paul’s bore the motto SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE; perhaps the Viagogo derby tickets had the same message stamped across them. In the end, the vile dictator’s funeral passed off without incident, which surprised me; it was quiet, even in Easington, where the 20^th anniversary of the closure of the last deep mine in the County Durham coalfield was marked by a celebration. There’s nowhere better equipped to dance on the evil witch’s grave than the home of Billy Elliott I suppose. If only we could say the same about Newcastle.

Speaking personally, I know that if we’d lost 1-0, I would still be incandescent with rage at Cisse’s perfectly onside goal being chalked off, but when it gets to 3-0, a kind of gallows humour kicks in; as I said at the start of this article, you can’t polish a turd. At this point in time, I have far more regrets about the Benfica tie than the Mackem game. We gave it out to the Unwashed after their 19 and 15 point seasons, crowing over the 4-1, in response to the consecutive 2-1 defeats at SJP. Then, they had their day after our relegation in 2009, but the pendulum swung back with the 5-1 and Ryan Taylor over the wall; now it’s their turn to milk it. Fair play to them; they deserved it and we need to take it on the chin.  Perhaps the only laugh I got from the day was the horsepuncher; at what cognitive level was he operating? Did he really think he could slug 1,000lb of equine flesh into submission? If so, would it have made up for the result?

Friedrich Nietzsche’s final mental collapse is usually dated from January 8, 1888, when, it is oft told, on a street in Turin, Italy; he threw his arms round the neck of a horse being whipped by its master and showered the beast in kisses. The collective insanity of Newcastle United fans can perhaps be noted as stemming from the moment a 45 year old fool from Morpeth attempted to punch one on the corner of Strawberry Place and Barrack Road. How else are we to explain the endless demands for Pardew’s sacking in the wake not just of the derby, when such immoderate anguish could be excused, but after the draw at West Brom?

While a point at The Hawthorns was disappointing, considering how we dominated the opening period, it was not a disaster. One wonders just how the Independent Voices felt on seeing Gouffran score at a ground where their famed Grand Prix skills saw them return from Hughton’s last Sunday afternoon game to get to Gateshead by 8pm; impressive driving, if not analysis. It is an undeniable fact that teams at the bottom lose most of their games; with QPR and Reading gone, there is only 1 space left to fill. Wigan and Aston Villa may both overtake us, but only if they average at least a point more per game each in their final fixtures than we do. This is unlikely, though not impossible. It is also unlikely, though not impossible that we will either win all or lose all of our remaining games. Remember also, Stoke, the Mackems, Norwich and Southampton are closer to us than the final relegation spot. It is unlikely, though not impossible, one of those 4 teams, or even Fulham, could end up in the bottom 3. The message is we need to hold our nerve and hope that Pardew and the players keep their side of the bargain. From the equivalent games last season, if you substitute West Ham for Wolves, we took 8 points; even if we’re half as good this year, this means 4 points…

It will be tight and I don’t expect us to take more than 5 points from our remaining games, but I do think we will stay up. Just. At that point, it is time for Pardew to take stock of his personal and tactical errors, as well as personal and personnel deficiencies. We don’t just need a striker, we need to get rid of Carver and Stone and replace them with proper coaches as tactically, they are no better than Alan Murray and Dean Saunders. If Pardew is able to ensure he has properly equipped assistants and can show his depressing reliance on aimless long ball tactics and infuriatingly timid approach to the second half of games we’ve been winning, has been an aberration, I am sure things will improve next season; they simply have to. Results are all that matters; look at how a self-confessed fascist has been embraced on Wearside for beating the scum 3-0.

However, I have to say that if this season ends in the unspeakable doomsday scenario, bearing in mind the players he has had at his disposal (even if they’ve been injured, playing for other teams or completely out of form half the time), then all bets are off…

Sound & Vision II

As there hasn’t been a lot to talk about regarding Newcastle United in the last week, I thought I’d take this opportunity to publish one of my bi-monthly culture bulletins. The scope to this one is a little narrower than http://payaso-del-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/sound-vision.html back in late February, as I’ve not watched the telly in the intervening period. As for the cinema; do me a favour….

Music:

Undoubtedly, the biggest events on the radar for me of late have been releases by David Bowie and British Sea Power, the latter backed up by a gig at Northumbria University, which is where we’ll start this blog.

I became aware of British Sea Power in early summer 2006 after a mate at work burned me a copies of their first two albums, in preparation for seeing them at a gig in Middlesbrough that July. Frankly, it was one of the best nights I’d had in years; bear costumes, foliage and a version of “Lately” that was longer and more intense than many holidays I’ve been on. Subsequently, I’ve tracked their tours and releases, seeing them at Newcastle University in October 2008 and the Tyne Theatre in February 2011, with Ben. Unfortunately this latter show at an all-seated space didn’t quite work; while the beauty and eccentricity of the venue was in keeping with the BSP house style (I missed them playing St. Thomas the Martyr Church in October 2006 as I was working that night), the inhibiting nature of the surroundings on the audience and a fairly self-indulgent encore of Spirit of St. Louis made the thing feel a bit like a damp squib at the end.

Consequently, it took a while to persuade Ben that he ought to see them again, but that task was helped by the fact that the new album Machineries of Joy is tremdous and even as good as Do You Like Rock Music? However, trepidation as to the nature of the evening we had in store still existed due to references on-line to their latest live performances fitting in to 2 patterns; either a quiet, semi-acoustic set followed by a full on set of snorters, or a combination of the two that fell between two stools. The latter experience, ending with the quietest track on Machineries of Joy, namely When a Warm Wind Blows through the Grass had been described as “anti-climactic.” We were lucky; we got 2 sets, 2 bears and an absolutely pulverising version of Lately as well.

They began with five quiet numbers at the incredibly early time of 7.45, which apart from Come Wander with Me appeared to be a selection of obscure numbers for the presumed benefit of the incredibly cliquey travelling BSP fan base; admittedly, they no longer wave foliage at the band or make animal cries and coos to indicate their place in the “inner circle,” but insist on talking loudly through the gig and making in jokes, as 3 pissed, boring, social inadequates near us did. Well, that was until a bloke in his 50s turned round and asked to shut their mouths. They seemed a little put out by this, but they obeyed and I noticed during a mid, main set tinkle (I’m nearly 50 you know), in Spirit of St. Louis these self-proclaimed superfans were stood at the back of the room, no doubt aloof from proceedings.

