The Concept

So, Newcastle United are finally promoted; two cheers for El Jefe... However, is exchanging The Championship for The Premier League a good thing? Moot point, which I discuss in the article below from the latest fabulous issue of "The Football Pink," which you really ought to buy -:

“A slum sport played in slum stadiums increasingly watched by slum people, who deter decent folk from turning up” The Sunday Times, editorial May 12^th 1985

“The sport has become increasingly gentrified and ordinary people have been deliberately priced out of attending football, once a cultural ritual in working-class communities.” Professor John Russo, Georgetown University, research paper February 27^th 2017

The second Saturday in May 1985; Newcastle’s solitary season under Jack Charlton is stuttering to a dreary conclusion with a fittingly mundane 0-0 on my one and only visit to Carrow Road. A year after we’d been promoted with a degree of pomp under Arthur Cox, things were on the stagnant to fetid continuum.  Cox had left for Derby, Keegan retired, Waddle was packing his bags for White Hart Lane and Peter Beardsley had been emasculated by Big Jack’s one-dimensional tactics. It was football fit for the era; grim, ugly, attritional, confrontational and aggressive. Nothing about the mid-80s Saturday match day experience felt safe; train stations, pubs, strange streets in unfamiliar towns and piss-reeking terraces were all dark, sinister and fraught with hidden dangers, both real and imagined, even in bucolic East Anglia. Behavioural psychologists call it hypervigilance; to us regular travellers, it was simply keeping your wits about you. Three months earlier I’d taken the worst kicking I ever had following The Mags away; 2.30 in the Stanley Park pub outside Goodison, a squad of angry Coppers burst in to clear out the away fans. Because I didn’t drink up immediately and make for the door, one of them truncheoned me across the back. I doubled over and his pal grabbed me by the hair, then kneed me in the bollocks. We lost 4-0, but I barely remember the game, as I teetered on the brink of unconsciousness while waves of pain radiated through me the entire game.  Thankfully, things were calmer in East Anglia and we got away from Norwich unscathed.

Of course, many others that day were not so lucky; the quotation that prefaces this article appeared in the next morning’s Sunday Times as an unfeeling obituary for the 56 who perished at Valley Parade in the inferno that engulfed the main stand on what should have been a day of celebration as Bradford City clinched promotion to Division 2. When compared to the vile, outrageous lies printed about Hillsborough, the inaccurate, kneejerk reaction to the Bradford fire smacked more of cruel snobbery than organised propaganda, despite the proximity of the 1984/1985 NUM strike and the role of the right wing media in undermining that heroic working class struggle. Perhaps, on reflection, a more relevant event that could have coloured media response was the garish footage of the Battle of Kenilworth Road in March 1985, when Millwall fans invaded the pitch after losing an FA Cup replay. However, in all honesty, I can say I heard nothing about events at Valley Parade as I made my slow, ticketless way back from Norwich to Peterborough and thence to Newcastle, with only a carrier bag of McEwan’s Export for company. On April 15^th 1989, having seen Newcastle lose 1-0 at Highbury, the number of people with transistors as we left the ground meant news of Hillsborough spread, albeit in a very confused form, by the time we reached Finsbury Park. Four years previous, half full Inter City rattlers on Saturday nights weren’t renowned as Oracles of unfolding current affairs.

Despite the tragic loss of life at Bradford and the Heysel Stadium tragedy of May 29^th 1985, when another 39 innocent lives were lost inside in a football ground, little if anything changed for the average football fan in the years following. The apportioning of blame for Heysel must be discussed elsewhere; suffice to say it was not the greatest night in the history of Liverpool FC and allowed the accepted narrative of football fans as being barely civilised thugs to be reiterated by the ruling elite and their pals the Press Barons. Football Saturdays continued in a predictable way; oppressive policing that assumed guilt as a default position for travelling fans, shoddy rolling stock that wouldn’t have been fit to take heifers to the slaughter, crumbling grounds with inadequate facilities and the constant, malevolent threat of violence that dampened the air.

