Pavel Srniček RIP; odpočívej v pokoji

It’s debatable when the inevitable post-Christmas depression really starts to cut in. For me, the ephemeral window of reality after the extended holiday, before the illusory New Year spike in bonhomie, is often the harbinger of cold days and long faces ahead. And never has this dampening of the spirit been more pronounced than Tuesday December 29^th 2015, when all the news was bad.

Anyone who went to gigs in Newcastle at the end of the 70s will have seen legendary shows by The Specials at the Mayfair in November 79 and Motorhead, playing the City Hall on the Bomber tour, the month after. The deaths of Lemmy and Brad, aged 70 and 62 respectively, drew appreciative, nostalgic comment from all who knew their work. However, they were both musicians who, certainly in Lemmy’s case, enjoyed the colourful life of the touring performer, with all the excesses and indulgences that entails. Far harder to accept is the passing of a super fit, former professional athlete, teetotaller and non-smoker, especially at the age of 47. When the deceased is a universally loved and fondly recalled local hero, the loss is all the more profound. The announcement that the life support machine has been turned off at the family’s request ushers in a sorrow that is both immeasurable and inexpressible. While he was born and died in his home town of Ostrava, a former mining stronghold in the Silesian enclave of the Moravian region of the Czech Republic, there is no denying Pavel Srníček was an adopted Geordie.

The iconic photograph of Srníček’s time on Tyneside shows him on the pitch at St. James’ Park in May 1993, celebrating promotion after a 7-1 thrashing of Leicester City. He’s applauding the sell-out crowd, attired in a grey t-shirt, emblazoned with PAVEL IS A GEORDIE in emphatic capitals, showing just how far he’d come since he arrived on Tyneside two years earlier.  Having completed his military service in the Czechoslovak army in the period immediately after the Velvet Revolution, he played two seasons for his hometown club Baník Ostrava, which is literally translated as coal mining island, before signing for Newcastle for a fee of £350,000. Like now, the Magpies were in the doldrums; Srníček was signed by Jim Smith, who quit in March 91 to be replaced by Ossie Ardiles, who was sacked in February 92, allowing Kevin Keegan to attempt a Red Adair style rescue effort, with the club facing a first-ever demotion to the third tier of English football. Disaster was averted, Keegan assembled a supremely talented team and immediate promotion was followed by 3 beguiling attempts at Premier League glory, each failure more agonising than the previous. Following Keegan there was the dull fare of Kenny Dalglish and the sporting equivalent of the Emperor’s New Clothes under Ruud Gullit, with Pav quietly exiting the club after 7 years in summer 98.

This does not tell the full story of Srníček’s popularity with the SJP crowd. Certainly at first, he was erratic to say the least; nervous, unable to speak the language and appearing in an awful team, Pav conceded more than 2 goals a game on average (including 6 in a cup game at Tranmere), before losing his place to reserve Tommy Wright when Keegan arrived. The current St Johnstone manager was injured in November 92 and Pav retook his spot between the posts, celebrating the Velvet Divorce between the Czech Republic and Slovakia by keeping a clean sheet in a 4-0 FA Cup win over Port Vale. Despite the scarcely imaginable renaissance of the moribund Magpies under his stewardship, it always seemed Keegan lacked faith in the muscular Moravian, signing Mike Hooper in 1993 and Shaka Hislop two years later as supposed first choice keepers, though neither impressed during their inglorious tenures. Meanwhile, whether first choice or on the bench, Srníček buckled down, grafted hard with his eccentric coach John Burridge, becoming recognised as a consummate professional and highly popular figure in the changing room and on the terraces. In life, as in death, nobody ever had a bad word to say about Pav.

When he returned to SJP with new club Sheffield Wednesday in November 98, he was cheered from the pitch at the end of a 1-1 draw. Over the following few seasons, Srníček affected a more peripatetic approach to his career, turning out for Brescia, Cosenza, Portsmouth, West Ham and Beira Mar, though he was to make one further appearance in front of the fans who loved him best. In December 2006, Srníček signed again for Newcastle. Two days before Christmas, with the team easing to a 3-1 win over Spurs, Pav was called from the bench in the 87^th minute, receiving a tumultuous reception from the 52,000 crowd as, aged almost 39, he rolled back the years and saw the game through. He stayed with the club until the end of the season, though he wasn’t called on again, and retired in the summer. The tributes from that time were as warm and fulsome as the grief-streaked words following his tragic and untimely death, while Pav left the north east public in no doubt their love was requited, though I myself had learned at first-hand how his fellow Ostravans all seemingly held Newcastle United to their hearts as well.

A year after Pav left Newcastle for the first time, I also headed for the lands to the east of Prague; specifically Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. Aged 35 and suffering wounded, post-divorce pride, allied to a growing sense of professional frustration, I divested myself of the tatty accoutrements of bourgeois life (family, job and property) to teach English as a Foreign Language for 2 memorable years. Like Pav back in 91, I was a goalkeeper with no knowledge of the language of my new home; however that didn’t matter in my job, nor when I signed for the ex-pat team Bratislava Academicals. I lost much, but I gained much more; self-respect, friends I still remain in contact with, a job I loved and a surrogate home I will never forget. I also found a team to support in FC Petržalka, who played in black and white stripes by the banks of the Danube at the Stary Most ground. However, what I didn’t manage to do was visit Ostrava, though I put that right in summer 2003.

During my 2 years in Bratislava, I’d not sought to view my job as a way of filling in the time between weekends away in Prague, Budapest or Vienna, but as a means to rediscover stability and a sense of purpose. Travel didn’t broaden my mind, watching and playing football, or talking about it in the pub did.  Returning as a quasi-tourist for each of the next 5 summers, I saw what I hadn’t in terms of culture and architecture, travelling by train from a Bratislava base to those places I ought to have visited first time around, with football the torch that guided me through Slovak life.

