Ground Works

The one thing I regret most about 2014/2015 is that I’ve not been to more Northern League grounds, specifically to watch my club Newcastle Benfield. While I’ve visited 14 grounds in total so far, only 7 of those have been with Benfield. I may get to one more ground this season, Penrith on April 25^th, but it clearly isn’t enough of an effort to get round the whole of the Northern League. I am still to visit Newton Aycliffe and Ryhope CW as well as Penrith’s new home, before I can claim to have completed my set. During my 7 trips with Benfield, I’ve seen losses at Jarrow Roofing, Bedlington Terriers, North Shields, Whitley Bay (5-3 after being 3-1 up with 13 minutes to go, scarcely credibly) and West Auckland Town 2-0, a goalless draw at Dunston UTS (disappointed to see there weren’t any half Cusack / half Wraith commemorative scarves on sale) and a solitary victory, 5-2 at Crook Town. In addition, I’ve seen games at West Allotment Celtic and Bishop Auckland in Division 1, as well as second division games at Team Northumbria, Hebburn Town, Chester le Street Town and Whickham. To me, the 3 most interesting grounds I’ve been to this season, in order of visiting them, have been Crook Town, Bishop Auckland and West Auckland Town.

2014/2015 has been a bloody awful season for Crook Town; after an opening day draw away to North Shields, the sponsor disappeared, the club slashed the playing budget, nearly all the staff left and veteran manager Peter Mulcaster had to start from scratch. They were effectively relegated by Christmas, having only managed one win, at home to West allotment, and a draw at Benfield when only a 93^rd minute Paul Brayson volley denied them victory. There has been rumour of relocation from their glorious old Millfield ground, which is perhaps the only one in the Northern League with steps up to terracing behind the goal and two large structures along one touchline, in terms of a covered enclosure and a seated stand. The idea that they move to the nearby municipal Peases West sports facility is not one to be encouraged. Unlike Shildon who harbour ambitions of progress and so may leave the venerable Dean Street for the functional Middridge Athletics Stadium, Crook only have reorganisation and regrouping on the horizon; they really should stay at Millfield, even if the snow flurries on the afternoon I visited with Harry Pearon proved the stand roof was for decorative rather than practical purposes. I sincerely hope it is not another 18 years before I visit Crook again.

I only ever visited Bishop Auckland’s original Kingsway ground once; for a 2-2 draw in the Durham County Cup against Spennymoor in October 1995 that attracted a crowd of 570 on a Monday evening. A great occasion when I recall Bishops keeper Kevin Wolfe telling a Charles Hawtree lookalike Spennymoor fan to “put your teeth back in four eyes.” Back then both teams were in the Northern Premier League, from which they fell like stones, though Spennymoor, by the sleight of hand that saw them amalgamate with Evenwood Town in the way Austria amalgamated with Germany in 1938, managed to get a leg-up and eventually were promoted out of the Northern League last summer. Bishops remain in the Northern League, having conspicuously failed to pull up any trees since they arrived back, though they do have the new Heritage Park ground. I missed Benfield’s 4-4 draw there on a Tuesday night in early January, so when my mate Gary offered a lift down there for a Friday night game (the groundshare with Darlo means the lower placed hosts have to accede to their guests’ fixtures when there’s a clash) against Jarrow Roofing a couple of weeks back, I was delighted to accept.  Heritage Park may be a new ground, but under floodlights I thought it was a top quality ground; a superb stand on one side, a covered end and a freebie uncovered stand behind the far goal donated by Darlo mean that were Bishops to get it right on the pitch (as well as sorting out a pitch that seems to hold water like a sponge, resulting in games being called off whenever it gets a bit cloudy), they’d be in prime position to make a move back up the leagues. Heritage Park may be the absolute polar opposite of Millfield, but I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to a ground that is neat, impressive and state of the art. It’s also handy for Sainsbury’s if you want to get the shopping in as well. The game was decent as well; Bishops deservedly coming out on top, 2-1.

