I’ve no concrete evidence to back my assertion up, but I
reckon most football managers are fairly right wing. Long gone are the days
when Jack Charlton would lend his official Newcastle United Rover to striking
miners from Ashington, so they could go picketing in Nottinghamshire.
Admittedly he’s not a self-proclaimed Fascist like the clown on Wearside, but
Alan Pardew must be on the extreme fringes of the Tory Party or even UKIP; how
else can we explain his rampant Euroscepticism? Not content with ending
Newcastle United’s involvement in the Europa League at the quarter final stage
in early April, Pardew has adopted a Little Englander position that seemingly
refuses to countenance fording Offa’s Dyke to play the likes of Cardiff or
Swansea.
As a bairn in the early 70s, the FA Cup final on the first
Saturday in May marked the end of the domestic football season. Back then, all
I could do to feed my obsession until August was affect an interest in
supporting Cumberland United of South Australia Division 1, who I discovered on
my dad’s pools coupon. These days there are international tournaments every
June and pre-season round robins on Channel 5 from the start of July
onwards. However, for truly competitive summer club football, the Inter Toto
Cup had it all. It was the last trophy Newcastle won, in 2006 courtesy of
Livorno beating Auxerre (the structure
was a mite complicated…), though my favourite engagement with the competition
was the year before.
Under the appalling Souness, we’d lost a UEFA Cup quarter final,
an FA Cup semi-final and finished thirteenth in the League. Bizarrely, we actually qualified for the
Inter Toto Cup; mainly because England was awarded a Fair Play place and none
of the eligible clubs above us were interested in taking it. Given a bye to the
third round, I was ecstatic when we drew ZTS Dubnica. While many people would
query the appeal of a mid-July weekend in an industrial city in the Vah region
of Western Slovakia, having spent 2 of the best years of my life living and
working in Bratislava either side of the millennium, I was elated to be going
back to my adopted home country, with my team.
Interest levels in this trip were low among my associates; frankly,
this wasn’t Barcelona, Bruges or Benfica. Indeed the grand total of 83 Newcastle
fans eventually made the trip, including the heroic Glenn Wallace who
travelled, as he does to every Euro away, by train. Opting to fly from
Manchester to Bratislava, I pitched up in the Slovak capital Friday afternoon,
48 hours before kick-off. It was fair to say I was the advance party, as there
wasn’t another Geordie in town, though there was a Mackem; my former work
colleague Steve, who put me up but steadfastly refused to go to the game.
We took Friday night easy, with loads of leisurely beers in
the Stary
Mesto (Old Town). Unlike England’s difficult away in October 2002,
there didn’t seem to be anything brewing. Saturday was different though; I took
myself out for a noon constitutional down by the Danube, just as the bus from
Budapest Airport arrived, disgorging about 60 thirsty Geordies who’d been on
the dawn Easyjet. A day on the piss ensued, involving several of us
doorstepping then NUFC chairman Freddy Shepherd as he sat down to eat with
assorted lackeys in Bratislava’s poshest restaurant. From nowhere Northumbria
Constabulary coppers emerged from the shadows and ushered us away; they even
bought half a dozen of us a beer in The Dubliner before the
self-preservation klaxon told me it was time to split.
Match day saw about 30 of us on the noon train to Dubnica;
the rest had opted for the much cheaper and far slower bus. As we executive
travellers sat in the restaurant car sucking on 500ml bottles of Pilsner
Urquell while nibbling on restorative cheese and salami for less than a
quid a plateful, I reckon we’d the better deal. In Dubnica, the first person we
saw was Glenn Wallace, who described his Saturday night as the only English
speaker in Dubnica as “like finally being famous.” We soon learned what he
meant as locals, in assorted Champions’ League replica tops, bought us beer and
shook our hands; in 30 degree heat, this was a happy and hot special occasion.
The game itself happened in slow motion; Michael Chopra
scored after 5 minutes, then there was an own goal, before they pulled one back.
James Milner grabbed a third in a quarter speed second half; I drank 6 beers
during the game, while my mate Davey Faichen fell asleep at half time and
snoozed on the terraces until we took him up for the train at full time.
We enjoyed a leisurely trundle back to Bratislava, then a
crazy drunken night in The Dubliner with a load of Dutch
tennis fans, in town for a Davis Cup tie versus Slovakia. They’d lost, but what
the hell. I’m no specialist on Euro aways, having only done Eindhoven (twice)
before Dubnica, but Slovakia was a fine, fine weekend; 8 years later, those who
were there still speak warmly of it.
One brief cameo provided the best advert for summer football
and the Inter Toto Cup in particular I could ever imagine, while I mooched
around the three quarters deserted train
on the way back to Bratislava. Somewhere just south of Trencin, as the sun
slowly set over the Bílé Karpaty Mountains, one of the Prudhoe Mags, happy,
sunburned and half cut, was on the phone to his girlfriend. The noise of the
rattler drowned out his voice as I weaved down the corridor, but as I passed
him, he ended the call with a smile and
a heartfelt I love you too pet. A thousand miles from home,
semi-surrounded by a few knots of tired, contented and gently boozed NUFC fans,
I knew just how he felt; I loved all of humanity that warm Sunday evening.
* Straky Do Toho = Come On The Magpies, po Slovensko....
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