Friday 1^st August 2003; the next day, I’ve the choice of attending the wedding of a dull former colleague from Wokingham to his equally tedious Slovak fiancé, or of getting away somewhere different for the night. Dossing at a mate’s flat while he’s back in England means I don’t have room rates to worry about, so I make my decision based on the football fixtures. Petržalka are away in distant Prešov and I refuse to spend money watching Slovan Bratislava and their bonehead support, so I have to broaden my horizons; a quick check of the Gambrinus League programme shows me Baník Ostrava are home to Slovan Liberec. I’d have liked a local derby against Brno or Olomouc, but instead I get the side with the furthest distance to travel in the Czech top flight. Flicking through the phonebook sized railway timetable, I see there’s a direct train at 10.10, arriving at 1.37, in plenty of time for the 5pm kick off. Direct trains cost more, but there’s far less chance of missing a connection or getting lost. The great thing about this journey is that I have to buy my ticket from the International Window, where the teller speaks English. This isn’t exactly a tourist route, so the train is half full. I alternate between reading, rehydrating with fizzy water and staring out at unremarkable Moravian scenery.

When I arrived in Slovakia, I knew nothing detailed of the country’s history, though I soon got up to speed. Slovaks regarded Gypsies as subhuman, hated the Hungarians for 800 years of oppression and occupation, disliked the Czechs as they were atheist and liberal in outlook, rather than insular and Catholic, while remaining ambivalent to the Third Reich, on account of their creation of a Nazi puppet independent Slovakia during World War II. At the end of hostilities, the leader Archbishop Tiso was executed as a war criminal. Before they adopted the Euro, Slovakia put his image on the 1,000 SKK bank note; the highest denomination in circulation.

The Czechs seemed, or the ones I met, to be left-leaning, tolerant and pragmatic; their country consisted of two major provinces, namely Bohemia (capital Prague) and Moravia (capital Brno), with a tiny fraction of Silesia (main town Ostrava) in the latter. Unlike Slovakia, where the ultra-nationalist government had sought to make speaking Hungarian in public an arrestable offence in 1995, Czechs spoke the same language, but almost all were highly proficient in German and many had a working knowledge of English. Shame there were no polyglots to be found near the station, when my train arrived that boiling August afternoon.

In the Czech Republic, Saturday is as much of a family day as Sunday used to be here. Shops close at noon and much of the population head for the countryside in the summer and ski resorts in the winter. My hope of finding a cheap hotel near the station and grabbing a bite to eat and a shower looked a fond one as I tramped down the baking pavements of deserted streets, on my way to Bazaly Stadion. When I got there, nearly 3 hours before kick-off, the place was still deserted. There was nothing for it but to go for a pint, in this case to Baníček Futbal Pub, about 50 metres from the main entrance to the ground.

Now I wasn’t brilliant with the lingo, but I knew how to order a beer; jedno pivo, prosím.  I recall if it was Budvar, Gambrinus, Pilsner Urquell or what, but I needed it. I got another decided I needed to eat; ďalšie pivo a jedalny listok, prosím. I was fooling nobody. There were about a dozen other customers; a gaggle of middle aged blokes at the bar, smoking and reading the paper and clutch of young lads in shorts and t-shirts, not replica shirts, playing pool, who looked up for the game. Deutsch? Asked the barman. Nie, ja som z Anglicka; nový Hrad.  I replied, hoping the minor differences between my pidgin Slovak and his native tongue wouldn’t prove mutually unintelligible. Geordie? he ventured. I confirmed his suspicions, at which point he smiled broadly and indicated a framed NUFC keeper jersey on the wall behind me. I’ve no idea if it was one of Pav’s, but it was the 1995/1996 design in sunburst yellow, with a Tyne Bridge motif. Turning another 90 degrees, I saw that one wall was dedicated to a mural of the famous photo of Pav on the pitch at St James. If Pav instinctively felt at home in Newcastle, then I was experiencing something similar in Ostrava.

The pool players were summoned. Ostrava Ultras, but in a gentle way, as well as fans of Newcastle. One lad showed me his matching tattoos of the NUFC badge and a Magpie atop each shoulder. Another was called “Beardsley,” when I asked why; they told me because he is ugly. A third introduced himself as Pavel. I asked him if he was a goalkeeper and he replied no, it’s my name.  If Pavel was an adopted Geordie, they were his relatives from the old country. The pub filled up, we drank more beer and I ate some fried pork with dumplings. At kick off, the barman took my overnight bag and locked it away, with my camera inside, which I regret to this day.

The crowd was sparse, the game was a turgid 1-1 draw, but those young fellas, predominantly students in their early 20s, drank and sang with me all game. Baník’s late equaliser was celebrated with a rousing chorus of We’re Geordies! We’re mental! We’re off our fucking heads! At full time we headed back to Baníček as the precursor for yet more drinks. However, once we began a tour of the city’s Irish bars (!), my sensible head came into play and I knew I needed to find a place to stay. Hotel Max was recommended because it had no Mafia, no Prosties, which sounded like a decent recommendation to me. A couple of nightcaps in the bar, a pair of bottles for bed and I was gone.

I woke late the next day, having missed breakfast. I took a long shower and then deliberately walked the opposite way to the ground when taking a circuitous route to hlavne namestie for the train. The day before had been special. I didn’t want to meet my drinking pals again, for the memory to be tarnished, so I killed an hour in the station buffet with strong coffee and a plate of fried cheese and chips, before leaving, ignored, on a deserted train back east of the Morava.

Since that day, my sense of identification for Ostrava and the Czech Republic remains undimmed, unlike my contempt for the parlous state of Newcastle United. Once I thought I had a faith for life in my football club, but time and circumstance made me lose it; perhaps the day to day grinding reality sucks the vitality out of even one’s desire to protest. However, like Pav, I found somewhere else where I felt comfortable and understood. I’ve been back to Slovakia, even watching Newcastle United win 3-1 in Dubnica nad Vahom in an Inter Toto Cup game in 2005, but I’ve not been back to Ostrava. One day I hope to return to that pub, that stadium and perhaps the same terrible station buffet. And I’ll come, not in mourning, but to celebrate the life of the man who linked the two cities forever.

