Wednesday 2 October 2013

Shifting Allegiances

Monday 30th September was the deadline for erecting floodlights at Heaton Stannington FC; unfortunately some problems with the ground works have delayed this. As a result the moaning minnies on www.nonleaguezone.com have had about a thousand hysterical fits each, but no matter. The lights will be up soon and The Northern League will no doubt be supportive of us. I really hope so as I adore Heaton Stannington, in a way I never quite managed with Percy Main. I attempted to articulate this in a piece I wrote for "Stand AMF," which seems to have had troubles of its own with editorial changes and potential relaunches galore. We'll see if it makes it in to print and whether my piece passes muster in the fulness of time. Regardless of that, here's my bit on The Stan -:


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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