Guilty Burdens

On Wednesday 22^nd March, my beloved Newcastle Benfield played host to Sunderland RCA in a Northern League Division One game. On an absolutely filthy, rainswept night, when almost every other non-league fixture in the region was called off because of waterlogged pitches; we destroyed an increasingly bedraggled opposition 6-0, in front of 180 fans. John Campbell was unplayable and hit 5 goals; he could have had 10, being candid. Considering the game was free to enter, on account of it being a rearranged fixture after the original was abandoned after 20-odd minutes in late January because of a frozen pitch (when the opposition were 1-0 up, ironically enough), the crowd of 180 was particularly disappointing. This wasn’t just because I was left with 40 unsold programmes, but because it curtailed our attempts at raising funds for Ward 34 of the Freeman Hospital, where our midfielder Kieran Wrightson had been successfully treated for cancer (he got the okay a few days later that he was now completely cured, wonderfully enough), over the past year. Kieran is a great player and a very popular lad, which is why representatives of local clubs Dunston UTS, Team Northumbria, Whitley Bay, West Allotment and especially his old side North Shields, with whom he won the FA Vase in 2015, turned out to help us raise £3,000 on the night, partly though a bucket collection on the gate and partly through a raffle. The turnout may have been disappointing, but those who came were generous to a fault; it really is appreciated. I’ve been critical of North Shields in the past, but I sincerely hope they win the Northern League on the back of this superb showing.

Another club I’ve often had cause to berate are Newcastle United, but not on this occasion. They had thoughtfully provided a signed shirt and Rafa Benitez took the time to give Kieran a call to wish him well; all in all, it was a highly successful evening, even allowing for the monsoon conditions. Every part of the event showed the positive side to the beautiful game, albeit at our modest level.

At full time, I headed into the clubhouse for a well-earned pint (courtesy of the special array of bottled cask conditioned brews provided for the occasion by the Newcastle University Non-League Football and Real Ale societies, who have adopted our club and have donated a sizeable sum to Ward 34 themselves, with the profits from the beer sale still to be factored in), just as Lukas Podolski fired in his spectacular winner for Germany against England. As the commentary was drowned out by the sound of the assembled throng chewing the fact about matters of mutual interest, such as the notable absence of certain friendly fans from other clubs, there was no appreciable reaction to the goal. It didn’t matter to any of us there; what mattered was Kieran’s health, the charity collection, the result of the game and just how Stan our Groundsman would ever be able to get the pitch playable before the visit of Jarrow Roofing on April 1^st.

When I got back home, I didn’t watch the international highlights; having been out at graft from 7.30 and then at the football, I decided it was time I caught up on the events that had unfolded following the attack by Khalid Masoud / Adrian Elms on the House of Commons. I watched the clearly biased and heavily Islamophobic BBC coverage with a growing sense of alarm, sadness and despair; not just at the day’s events, but at the wider picture, considering how conditions in our society had provoked such an incident. Initially, it seemed it was a road rage incident, though the murder of PC Keith Palmer that immediately followed the incident on Westminster Bridge, showed this was not the case.

Whether this seeming suicide by cop of an apparently solo deranged murderer will eventually be linked to the discovery of a hitherto undiscovered many-headed terrorist hydra, or whether the raft of apparently related arrests are part of a policy kneejerk internment by another name, I have no idea.  All I know, as a 52 year old English teacher is that, for whatever inexcusable reason, 4 innocent people were killed by a 52 year old English teacher from Kent, hell-bent on spreading even more hatred and division in a society that has already suffered repeated cultural fissures from the hatred and division inspired by Nigel Farage, another 52 year old from Kent, and dispensed by his hideous Brexit henchmen. I also know, at an instinctive, elemental level that singing Ten German Bombers is a fucking moronic thing to do at any football game, never mind at an international, in Dortmund, on the same day as the horrific incident at Westminster. To discover that the same song, together with repeated airings of Harry Roberts is our friend were part of the disgraceful scenes that marred Shildon’s 2-0 win over North Shields on Saturday March 25^th, is nothing short of alarming. Partly this is because the idea of fighting on the unsegregated terraces of Northern League grounds is anathema to all but the lunatic fringe who’ve no business associating themselves with the grassroots game and partly because it seems a less than respectful way to remember the fallen PC Keith Palmer by chanting about a police killer from the 1960s. Fair play to North Shields though; there were about 50 players, officials and fans at Benfield last week for Kieran’s game and it’s wrong to tar all their support with the same brush. Certainly I know several of their most prominent fans work for Northumbria Police, so I seriously doubt they’d be singing about Harry Roberts.

Of course the kind of Brexit voting, UKIP worshipping, Carling drinking Wetherspoons punter who donates to Help for Heroes, ostentatiously takes wearing poppies to a whole new level, wouldn’t have any comprehension of the contradictions inherent in demanding an end to immigration and the suspension of civil liberties including religious observance and freedom of speech, while simultaneously demanding the immediate release of Alexander “Marine A” Blackman.

I’ve no doubt the decision to change the crime for which Blackman was convicted from murder to manslaughter was a political decision, that will no doubt be followed by his immediate to imminent release from prison to a hero’s welcome; it’s all part of the creeping blend of authoritarian populism that venerates militarism as part of a narrative of phallocentric patriarchy. However, let’s be clear about this, the person who says “shuffle off this mortal coil you cunt” before shooting an unarmed civilian in the head is as much of a murderer, as much of a terrorist, as one who says Allahu Akhbar before detonating a bomb, wielding a knife or driving a vehicle at high speed into innocent pedestrians.