Odpočívej v pokoji, Pavel můj přítel…

Unhappy Families

I am 51 years of age. I have a wonderful son, of whom I am immensely proud, a fabulous partner I adore, a well-paid job that is both stimulating and rewarding, not to mention a range of hobbies that are deeply fulfilling. Ostensibly, I seem to possess all I could wish for in early middle age. However a constant, debilitating fug of depression and self-loathing has hung over my life, to the extent that I have suffered 3 serious episodes of mental ill-health; firstly when aged 16 in 1981, then between 1994 and 1999, as well as the current bout, from which I am steadily recuperating. My recovery from each episode has made me a stronger, more resilient, though perhaps introspective person.

I have recently received an emphatic medical opinion which unequivocally states that I ought to be covered by the provisions of the Equality Act, as my condition is “profound, enduring, likely to continue for the foreseeable future and impinges severely” on my ability to lead a normal, worthwhile life. I would never seek to describe myself as disabled; all I want from life is to be happy and content. In time, with treatment and medication, I feel certain this modest aim may be achieved, once I have successfully come to terms with the causes of my depression that lie in my past. What is the reason for my mental health problems? Plainly speaking, throughout my entire childhood, for most of my adolescence and during large parts of my adulthood I have suffered from an array of differing levels of emotional, physical and sexual abuse from both of my parents.

The emotional variety, which has mainly consisted of relentless waves of negative comments designed to destroy my self-confidence and undermine any attempts at personal independence or feelings of self-worth, has chronologically been the most enduring form of abuse. I have never drawn praise from my parents at any time in my life, only criticism. The very idea that words can never harm me is a sick joke from my personal experience, as I have zero self-esteem and suffer from long-standing implacable feelings of self-loathing. I hate myself. Basically, I have never felt safe, or loved in a healthy way by anyone, in my family. The emotional abuse was originally perpetrated by both my father, who died 6 years ago, and my mother in almost equal measures on a regular, if not daily, basis, though her continued existence has allowed her to surge ahead in the production of pain from this category.

His words were threatening and intimidatory; hers were and are more pointedly personal.  The constant iteration of insulting, hurtful and contemptuous statements by my mother that I am “a huge disappointment,” “a disgrace,” “a total failure as a human being” and have “no experience of life” have had a profound and lifelong effect on me, more so than the promises by my father that he would punch me in the mouth or break my legs if I disobeyed him again. Because of my father’s hectoring, judgemental bullying, I am terrified of confident, aggressive, Alpha Males, while my relationships with women have been characterised by my inability to maintain emotional warmth, as a result of an utter absence of self-esteem precipitated by my mother’s insidious barrage of hurtful barbs.

My two longest personal relationships, a 9 year marriage and a 10 year relationship with my current partner, have seen me fail to adequately reciprocate the love and care these two wonderful women have shown me. I met my ex-wife when I was 26 and she was 22; I simply could not accept how close she was to her family and that it was normal to love your siblings and parents and to be loved in return. Eventually, my repeatedly negative and fearful response to this state of affairs became a serious problem for my wife and her family, as regards my attitudes to them, especially after our son was born. Because I came from a dysfunctional background, where I lacked safety and was never nurtured, I couldn’t begin to comprehend how happy families operated. In a sense, I was doomed to fail in my marriage as I did not know how to love or be loved properly. Though, in an uncharacteristic nod to a belated recognition of my own worth, I do feel I’ve ultimately been a good dad to my son, as I was always there for him. I tried to offer him the love, respect and support I was denied and I hope that is part of the reason why he has developed into the fine young man he is now. Certainly, he has never been terrified of me in the way I was of my father.

My partner and I met when we were both in our early 40s; after some initial difficulties in my level of comprehension how healthy, mutually supportive relationships work, we have been very happy over the years. It is my earnest hope that we will grow old together. I am still learning at my age exactly what it means and how it is possible to be loved, as unlike in a professional setting, where I can easily accept and internalise praise for being good at my job, most positive and affectionate comments about the personal “me” from those closest to me have hitherto often made me feel deeply uncomfortable, if not an utter fraud. Undoubtedly, this is because I have been conditioned by my background to believe I am both worthless and evil.

Significantly, because of the incomplete development of my emotional intelligence, other than these 2 relationships, almost all of the other women I have been involved with on a personal level have been unsuitable, having effected some kind of negative or potentially destructive impact on me. It has almost been the case that I sought the company of women who would make me miserable as we were completely ill-suited, on account of my warped understanding of how relationships work. I believe this mind-set to be a direct result of the emotional abuse I endured, which continues until the present day from my mother, even as she lives out her last days in the care home to which she has been confined under a Deprivation of Liberty Order, as her dementia is so advanced that she was a danger to herself and could no longer live alone. As a consequence of the attritional effect of my mother’s bitter, rancorous and humiliating words, I constantly feel worthless, inadequate, a failure and believe I’d be better off dead. Even as she drifts through the last part of her life, unstuck in time and divorced from reality, she still finds the strength to tell me, on the occasions I visit her, I am “pathetic” or “stupid,” providing she has the necessary audience to ensure my humiliation is both public and complete.

The physical abuse I suffered was entirely the preserve of my father. Unlike many other children who grew up in the 1970s, the method of parental chastisement I was most familiar with was not simply characterised by smacking, though this did take place; rather, it was the case I endured repeated assaults, comprising punches, kicks and attacks with blunt weapons. There is no doubt in my mind that had my father behaved in such a fashion in the present day; he would have been in prison for the injuries he inflicted on me. Yes I had cuts. Yes I had bruises. Yes I made excuses and told lies when asked to explain their presence by teachers, often under parental instruction to do so. No, I did not merit further investigation by any outside agency. I do not necessarily feel I was failed by the authorities, but I was by my parents and my extended family.