Northumbria University students’ union has been slightly done out, meaning undergrads are now expected to lash out £3.85 a pint, but the newly decorated view of the stage was absolutely spot on, allowing us to get right to the front of the stage; just as well as my two companions (Ben and Trev) don’t have contact lenses like me. The main part included mainly the new album, with Loving Animals and Spring Has Sprung really coming in to their own, as well as more obvious crowd-pleasers like K-Hole or the title track. I was a little disappointed that neither Facts Are Right, which I think is a solid-gold classic or Monsters of Sunderland  made the cut, but no matter. Obviously older numbers such as Lately, No Lucifer, Waving Flags  and the evening closing Carrion / All In It had their place as well, showing that British Sea Power have both a brilliant back catalogue and a continuously evolving creative urge that means they’ll be with us a few years yet. Their oft-repeated description as the British Yo La Tengo seems well deserved. Gig and joint album of the year so far….

Perhaps a more heralded release, at least in the mainstream, was David Bowie’s The Next Day, which garnered both intense media interest and very positive reviews. I have to say it’s good, but it isn’t brilliant in the way that I’d hoped it would be after hearing Where Are We Now? a few weeks previous. Alright, it is really good and, almost cryogenically frozen in time; it could be the follow up to Heroes, or Lodger, rather than appearing 35 years later. Certainly Dirty Boys sounds like Beauty and the Beast part 2, while Heat, with its disconcerting refrain of my father ran the prison is almost something from his Baal era showmanship. The fretless bass apart, I’m a fan of The Next Day in total and think it is both a fine album and a testament to Bowie’s enduring talent, but it isn’t a musical standout for 2013 as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps the significance of this release is more a cultural than a musical one, with the return to the spotlight of an undoubted icon and genius, after so many years in obscurity and the wilderness.

Another icon, albeit of a much lower profile, returning after decades away, is David Thomas and his Pere Ubu project, on the back of January’s Lady from Shanghai album. I’d secured a front row ticket for their Sage 2 show, which was the first time I’d seen them since March 1988, with The Mekons, in Leeds. Sadly, March 1981’s show with the Gang of four and Delta 5 at Newcastle Mayfair is one I’ll always regret not seeing, having had to miss out with a severe bout of tonsillitis. Knackered after first day back at work, I wasn’t sure about this one either, but the intriguing style of the album made me go and I’m glad I did; partly because I had a chance to have a quick catch up over a coffee (rock and indeed roll) with a dozen or so late 40s art punk devotee pals I don’t see regularly enough these days. The support were Variety Lights, former Mercury Rev frontman David Barker’s new project and they seemed to be almost a Pere Ubu tribute act; a weird fat bloke screaming unintelligible lyrics over great swathes of no wave guitar and squelchy electronic soup. However, the headline artists were far more disciplined than that.

David Thomas must be over 60 now and he looks frail; he walks in a shuffling motion, with a stiff-legged, stooped gait that suggests an arthritic influence. However the band, no spring chickens to say the least, is tighter than a Mafiosi clan. The main reference points are Beefheart meets Neu, with Harry Partch thrown in the mix. Thomas is the only original member of the band and he calls the shots; he’s the only one to speak to the audience, prefacing the set with a short speech, and the rest of the band defer to him. Musicians are Scum, indeed. The entire album gets an outing, which is no bad thing, as well as Over My Head and The Modern Dance; though as set fillers not crowd pleasers. There’s no Non-Alignment Pact or Final Solution. When they come back for an encore of Thanks, Thomas checks his watch at the end of it, decides that’s enough and walks off the stage and out through the audience like a poorly Pied Piper, leaving the band, including a brilliantly athletic theremin player, to play us out the building. An enjoyable night and a good gig, but not a brilliant one.

The next gigs I’ve got lined up aren’t until June, unless I manage to secure tickets for Rod Clements at Porters in Tynemouth station on May 4^th; if I don’t, no loss as I’ve still got The Pastels in Glasgow (1^st June), Camera Obscura at Northumbria University possibly (8^th June), Neil Young at the Arena (10^th June) and then Mike Williamson from the Incredible String Band with Trembling Bells on July 15^th, meaning I’ll miss out on Wedding Present and New Mendicants gigs around the same time. Trembling Bells have finally got themselves a proper website and jolly good it is too;   http://www.tremblingbells.com/ and it is from there I managed to combine the discovery of new and old music, much in the way Trembling Bells do in their wonderful way, I suppose.

What took me to the website, apart from a message on Facebook by Alex Neilson, was the availability of the download only live album The Bonnie Bells of Oxford of Bonnie Prince Billy with Trembling Bells, recorded on last year’s tour that managed to avoid Newcastle. For £7, there is the chance of a marvellous hour and a bit’s set, which captures the energy of the two competing entities on stage. Their choice to open the set with a hybrid of 66 and Just As the Rainbow makes for a fantastic representation of the band’s mixture of folk rock melody and narrative, country romance, improvised looseness, the daring of 60s psychedelic rock and early music's economy, in a performance that sees Lavinia Blackwall's soprano voice and keyboards vie with Alex Neilson's undulating drums, Oldham's fragile tenor and Mike Hastings' guitar.

While The Bonnie Bells of Oxford lacks the finesse of the Bells/Bonnie 2012 team-up album The Marble Downs that it draws much of its material from, it definitely adds a ragged fervour that the album didn't have.   With the songs being pretty evenly split between Oldham and Neilson compositions (with a traditional credit and a Merle Haggard cover thrown in); The Bonnie Bells of Oxford doesn't end up feeling like a lopsided or bumpy listen. From Ain't Nothing Wrong with a Little Longing to the farewell of Love Is a Velvet Noose, Neilson is binds together eclectic strands of influence. The steely pop chime of Love Made an Outlaw of My Heart is pure pop. Oldham peaks here as he slips his So Everyone into the set, after an equally suggestive traditional number My Husband's Got No Courage in Him from Blackwall. The Bonnie Bells of Oxford is also further proof that Trembling Bells are a singularly tremendous band; a fact that is borne out by the other downloads available on the website.

Four hitherto unknown (to me) numbers, featuring 3 Neilson vehicles, where he assumes lead vocals; in How Much Cruelty Can You Take (Josephine)? Alex assumes the role of the slighted Napoleon in a Country & Western croon to his bad-tempered baby, while Elegy for Nosferatu is self-explanatory. The Day Maya Deren Died is a beautiful acapella tribute to the long dead Soviet art film director, but the real treasure is Lavinia’s sublime and soaring take of Rudyard Kipling’s early medieval ballad Sir Richard’s Song that could easily be this band’s A Sailor’s Life and is clearly the best song I’ve heard in the whole of 2013.

A contender for that coveted title is another sung by Lavinia Blackwall; her immaculate exploration of Richard Thompson’s Calvary Cross opens her 2009 project, I Grew From a Stone to a Statue with Neilson and all-purpose Scots folkie Alasdair Roberts, which was released under the name Black Flowers. I wasn’t even aware of this CD’s existence, until the Trembling Bells website went live. It is an absolute treasure, including a take on Fairport’s Swarbrick-led classic Polly on the Shore and the beautiful traditional song Sweet Rivers of Redeeming Love. The 2009 release date suggests it is as being a contemporary of Trembling Bells debut release Carbeth, and it inhabits a similar territory. It’s more than a curio; it is an essential companion piece to the Trembling Bells oeuvre.