I’d only ever been to West Auckland Town once before; a dreary 1-0 win over Whickham in February 1997 when I was hellbent on completing my northern League set, which I did when heading up the hill to Evenwood Town a month later. Back then, West Auckland were a struggling second division side, but they’re established themselves as one of the title favourites this season, building on the excellent work of former manager Peter Dixon who twice took them to Wembley in the FA Vase. Back in November, Benfield put in one of our best performances of the season, trouncing them 3-0, but it was always going to be hard to replicate it on a windy day with a bumpy pitch to deal with. In the end, we lost 2-0 to a pair of shots from outside the box by a side that were hungrier for the win than we were. Darlington Road has been improved massively; no longer can drivers sit in their cars watching the game. There’s a decent terrace behind the top goal and a perfectly serviceable little stand as well. A decent crowd, a football lesson and a lift home from Gary; not a bad day all told, even if we lost.

Thanks to Gary for the photos of West and Bishops; appreciated

Green Shoots

Ireland has been in the news this week, primarily because of the Six Nations result. I have to admit that did please me, but the game of rugby union appears to have gone the way of limited overs cricket where all that matters is high scores and not tactics. It’s getting like basketball isn’t it? Mind, I did note in the pub on Saturday that West Ham’s late winner got a far louder chant than any England try.  

Anyway, turning our back on the 15 man code revenge for Skibbereen, we had St. Patrick’s Day this week. I celebrated it by skirting by seemingly deserted Hebburn Orange Lodge, attached to the Protestant Conservative Club, and heading to see Hebburn Town thump Birtley Town 4-1. On the way back, it occurred to me that the 2015 League of Ireland season has started and I’ve not written anything about it. Well, let’s put that right shall we?

My lack of engagement with the real Friday night football has partly been on account of the delay and possible cancellation of the curtain-raising, cross-border Setanta Cup, won in 2014 by Sligo Rovers over Dundalk in a monsoon at the Halting Site in Tallaght. Without the fanfare this competition occasions, how was I to know the hostilities had begun in earnest? This year, the current status of the competition is undecided, but it’s rumoured that cup and league champions of each football association play off against each other, to ensure a South v North final, probably in November after the Airtricity campaign finishes.  A glorified friendly in the middle of winter; that’ll see the fans flock to attend.

So, to recap on 2014; Dundalk were the Champions and EA (League) Cup winners, St Patrick’s Athletic won the FAI Cup, Athlone, who are rumoured to be in financial trouble, and UCD were relegated, Galway and Longford were promoted and Shamrock Rovers Reserves resigned from the First Division after 2 inglorious campaigns. With the second flight now only having 7 teams, another volunteer was sought; up stepped Cabinteely from the moneyed pastures of south Dublin. They’ll play their games at Blackrock rugby club in Stradbrook, basically because their home ground is a public park and no other teams were interested in filling the vacancy.  

Cabinteely have started off reasonably well; a 1-0 win over Wexford Youths in their first game was followed by a first round EA Cup win over local rivals UCD (all Garda Síochána leave south of Merrion Square cancelled that night) that has set them up facing Shamrock Rovers in round 2. Other EA Cup giant killers include University College Cork who won 2-1 away in Wexford and now face basement side, managerless Cobh Ramblers, as well as Crumlin United who saw off Bray Wanderers 4-2, though the Mayo League lost 8-0 to Sligo. Cockhill Celtic from Buncrana in Donegal got a bye to round 2, which is the last 16, and are drawn away to Galway. Ties take place on Easter Monday.

Returning to the league, after 3 games Athlone lead the First Division on goal difference from Finn Harps and Shelbourne, with all 3 teams having 7 points so far. In the top flight, Bohemians proudly stand on top of the table with maximum points, on goal difference from Dundalk. Bray are bottom, having lost every game, while Limerick and Longford are only a point better off. It’s early days of course…

I’m hoping, if my health is up to it, to get over in June; on Friday 12^th, Cabinteely host Athlone and Drogheda United play Derry City. I’ve not been to either of those grounds. Hopefully I’ll also get to see some GAA, though I’m a bit disappointed with Cork throwing away a 12 point lead over Tipp today in the hurling. The league’s don’t matter to most GAA fans, or so I’m lead to believe.

