Glory be to God for dappled
things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout
that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls;
finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and
trim.
All things counter, original,
spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle,
dim;
-
Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877
There’s not
many people in the world I can call a fat bastard, but one of them is Wayne
Shaw. In case Andy Warhol’s prophecy is running slightly slow and we’re all
only famous for 15 seconds now, I’ll remind you Wayne Shaw is the 46 year old
former Sutton United reserve goalkeeper whose celebrity waxed in the run up to
the FA Cup fifth round tie at Gander Green Lane, reached its zenith when the
portly chap was pictured eating a pie in the dugout during the game and
plummeted to earth once the cat came out the bag that this was some scam
involving The Sun’s betting
operation. Total proof that Wayne’s world had waned came on Tuesday afternoon
with the news Shaw had agreed to a termination of his contract by Sutton
because of the potential contravention of FA rules caused by the flutter
Wayne’s pals had on him scoffing a meat and potato comestible on TV. All rather
pathetic really; naturally Piers Morgan leaped to Shaw’s defence. After all,
it’s not as if anyone had done anything really immoral, like hacking a murdered
teenager’s phone for instance…
Sutton lost
the tie 2-0 to Arsenal, not that I saw it as Newcastle’s eventually easy win
over the £77m worth of talent assembled by Aston Villa provided far more
compelling viewing; I wasn’t there of course, as I’m allergic to flags. Nice to see the meritocratic principle
working in The Championship though; with the best footballing side returning to
the top of the division, as well as plunging the biggest net spenders into even
deeper relegation trouble. It’s good that Rafa Benitez has put the whole sorry
Townsend episode behind him and is concentrating on earning his dough, by
coaxing points-harvesting performances at Wolves and Norwich, as well as this
latest one. Admittedly Villa had the upper hand for the opening 40 minutes, but
once Newcastle went a goal up, Brewse’s boys collapsed like a rickety deckchair
in a coastal breeze; it could have been many more in the end. Of course, unless
Bristol City are put soundly in their place at the weekend, this result won’t
matter a hill of beans. It’s crucial we go into the testing away triptych at
Brighton, Huddersfield and Reading in fine fettle. Get the job done in the next
4 games and a season of anxiously striving to avoid relegation from the top
flight is within reach…
To return to
Sutton United; they may have gained a considerable amount of prize money for
their cup heroics, all well-deserved, but in my eyes they’ve gained so much
more in terms of self-respect and dignity by getting rid of Shaw. Of course
he’s an obese bloke in his late 40s who wants to capitalise on his seemingly
bankable notoriety and I’d imagine he’ll be a Soccer AM fixture for a season or two until he drifts off into
obscurity again, but any footballer or football fan giving The Sun their attention needs a severe talking to. Every banknote News International peel from
their greasy wad of avaricious amorality is stained with the blood of the 96
innocents who died at Hillsborough; that will never change, so we must neither
forgive nor forget.
Do not be
mistaken; Sutton United aren’t a struggling gaggle of part-time misfits. In
reality they’re a successful club from the affluent Surrey stockbroker exurbs.
They are doing well in the National League and reaping the rewards of the
astute business decision to lay a 4G pitch, which provides a constant source of
revenue all year round. Let’s be honest;
they don’t need Rupert Murdoch’s minions hanging round the place. We should
remember Sutton for the right reasons; Coventry in 89 and Leeds in round 4 this
year. The only time I’ve ever seen them was when they pulverised Gateshead 9-0
in the late 80s; curiously, they went down that year while Gateshead stayed up…
Interestingly,
the 4,308 who took in Wrexham v Aldershot in the National League were part of
the only non-league crowd higher than the 3,161 who broke the ground record at
Mariners Park as South Shields blasted Newport Pagnell Town 6-1 in the FA Vase
quarter final on Saturday just gone. If ever there was evidence of a team on
the up, it is South Shields, whose chairman and benefactor Geoff Thompson has
ploughed a small fortune into his hometown club. Almost certainly, they will be
promoted from the Northern League, though possibly not as champions as North
Shields are still winning every game in sight to keep ahead at the top of the
table. The Mariners do have games in hand of course, including one against
Benfield on Wednesday night, which was moved back from Saturday on account of
the Vase tie. I wonder if our modest ground record of 927, set against York in
the FA Cup in 2006, will be beaten. I sincerely hope so, as a payday like that
could keep Benfield in operation next season by itself.
As we didn’t
have a game on Saturday, I took myself off to see Blyth Town hosting Alnwick in
Northern League Division 2. Partly this was because it was a venue that had
eluded me, since it was a playing field in the Northern Alliance and partly
because with Michael Riley, Jack Errington, Gary Day and Dean Walker at South
Newsham, it was almost like watching Benfield old boys. In the event, Blyth won a less than
compelling game 3-1, in front of about 120 people I’d estimate. It’s a neat and
tidy set up, with room for expansion if needed. They’ll almost certainly break
their attendance record against Blyth Spartans tomorrow night in the semi-final
of the Northumberland Senior Cup. I know that at first, they were contemplating
sticking the prices up to £8 entry for that game, on the somewhat specious
grounds that it’s a tenner to get in to see Spartans, but the suggestion
created a social media shit storm, so they may have rowed back on it to avoid
bad publicity. I’m not sure either way. Their website and Twitter account are resolutely unhelpful on this matter.
If they have
put the prices up, I can understand why, but it is a bit of a shady thing to do.
Rather like South Shields not handing their abandoned Vase tie to Morpeth, I’d
want my club to do the right thing if that we were the ones in that situation.
Then again, the news from Percy Main that I mentioned last week and the noises
coming out from Hebburn Town prove that there isn’t an inexhaustible fund of
cash, time or goodwill to share around, so you can’t really condemn a club for
making hay while the sun shines. Can you? On a positive note, I was delighted
to see 283 there for Hebburn v Team Northumbria I must say. Let’s hope plenty
of them stick around to help the Hornets out. With Norton and Stockton Ancients
already gone, I would hate to think that the Northern League would be weakened
by the loss of another club.
Money; it
mightn’t make you happy or morally sound, but it certainly keeps non-league
teams in business. Cash from almost anywhere, unlike a pie in the dugout, is
not to be scoffed at…
Every night before I rest my head
See those dollar bills go
swirling 'round my bed
I know they're stolen, but I
don't feel bad
I take that money; buy you things
you never had
-
Patti Smith, 1975
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