I have absolutely no happy memories of my early life. Until I began to establish strong friendships based on shared social interests, in music, football, politics and literature for example, around the age of 14, life was an unending, miserable hell. My childhood recollections are a confusing, asynchronous blur of half-remembered memories of relentless savage attacks on me, performed on the slightest pretext. As a little boy, all I knew from my father was fury and anger. He was a weak bully and his relationship with my mother was, I see in retrospect, a deeply disturbed and unhealthy one, whereby I was a human punch bag for him to work out all of the rage and frustration occasioned by his attempts to satisfy the unrealistic and uncompromising demands of my vain, cruel and narcissistic mother. Every memory I have of a situation with my father was of me unsuccessfully begging for his mercy. No doubt my seeming cowardice only served to sharpen his wrath at such times. I am in no doubt that he had dehumanised me to the extent that he saw me not as his son, but as a legitimate vehicle for the exorcism of his personal demons. Even worse is the fact I am sure that my mother found it sexually arousing to see the power she held over my father, which is why she encouraged him to hit me as hard as he could, on numerous occasions for her own sordid gratification. I was a child. A boy, not yet of school age. I did not deserve the abuse served on me. No child ever does.

The only way I have managed to cope is to attempt to blot out the memories of these childhood attacks, to the extent they have all blended together, though the less frequent, but considerably more sustained, assaults upon me after I reached young adulthood are fresh in my mind to this day as clearly defined individual incidents. In February 1981, my despair at my domestic situation, with particular reference to the parental violence meted out on me, was such that I attempted suicide by taking an overdose of tablets. It was a cry for help I suppose, as it took place not in secret but at Sixth Form College. All I wanted was for someone to save me. Nobody did. I would have been content with a friendly, sympathetic ear. There wasn’t one.

After being found, then having my stomach pumped and being detained in hospital overnight, my father responded to this series of events, not with love, much less concern or any desire to comprehend, but by beating me up in the car park of the hospital when he came to collect me. Later that year, one notably savage beating saw him hit me in the genital area with a golf putter, then repeatedly smash my head off the legs of a metal television stand, following which attack I bear a scar on the right temple as a reminder of the twisted concept of parenting, deemed as acceptable in my deeply dysfunctional family.

On New Year’s Day in 1984, my father threw me out of our house in the middle of a family gathering and assaulted me in the front garden, punching me so hard he knocked me over a rotten fence that broke when I landed on it. As I lay dazed on the ground, he stood over me and, responding to my mother’s frenzied urgings, kicked me repeatedly. What I remember far more than the pain are those screams of encouragement of my mother and the mute indifference of members of my extended family who witnessed this attack. Sadly, these people, who were the brothers and sisters of my father and their attendant spouses, had witnessed many such prior assaults by my father on me and never once, in my entire childhood and adolescence, sought to intervene in the whole sorry mess of my upbringing. Some of them would use recollections of my father’s attacks on me as the basis for jokes and jibes at my expense. I felt ashamed, humiliated, despised and utterly without worth. I don’t hold the extended family as responsible as I do my parents for my horrific childhood, but their cowardly inaction means I regard those that are still living with complete contempt. With perhaps only one exception, I have zero contact with any of them. They were part of a large, tight-knit Irish immigrant family, who profoundly distrusted the authorities on every level, avoiding engagement whenever possible. I was never going to be protected by these fundamentally ignorant and selfish people, especially as two distinct scions of the family were members of differing cults; one quasi-religious and one quasi-political, whereby the control of and resultant unquestioning obedience by adherents was required at all times. These people did not care what I suffered.  Their loyalties were to their masters.

The last time my father beat me up, on Thursday July 3^rd 1986, I was almost 22. It was in a hotel restaurant, where we’d gone to eat after I had graduated from university that same afternoon. There was no discernible reason for the flurry of blows he unleashed on me over our starters, which is possibly why none of the staff or the other diners in the packed room sought to intervene. Of course they could simply have been stunned by what unfolded. Their classmate in a suit, crumpling on the carpet beneath a dining table, begging for mercy, while a middle aged man rained blows upon his prostrate form.  The saddest thing for me is that many people who I’d been students with, who I’ve never seen in the 30 years since that day, have that scene as their last memory of me. Incredible and appalling as it may seem, I then climbed up from the floor, dusted myself down and ate a meal with the sociopathic monsters I called Mam and Dad. As far as I was concerned, this situation was completely normal, or at least it was in our family.

My father never hit me again after that. Perhaps the final attack was his version of an initiation rite, essential before he could acknowledge my passage into adulthood? More likely he was simply getting old and couldn’t effortlessly produce the level of violence he’d always aspired to and that my mother required for her sexual gratification. Certainly it wasn’t because he was worried I’d stand up to him. I’ve never hit anyone in my life. I don’t even know how to make a fist properly. All I knew how to do was to cower and sob. However, these formative experiences are why I’ve always stood up, verbally, to bullying in every aspect of my life, which is one of the reasons why I became a union branch officer; to protect the weak and powerless from the contemptuous puissance of the strong. I may not have been successful in my fight (which I often view as a crusade) and I may have intervened at inappropriate times and in inappropriately voluble ways, but I have always done what I believed to be right to try and protect victims.

My father died in 2009 and we were reconciled during the latter part of his life. When my son was born in 1995, my father was delighted to become a grandfather and confided in me that he knew he hadn’t been a good dad, but would strive to be the best grandad in the world. I’m sure he came pretty close in that aim. My son adored him and misses him still. My partner only knew my father as an avuncular, kindly old man and initially had trouble reconciling the stories of my upbringing with the reality of the elderly bloke who affectionately called her “flower.” I so wish he had not chosen to behave in the way he did towards me, though his actions were his choice and his fault, not mine. I believe he knew this and had accepted both responsibility and regret, which is why he said to me two days after my son’s birth, “let’s move on from the past” A noble wish. If only he’d asked if we could move on and ceded responsibility for such a decision to me, I’d have forgiven him for almost all he did to me. As it is, I am reconciled with him and his memory, seeking to focus more on the last 15 years I knew him than on the previous 30.