The Professor of Renaissance Literature at Stratchclyde University, Dr. Jonathan Hope had a namecheck in the last culture blog for sending me a copy of his sixth-form band Ward 34’s 1979 single. He gets another one this time for sending me a pair of albums by Davey Henderson’s glorious failure to be a mid-to-late-80s pop star, Win. Still producing amazing music to this day with the elusive and uncompromising Sexual Objects, Henderson made a policy decision following the demise of the eternally lauded Fire Engines in 1984 to go for the big time. Hence Win and their almost hit You’ve Got The Power, which formed the basis for a bizarre, dystopian McEwan’s Lager advert in 1985 that seemed to combine Escher with Sisyphus, and still sounds as fresh today, attired with the usual Henderson garments of camp disco rhythms, angular post-punk guitar licks and semi-unintelligible, incomprehensible lyrics, as it did on 1987’s Uh! Tears Babe on London Records, where it is the stand-out track.

The whole Henderson effect is sadly undercut by smooth 80s style glamour production, which similarly hampers 1989’s Virgin album Freaky Trigger; in trying to sound commercial, Win were rendered a little conformist, which is a charge never previously or subsequently levelled at Henderson. It would be interesting to hear the Sexual Objects reinterpret some of these numbers, stripping off the veneer of over production, but as he refuses to do anything from his back catalogue, that seems unlikely. I can understand that approach, as typically uncompromising, but such a revolutionary artistic act would show ever more clearly the continuum in Henderson’s work from Candyskin to Here Come the Rubber Cops, by way of Super Popoid Groove.

On May 5^th last year, I played Paul Brady’s The Lakes of Ponchartrain and sighed over the fact I’ve not seen him live since 1984, when he played a gig at my university in County Derry. I accessed his website and was appalled to see he had played the Sage that very night; he’s playing Durham on April 28^th and I won’t get to see him then either. However, thanks to my foraging at Tynemouth Market the other Sunday, I found some of his juvenilia for £2, in the shape of an unplayed (for good reason it turns out) compilation of his first band in 1960s Dublin, The Johnstons.

Riding the stout wave of the Irish ballad revival, family act The Johnstons emerged from Meath with a chart topping version of The Curragh in Kildare in 1965 that showed them to be part of the declamatory style of balladeering that involved histrionic, faltering bellows of obscure traditional songs of love and loss. While Brady’s career has taken many false turns with unending albums of West Coast tinged, insipid singer songwriter pap, at least they aren’t embarrassing to listen to, unlike Ye Jacobites By Name by The Johnstons, which despite including a passable Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore, arrives in folk hell by way of a version of John Barleycorn that I struggled to recognise as one of the most famous of all folk songs. The Johnstons; desperately worthy and desperately dated.

Ironically, Tynemouth Market also offered up some jewels on the same day as my purchase of The Johnstons, in the shape of a pair of Fairport Convention albums; July 1970’s Full House (on Island pink label!!) and October 1973’s Nine, for a total price of £8, sold to me by a bloke who’d gone to the same school as Paul Brady (as well as Seamus Heaney, Martin McGuinness, several of The Undertones and many others it has to be said), St. Columb’s College in Derry. Anyway, both of these albums are a steal and an integral part of the Fairport story; Full House is the follow up to Liege and Lief, being the first one after Sandy Denny left and the last one before Richard Thompson (another gig I missed this year was him at the Sage on March 3^rd, so I’ve now gone quarter of a century without clapping eyes on him on stage; foolish me) departed. Despite the lack of a female vocalist, this is essentially Liege and Lief II, with many traditional tunes driven by Thompson’s guitar and undisputable leader Dave Swarbrick’s fiddle and vocals. To this day Sir Patrick Spens and Walk Awhile feature in Fairport live sets, but it is the captivating Sloth and Flowers of the Forest that really stand out on this wonderful album for me.  

Nine was the first Fairport album without an original member, following the departure of Simon Nichol, but Swarbrick and Dave Pegg were the clear leaders on this project. Beginning with the glorious Hexhamshire Lass that Chris Leslie continues to play wonderful tribute to in the current Fairport live set, Nine is rather a run of the mill affair after that. While Polly on the Shore is a magnificent number, the other traditional pieces seem almost to be the sweepings left on the folk workroom’s floor, after earlier Fairport albums, then Steeleye Span and the Albion Band had taken their share. Also, Trevor Lucas and Jerry Donohue’s numbers just were not up to the standard previously achieved by the band. An interesting album, but not an essential one.

Books:

I’ve been a little less bibliophilic in my proclivities over the past couple of months, to the extent that only 3 new books (well, second hand, but you knew that already) have been consumed in this time. First up was American journalist Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea, which was predictably intended as a sour-faced, reactionary diatribe against the political philosophy of Juchean Kimilsungism in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. While I’ve no great love for DPRK, other than having them in the work sweep for the last World Cup, it has to be said that this toadying homily to the excesses of free enterprise capitalism is the best argument ever I’ve read for unwavering support for the lads in Pyongyang. As, with unintentional persuasiveness, Demick says of the Juche philosophy -:

Kim Il-sung took the least humane elements of Confucianism and combined them with Stalinism. At the top of the pyramid, instead of an emperor, resided Kim Il-sung and his family. From there began a downward progression of 51 categories that were lumped in to three broad classes – the core class, the wavering class, and the hostile class.

With little sense of irony, Demick focuses on the latter, who were the overwhelming majority of the 600 or so deserters from DPRK in the twenty years after the monument to Yankee imperialism that was the 1988 Seoul Olympics (typically the 2002 World Cup gets scarcely a mention in the whole book). These deserters were, in the main, drunks, drop-outs and criminals in DPRK, who took flight to the South, where Capitalism rewards and celebrates such egoistic failures of personality. Demick appeared not to countenance the fact that her beloved free market system enshrines the vices of greed and selfishness, so frowned upon in the DPRK, as virtues. Perhaps she ought to consider the words of a popular nursery song in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea -:

Our enemies are the American bastards

Who are trying to take over our beautiful fatherland.

With guns I make with my own hands,

I will shoot them. Bang. Bang. Bang.