Anyway, more news on the League of Ireland and GAA as it occurs to me….

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

This Sunday is Mothers’ Day, which used to be called Mothering Sunday in the days when television was in black and white. Of course I’ll be going to visit my mam, but there’s no reason for me to take chocolates or flowers or perfume as a gift, as her place of residence is North Tyneside General Hospital, where she is being detained as part of a Deprivation of Liberty order that first came into force on December 20^th; the Saturday before Christmas. She was initially admitted to hospital as she was suffering from confusion caused, we thought, by a Urinary Tract Infection, but when tests showed no infection, the inescapable conclusion was dementia and at that point, we lost any control or influence over her future. We’d recognised she was getting older, frailer and in need of extra specialist help that we simply could not give; hence, we got carers to visit, 4 times a day at the end, as well as district nurses visiting twice a day for medication, but it wasn’t enough. She needs 24 hour supervision to stop her from harming herself. Falls have been a constant issue as well.

Despite the fact I promised her faithfully at my dad’s funeral back in 2009 that I’d always look after her and that she’d never end up in care, I finally have to admit defeat, which makes me feel worthless and a failure, but there is no way I can argue with the opinions of the medics who have stated my mam lacks competency in the areas of nutrition, hygiene and safety. In short, this means she can’t look after herself, she can’t ask others to look after her and she can’t recognise she has such needs. Despite struggling with mobility issues because of severe osteoarthritis, her dementia has given her the strength to wander and this is the real deal breaker; several times in the autumn she was brought back to her sheltered accommodation by local residents and even the police on a couple of occasions, but she managed to keep it from us, in her moments of infrequent clarity. Her dementia has caused this decline and she’ll never recover mental capacity ever again. I can’t even begin to express how this makes me feel. Suffice to say, unlike last year, Laura and I won’t be taking her out for Sunday lunch and a few drinks. Indeed, we’ll never take her anywhere ever again. The next move for my mam is to either a care home, if we can find a suitable one, or a secure EMI (elderly mentally ill) unit, but that’s not the end of the story. Not only do I have my mam’s situation to contend with, I’ve also got the fact I am starting to show symptoms consistent with early onset dementia myself, which will require a complex series of tests before I get to the bottom of things. You’ll probably understand why I’m not going to the pub on Sunday, as if I start drinking, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

But don’t let me put you off a leisurely afternoon in the boozer, with or without the old dear. It’s the accepted way to spend Mothering Sunday in 2015. The world has changed and sometimes I find it a strange and terrible place. Have you ever wondered just how Sunday turned from being a day of inertia, where all forms of recreation were legally stifled by the intolerance of Christian legislation into the bacchanalian weekly festival of excess it has become? Pubs are as busy on Sunday afternoons for food and football as they are on Friday nights it seems. Certainly some of the credit for Britain throwing off the straitjacket of enforced religious morality must go to the 1988 Licensing Act, which liberalised Sunday hours to the extent they changed from 12-2 and 7-10.30 to 12-3 and 7-10.30.  This curious anomaly of a bygone era of Christian observance utterly out of step with the reality of late 20th century life persisted until The Sunday Hours Licencing Act permitted all day opening 7 days a week from 1995 onwards.  This modification of the 1988 Act came as a result of pressure from both those in the pub trade, who identified a potentially lucrative market in family lunches on the Sabbath and the retail sector, who had gained the legal right for shops to open every day of the week via the 1994 Sunday Trading Act and saw a clear potential link between the two areas of consumer consumption. In an era where the mammoth Friday evening check-out queues at supermarkets have largely been replaced by a Sunday snarl up, it seems hard to recollect an earlier time when the Day of Rest was precisely that. Walking through the almost entirely deserted centre of Newcastle on a Sunday afternoon in the late 1980s and early 1990s, any potential customer would be restricted to spending their hard earned on either the wares on offer at Boots the Chemist by Grey’s Monument or RS McColl’s newsagent’s at the top of Pilgrim Street.

