Sunday 20 October 2013

Darkness at Noon

On or around Wednesday 23rd October (24 years to the day since I saw Nirvana play their first English gig at the Riverside), I'll be blogging in exhaustive length about Newcastle United & the Time 4 Change march. I didn't attend this march, as I was playing for Wallsend Winstons in our 2-2 draw with Fiddlers Three in the North East Over 40s League Division 4. I had a decent game and had my photo taken by Adrian Ragsdale to prove it. However, not every time I've played football has it gone so well, as the following post which will be in Barnsley's fanzine West Stand Bogs issue #2, will demonstrate -:


Last time I mentioned, with a shameful few geographical inaccuracies (Higham not High Hoyland; duly noted) events in my life that led on from Newcastle United’s 5-0 victory at Oakwell in May 1983. Since that day, NUFC have played Barnsley a further 21 times, from the 1-1 draw on 24 September 1983 that I missed as I’d started university in County Derry two days before, to the 6-1 home win at St. James’ Park which I opted out of to take in Chemfica 1 Ponteland United 3 in the Northern Alliance George Dobbins League Cup second round (long story). Of those 21 games, 10 were draws, 9 were Newcastle United wins and 2 were victories for Barnsley. Following on from the 5-0 game, I’d thought about penning an article on howkings the Mags have given the Tykes; the 6-0 win in April 1993 being a particular favourite of mine in our Keegan inspired promotion season. However, a good writer should always aim to please his audience and so instead we’ll have a look at perhaps one of the bleakest days in Newcastle United’s history.

The last time Barnsley beat Newcastle was 1-0 courtesy of a Brendan O’Connell goal on 13th December 1992, which is my ex-wife’s birthday. Considering we were 13 points clear at the top and had a full strength side that day, it should be seen as a notable result. Mind we also drew 2-2 at Oakwell on both 13th December 1997 and 12th December 2009, showing we’ve decent respect for her special day. However, I’m not going to talk about any of those games; instead, let’s go back to 30th November 1991 and 180 minutes of abject shame for the black and whites.

Aged 49 and a bit, I still play 11 a side football now; goalkeeper for Wallsend Winstons in the bottom division of the North East over 40s league. I’m hopeless. Back then though, I only donned the gloves in 5 a side, preferring a role up front for Jesmond Vale Blue Bell in the Tyneside Sunday League. I was hopeless. However, like all hopeless players, I was mad keen and would never turn down a game.

Years ago, I was a regular contributor to Newcastle fanzine The Mag and used to turn out for their ad-hoc team against other clubs fanzines when required. Somebody, possibly connected to the FSA or When Saturday Comes, had come up with the eminently sensible idea of getting fans to stop brawling in pubs and railways stations of a Saturday morning and instead kick the living daylights out of each other on muddy public parks, in a kind of semi-organised round robin for the 1991-1992 season. I remember a particularly enjoyable win over a half drunk and half stoned Swindon Town 69er side when even I managed to get on the score sheet as we romped to victory at the Lightfoot Stadium in Byker. Because of a deep pool of available Tyneside talent, it was seldom I was asked to turn up for a home game; away games, as we continued our unchecked plummet to the foot of the table, were a different matter. As we’d only got 13 available in this instance, I was invited to stand on the line as we took on South Riding.

I promise that in future I’ll recount my favourite nights out in Barnsley in the early to mid-1990s; suffice to say Friday 29th November 1991 was one of the heaviest. Somehow, and I’m not sure how, we ended up in a staff lock-in at Metrodome, as one of the then boyfriends of my 2 sisters-in-law worked there (hello Davo Lockwood if you’re reading) and he took us up for some kind of impromptu birthday do. This came on top of a proper tour round town that had started at 7.00 prompt in Number 17s. Next morning I was beyond ill as I made my way to the big game rendezvous at some public park in Kendray, to discover only 10 of our players had shown. No mobile phones in those days to contact the missing carload. 

This of course meant I was starting. Ordinarily, this would be brilliant news for the eager player, but it didn’t appeal that morning. In fact, it alarmed me, especially when I discovered I’d left my boots at the in-laws and would have to play in 4 inches of mud shod in trainers. Lining up at right back (I’m left footed) behind the worst winger I’ve ever seen, I had a slippery, shameful nightmare as we were torn apart by not just a random bunch of drinking mates, but the Supporters’ Club side, clad in the season before’s Barnsley shirts with the gaudy yellow stars. My first touch was a foul throw. At half time, we were 5-0 down and, with the other players having finally arrived (they’d got the kick off wrong), I was first one substituted, followed immediately by my mate on the right wing. At least he had a flask of coffee we shared during a second half that the two sides drew 1-1; shame about the first period.

After a quick change (the showers were broken naturally), we hit the Supporters’ Club for the only time in my life and I felt quite positive by kick off time after a restorative gallon of ale and high transfat buffet. This optimism was rent asunder as a typical Ardiles era performance saw Newcastle utterly capitulate as Barnsley raced into a 3-0 half time lead, which should have been at least doubled. Somehow that was the end of the scoring, even if the balance of play remained massively one-sided. As I left the West Stand Paddock, still filthy, malodourous and poisonously hungover,  in the company of my euphoric but sympathetic in-laws, I was utterly crestfallen at the atrocious display my side had put in. Newcastle may have given the Tykes 6 goal batterings on subsequent occasions, but surely neither was as emphatic as the 3-0 score that day. Indeed, bearing in mind the morning’s result, we’d lost 9-1 on aggregate.


The only source of solace came from seeing the Geordie fans responding to the final whistle at Oakwell with a traditional Pavlovian response, by throwing the ladder than led up to the television gantry over the back wall of the Kop, meaning the poor Yorkshire TV cameraman would be stranded there until some bugger fetched it back. It was a small consolation on a dark, dark day….

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