David Nobbs is most famous as the author of the Reggie Perrin novels, but taking his stock-in-trade of the hang-dog English underachiever to a more nostalgic setting than the mid-70s stockbroker belt, are the Henry Pratt series. First appearing in Second Last in the Sack Race, which told of his educational and National Service mishaps from the end of World War II, we now meet Pratt as he takes his first job as a cub reporter with the Thurmarsh Argus as the tumultuous year of 1956 begins. Set amidst the bleak, repressed, sexual and social austerities of a composite South Yorkshire landscape, Suez and the Hungarian Uprising by-pass the eponymous hero, while we follow Pratt and his wryly comic attempts to live the Bohemian lifestyle, as he makes a crust reporting on the minutiae of small town, post-war British tedium. He gets plastered most nights, eats desperately unappetizing meals in the town’s only Chinese restaurant as it’s the one place open after 10 midweek. He repeatedly tries, and fails, to bed a series of journalistic women, before settling on the blue-stocking daughter of a local Labour Party grandee, in a subplot of genuine warmth and affection, before blowing the lid off a major local planning scandal that could only be taken from the Poulson affair. Pratt of the Argus is a gentle, nostalgic comedy of manners that successfully locates the reader in the mindset and social atmosphere of Yorkshire at that time. I enjoyed it immensely.

Would I could say the same of Simon Freeman’s deeply disappointing Baghdad FC; the Story of Iraqi Football. Clearly Freeman is a talented foreign correspondent and a true football man, but this account falls dreadfully between two stools; it is neither a history of football in Iraq, as he is hampered by a lack of written records and the devastation of the country following the US and UK illegal invasion, nor is it an account of the trials and tribulations of the domestic game post-Saddam. Instead it is an unconvincing combination of both, with the most compelling passages being accounts by survivors of the torture inflicted on players under the rule of the despotic son of Saddam, the evil sports Minister, Uday Hussein. Following his deposition, an inordinate amount of time is spent on describing Iraq’s 2004 Olympic football tournament, which the writer watched on television from home, bizarrely enough. There must be a book to be written about Iraq football, perhaps telling of the experiences of Irish player Eamonn Zayed and his time in Baghdad after leaving Drogheda United, but Freeman’s effort is not an effective exposition of this subject. 

Season of the Witch

For about a week now, I’ve had the growing realisation that we are headed for another prolonged period of civil disorder in this country. As ever, these imminent, spontaneous explosions of improvised, seething anger will be enacted mainly by frustrated youths in the most underprivileged and deprived areas of the country, by those who see absolutely no hope for the future in the context of their blighted communities and blighted lives. Equally predictably, the fault for any such outpourings of righteous despair will not be lawlessness or left wing agitators (more’s the pity), as any blame must be lain squarely at the feet of the vile capitalist ruling elite, aided by their collaborationist, class-traitor puppets in the Labour Party, nominally headed by chief quisling Milliband, whose corrupt and failed system has, once again, brought the working classes who endure their sick, divisive policies from their knees to their feet.

The smouldering powder keg of justifiable anger and contempt has been lit by the latest raft of pernicious, spiteful Tory welfare cuts and repulsive attitudes expressing their contempt for those they seek to exploit and oppress: the bedroom tax, the death of the National Health Service as a functioning entity after 65 proud and glorious years, Iain Duncan Smith’s crass statements relating to the ease with which the lower orders ought to be grateful for the £53 a week hand-outs many are now expected to live on, as food banks spring up all over the country to address want, poverty and need in one of the most developed countries in the world, the repeated loathsome coverage of the deaths of the 6 Philpott children, whereby the actions of one savage sociopath are seen by the Daily Mail and the nauseating, preening George Osborne as being emblematic of the morals and conduct of a whole section of society. Offensive, ignorant, contemptuous attitudes; though wholly predictable.

However, the anti-establishment dynamite that will ignite mass action and explode pockets of anger across Britain in a previously unimagined wave of dissent will be that evil tyrant Thatcher’s funeral next Wednesday. The hatred I bear for the figurehead of the Police State that was Britain in the 1980s remains undimmed, though her death brought me neither pleasure nor satisfaction. Words simply cannot do justice to the bilious hatred and contempt I felt, and will continue to feel until my dying breath, for her, her party and those who aided her in a systematic, pernicious, divisive, evil political philosophy that had the eradication of the organised working class and unionised British industry at its core. Those who say it is wrong to speak of the dead ought to revisit Thatcher’s responses to the sinking of the Belgrano, the deaths of Bobby Sands and other republican prisoners and the Hillsborough Disaster. The tyrant who called Nelson Mandela a terrorist and supported Pinochet has gone to her grave with the blood of literally millions on her hands.

Yet, I feel no closure at her death, for the legacy of her policies remains in every blighted and decimated post-industrial corner of the realm. Take a walk along the north bank of the River Tyne from Byker to Newburn, along the south side from Tyne Dock to Blaydon; their population shows generations, blighted and deracinated by the policies of Thatcher and her descendants of all political hues, cast adrift to while away their hopeless, despairing days with cheap alcohol and prescription painkillers. Even worse, venture to the former mining towns and villages of South East Northumberland or East Durham; from Ashington to Blackhall and back again, dead and dying communities that have endured poverty for more than three decades. On every street of inadequate low-rent housing, in every cheap off licence or closed library and primary school; the stench and stain of the pervasive poverty of aspiration that shows no sign of ever receding. While I will not raise a hand in civil disobedience next week; I understand the motivations of those who will. Similarly, while I smiled at the spontaneous street parties celebrating Thatcher’s death in Derry, West Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool and Brixton, not a drop of alcohol passed my lips on Monday 8^th April 2013.

Being honest, the main reason for that was my post-match indulgence in strong porter in The Bodega following Cisse’s injury time winner against Fulham the day before. Despite other events putting football in to context, I must talk about this game, as well as the one that preceded it, by which I don’t mean Morpeth Town’s tremendous swearing festival in their 3-2 away loss at Jarrow Roofing. Following the winners against West Brom, Anji and Stoke, we ought to be used to such late drama as occasioned by Cisse gloriously lashing the ball past Schwarzer, but this dramatic denouement felt even better. In the context of a game which we ought to have won by 3 clear goals if chances had been taken, this winner felt like a season saver; “a David Kelly moment,” as my slightly hoarse pal David told me later.

A Jonah behind us watched the game unfold and said early in the second half, “you know what this reminds me of? Fulham in 2009.” Desperate memories of blowing it in an all or nothing game that ended in a monsoon, after a perfectly legitimate Viduka goal had been ruled out by Howard Webb (the original Payaso de Mierda), Nicky Butt’s last gasp shot brilliantly saved by Schwarzer and Bassong sent off. Such memories were as disturbing as they were unpleasant. Meanwhile, despite the astonishing sight of Damien Duff actually trying his hardest on the pitch at SJP, Fulham apart from Berbatov, who was the best player on display by a country mile, didn’t look that bothered or capable of hurting us, profligate finishing (Taylor put two free headers over the bar for starters) and bad luck seemed to have squandered the additional points for us.