Other than for international tournaments, Sunday football was, of course, in its infancy back then as well.  Two games against Manchester United, a goalless league fixture in November 88 and a 2-3 loss in the FA Cup fifth round in February 90, as well as a draw with sunderland in a morning kick-off, insisted on by the Police, a fortnight prior to the latter game, were the only fixtures played on a Sunday at St James’ Park before the advent of Sky TV’s takeover of the national game via the Premier League. Keen students of chronology will note Newcastle United were not in the top flight in the Premier League’s debut season, but ITV got in on the live broadcasting act, by moving home ties with Swindon, Millwall, Derby, Birmingham, sunderland and Leicester and away games at Brentford, sunderland, Barnsley, West Ham and Tranmere, for live transmission. A dozen games, all free to air; could you imagine that now?  The season after, following NUFC’s promotion, the anachronism encapsulated by Sunday closing could clearly be seen by gangs of blokes hanging around in city centre pub doorways waiting for opening time and Sky’s second showing of that afternoon’s game. I distinctly remember queues similar to those seen at the Gallowgate turnstiles outside every pub on the Haymarket, waiting for access to the re-run of Andy Cole’s famed hat trick in the 3-0 demolition of Liverpool in November 1993. Bearing in mind such enthusiasm and the potential for turning a dollar by packing the pubs for the live showing of games, it would be foolish to discount to influence of Rupert Murdoch on the British political establishment in terms of providing a vastly increased market for his product, in the days before domestic satellite and cable television was the norm. Nowadays, everyone has access to Sky Sports; hell I’ve got it for free on my phone. However, what has been introduced into the British weekend experience is the concept of going to the pub on a Sunday afternoon to watch the Sky game, whoever may be playing.

Actually, the good news is that Everton v Newcastle isn’t on the telly this Sunday, so I might yet hold a pint glass in my shaking hands…

Undefeated Redux

Issue 12 of "Stand" fanzine is the best one yet and I'm proud to have this article in there. It's something I originally wrote for "The Popular Side" #6, but rewrote to try & be more general in "Stand."

T.S. Eliot was wrong; April isn’t the cruellest month, January is. Just look at the fortunes of Newcastle United in the opening weeks of 2015: inactive in the transfer window, disinclined to appoint a permanent successor for Alan Pardew and displaying trademark indifferent form on the pitch, whereby the only chance we deluded Geordies had to jump for joy was a wholly undeserved point at home to Burnley on New Year’s Day. We’ll not even mention the annual FA Cup third round surrender, or the fact that the squad was rewarded for their abject defeat away to Leicester at the earliest opportunity with a week’s warm weather training in Dubai, that had allegedly been booked before the draw was made back in December. This is the banal, depressing reality of life on Tyneside under Mike Ashley.

Let’s look on the bright side eh? While the players enjoyed a sporting sinecure among the beautiful people in the UAE, supporters were left to kick over the bones of a dismal 2-1 home loss to Southampton and speculate that the future promises no better as the U21s, as we must now call the Reserves, went down at home to Blackburn Rovers the Tuesday after. Bookending these two games were a pair of meetings that should have been of interest to all followers of Newcastle United who seek to do more about the state of our club than simply whine and grumble about the owner on a variety of social media platforms.

On Thursday 15^th January, the vibrant and inclusive independent supporters network NUFC Fans United (@NUFCFansUtd), created out of frustration with the inert and ineffectual Newcastle United Supporters’ Trust (NUST), and NUFC fanzine The Popular Side (@PopularSideZine) co-hosted a meeting at the Tyneside Irish Centre on Gallowgate where the keynote speaker was David Goldblatt, academic, football fan and author of Game of Our Lives: The Cultural Politics of English Football, which is the first essential book I’ve read in 2015. Those who filled the upstairs concert room on a bitterly cold evening were rewarded with an inspirational talk, whereby David delineated a draft manifesto for footballing change, outlining the cause and effect of the rotten core of our national game, the inability of current legislation and legislators to actively challenge these problems and a series of suggestions, both practical and theoretical, that could help us to reclaim football for the people who really matter; the fans. I’m sure the details of the manifesto will emerge soon, but suffice to say, no-one who cares about the game can fail to respond to suggestions that ticket pricing, the match day experience, especially as an away fan, institutional racism, chronic underfunding of the grassroots game, the refusal of many clubs to pay all employees a living wage and the lack of effective regulation of clubs, owners and supporters’ trusts, need thorough examination and, in several instances, legal intervention.