That is not the case with my mother. As yet, my psychological wounds are raw and weeping sores that remain impossible to salve. I cannot and will not forgive her for the emotional and sexual abuse she was responsible for, which has blighted my life, though I realise the key to my ultimate recovery and the best chance I have of living a satisfying remainder of my life, is to deal with what she did to me by finding a way to achieve some sort of resolution.  Ironically, in the period after my father died and my estranged sister withdrew from any contact with my mother, it was left to my partner and I to provide precisely the kind of support, care and reassurance that was entirely absent from my upbringing. This was the only time in my life that my mother and I enjoyed any kind of a healthy, mutually admiring relationship. The onset of her dementia meant it was not to last and she has now regressed to a pale, chimerical version of the domineering and wicked bully of my childhood, cursing me from beneath a blanket in an overstuffed armchair in the antiseptic day room of her care home. As she has seemingly reverted to type, I am as yet unable to see how I could focus on those 3 brief, happy years, rather than the previous 47 unendingly painful ones.  

I mentioned that I have endured 3 bouts of prolonged mental illness in my life; the first aged 16 was in response to the relentless physical intimidation meted out to me. The second in 1994 began almost immediately after my ex-wife told me she was pregnant with our son. While for many potential parents, such news could be seen as daunting, the predominant mood would, in most instances, be joy mixed with excitement. For me, the response was sheer panic mingled with profound fear. I was absolutely terrified of becoming a parent, simply because the accepted narrative of the time was that all abuse victims become abusers, as the effects of abuse were regarded as being so severe that it was impossible to break the cycle. However, to confound the nature beats nurture adherents, I did. I may not have been the father I am now back then, and it cost me my marriage to get to the point where I was a decent dad, but I tried my very best to bring my boy up in a loving, supportive environment, free of judgemental contempt or physical intimidation. Sure I shouted at him a few times, but I always protected and nurtured my son. Never once did I raise my hand to him. Unlike me, my son grew up without fear, which is how it should be.

My third and current episode of mental ill health was triggered by my mother’s rapidly advancing dementia. Close friends, who know of my traumatic upbringing, have asked me how I could bear to maintain any contact with her once I’d left home for university, especially considering all I had endured at her hands. The response was simple; I hoped at some subliminal level that she would eventually show the same level of self-awareness my father did and apologise for her actions. This has never been the case. In adulthood, whenever I asked my mother to explain her conduct towards me, her response was the typical denial of guilt by an abuser; she deflected all blame onto me. Her reasoning was deceitful yet consistent; I was a difficult child and needed to be kept in check. As parents, they were left with no choice by my unruly behaviour. She consistently lacked any insight into the effects, comprehension of the illegality or felt any sense of responsibility for her actions. When she was confined to the care home, I felt as if my life had disintegrated. Many of my friends and associates saw this as me grieving for someone who was still living. In truth, my despair was actually caused by the knowledge that the extent of her dementia ensured I would never be granted a proper explanation or any semblance of an apology from my mother for all the years of abuse she had inflicted on me. I imagine there is also an elemental yearning for her to show me some love and affection, though I have never experienced that in a sustained way. Even during the 3 good years, I still sensed I was being exploited by my mother, who lacked any insight into my needs.

Perhaps the most personally distressing thing about the sexual abuse I endured was that it was performed not for reasons of her sexual gratification, which I firmly believe she obtained from watching my father physically assault me, but because of her need to have control and coercion over me. She sought to establish dominion through desperately humiliating actions that I feel deeply ashamed to even think about to this day. While my father’s abuse was highly public, in the sense he wasn’t bothered who saw him knocking me about, on account of the fact that his extended family were tacitly complicit in the attacks I suffered in front of them, my mother’s abuse was all done in secret. Literally behind closed doors, in either our bathroom or my bedroom.

From my earliest days, I was made aware that my private parts were not private. They belonged to my mother. I recall her repeatedly inserting slices of soap up my rectum, for reasons involving both pain and shame, to punish me for not being perfectly toilet trained by the age of 3, despite me begging her not to. The hurt caused by her finger nails scratching and drawing blood from my sphincter, followed by the ensuing persistent stinging sensation and the dreadful, invasive, psychologically wounding, nature of the punishment is still almost too horrifying to recall. Whenever I wet the bed, or my underwear showed signs of soiling, her response was to put soap under my foreskin as well, to give me another lasting painful reminder and to “train” me. As a result, I continually suffered from thrush throughout my childhood. These days you’d buy some wet wipes to help kids clean themselves and be prepared to wash their bedclothes on a regular basis. You would support, encourage and love them, not stigmatise and demonise a 3 year old for the slightest accident and impose a regime of such unyielding, sadistic control for several years, even after the child had become fully continent.  

Once I started school and could prove I was properly toilet trained, she stopped inserting soap in me. However, if the physical pain of the stinging had ended, I now had to become accustomed to an even more humiliating routine, whereby my mother took to grasping my penis and testicles and painfully squeezing them, especially when I woke up, to prevent me from urinating. She claimed this was done to train my bladder, but I simply recall the sneering look of contempt she gave me, as she wielded power over me. She insisted I look her in the eyes as she spat out “go to the toilet before you need to” in a harsh monotone. This routine continued almost on a daily basis until I was ready to start secondary school.

I seek to call what she did to me sexual not physical abuse, despite the lack of arousal on her part, because it involved my genitals. When I was 12, she caught me masturbating in my room (privacy was non-existent in our house) and announced it was behaviour that “would not be tolerated amongst dogs.” As a result, she insisted on being in the room whenever I took a bath, to make sure “everything is alright” and to deny me the opportunity for pleasuring myself, unlike adolescent males the world over. I found the lack of privacy and respect crushingly humiliating. This monitoring of my bath time continued until November 1977 when we moved to a house with a shower, at which point the sexual element to her abuse began to manifest itself more as a series of relentless, embarrassing personal questions about my developing sexuality. She asked me about erections, whether I was producing semen and if I had wet dreams. This was demeaning to the point of utter degradation. Clearly, this line of questioning was for reasons of control by means of the utter destruction of my self-image. The irony of her mantra “you’ll never find anyone to love you, if you don’t love yourself” has resonated throughout my life.  

