It might be stress related, or it could just be the usual
bout of intractable exhaustion I suffer from at the end of a long term, but
I’ve been in a right foul mood of late. On Saturday morning just gone, for
example, our Over 40s team Wallsend Winstons were being presented with the
trophy for being champions of Division 4. Ordinarily, this is done by Vince
Williams the league secretary, but because of Football Focus coming
from Wallsend Memorial Hall as the programme was dedicated to the Boysa, there
was a second presentation; by Alan Shearer, live on telly. Sounds great eh?
Well it was, and I should have been revelling in the moment, but it started to
grate that the invite wasn’t for the whole team. Only a select few made the cut
and they had to be in position for filming sharpish, so we had to kick off an
hour early against Thornley Celtic. Fair play to them; they travelled 30 odd
miles, agreed to a 9.30 start and applauded as we got the trophy first time
around. Personally, I was feeling more irritated than happy; wondering why we
had to constantly dance to the Boys’ Club’s tune, especially as we lost 3 first
choice players at the break when only 1-0 up. Still, I’d cheered up by full
time as we won 6-1, despite being completely bamboozled by the lob that was the
one goal I conceded. However, when I finally got to see Football Focus on Sky
Plus, sometime around 10 on Saturday night and watched our captain
Aidan Hughes accepting the trophy from Alan Shearer, I was in a much less spiky
mood, but despite having half a dozen Rivet Catchers on board, I would
have to say I was actually more bemused than calmed by the way the day had
panned out.
One piece of good news I’d found out in the early evening, related
to my last blog about standing for TUSC in the forthcoming Council Elections,
is that UCU IBL won the arguments over UCU Left at our special
FE sector conference in Manchester, meaning that UCU won’t be tearing
itself apart in an internecine, recondite conflict over an unwinnable point of
principle, too arcane to enter into here. In fact, this news was a huge burden
lifted from my shoulders as I’d have to have considered my position as a branch
secretary if we’d lost, or even quit the union. I must pay tribute to our
Branch Chair who, not being a football fan, had offered to go down for the
weekend and represent us at the meeting. However, the realpolitik of football kept me busy all weekend.
While my union branch is strong and united, the joke I make,
in contrast to all my repeated imprecations for fan unity on here, in print and
via social media, is that the one thing most NUFC fans have in common is that
they can’t stand me. This half-truth may have something to do with my persona
being a combination of an obsessive need to discover the truth as I see it,
with an unfortunate uncontrollable urge to make infuriatingly mischievous
comments and adopt wildly contradictory positions, all for the sake of a wind
up. I should grow up, shouldn’t I? Perhaps I should also remember, once in a
blue moon, how these foolish quips can offend and irritate, then perhaps try to
either bite my cyber lip or fight the urge to cry foul if someone snaps back at
me; “don’t be a cunt” was the best piece of advice I’ve had in Barca
all year. However, the way things have happened this weekend, I’ve not even had
time to be a prick never mind a cunt.
You see, sometimes the sheer pace of events can knock you
not just off your guard, but right off your feet. As far as Newcastle United
are concerned, the absolute significance and final magnitude of the first
weekend in April in 2014 may not be fully appreciated until time adds
perspective to the chain of incidents that has left me struggling to comprehend
what could happen next. However, I’m getting ahead of myself here; let’s look
back on the previous week.
In the wake of the 3-0 and 4-0 humiliations by Everton and
Southampton, Pards sat blandly behind a desk, mic in hand, and waffled his way
through the usual bingo card of banal, platitudinous inanities about “working
hard on the training pitch” to “get things right” for “the fans” who are
“hurting, just like we are.” Grayson Perry has Alan Measles, while Mike Ashley
has Alan Weasel. Nobody would have given Pards and his weasel words any less
credence if Steven Taylor had uttered them; suffice to say, it appears that
Pards and Tim Sherwood get their lorry load of bespoke clichés delivered by
courier just before each press conference. It really is an insult to our
collective intelligence that Pards has the temerity to continue to say these
things, which we know he doesn’t believe; typically enough, Pards got “the
reaction” he was striving for when Manchester United, who’ve struggled to win
an argument this campaign, cruised home 4-0 to almost mass indifference from
the entire North East, which is as great an indictment of the poisonous Ashley
regime as I can think of. How on earth this populist charlatan is still in a
job when a fundamentally decent man like Chris Hughton has been bulleted by
Norwich City is beyond me; perhaps Ashley and Pards assume that eventually
indifference will defeat anger and the club will sink into a state of turgid
inertia; the cash sea cow in the Premier League’s pelagic zone, avoiding relegation
and churning out enough of a profit to allow the “owner” to get his money back
sooner than later.
Clearly, I wasn’t at the game, so the only passion I saw on
Saturday 5th April from Newcastle United fans was the righteous anger
of those missing the 38 from outside Grounsell Park into town. I told them they
ought to take this as a sign to jack in their tickets and follow The Stan, but
the initial outlay in buying a season ticket has kept a considerable number of
people over a barrel. It will be interesting to see how true this pernicious
economic endgame will be next season when the effect of those intending to
chuck their financial and emotional commitment to the club can be analysed.
