Playing With Fireworks

I don’t recall when exactly Halloween became de rigeur as the autumn celebration of choice for people of all ages. I do realise that the ancient Irish festival of Samhain has been celebrated from pre-history and is now inextricably associated with October 31^st, but the trite, Americanised custom of trick or treat was unknown until the late 70s in the North East.  When we were bairns, we had Guy Fawkes’s conflagration to celebrate every November 5^th. You simply don’t see kids asking for “penny for the guy” anymore do you? It was a great source of extra pocket money, especially when we pitched up outside of Felling Club on a Saturday night with a few raggy old clothes stuffed full of newspaper and a penny floater with a face scrawled on it, and then started pan-handling half plastered punters. Sadly Bonna Neet, along with turnip rather than pumpkin lanterns, is dying; a barely breathing anachronism. That said, I’m still hoping to see the firework display at Tynemouth Cricket Club on the first Saturday in November.

Football-wise, the only fireworks I hope to see that day are metaphorical ones, hopefully launched by my beloved Benfield at home to Consett.  Of course, there is one particular fixture in the Northern League on November 5th which has the potential for off-pitch fireworks, when two very different cultures, ideologies and modes of conduct come face to face. Suffice to say I hope the all-ticket, top of the table clash between Graham Fenton’s South Shields and visiting North Shields passes off without incident. Certainly having been to Mariners’ Park this season, one can’t help but marvel at the superb, inclusive, celebratory atmosphere about the place; let’s hope the ambience is infectious and pacifying, meaning the only threats of violence in the Northern League come from imbarrathin Twitter DMs from the friendliest assistant manager around…

Also on November 5^th , Newcastle United host Cardiff  City; the last time the Bluebirds were up here for a Championship game was in February 2010, when the less salubrious bars of Whitley Bay were teeming with half-cut, well-dressed, posturing Welshmen long before the sun was over the yardarm. The Mags massacred them 5-1 that Friday night, while the supposed Soul Crew didn’t get within half a mile of the ground, preferring tp create mayhem in the dear old Bridge Hotel. However fast forward to May 2014 and there wasn’t a scrap of mither on the sunny afternoon Newcastle effectively relegated Cardiff with a 3-0 win, on a day best remembered for NUST’s hideous PR disaster of a 69^th minute walkout, that was ignored by 99% of the crowd. Being honest, I can’t imagine any way in which the latest encounter with the Valley Boyos will provide instances of widespread disorder or even small scale bother. Of course, the trip to Leeds on November 20^th is looming large on the horizon and I’m not just talking about Teenage Fanclub playing Leeds University that night either. There is the almost tangible odour of pathetic casuals becoming aroused on social media by hysterical predictions of a return to 70s/80s style terrace warfare.

In all my years of watching football, I’ve only ever been chinned once; February 1985, away to Everton, in The Stanley Park pub half an hour before kick-off.  It wasn’t an opposition fan who started on me of course; it was a copper, no doubt less than impressed by my Coal Not Dole badges. At that instant, the Merseyside Police were intent on emptying the pub and marching us all up to the ground. Looking back from over 30 years distant, I realise this wasn’t a targeted attack; I was just another unlucky, random victim of state-approved violence against working class men. For the non-existent crime of failing to finish my pint quickly enough, I was truncheoned across the lower back, causing me to double up in pain; at which point I was kneed in the groin by a particularly irate bizzie. I said nowt, as to complain would have meant instant arrest and hobbled up to the ground, watching a dismal 4-0 trouncing in absolute agony. Nobody was outraged at my treatment; in fact nobody really sympathised with me. Such behaviour was seen as par for the course. If you didn’t want trouble, you didn’t go to away games.