In the context of the times, it seemed faintly ludicrous to see the FA attempting to ignore both the squalid conditions and the ban on English clubs in Europe, by organising a series of pointless competitions; the Screensport Super Cup, the Simod (later ZDS) Cup, the Mercantile Credit Centenary Trophy, as well as the 16-team Football League Centenary Tournament in April 1988. Frankly, these were the sporting equivalent of the Emperor’s New Clothes; farcical, inappropriate and born out of the kind of shallow let them eat cake vanity that ignored reality.  If this wasn’t crazy enough, Greg Dyke on behalf of ITV organised a deal with the “Big 5” teams to show live games on Sunday afternoons, apparently to head off talks about the formation of a Super League. Well, that worked didn’t it? The “whole new ball game” of the Premier League kicked off less than 4 years later on August 16^th 1992 with Sheffield United 1 Liverpool 0. However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Hillsborough changed everything. Immediately it had the effect of uniting all fans in a common cause, against police oppression, league intransigence and owner venality. The Taylor Report, absolving fans of any blame and holding the authorities to account for the atrocious condition of most grounds, no doubt unwittingly began the process that lead firstly to the establishment of the Premier League, the broadcasting coup d’etat led by the Murdoch Empire, the supposed gentrification of the people’s game and the pricing out of those who made up the backbone of matchgoing fans. I’m sure Lord Justice Taylor’s motives in phrasing the report in the way he did were utterly impeccable; he was a decent, thoughtful man (yes I met him once) whose life was underpinned by a sense of duty and public service, but he will be remembered for enabling a course of events that has led to the likes of Berahino trousering £60k a week.

Nostalgia is a strange thing in football. The internet seems to be full of 40 and 50 something Dadsuals, squeezing their ample guts into Tuk Tuk shirts and selvedge Armanis, reminiscing about all those years when they didn’t brawl on train stations or take other firms’ pubs, but wish they had. Initially this alpha storyteller phenomenon was seen as part of the AMF movement, which fissured almost immediately into the ideological faction, who seek fan engagement and affordable ticket prices, and the bona drag popinjays, resolutely apolitical and concerned only with Polyveldt reissues and canary yellow casual windcheaters. Craft Ale bores mumbling on bar stools about how the game has lost its soul. Frankly, such sentiments are the sporting equivalent of false memory syndrome.

The oft-repeated cliché that if you remembered the 60s you probably weren’t there seems to have been appropriated in relation to football during the half decade after Hillsborough. Many accounts talk about the prevalence of E generation chemistry and Madchester baggy beats chilling the terraces out in 89/90, but that’s not how I remember it. The immediate post Hillsborough season was more a case of a shared, stunned disbelief that ordinary people could die watching football. Most of the time, we sleepwalked our way to grounds, in a kind of collective, delayed shock. Only at Leeds and Sunderland did I, predictably, notice serious tensions with home supporters, not to mention our season ending pitch invasion at SJP when Sunderland beat us in the play-offs.

Next up we had Italia 90, World in Motion and all that baloney. Suddenly, it was socially acceptable to like football, without being accused of genetic thuggery. For Newcastle United, the 1990/1991 campaign was the most banal non-event of a season ever; becalmed in lower mid-table, crowds were down to 13k and Ossie Ardiles wasn’t the tactical genius we’d hoped. We weren’t being gentrified; we were being anaesthetised.  Thankfully, the music scene in the autumn of 1991 provided succour and inspiration. Nirvana’s first ever English gig was at Newcastle Riverside on Monday October 21^st 1990 when they blew headliners Tad off stage. On Saturday 28^th September 1991, Newcastle came back from 2-0 down to grab a point at home to Derby County in front of almost 18,000; I was rather more enthused by my purchase at full time of Nirvana’s major label debut, Nevermind. It was to be the last vinyl album I bought for about 20 years, as the following month I invested in a CD player, having finally accepted there were more products available in this format than Dire Straits and Bryan Adams. My first two purchases were a pair of Creation Records classics; Loveless by My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque. Quarter of a century later, I maintain both of these releases would feature in my top 20 albums of all time, though I now choose to listen to them digitally rather than on CD; the reason being I feel the compact disc format saw music squashed and tamed by bland reproduction levels.

Live, the two bands produced contrasting experiences; Teenage Fanclub are my favourite group of all time and I love their honest, friendly stage demeanour, as well as sounds that alternate being achingly beautiful 3 part harmonies and piledriving indie rock genius. Sure they’re louder live than on record, but not deafeningly so. My Bloody Valentine in the flesh are quite frankly terrifying; endless waves of white noise and distorted, aural scree create feelings of genuine instability. On December 17^th 1991, they blew the entire power system at Northumbria University during the 20 minute sonic assault of Feed Me With Your Kiss. While the Dadsual view of cultural history would hold that post Baggy, the likes of Paul Weller’s solo tripe and the aptly named Charlatans were part of the three-stripe movement that created the conditions whereby Champagne Supernova could be hailed as a work of genius, there were those of us who opposed the Britpop gentrification of music, holding candles for uncompromising shoegaze and grunge.