As part of a fact finding tour to take the temperature among committed activists up and down the country, David had already hosted a gathering in London before Christmas in conjunction with Stand and, having flown up at his own expense to Tyneside, was off to Manchester the day after to attend a similar event, with meetings in other cities in the pipeline. The purpose was to listen, to learn and refine the 11 point manifesto and, in advance of the May election, to provide a coherent document that will encourage politicians to think seriously about the national game. For more than 2 hours, debate was maintained on a wide range of issues, with supporters not just of Newcastle, but Middlesbrough and Hull City, who’d driven 120 miles to be there, in attendance and able to contribute positive suggestions in an atmosphere of mutual support and admiration. There is far more that unites us than divides us as football fans; something we should never forget. As the meeting drew to a close, NUFC Fans United resolved to work hard to ensure that this appetite for structural change is channeled positively, by holding future monthly planning meetings for the purpose of organizing an event related to the launch of the manifesto at a game in April, with Swansea on the 25^th looking favourite. 

On Wednesday 21^st January, NUST held its Annual General Meeting at The Mining Institute by Central Station. Created by the storm of righteous supporter anger at the disgraceful treatment of Kevin Keegan in 2008, NUST has subsequently lost its campaigning zeal and stagnated to the point of ossification from 2010 onwards, to the extent that the wider NUFC support base, if they even recognise its continued existence, view the Trust with either indifference or disdain verging on contempt. There were no apologies asked for or taken and only those who spoke to the meeting announced their names; consequently I am unsure exactly how many members of the elected 12 member NUST board were actually present, but certainly several were inexplicably absent. In addition there was no representative in attendance from either the Football Supporters Federation or Supporters Direct. If there had been, one wonders exactly how they would have reacted to the unequivocal announcement by one the NUST Board that “public meetings don’t work.” This statement was not a point for discussion; it was presented as a desperately depressing fact. Frankly I find the suggestion that a supporters’ trust would not seek to provide a platform for all fans to attend and give their opinions quite staggering and another reason why, as much as owners and boards of directors should be subject to regulation as to their activities, we need the regulation of supporter organisations. If NUST were an effective vehicle for fan interaction and representation, there would be no need for NUFC Fans United to exist.

I do accept that supporters’ trusts are to an extent hampered and hidebound by their constitutional regulations, but NUST’s future plans for contact with members by inviting a select few to attend board meetings or to hold “surgeries” seemed to me akin to the activities of a constituency Labour Party in the 1980s; regulations, rules and procedure being more important than activism. The irony being that during the 46 minute AGM, several NUST board members recognised the need for campaigns about ticket pricing and the need to pay a living wage, not to mention calling for an agreed national political strategy in advance of the election. Unfortunately the endless round of committee meetings with other trusts will no doubt result in the enthusiasm being squeezed out of a project that could run in conjunction with the visionary work of David Goldblatt that will empower fans across the whole country.

I make no bones about the fact I feel that the attempt to ride the zeitgeist of spontaneous fan activism as espoused by David Goldblatt has far more chance of capturing the imagination than the meticulous paper-shuffling of supporters’ trusts. However, here is a reality check. NUFC Fans United attracted 31 to the David Goldblatt talk-in and the NUFC Trust AGM was attended by 23 of the 769 fully paid-up members. Meanwhile, 49,307 watched the Southampton game and even 509 frozen human peas rattled round the St James Park pod for the Under 21s game. That is what we are up against; the indifference, cynicism and despair of, do the maths, 99% of supporters. The choice is clear; we either throw our hands up in despair or we grit our teeth and redouble our efforts to take the argument for greater fan involvement and better regulation of the game to all supporters. That’s why I’m looking forward to the Swansea game in late April. Don’t despair; keep fighting!