The thoughts about the meaning of a frustrating stalemate I was rehearsing before Cisse’s goal, despite excellent performances by Gutierrez and Anita, were distinctly negative in tone towards Pardew; not excessively so, but I was at a loss to explain why Cabaye was wasted (sacrificed?) in the holding role, especially with his snappy tackling, or the logic behind the lively Gouffran’s withdrawal for the slow moving eldest Ameobi sibling, especially as the former will not be involved versus Benfica. I think that Pardew had more than a sense that Cisse’s goal had spared the boss some unwelcome attention as regards his team set up and substitutions; hence the somewhat over the top and unconvincing populist celebrations. I’m not saying he staged managed his eventual state of louche undress, but the cynic in me knows that the media attention would be on the hysterical post goal reactions not the gloomy mutterings while the score remained blank.

The winner gave us a 5 point gap (it would have been 6 if Wigan hadn’t equalised at QPR) above relegation, which affords some breathing space before the next league game and I suggest this entitles, indeed compels, Pardew to select a first choice team with the idea of having a go at Benfica, albeit with a bench full of bairns who should be stripped and ready to go on if the Portuguese score, as if that happens, our attention will move immediately to Sunday’s game. I didn’t get to see the first leg live, opting instead to take in Whitley Bay’s 1-0 home win over Dunston UTS. It was a good game, but the crowd was sparse and distracted by events in Lisbon. The irony was that the winning goal was scored by Man of the Match Tomi Ameobi, who strutted his stuff in front of 250 at Hillheads, while his brother was on duty at Estadio de Luz. Whitley Bay’s poetically named substitute was a Dylan Blake, who immediately gained the nickname William Thomas from the terrace wits.

Cycling back from Hillheads, I caught only the last few minutes and post-match highlights package. To me, the defeat combined outrageously bad luck, with Cisse’s two efforts that he should have buried, defying physics to come back off the inside of the post and outrageously bad defending, including weak keeping by Krul for the first goal, though the other two goals were far worse. His season-ending hamstring injury against Fulham will give Santon time to reflect on his awful back pass, while Taylor needs to stop believing his own publicity and accept his handball for the penalty was moronic decision making at the very best. With the atrocious Howard Webb on duty versus the Mackems, Taylor needs to calm himself down and concentrate on playing football, as the last thing we need in that game is an over emotional loose cannon on the pitch, as we’ve enough in the stands and on line to be going on with. While I did my best to cool the Twitter situation after the Benfica game, urging calm and rational thinking, many were not reading to take on board my message about the need to take only one game at a time, preferring the usual orgy of bloodletting. I’m just glad I didn’t see any of the Sunday afternoon stuff, as I was at the game.

Now, the Fulham game has gone and we look ahead to the chance of a semi-final spot in the Europa League. It will be very difficult to come back from 2 down against a side as good as Benfica, but passion, belief, tactics, patience and luck in equal measures are what we must hope for. Sadly, I won’t be at SJP; Whitley Bay versus Spennymoor has claimed my attention instead. It is my fervent hope that Newcastle can do enough to afford me the opportunity of attending a semi-final tie in the next few weeks. 

Rights & Responsibilities

One of the most encouraging things over the past 12 months or so, has been the renaissance of print fanzines. Recently I had 2 poems accepted by the wonderful, iconoclastic literary magazine "Push" for their next issue. More on that later. In the meantime, the following article about Percy Main Amateurs is included in the newly published issue #4 of  the superb Stand Against Modern Football (http://www.standamf.com/). I'd advise you to get on to this and buy it, once you've read my bit of course....

Aged 8, I attended my first Newcastle United game on January 1^st 1973, when we drew 2-2 with Leicester City at St. James Park.  A month later, my second trip to the ground saw my first, numbing experience of the familiar pattern of underachievement and failure that has followed Newcastle United around like a bad smell since we last won the FA Cup in 1955, as we were knocked out of the cup 2-0 by Luton Town; 40 years later, the wait for silverware continues, with only the capture of the 2007 Inter Toto Cup to celebrate in the intervening period.

Of course, that’s not really true; I’ve celebrated thousands of things since my first game, from last minute winners, to disputed equalisers, opposition red cards, dubious penalties and refereeing errors that went in our favour, as well as hundreds of the other minor incidents that make up the intricate mosaic of a supporters’ life.  However, in all that time I’ve never once cheered a director or club official because, for the most part, they’ve done nothing but harm to my club. If they haven’t actually done the club harm, they’ve put their own needs and desires ahead of what was best for the team. In those 40 years, I’ve seen 20 permanent managers and 6 caretakers try and fail to win us something, but I’ve supported the ham-fisted labours of every single one; even Souness, even Joe Kinnear. In the same period, I’ve held the 6 different majority shareholders, executive chairmen and “owners” who’ve presided over the club, regardless of their self-selected, aggrandizing nomenclature, in complete contempt for the entire time of their stewardship over my club. Why? Because I believe that morally, every football club should belong entirely to the supporters and not to any one of self-perpetuating oligarchy of wealthy, rapacious capitalists who’ve had their noses in the SJP trough since time immemorial.

There is a discernible gap between the oft-stated lofty philosophical aim of fan ownership and the minutiae of the everyday running of a football club but, at a level that is more geological sub strata than grassroots, I do have some hands-on experience of being involved a club that is owned 100% by its supporters. When I finally reached tipping point with Newcastle United in 2009, I threw in my season ticket and stopped going, in favour of accepting a role on the committee of Percy Main Amateurs, a club 8 miles east and a million economic light years from St. James Park; a decision I’ve not once regretted.  Admittedly, over the past 4 years, I’ve gradually been enticed back to watch the odd Sunday or midweek game at SJP, generally when someone has a spare ticket, but I’ll never put a penny directly in the coffers of the club by buying a ticket from the box office whilst the current regime is in place. I’d much rather invest my money, my time and my emotions in to the Main.

My club Percy Main Amateurs were formed in 1919 and play in the Northern Alliance Premier Division, which is a Step 7 league in FA parlance, meaning we need 10 straight promotions for the opportunity to rub shoulders with Fulham and Stoke. We play our home games at Purvis Park, in front of crowds of around 50, where it costs £2 to get in (with a free programme) to see us engaged in boisterous local derbies with the likes of Wallsend Town, Walker Central and Whitley Bay Reserves. Obviously the standard isn’t on a par with La Liga, but it’s the most honest and the most rewarding involvement I’ve had with football in more than 20 years for all the reasons Stand AMF was set up and why you’re reading this piece.

At Percy Main, we take the final word of our club’s name very seriously; the club’s written constitution, prominently displayed in the clubhouse, expressly prohibits payments to players, other than out of pocket expenses, or the granting of dividends to committee members. We are allowed to make a profit at the end of each sporting year (31^st July), but our rulebook states that all surplus monies must be used exclusively for the benefit of the club, with the express purpose of either improving facilities for players and spectators, or securing the long term future of the club. The decision on what to spend any money on, like every other policy decision or item of significant capital expenditure, other than playing equipment, must be debated and voted on at a full club meeting, which we advertise in the programme and on the website (www.percymainafc.co.uk) and which all supporters are invited to attend and committee members are expected to be present at. If you do turn up as an interested observer, chances are you will be begged, cajoled and emotionally blackmailed in to joining the committee; we need all the help we can get.