Is it like that now? I’ve absolutely no idea, not having been to an away game since 2009, when a 0-0 at Hull in the cup was my last hurrah. I know that Newcastle have sold out every away allocation, taking thousands to Barnsley and Preston without incident. However this is not the case among the highest echelons of the domestic game, as can be evidenced by the nonsensical vandalism of Old Trafford’s bogs by Citeh fans in their EFL Cup defeat by their nearest rivals. The stupid actions of a few mindless meatheads aren’t evidence of any “return to the dark ages,” but it seems entirely proportionate to shame and humiliate Citeh’s support by making images of the wanton destruction public knowledge. Rather like the Mackems’ conduct at SJP in March 2012, sharing images of the devastation will result in the vast majority of decent fans making it crystal clear to the idiotic element that such behaviour will not be tolerated among civilised company.

The incident at Old Trafford is hopefully an isolated one, but regretfully it seems that elsewhere in the Premier League repeated trouble is to be found, with the common element in all the outbreaks of unpleasant behaviour being the fans of West Ham United.  Every game at their new London home has seen some kind of disturbance or other; from fighting among themselves in the opening games, to ambushing Middlesbrough (no strangers to mindless thuggery themselves) and the Mackems at full time, to confrontations with Chelsea during their EFL Cup match. Some breathless accounts talked of “pitched battles,” though from the footage I saw, it seemed to consist of outbreaks of intense gesticulation from 50 yards distant by 20-something testosterone-fuelled fools in expensive knitwear, rather than Millwall away to Luton.  Whatever it was, the fact some 8 year old got hit with a coin is not good; trying to defend those involved or hysterically calling for life bans, imprisonment or points deductions doesn’t help either.

Sociologists may speculate that a club so deeply intertwined with white, male, working class identity is acting as a template for post-Brexit masculine intolerance, though a simple explanation for the repeated incidents of bother could be the presence of an extra 20,000 Hammers; some of whom may be radgies or just giddy with the whole experience. Whatever the cause, the undeniable truth is that such behaviour is as disappointing as it is unacceptable.  Undoubtedly the preferred state of affairs would be for football fans to police themselves because all norms of expected behaviour were clearly understood and observed by those in attendance.  Sadly this doesn’t currently appear to be the case with West Ham and so, reluctantly and only because of the need to maintain safety and decorum to allow the overwhelming majority of orderly and composed fans to feel safe in the ground, there has to be some version of visible, imposed control. Ideally, this would be fans acting as volunteer (elected?) stewards, but if such a course of action is impractical, whether for reasons of available numbers or the need to have something in place as a matter of urgency, it will probably be the equivalent of yellow jacketed door staff. This isn’t ideal as many of them are on lousy wages and have only rudimentary training, with the emphasis on containment not communication. Coppers, who thankfully have evolved since my experience in 1985, would be very expensive, but they’d be better trained to assess the level and form of any intervention needed. They aren’t just about order; they’re about law enforcement and some laws just happen to get broken with impunity.

You see what I found far more sinister about the West Ham v Chelsea game than the Green Street balletics was the mass distribution of flyers, exhorting home fans to sing a grossly offensive and illegal homophobic song to and about John Terry. Now there are many, many reasons to despise John Terry (and as a Newcastle fan, I still thought the ideal way for him to end his Chelsea career would have been with a red card in their loss to the Mackems last season), but ascribing homosexual practises to him certainly isn’t one of them. In a week where 8% of fans have claimed they’d stop watching their team if they signed openly gay players, it is clear we have much work to do to educate football fans why such attitudes are as unacceptable as racist chanting or Islamophobic comments. 

Certainly I don’t think West Ham are any worse in terms of their social attitudes than other clubs, but education needs to come, relentlessly, from the authorities in the game to eradicate the climate whereby such attitudes are deemed acceptable. Some clubs do have progressive attitudes; obviously Clapton, Dulwich Hamlet and Benfield are the sort of clubs where inclusivity is the key to the whole philosophy. Then again, perhaps there are grounds for optimism; for instance, I was dreading Brighton’s visit to SJP back in August, but the game passed off without any homophobic chanting or abuse. Let’s build on this eh? Concentrate on celebrating and encouraging diversity, not responding immoderately to isolated pockets of stupidity.