The sexual element to my mother’s abusive behaviour ended abruptly on Monday 18^th May 1981, when I finally found the strength to stand up to her. The night before, I’d been out quite late with a gang of friends from sixth form to see The Cure on their “Faith” tour. I loved The Cure at the time and we’d all had a splendid night. As I didn’t have any lessons until 11, I decided on a lie-in and so I switched my alarm off. As usual, if I hadn’t surfaced for breakfast by 8, my mother shouted upstairs for me. I was quite an assiduous student, so I made it my business to go in for 9 every day and do some reading or make notes before classes started. That morning though, I turned over and went back to sleep. A short while later, my sister came in the room to shake me awake, but I told her I wasn’t getting up. She went to leave the room, but my mother, who was stood in the doorway, sent her back, instructing her to place her hands under the duvet and “pull his willy off.”

For the first time ever, I swore at my mother and sister, telling them both to “fuck off,” before storming into the bathroom. Coming home from college that afternoon, it immediately became apparent my mother had told my father about my foul language, as it was that evening when he hit me in the testicles with a golf putter and smashed my head off the television stand. I presume that at some point later that night he asked my mother why I’d sworn at her and she’d explained the story in full. I’d like to think this was why the sexual abuse never happened again. I am convinced it is also the kernel of my sister’s hatred for me, because in her eyes, I failed to protect her from our mother. My sister appears not to realise or accept that I was a victim in that situation, controlled and dominated by a wicked abuser, who was the one woman who ought to have protected us. I feel that my sister is still in denial and though she re-established communication, for whatever reason, and now plays the role of the conspicuously dutiful daughter, visiting the care home on a daily basis, she is still unable to face up to the magnitude of the abuse perpetrated by my mother.

I hope my sister is able to deal with her demons and realise I am not to blame for the tatty wreckage of her life. She deserves to live without anger, guilt or shame, as do we all. My personal goal is to come to terms with my mother’s abuse. It may not be in her lifetime, but that does not essentially matter. The rest of my family conspicuously failed to love me so, as my mother said, I must learn to love myself. On my terms.

I wish you all a long and happy life.

Requiem for a Dream

If I'm honest, I was pleased for Hartlepool that they knocked Salford City out of the FA Cup last night. I mean, I'm a non-league obsessive, but I simply don't get what's happening in Manchester these days, as this article in the imminently published STAND #16 tries to explain -:

Despite my team Newcastle Benfield going out of the FA Cup at the end of August (4-2 away to Guisborough Town in the Preliminary Round since you asked), I’ve been impressed by the BBC’s coverage of the tournament thus far. The live Friday night games on free to air TV are a great way to increase the profile of the early stages of the competition proper and the innovation of having cameras at each one of the Sunday games, cutting across to each one at moments of high tension or drama, doesn’t feel clumsy. If anything, speaking as a neutral of course, it adds to the sense of occasion and makes for an exciting afternoon’s viewing. Of course, now we’ve got the “big boys” in from round 3, the media will no doubt revert to type and start salivating at the prospect of Arsenal’s youth team against Sunderland reserves. However, in some ways, this might be preferable to the current obsession of the corporation’s pundits with Salford City, as the quality of analysis has been far less impressive than the visual images of football itself.

As a child, I first became aware of the phenomenon of giant killing when Ronnie Radford wrote his name in the eternal pantheon of FA Cup legends, breaking a 7 year old’s heart. To be fair, it’s not a goal I enjoy watching, which is a bit of a shame as it is shown about 500 times a season; the minute I hear Motson utter those fateful words and Tudor’s gone down for Newcastle, the nightmares of a 44 years ago come flooding back. However Blyth Spartans, who can justifiably claim to be the most famous non-league club in the country, provide happier memories of David slaying Goliath; Stoke in 77/78, Bournemouth in 08/09 and last season Hartlepool , then being 2-0 up at the break against Birmingham City in round 3. Admittedly they lost that one, but they’d had a hell of a run for their money. The frosty Friday night victory away Hartlepool in round 2 was compelling television; though my regional bias made me more than a little sorry for that great club from Victoria Park.

This season, the creditable exploits of Home Counties parvenus Eastleigh and Whitehawk notwithstanding, the seemingly compulsory patronising hyperbole for the diddy men of the competition has had a pronounced Mancunian flavour to it. For many years I’ve been a devoted reader of United We Stand, whose cynical, sardonic view of football is imbued with some of the bleakest, most cruel humour imaginable. But it also contains some damn fine writing; I remember a piece years back, talking about the simple pleasures of watching Trafford Borough or Abbey Hey, in fact anyone other than Maine Road (for obvious reasons), when the Reds didn’t have a Saturday game. I’ve written many such pieces myself in The Popular Side and other publications, extolling the virtues of Benfield, Whitley Bay and dear old Percy Main Amateurs. However, similar to how the emergence of both North  Shields  and South Shields, on opposite sides of the Tyne, has changed the demographic and atmosphere in the Northern League, by providing refuges for those sickened by events at both Newcastle United and Sunderland (though it must be recognised followers of the two Shields clubs have wildly divergent interpretations of what it means to be “against modern football”), UWS would have a very different story to tell if one factors the existence of both FC United of Manchester and the reconfigured Salford City into the equation. Suffice to say, I was mightily relieved that Hartlepool rescued a draw from their game away to Salford and then beat them in the replay.

