The ex-brother in
law Mark is a bit of a knob; frankly he’s the sort of bloke who’d fail a
personality test. He’s from Keighley but calls himself a lifelong Liverpool
supporter (full kit to play 5-a-sde, Shankly t-shirt to go round ASDA;
you know the drill), not that he ever goes to see his team, unlike his missus
and their daughter Molly; the ex-sister in law Lisa has watched Barnsley all
her life, so it’s natural for her and the bairn to have season tickets at
Oakwell. They never miss, now Molly is old enough to stay awake at midweek
games on school nights, even doing League Cup ties and the odd away game. All
this while Mark is curled up on the sofa with Jeff Stelling, though Mark did
get to one game last season, as he somehow got hold of a pair of tickets for
the League Cup Final and rediscovered a hitherto dormant love for the side
closest to his place of birth, Bradford City; a team I’d never even heard him
mention before. Clad from head to toe in claret and amber, the sedentary scouse
sympathiser and Dominic, his son from his first marriage, became 90 minute
Bantams on an absent father and distant son’s bonding weekend in the smoke.
What seemed particularly odd about this to me is that Dominic willingly went
along with the charade, as has been a supporter of seemingly most of the
Premier League teams over the past decade.
Framed portraits of
Dominic, who resides with his mother, adorn the walls of Lisa and Mark’s house,
telling the tale of a boy’s journey into adolescence. The photos show his hair and
his complexion changing annually, as do the football shirts he wears; Leeds,
Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Barcelona, depending on who was most
successful that season, though neither Bradford nor Liverpool get a look in.
Obviously it’s easy to speculate that Dominic’s lack of a fixed football
allegiance is a product either of a psychological need to be different to the
father who deserted him at a young age, especially in the context of a domestic
situation where he has no direct parental influence (his mother hates the game)
or siblings to side with. This is a sad state of affairs for the young man
concerned, but there is an even more depressing potential lesson for society to
be addressed. A dozen or more years ago the loathsome Tim Lovejoy announced
that to be a football fan you didn’t need to go to games, you didn’t even need
to follow a team; all that was required was to have Sky Sports. Obviously he
was talking errant nonsense, but the concept of the floating voter in football
terms may be a reality because of the satellite-dominated times we live in.
One of the
interesting effects of the pre-Christmas Sky and BT Sports schedules is
that they have provided me with a cast-iron excuse not to set foot in St.
James’ Park until the Stoke game on Boxing Day, simply because not a single
NUFC home game has been moved to a Sunday or Monday. The idea of giving up the
opportunity of watching my beloved non-league game for the pleasure of lashing
out north of £30 to see the products of the labours of Alan “Lord Haw Haw”
Pardew and Joe “Laverenty Berya” Kinnear makes me feel giddy with rage. Those
of you who read Stand #4 may remember an article I penned on the rights and
responsibilities involved with being a committee member at Percy Main Amateurs,
at Step 7 in the Northern Alliance Premier Division; how I told of the sense of
fulfilment and appreciation associated with the hard work involved in running a
club at that level. Professional football simply can’t provide me with that
kind of buzz any longer.
I will never stop
supporting Newcastle United at any point in my life, as far as I can predict,
nor would I ever wish them to lose, even if a particular defeat could hasten
some semblance of regime change, but the once seemingly unbreakable emotional
ties between me and my club, have been severed forever. As an example of this,
I entered a competition to win tickets for Newcastle United v Fulham on 31st
August, by submitting some important memory of a game at St. James’ Park. As
I’m keen on recycling, I dug out a piece I’d written for a book that never got
published a decade ago, which eventually made it in to the Percy Main v
Westerhope programme in September 2007, did a quick proofread, added a couple
of sentences, changed some dates then sent it off. You can read it here; http://payaso-del-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/false-memory-syndrome.html. Two days later, I got an email saying I’d
won a pair of tickets; clearly I’d no intention of using them, so I passed them
on to my son Ben who took his mate Webby and had a decent afternoon enjoying a
reasonable performance and a stunning winner from Ben Arfa. I wasn’t jealous of him at all; even as I
watched my club Heaton Stannington frustratingly lose 1-0 at home to Stokesley
in a Northern League Division 2 game.
I’ll just run that
past you again; my team Heaton Stannington, not Percy Main Amateurs. In case
you’re wondering, to make up for the lack of signings at SJP, the big transfer
news of the summer north of the Tyne was my switch from Purvis Park to
Grounsell Park. Considering my very public proclamations of my undying love for
Percy Main (a club I still have the utmost affection for), you may be asking
how I can walk out on them and not face charges of hypocrisy, especially
considering the condemnatory tone of the opening part of this article? Good
question; difficult question.
Firstly, Heaton
Stannington play in black and white stripes, which always helps. Secondly, I
only became involved with Percy Main at the age of 43, so it wasn’t as if I’d
betrayed generations of family loyalties and after 6 years I fancied a new
challenge. Thirdly, Heaton Stannington asked me to edit the programme and run
the website (www.heatonstanningtonfc.co.uk), which was a job description that I felt
suited my skill set perfectly. At Percy Main, huge amounts of time was spent on
ground maintenance and being completely impractical, the idea of me as a kind
of DIY specialist handyman was laughable; in contrast, I know I can write
reasonably cogently and I am decent at administration, which were things Heaton
Stannington needed help with and Percy Main didn’t. That said, since I’ve got involved with The
Stan I’ve found that I’m operating the turnstile, selling the raffle tickets
and serving behind the bar (£2.25 a pint with minimum 2 hand-pulls always
available, if you’re in the area), not to mention deputising for Geoff our
Secretary when he was on holiday; I don’t mind though, as I’m absolutely loving
it. I feel like I’ve come home.
In rationalising my
involvement with non-league football, I find that the longer I’m involved in it
and the more I learn about the grassroots game on Tyneside, the more convinced
I am that I have made the right choice to turn my back on Newcastle United. I
still love The Magpies, but the boiling anger I had with them has subsided. That
said, I’m not cynical, indifferent or in despair; my involvement in Newcastle
Fans United is as committed as ever and I remain convinced that 100% Fan
Ownership is the only way forward for football at all levels. My mantra is that
whoever plays for or manages Newcastle united, or where the team ends the
season is utterly irrelevant while Ashley owns the club. I want him out and an
elected board of supporters in; it make take the rest of my life, but I’m
prepared for the long haul. I will earnestly debate with anyone who says we
can’t change the game; we can and we will, but the idea of attending games and
putting money in the pockets of an owner, a management team and many players
whom I hold in abject contempt is absolute anathema to me; give me Grounsell
Park any time, where I will #FollowTheStan as our hash tag says.
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