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 29th 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 87th 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 1st
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…
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