Basically, if this sort of involvement sounds appealing, turn up regularly at your local non-league side, say hello to the regulars and, if you stand in the same spot 3 games running, the chances are someone will give you a book of raffle tickets to flog or a mop and bucket to clean the ref’s room at full time, because that’s what happened to me. If you do, don’t come with any ego or any expectation of strict demarcation of job titles, roles and responsibilities. Above all, don’t expect any thanks for the time, money (either directly or indirectly) or effort you put in to the club, which doesn’t, on the surface, make it all that different a prospect to turning up to a Premier League club I have to admit! However, I can assure you, the sense of achievement and wellbeing your involvement in a game where everything runs smoothly, preferably a win, simply cannot be bettered.

Let’s be honest here, keeping a club going at our lowly level isn’t glamorous; it requires dedication, hard graft and group cohesion, whereby everyone involved mucks in and does their bit, according to family and work circumstances, as well as recognising the skill set a particular individual can bring. If you’re of a practical nature, DIY, decoration and other odd jobs will keep you busy, while those of methodical mind can always be usefully employed wrestling with the intricacies of administration. You can even sell the half time cuppas or make the post-match buffet. The only thing we don’t do is wash the kit; we’ve found a local laundry that will do it for nothing in return for an advert in the programme.

Regardless of your level of involvement, at Percy Main we are all constitutionally part of a committee and that brings with it many intangible rewards as well as a few proper responsibilities, the idea of which hasn’t really crossed the radar in any debate about fan ownership I’ve read. There are insurance policies in place to indemnify volunteers, but those premiums need to be paid on a regular basis; falling in to arrears means you’re dicing with financial ruin if something bad happens on club premises. Also, at a more mundane level, giving the ref a mouthful at full time or posting something questionable on a message board or in the programme can result in a charge from the local FA and a subsequent fine, which you’ll be required to pay, as the club needs every bean it raises to keep going.

Financially, we’re talking relatively small amounts of money at our level; indeed, in the absence of a benefactor, it took us 2 years to raise the £8k needed to repair the roof of the clubhouse. The fact we made the money through fundraising events and organising sponsorship of players, games and match balls, made it seem special as the improvement to the structure of the clubhouse ensured the club had a future and we’d all been part of that through our efforts. Around that time, I wrote a book about the club (Village Voice; price £5 inc P&P via PayPal to iancusack@blueyonder.co.uk) to make the club a few quid. It’s one of my proudest achievements in life, but as far as the club was concerned, Geoff the programme editor’s work in finding a roofer to do the job for half the price we were first quoted is far more crucial than my creative efforts, which is a useful ego check for us all.

At times, it is hard work being involved, when you’re short-handed because of holidays or illness, but I’ve never begrudged a minute of my time. Just as well, because we’re talking noon until 6 on a Saturday or 4 until 10 when we play midweek at the end of the season (no floodlights you see). I still remain 100% committed to fan ownership in the professional game because, as I’ve seen at Percy Main’s level, it really can work.

Tyne & Wear: UNITE AGAINST FASCISM

Last Saturday afternoon, I saw an awful game of football. Having taken in a brace of 2-0 home wins on Good Friday, when West Allotment and Whitley Bay prevailed over North Shields and Benfield respectively, in a pair of thoroughly entertaining contests, the consequence of this fixture card was that the North Tyne region was left without a Northern League game the next day. As Percy Main were also inactive in the Northern Alliance, I chose the most convenient alternative; Dunston UTS at home to Celtic Nation, partly to enable me to execute familial responsibilities post-match in the Swalwell area, partly as I’d only seen the former Gillford Park outfit on one occasion this season, but mainly as it offered a chance to catch up with my boyhood friend Adrian, who I don’t see nearly often enough. Chatting with Low Fell’s number 1 Salthill Devon fan was the best thing about this surprisingly sunny afternoon.

On the pitch,perhaps the most notable thing about Dunston’s mundane 1-0 crawl to victory, courtesy of a wildly deflected cross that deceived the outfield substitute keeper, who was culpable for the winner only minutes after he’d been the hero, saving a penalty given for a foul by the regular keeper who’d been sent from the field of play, was that it was the only game I’d been to in the whole of March that didn’t include a few minutes, at least, of snow or hail. Tiny steps to summer.

The decent weather was actually the only positive thing to remark on, as the game failed to hold our attention. This became ever more apparent as, only a couple of miles from St. James’ Park, Dunston fans incessantly griped and moaned about the poor quality fare on offer, as if we were sat in the Gallowgate middle. The crowning glory for this chorus of disapproval was at half time, when one character launched a crescendo of intemperate abuse at the television when news came through that Man City were winning 2-0, denigrating the manager, the team, the performance (of a game he had not been watching) and the selection, especially Obertan.

Having eventually steeled myself to watch it on Match of the Day, it was clear we’d been woeful and that only Rob Elliott had emerged with any particular credit from the day, which didn’t serve the purpose of being the ideal preparation for a trip to the real Stadium of Light for a Europa League quarter final and we slipped further down the table, now only 3 points from a relegation spot. Elliott may have conceded 4, but he made some superb saves; we’ve got a more than able deputy to Tim Krul there. Where the fed up Dunston fan (geddit??) may have had a point was with Obertan.  News of his selection was greeted with incredulity by the Twitterati, who unleashed endless 140 character paeans to the lost talents of Sylvain Marveaux, suggesting that rather than being a tidy, if peripheral, player, blessed with the ability to make short, incisive passes, he was actually Lionel Messi’s equal in terms of ability and influence.

 To me, it was obvious why Pardew selected the side he did; he wanted to play 4-5-1 to swamp the midfield and use Obertan’s pace on the infrequent occasions we had a chance to break. It didn’t work and Obertan was withdrawn for Perch at the break, who at least managed to get on the score sheet (sorry for that…), but at least Pardew had put some prior thought in to his tactics, rather than setting up in the same, predictable, dinosaur 4-4-2 pattern that certain teams prefer. Of course, the inflating emotions on Twitter post-match resulted in many calling for Pardew’s sacking with one wit from the Fourth Estate describing the man as “Glenn Roeder with better aftershave and more nightclub confidence.” Well done Gary; a superb epitaph for when he does get the bullet.