Before I go any further, I have to reiterate that I am an outsider here and that my opinions of the current poster children of Mancunian football have been formed at a geographical and emotional distance, though my profound love of and involvement with non-league football for a quarter of a century means that I am very sympathetic to both clubs. The events surrounding the formation of FCUM and their subsequent journey through the leagues and the opening of their stunning Broadhurst Park ground have been well documented. I don’t think it would be unfair to say that their progress has been nothing short of miraculous, for a club founded entirely on fan ownership and, prior to the current season perhaps, a democratic organisation with a seemingly unbreakable moral code, enshrined in the 7 guiding, core principles -:

1. The Board will be democratically elected by its members
2. Decisions taken by the membership will be decided on a one member, one vote basis
3. The club will develop strong links with the local community and strive to be accessible to all, discriminating against none
4. The club will endeavour to make admission prices as affordable as possible, to as wide a constituency as possible
5. The club will encourage young, local participation—playing and supporting—whenever possible
6. The Board will strive wherever possible to avoid outright commercialism
7. The club will remain a non-profit organisation

As someone who is a firm believer in fan ownership of football clubs, I salute their progress, though the cynic (or perhaps realist) in me instinctively feels that they have progressed as far up the pyramid as is possible for a club founded on such an idealistic basis. Being brutally frank, the amount of money required by a professional club in the modern game is probably beyond the reach of one that raises all its funds by ethical means. Sure Blue Monday was the best-selling 12 inch of all time, but Factory Records still went bust.

Regardless of whether future promotion would be a reality, FCUM started 2015/2016, to all intents and purposes, on a high, as their first season in their proper home would be marked by their debut campaign in the Conference North, or whatever it’s calling itself these days. The club had already left its stamp on the FA Cup, with a notable win over Rochdale in the 2010/2011 competition, before gaining headlines for slightly less positive reasons this time around.  In the final qualifying round, a 3-1 victory away to Sporting Khalsa (a fascinating club and one who deserve to have their story more widely told) was marred by a pre-game bout of fisticuffs, with giddy locals no doubt expecting the grandchildren of Doc’s Red Army to have descended en masse.  However, the real problems occurred when the euphoria of a home draw against Chesterfield in Round 1 proper slowly dispersed when the ugly reality of having to cede control over both admission prices and kick off time dawned on FCUM’s support.

The FA Cup competition rules stipulate the minimum entry fee for First Round ties is a tenner; FCUM charge £9 for home games and once they found they couldn’t do that, they decided to give everyone attending a £1 voucher, redeemable against the entry price to another home game, or in the catering outlets. To me, this seemed a totally reasonable, pragmatic response, though some FCUM zealots see compromise as collaboration. When BT Sport announced they wanted to move the tie to a Monday night for live transmission, FCUM furiously resisted, but those self-same competition rules that stipulate entrance prices also dictate when games can be played. In short, if FCUM didn’t agree, they would have to forfeit the tie. Around the same time Morpeth Town of the Northern League drew 1874 Northwich at home in the FA Vase. The game was rained off on the Saturday and, because the clubs had failed to negotiate what would happen in this eventuality, the rescheduled game was slated by the FA for the Wednesday following. Northwich claimed they couldn’t raise a team to travel so far midweek and conceded, making valid points about the idiocy of having midweek rearranged games and replays. I agree with them 100%; these games should always be Saturdays, but the cup they signed up for had a set of rules their participation gave tacit approval to. The same is true of FCUM and the FA Cup.

When the game took place, aside from Chesterfield easing to a 4-1 win, the big story was to do with fan boycotts and banner protests in the ground. I don’t know the ins and outs of FCUM’s supporter politics though it seems, to this veteran of UK ultra-left politics from the late 70s to the present day at any rate, that debate is founded on the same kind of internecine, captious ideological nit-picking that Maoist groups engaged when debating whether Albania under Enver Hoxha was more of a Socialist paradise than the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. To me, it seems clear; either live in the real world or stagnate and ultimately die. The founding principles of FCUM’s constitution are utterly irreproachable, but they lack the pragmatism required to utilise the energy and momentum the club has sparked. Perhaps this minor civil war, that played out so viciously on-line, has hampered the club’s progress, as they lie just outside of the relegation zone after a run of 6 games without a win following the Chesterfield exit. However, things may be looking up again, following a 2-1 win away to Stockport County. At Edgerley Park. The same Stockport County who beat Man City at Maine Road in 1998. The same Stockport County, formed in 1883, who went bust.

In defence of FCUM though; at least the club listens to its support and considers their views. The benign despotism of the Class of 92’s ownership of Salford City and their plans for the future seem somewhat less of a matter for negotiation, or so it appears.  I would welcome with open arms anyone who sought to exchange the professional game for the amateur one, as more and more are doing. However, I would counsel the non-league neophyte to understand that you are not just exchanging one club for another, but one version of the game as a whole for a far more rewarding model. Unfortunately, some people just don’t seem to get that point and, similar to texting in church or breaking wind in front of the in-laws, show themselves up. The less said about chair Karen Baird’s twitter meltdown the better I feel. Personally, I wouldn’t for one second decry Butt, Giggs, Scholes or the Neville Siblings for seeking to put something back into the game that has made them unimaginably rich (comparatively) young men. I would say I have less faith in the co-owner Peter Lim, now effectively also the Nevilles’ employer at Valencia, sharing such lofty ideals. Where I am at variance with the Class of 92 is with their stated ambition of turning Salford City into a league club in 15 years. Is that really a sensible ambition? Is it acceptable that 75 years of history can be swept away because of this “project?”