The essential difference between the two is simply that Blackman is alive to reflect and regret his crime against humanity. If he, as his apologists claim, was suffering from mental illness when he knowingly slaughtered an innocent Iraqi, how can they know Blackman is safe to return to normal society? Or, as I suspect is the case, is it that they don’t think it matters as the man Blackman slew was not thought to be of equal value to a white, British member of the armed forces? Strange how Alexander Blackman can be seen to have changed from being a murderous psychopath to a national without any sense of contrition or atonement; why wasn’t Martin McGuinness, whose philosophical volte face was considerably more profound, long-lasting and beneficial for all sectors of Irish society afforded the same indulgence?

It seems to me that a major problem with our society is the fact nobody examines the causes of events anymore, preferring just to concentrate their effects. Why is nobody enquiring why Adrian Elms changed his name and whole outlook on life after years of petty criminality? Why does nobody consider the morality of the complex series of decisions that put Alexander Blackman in Helmand Province in the first place? Are they not both victims of capitalism and British imperialism in particular? Were they not both displaying clear signs of mental illness that impaired their judgement when they committed their heinous crimes? As civilised, rational beings, we cannot condemn one and exonerate the other, without reinforcing the institutional Islamophobia that mars our society.

Getting back to football, prior to events (plural) involving the pugilists at Dean Street, the only recorded incident of crowd trouble at a Northern League game I’m aware of, was the bizarre situation at Esh Winning against Penrith in April 2001, when referee Russell Tiffin, a farmer, left the field in tears after a certain Thomas Marron bellowed “I hope your animals get foot and mouth,” in the middle of said crisis. The perpetrator was arrested after a complaint was made to police, before the CPS sent the case for trial, whence Marron was bound over by Durham magistrates for the sum of £50 and banned from all football grounds for 3 and a half years. From 16 years distant, the story appears scarcely credible; did such an outburst, nasty, snide and hurtful though it was, really merit such a punitive, heavy handed, official response?

Marron’s cruel little comment certainly pales into insignificance as an example of personally offensive, targeted abuse compared to what Greg Downs suffered at St James’ Park on January 2^nd 1987. During a particularly dismal 2-1 home reverse to Coventry City, the one memory that stands out for me is of the completely bald fullback coming to take a throw in front of the Gallowgate corner and a particularly vindictive, intoxicated terrace wag bellowing “look at that twat; he’s got fucking leukaemia,” to a ripple of embarrassed laughter and the utter bemusement of the player himself, who quizzically stared at the perpetrator before turning to throw the ball in.  A decade and a half before the incident at Esh Winning, football grounds were different places and the police on duty way back then certainly had no interest in wading into the crowd to arrest the bloke. I’m certainly not adopting a sticks and stones standpoint, because words can wound, whether written or spoken and certainly the effect on the victim of mass offensive chanting can be deeply upsetting, in the same way as a co-ordinated campaign by Twitter trolls gets under the skin of anyone on the receiving end of a bully’s wrath, especially when refracted and redoubled by obsequious toadies keen for social affirmation. What I do suggest is that responses to abuse and abusive comments should be proportionate. The Coventry incident was one bloke out of 30,000, while the Esh Winning carry-on was one bloke out of 30, though both were clearly audible and both intended to offend and upset the targets of the comments.

Spring forward another decade and a half to the present day and the match day football experience is completely unrecognisable from three decades ago. Esh Winning, resolutely anchored to the foot of Northern League Division Two, may still be watched by the same 30 blokes, or their sons and grandsons, who were there when referee Tiffin abandoned the game, but there are other Northern League clubs, like Ashington or Heaton Stannington, who have supporter groups that have more in common with Stratford, Lewes or Dulwich Hamlet than Millwall. More crucially, the 50,000 at St James Park are changed utterly from the demographic who endured the Coventry defeat.

Newcastle is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic city and football club. The transformative bourgeoisification of the city is so complete that as a place to work and live, it has more in common with Bristol, North London or Brighton than neighbouring, north eastern, post-industrial towns, which suits me just fine. Is it any wonder that unlike the depressing homogeneity of surrounding areas, the representatives of the whole world that makes up Newcastle’s population voted to remain in the EU at the last referendum?

The football club and crowd have mirrored the city’s maturation as a whole and similarly changed. While there is still much work to be done to fully recognise, integrate and celebrate the significant but underrepresented LBGT section of the support, elsewhere the inclusive and all-embracing nature of the club’s following must be noted and endorsed. Not only has the most successful and generous Food Bank at any club in the country been established, organically by supporters, but the stands are enlivened by an ever diversifying ethnic make-up. Who would have thought that 30 years ago, we’d see groups of young Geordie Muslim women in full hijabs, rubbing shoulders with middle aged Geordie blokes in the Leazes End, without a hint of suspicion or enmity on either side. This is no longer the place for the kind of vile racist chanting that Noel Blake said made Newcastle the most hostile place to visit as a black player in the mid-1980s. The people in these stands nowadays would not dream of singing a racist or any kind of offensive or abusive song directed at a minority; self-policing means such ideologically unacceptable comment would not be tolerated. That is not to say people may not think it; what remains in their heads is the great unknowable, though we can be reassured by the absence of vocalised hate.

If the entire attendance of  SJP knows what is right from wrong, as well as the overwhelming majority of non-league fans, why can’t the embarrassing element of knuckleheaded England fans who insist on singing about a conflict that ended over 70 years ago or an organisation who renounced violence a quarter of a century ago, just grow up? Easy question to ask; easy question to answer. It’s hard problem to solve, sadly, but if England and other football supporters could somehow manage to erase Ten German Bombers, No Surrender to the IRA and Harry Roberts is our friend from their songbooks, we can start to make progress as a society about learning from the stories of Martin McGuinness, Alexander Blackman, Adrian Elms / Khalid Masood and PC Keith Palmer.