One north east manager did leave his position on Saturday night, when Martin O’Neill’s tenure on Wearside came to an abrupt end after a whimpering 1-0 home loss in his last luncheon against Manchester United.  Clearly it would be nonsensical to suggest this defeat cost O’Neill his job, but their whimpering lack of fight didn’t do the lifelong SAFC fan and erstwhile managerial saviour any good at all. Frankly, I’ve never liked Martin O’Neill, regarding him as a paranoid, arrogant twerp, or the style of play his teams adopted, but I had a kind of grudging respect for how he brought success to Leicester City and Celtic. Any residual fellow feeling went out the window at Aston Villa after 24^th May 2009, replaced by a growing awareness that he’d spend a shedload of Randy Lerner’s money for no discernible difference in fortunes on a side that had become stale, predictable and achingly one-dimensional.

O’Neill’s arrival on Wearside was trumpeted by many as a return to the core values of their club, with one of their own replacing the Mag double agent as Steve Brewse was shown the door. Other than an initial, brief window of adequacy (and a baffling ability to always beat Man City at home), it became clear O’Neill actually had nothing to offer other than a slavish devotion to a rigid, inflexible 4-4-2. A sixth round FA Cup home loss to Everton last season was the start of the rot and the night he was first judged as a busted flush by the more astute among their support; despite spending a fortune on the likes of Adam Johnson, Danny Graham and Steven Fletcher, whereby only the latter produced any discernible benefit to the club before his season ending injury on Scotland duty, Sunderland are in a worse position than they were when O’Neill was given the job. A Celtic fan of my acquaintance saw O’Neill’s departure in the following terms -:

“The main issue for me with Martin O’Neill’s sacking is over expectation of fans and chairmen of clubs in the Premier League. There are really only ever two clubs in contention, Manchester United and A.N Other FC. The next couple of teams are realistically only ever playing for a Champions’ League spot. The next 10 or so clubs have no chance of winning anything, and the rest are relegation fodder. The players at Sunderland are awful, but then how can a wee unattractive regional club like them sign decent players? My guess is they can't, instead they overpay hugely for dross like Phil Bardsley. But that's just one of the problems with the "best league in the world;" Sunderland are just one of the teams that fall into this category in the EPL. At least teams like Reading and Southampton know their place, but it’s time to lower your expectations chairmen and fans of other clubs.” Fair points, but having 2 teams in contention makes it twice as competitive as the SPL these days!

Anyway, disliking a Sunderland manager is not a new experience for me, as I’ve hated them all since the legendary Lawrie Mac, for a variety of reasons. Dennis Smith? Arrogant. Malcolm Crosby? Pitiful. Terry Butcher? Insane. Mick Buxton? Incompetent.  Peter Reid? Simian. Howard Wilkinson? Certifiable. Mick McCarthy? Boring. Niall Quinn? Oleaginous. Roy Keane? Sociopathic. Steve Brewse? Banal. Martin O’Neill? Cowardly. Of all of those listed, the only one I would have any time for is McCarthy, who seems a genuine bloke. He had a decent Easter as his Ipswich side beat Leeds at Portman Road. The other one from that list still in management, quite bizarrely, is Terry Butcher On The Dole who, twenty years after his famed failed commando raid on Tyneside was scuppered by Scott Sellars’s superb free kick in the pouring rain, saw his Inverness side beat Hibs at Easter Road the day O’Neill was clearing his desk.

I’ve no idea what Terry Butcher’s current political philosophy is, but his views back in his time with Rangers were somewhat consistent with the ideological trappings of Loyalism; perhaps not as extreme as Andy Goram’s basement UVF shrine, but interviews in All Played Out, Pete Davis’s account of England’s 1990 World Cup campaign, tell of Butcher discarding his U2 and Simple Minds collection not on grounds of taste, but because they were “Fenian” bands. When briefly leaving football, after his adventure at Joker Park came to a juddering halt, Butcher became a hotelier at Bridge of Allan in Stirlingshire, where any Rangers fan could eat in the Michelin starred restaurant for a special price of, wait for it, £16.90. Frankly, I’d imagine Butcher to be embarrassed by such idiocy these days; I doubt he’d have forged as long a managerial career as he had, if hamstrung by incessant sectarian prejudices.  The new incumbent of the manager’s role on Wearside is a different case entirely and the antipathy I have for him has absolutely nothing to do with the club he now manages.

I must admit I don’t remember Paolo Di Canio’s time as a player with Celtic; my first recollection of him was his debut for Sheffield Wednesday in August 1997, as a substitute for Graham Hyde in a 2-1 defeat to Newcastle at St. James’ Park. More memorable from that day were Jon Dahl Thomasson’s miss after 15 seconds on his debut and Benito Carbone’s acrobatic, though ultimately fruitless, equaliser. Wednesday won the reverse fixture 2-1, with Di Canio opening the scoring at Hillsborough in the first minute of an awful game. Perhaps his most famous moment for the Owls was the push on referee Paul Alcock in a game against Arsenal in September 1998 that earned him an 11 game ban and saw him leave for West Ham on completion of his suspension. With the Hammers, he missed the 2-2 draw at SJP on 2^nd January 2000, while I was working away for their next two visits where he achieved little as his side lost both games.  He missed both games in 2002/2003 when he was top scorer as West Ham were relegated, moving to Charlton for a year as his contract expired.

Ironically, Di Canio’s most famous moment in a West Ham shirt was catching the ball in front of an open goal at Goodison, while home keeper Paul Gerrard lay unconscious in the 6 yard box, rather than scoring a goal; an act for which he was given a FIFA Fair Play award and warmly applauded. Mind,  I distinctly remember a dire 0-0 at the Valley in December 2003 being enlivened by repeated chants of “fuck off Di Canio” by the travelling support, that had another airing in the return game as an ageing, disinterested Di Canio was withdrawn as the Addicks fell to a 3-1 defeat that was far more comprehensive than the scoreline suggests.

At the end of that season Di Canio, who had previously expressed no political opinions in public or given any indication he was anything other than a wayward, talented, eccentric player, with a propensity for extravagant gestures that were as often magnanimous as they were destructive, returned to Rome to play for his boyhood idols Lazio. Once there, he publicly proclaimed attitudes that made Terry Butcher’s pitiful dabbling in to Glaswegian sectarianism seem positively Fabian Society in contrast. Basically, Di Canio is a self-proclaimed Fascist. In 2005, he characterised his political views by declaring that he was "a fascist, not a racist,” though I’ve yet to come across a fascist who doesn’t hold the principle of overt, extreme Nationalism as a core tenet of their belief system. In this context, earnest discussions about where xenophobia ends and racism begins on any continuum of socially unacceptable political attitudes is, frankly, a waste of time; Di Canio is wrong and unacceptable if this still where his political sympathies lie. His refusal  to discuss his previous statements and gestures at his first Sunderland press conference do not seem to be a desire to draw a line under these events and move on, much less an apology for his conduct, but an arrogant, obstinate refusal to accept the completely untenable nature of his conduct and beliefs.