These days it seems either the excuse for a day on the gargle or the sheer cost
of tickets is often the only reason why people justify attending St. James
Park, or at least it used to be. I was given a free ticket for SJP for Saturday
gone, which I obviously had no intention of using, and it must have taken me 10
attempts to get rid of it; for nothing as well. Imagine that being the case 20
years ago? Unthinkable, as was the idea of half a dozen Newcastle fans sacking
off this game to go and support a non-league side from the other end of the
country against Blyth Spartans. Still, they could probably feel justified as
they sat on the X5 back home as the Real BSFC, the most famous non-league club
in the world, had lost 1-0 at home to a team followed by Manchester United fans
in absentia.
Replicating such indolent indifference, NUST made it 11
weeks since their AGM and 8 weeks since the election results for the NUST Board
without any sign of a public meeting or meaningful dialogue with the
membership, so as an ordinary member of both NUST and FSF, I contacted the
regulatory body for fan-led organisations, Supporters Direct, to see what their
opinions about this state of affairs were. In short, the bloke who got back to
me wasn’t too keen on intervening just yet; edited highlights of his email are
as follows -:
The number of meetings
that NUST has had since their AGM is not a surprise… What is important is that
a trust communicates regularly with their membership and potential supporters…
I have taken the time to speak with Peter Fanning (person responsible for
minutes of Fans Forum being post on NUST website in breach of agreed protocol
and recently reselected NUST Board member) from
the Trust, and he has explained that they will be holding more open meetings in
the not too distant future. All I can advise at this stage is that you continue
to play an active role as a member, and continue to show an interest in NUST's
activities: Active membership is vital to the success of an organisation like
NUST, and indeed the wider trust movement. If you do ever have any further
concerns or more information, please let me know, but at this stage I don't
have any concerns that I view would merit require further investigations.
Clearly, that last sentence was an invite for further
contact from me and, as yet, I await Supporters Direct’s response to my
follow-up email. Obviously they’ll be as amazed as I am by the news of the Mike
Ashley Out Campaign’s latest publicity stunt.
Last week, the story of Mark Menzies was all over the press;
a Tory MP caught with his strides down in the presence of a rent boy with half
a pound of jazz talc up his bugle. Amusing though the negative publicity was,
his sexuality and personal indiscretion is only a story in the sense it allowed
the ruling elite to slip out the news in Monday’s Financial Times that 60%
of the ConDem’s austerity measures are yet to bite; that is a real
tragedy. Maria Miller MP trousering a
load of dodgy expenses is a similar red herring; of course she’s corrupt,
avaricious and should be hounded out of public life at the earliest opportunity,
but keep your eyes on the bigger picture. Miller and Menzies may be the
sacrificial lambs slaughtered as true capitalist malfeasance actually runs
amok. The good thing is that at least I know how to respond to this news; unfortunately
I’m really unsure what to make of the Mike Ashley Out Campaign’s open top
bus stunt.
Initially when I heard about it, I was staggered at how
corny it seemed. However, I attended both the coffin stunt and the Willie Wonka
parody, both of which went off well. I wasn’t at the Time 4 Change march, but
by all accounts it was a roaring success. As my last NUFC blog (http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/anomie-in-uk.html)
pointed out, Graeme Cansdale, the owner of Mike Ashley Out Campaign is a man of
impeccable morals and unstinting devotion to his motivation of removing Ashley,
even if his assistants on Twitter seem happy to compromise the
imperative of fan ownership in the hope of finding a Geordie billionaire.
However, Graeme has been on the NUST Board for 2 months now and I’m still
waiting for the email announcing when an ordinary meeting of members is taking
place, which is an indictment of the entire NUST Board, especially as we
ordinary members have had no explanation for this wall of silence. Perhaps this
appropriation of the code of omerta
is why seats on the open topped bus weren’t available for ordinary members of
NUST; indeed it doesn’t as yet appear possible to get the rationale behind the
mechanism for inviting the MAOC chosen few who made it into the
inner sanctum on the top deck. Additionally, as yet, I’ve not heard anything
first hand from anyone who saw or took part in this bus stunt. If I do, I’ll
let you know. Frankly, despite freelancer Martin Hardy writing about it in The
Independent, very few people I know have given the bus stunt a first,
never mind a second thought.
What is captivating the attention of many people of my
acquaintance is the incontinent and immediate disappearance of the print
versions of Newcastle United’s longest running fanzine, The Mag, after 289 issues
and another of Baltic Publications’ titles, True Faith, after 111
issues. Of course, The Mag’s editor Mark Jensen has been a part of NUST’s board
since the 2010 elections and Michael Martin, who fulfils a similar role at True
Faith, was elected in February. With Steve Wraith passing on #9
to an editorial board drawn from supporters of NUFC Fans United and
Mickey Edmundson’s Black & White Daft disappearing, it seems that Newcastle
has gone from 4 print fanzines to none. This is actually a terribly sad state
of affairs, as it leaves Heaton Stannington’s programme as the best non-digital
football publication on Tyneside.
As I sat upstairs on the 38 (not “the metty” with a cat from
the Curva Nord I have to stress) to
High Heaton, heading back to The Stan and my people in Dene ward, it occurred
to me that there is a gap in the market for a quality, printed NUFC fanzine;
not one that is, and I stress these are only my personal opinions, dull as
dishwater like The Mag, other than Chris Tait’s pieces, has been since 2004 or
the po-faced and hectoring approach that True Faith has had since issue 51,
but a publication that is an actual republique
des lettres. We need a stripped-down, back-to-basics, print inkie, full of
thoughtful, articulate, nuanced, crafted pieces from writers who are granted
the length to develop their ideas fully. It can’t be like Twitter. We need warmth,
compassion and inclusivity.
Watch this space…
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