Did all those who supported, nurtured, maintained and developed Salford City from their foundation in 1940 until the takeover in 2014 really do so in the hope of a local derby with Bury? Of course not; they chose to follow a community, grassroots club where they were on speaking terms with the players and the committee. Of course they could have gone to City, United, Bury, Stockport, Stalybridge, Altrincham or whoever if they’d wanted to see the professional game, but they didn’t. They stayed watching their club; Salford City. Of course, as was shown by the BBC documentary about the club, not to mention the gushing, uncritical praise that flowed like an unguent tide during the cup games against Notts County and Hartlepool, there is no room for an interpretation seeking to challenge the accepted narrative that every club wants to be in the big time. Salford’s fanbase may have exploded exponentially, but that is no guarantee of success. What if the current owners get bored or seek to extricate themselves from their investment, in either a financial or emotional sense? Recent history is littered with the husks of dead clubs, from Colne Dynamos to Celtic Nation, which were once seemingly bound for a double quick leap up the non-league pyramid, but foundered after their moneyed owners lost faith.

Clint Eastwood was right; a man’s got to know his limitations. Perhaps that’s something for South Shields fans to ponder as they queue for entry to their Boxing Day home clash against Hebburn Town; the first ever all-ticket game in the Northern League Second Division.

This Year's Models

So, Euros Childs at the Mining Institute was the last gig of 2015; mighty fine he was too. Well, now it's time to give a rundown of my purchases and attendances of  2015. You'll not be surprised by album of the year....

2015 Albums of the Year:

1.    Trembling Bells – The Sovereign Self; amazing Scottish proggy, folky, late 60s/early 70s hippy, trippy genius.

2.    Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress; astonishing, orchestral avant garde post rock from the Quebecois octet.

3.    Band of Holy Joy – The Land of Holy Joy; they’ve been going over 30 years, but this is their finest Brechtian. Klezmer waltz through the capital’s ripped backside in over 25 years.

4.    The Pop Group – Citizen Zombie; venerable, reformed post punk iconoclasts rage and howl at the evils of the modern world. Essential.

5.    Wire – Wire; nearly 40 years in and the very definition of angular, awkward belligerence on one of their most compelling releases in 30 years

6.    Penetration – Resolution; Ferryhill’s finest’s first album since 79 and it contains 5 solid gold classics. Buy this.

7.    British Sea Power – Sea of Brass; the world’s cleverest indie band reimagine 14 classics with full orchestral backing. Simply adorable.

8.    Euros Childs – Sweetheart; the annual slice of sweet, beautiful pop by the world’s most modest man.

9.    Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There; quiet, homely acoustic re-treads of some favourites and parts of their back catalogue. Warm.

10. Gang of Four – What Happens Next; Andy Gill is the Gang of One these days, but it’s a fiery soup of righteous anguish and anger he produces.

11. Fairport Convention – Myths & Heroes; a lovely collection of down-to-earth proper folk roots by the incomparable masters of their craft.

12. Jad Fair & Norman Blake – Yes; community service C86 by numbers while we anxiously await the new TFC album.

13. The Fall – Sub Lingual Tablet; elderly drunk rants incoherently over the top of uninspired Killing Joke style sludge.

2015 Gigs of the Year

1.    Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Sage 24/10 – a breath-taking evening of cultural import; legendary.

2.    Wire – Sage 22/2 – these old fellas won the BBC6 weekend with this sonic assault.

3.    Trembling Bells – Cumberland 13/8 – a sold-out gig at last for them and one of the best performances I’ve seen from them; love this band.

4.    Vic Godard – Cumberland 27/11 – the old campaigner slayed us with a superb set on a magical night.

5.    Christy Moore – Sage 26/10 – right on form as ever; he also dedicated “Spancilhill” to me, which was grand.

6.    Penetration – Playhouse 16/10 – a superbly judged set of old and modern; they really are getting better with age.

7.    Band of Holy Joy – Cluny 8/5 – the perfect antidote to post General Election malaise; they are so important.

8.    Euros Childs – Mining Institute 10/12 – impossible not to smile during the Welsh wizard’s gigs.

9.    JAMC – Leeds 17/2 – feedback, strobes and ear-splitting volume; wonderful nostalgia.

10. Wedding Present – Riverside 7/11 – a great set of career highlights; a must-attend annual event.

11. British Sea Power – Sage 22/2 – short set at Radio 6 festival; no brass band, but plenty of bears and greenery.

12. Fairport Convention– Sage 18/2 - a jolly and fulfilling evening; how said 2016’s tour won’t feature Newcastle.

13. Lindisfarne Story – Playhouse 11/10 – nostalgic, honest and deeply compelling; a fitting tribute to Si Cowe (RIP).

14. Ride – Barrowlands 23/5 – the first 4 EPs have lasted better than Mark Gardener’s hair; the trilby fools no-one.

15. Andy Irvine – Irish Centre 16/4 – nice to see the legend up close and personal, but he’s a minor talent in the story of 60s Irish Folk.

16. Lee “Scratch” Perry – Riverside 10/4 – glad I saw him, but at nearly 80, he’s struggling to keep the audience entertained.

2015 Old Albums of the Year:

1.    Gang of Four – Entertainment; accidentally posted along with their new album. One of the best of all time.

2.    Peter Bellamy – Both Sides Then; superb trad bellowing from a tragic loss to the English folk scene

3.    Joe Heaney – The Road from Connemara; Sean nos is an acquired taste. Joe Heaney did it better than most.

4.    The Copper Family – Come Write Me Down; if the peasants of William Blake’s imagination had sung, they would have been the Copper family.

5.    Anne Briggs – Collection; A killer voice from a crazy woman.

6.    The Young Tradition – Oberlin 1968; bellowing traddies live on stage. A fascinating document.

7.    Jack the Lad – Plymouth Bootleg; a happy-go-lucky live album fun of wisecracks, mirth and 70s folk.

8.    Pete Seeger & Almanac Chorus – Union Songs; the Socialist ABC for folk singers. Important.

9.    Shirley Collins – Collection; too mannered for my tastes.

10. Bob Dylan – Oh Mercy; got my mam’s copy when she went into care. It’s ok, but everything after Desire expendable.

11. Bob Davenport – The Common Stone; arrogant, smug and boring.

12. Louis Killen & Johnny Handle – Along the Coaly Tyne; so theatrical it could have been an Am Dram soundtrack.