Di Canio’s use of the “Roman” (i.e. Nazi straight arm) salute toward Lazio supporters, and more inflammatory still towards the fans of Roma and the left-wing sympathisers of AC Livorno, a gesture adopted by Italian fascists in the 20th century, has created controversy and outrage among all sectors of football support. Di Canio received a one-match ban after the Livorno event and was fined €7,000, but remained unapologetic, later being quoted as saying: "I will always salute as I did because it gives me a sense of belonging to my people ... I saluted my people with what for me is a sign of belonging to a group that holds true values, values of civility against the standardisation that this society imposes upon us." His salute has been featured on unofficial merchandise sold outside Stadio Olimpico after the ban. The snarling pit bull visage, psychotic eyes and twisted leer show someone convulsed with hatred and prejudice. There’s nothing that could remotely be considered ambiguous in his gesture, nor can it be defended, much less justified, by use of any kind of contextual factors. It is wrong; it is unacceptable.

Di Canio has also expressed admiration for the fascist leader Benito Mussolini. In his autobiography, he praised Mussolini as "basically a very principled, ethical individual" who was "deeply misunderstood.” Regardless of Di Canio’s oddball personality and desire to court controversy, this is totally and utterly unacceptable behaviour. Surely, such an individual cannot have a place in football at any level, let alone be regarded as a fit and proper person to manage a multi-racial, multi-ethnic football club.

Before anyone accuses me of trying to point score on a regionalist, partisan basis, let me state unequivocally, I was against Di Canio’s appointment at Swindon Town 2 years ago. Similarly, if he’d been appointed at Newcastle United, I would have been appalled and I’d like to think I wouldn’t have been the only one. Ashley may have made some terrible decisions as Newcastle owner, but I doubt even he would appoint someone like Di Canio to the managerial role. What worries me is that certain high-profile NUFC fans have expressed their admiration for Di Canio; they may do this on a purely footballing basis, never having contemplated a political thought in their lives, but such romantic naivety has to come to an end. All football fans, Newcastle, Sunderland or whoever must condemn Di Canio and his appointment, until such time as he announces a full and frank recantation of his opinions and expresses remorse for his conduct, as well as a desire to right his previous wrongs in the future.

It isn’t just since Easter Sunday that Di Canio's political orientation has been a source of controversy in the course of his managerial career. When he was appointed as the manager of Swindon Town in 2011, the trade union GMB terminated its sponsorship agreement with the club, worth around £4,000 per season, due to Di Canio's fascist views.  This, of course, does not worry Sunderland whose sponsors are the less than ethical Tullow Oil, whose hollow “Invest in Africa” slogan fools no-one.

Another statement that fooled no-one was David Milliband’s excuse to offer his resignation from his sinecure on the board Sunderland, days after announcing he’d be vacating his parliamentary sinecure of South Shields for a well remunerated sinecure with a charitable trust in New York. Milliband stated -: “I wish Sunderland AFC all success in the future. It is a great institution that does a huge amount for the North East and I wish the team very well over the next vital seven games. However, in the light of the new manager’s past political statements, I think it right to step down.” From just about anyone else, it would be a praiseworthy statement, even if it lacked the moral fibre to state that post-resignation he would be straining every fibre of his being to fight against this appointment, but coming from Milliband it is mealy-mouthed, opportunist bullshit from someone who, in the wider scheme of things, is even more repugnant than Di Canio, who at least does not have the blood of the Iraq War on his hands. However, Milliband is now history at Sunderland and all football supporters and avowed opponents of fascism in the North East have a duty to stand up against Di Canio’s appointment.

An eloquent and thought-provoking comment on this situation was offered by Liverpool fan Peter McKnight, who stated -:  “I think it’s unrealistic for anyone to expect a football club to give a flying one. They are after all, businesses with the bottom line the priority. There are a few things to address, in my view: (1) Milliband walking out rather than staying on to use his position as a respected public figure to try and curb the worst excesses of Di Canio should he be needed to, doesn't suggest to me a protest, rather an opportunity taken. (2) Di Canio chose to express his political views as a public figure, to use his fame as a footballer as a platform for his fascist sympathies. He is therefore fair game to be judged on these views as a football manager and as a man. (3) The fact that this has happened after he's been managing at Swindon for 2 years is a reasonable point but the profile of a premiership club when compared with a League 1 outfit are poles apart. The Premiership is the window through which non-football fans and foreign football fans view UK football (like it or not). Having an avowed fascist as the manager of a well-known club shouldn't be different from being the manager of Swindon, but it is.”

So, what is to be done? Well, we must protest. We must not let Sunderland get away with this appointment. The desperately embarrassing press conference and inadequate club statement on Tuesday showed that this issue will not go away, a fact that was reinforced by the Durham Miners’ Association asking for the return of their banner which is currently on display at Sunderland’s ground.  This is a crucial development, as is the creation of a Sunderland Against Fascists ad-hoc group, dedicated to protesting against Di Canio’s appointment. They will have their work cut out and they deserve support and assistance from football fans of all hues. Hopefully they can build on the good work of the 'Sunderland Anti-Fascist Coalition' that has organised nine demos in the last eight months against the EDL, BNP, NEI and NF and are established and ready for action at any time. Some of their demos have been built with just 24 hours notice and they are currently working on a joint strategy with the NUM that will be announced soon.

There are many Sunderland supporters who claim not to be bothered by Di Canio’s politics or his past, as they only want to support the team. I don’t agree with them, but I see where they are coming from. Rather similar to how I pointed out last week that any outside criticism of my club (in that instance about the Wigan pitch invasion) is to be neither encouraged nor validated by joining in with it, these fans do not accept that outsiders have the right to make complaints about how their club operates or indeed anything to do with it. I understand this position, but they are wrong to adopt it. I must insist that this is too big an issue to be ignored. Obviously, it puts some Sunderland fans in a difficult position; I don’t read their fanzine  A Love Supreme, but I knew the father of the editor, Alec McFadden, when he was a full time worker for the Socialist Workers Party in the North East in the late 1970s and continues to be an implacable opponent of racism and fascism. This must provide something of an intellectual and ideological quandary for anyone, but there can only be one legitimate response; ideology beats emotion hands down. All football fans must display outright opposition to Di Canio at every step of the way.

Whether Sunderland’s season is turned round by this appointment and he wins all 7 games, including a certain match at SJP on April 14^th, is utterly immaterial. All football fans in the North East and the wider community on Wearside and Tyneside must unite in implacable opposition to Di Canio to make Ellis Short think again about this atrocious decision. Di Canio’s appointment is unacceptable at every possible level and will never be given credence or support by those with a shred of decency in their soul. It is time to put questions of partisanship and regional rivalry to one side and fight back. Protests and boycotts must be organised by fans of both clubs and even those who have no interest in the game. Di Canio must be dismissed or driven out, now!!