The opening track on Bandwagonesque is the enduring crowd pleaser, The Concept; an amalgam of Glam stomping with a pastiche of West Coast soft rock, the daft lyrics that talk of an unnamed female protagonist who “wears denim wherever she goes” and intends to “get some records by the Status Quo” may appear to be a throwaway afterthought but attend any TFC gig and the entire audience sing along, word perfect. We have clearly bought into The Concept, as The Fannies influenced and improved the world with this album. I wouldn’t choose to go back to the music scene before I heard Teenage Fanclub, in a similar way to how I wouldn’t like to go back to football in the 1980s.

There is much I hate about modern music; not just Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé, but the karaoke culture, with a seemingly universal preference for endless cover versions over creativity, the minimal concentration span of consumers who can’t listen to an album all the way through and the marginalisation of live gigs. However, the musical world we inhabit is a product of the digital revolution I guess and to oppose it would be as fruitless as Canute attempting to roll back the waves. All I do is pick and choose what I want from music in the modern era, then ignore the rest.

Similar to music, there is football; what world would you rather inhabit? A fiver in on the day, or a £37 ticket bought a month previously on-line? Newcastle fans I know who went to successive away games at Brighton, Huddersfield and Reading spent the thick end of £700 in a week.  A shiny plastic seat half a mile from the pitch, surrounded by people you’ve never met and have nothing in common with, or wedged onto a disintegrating 6-step terrace, running in piss, staring at the corner flag through a metal fence, while dodging flying coins and bottles? I’m 52; if safe standing does come in, it won’t be for the likes of me. Mute indifference by largely silent consumers whose only utterances are complaints, or endless racist chants? I risked life and limb shouting down NF boneheads among our away support at Grimsby in 1983; I’m glad I don’t have to do that these days.

The world has changed in the past 30 years; while politically it seems to be reverting to the 1930s, football is never going back. The Concept we’ve bought into may have been a Faustian pact, but I feel considerably better about being in the company of fans who donate several tonnes of produce to the Newcastle Food Bank every home game, rather than still being with awayday radgies who believed nicking pub tab machines and robbing station off licences were all part of a good day out. As the likes of Jimmy Chargesheet, Daft Gary, Mad Stu of Blyth, The Throat and a thousand other early 80s NUFC travellers were fond of saying; tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis…

Meadowlarking

I went to see 1883 Darlington versus FC United of Manchester, to see how fan ownership is working out in the National League North -:

Can you remember all the brouhaha surrounding the Against Modern Football movement in its early days? About 4 years ago it really seemed like we were on the cusp of something vital; a genuine, organic movement formed on social media, ready to reclaim the game from the incompetent and rapacious fools who had torn the beating heart from the chest of the people’s game. Sadly, the initial momentum was lost as #AMF went from being a war cry to a hash tag, latterly the preserve of self-mythologising Dadsuals keen to tell stories about an edgy 80s youth they’d never known anything about. Meanwhile, those doing the hard yards in terms of promoting and maintaining fan ownership, at clubs from all sections of the football pyramid, including Portsmouth, Swansea, Hereford, Salisbury and many others, kept on battling in the face of mass indifference and ignorance. Too much work to be done and too little support from sneering pretend toughies who couldn’t put a tab out.

Being secreted for most of the time in my own Northern League bubble, where fan ownership is a fact of life because there’s nobody else going to pay the bills, I’d not really taken much notice of non-league events elsewhere in our region. The problems with West Allotment Celtic, Hebburn Town, Percy Main amateurs and Billingham Synthonia, who I’m delighted to see promoted to the top division, had kept my mind focused. However, I was delighted to see Blyth Spartans achieve promotion to the National League, formerly Conference, North. I knew this league was the home of 1883 Darlington, the phoenix club that rose from the ashes of the original Quakers in 2012, starting again from Northern League Division 1; I can still recall the fearsome 4-0 pounding they gave Benfield as they raced to the title in spring 2013. Until the week before Easter, all the stars seemed to have aligned to give Darlo a strong chance of returning to the Conference. At Christmas, they moved back to the town, groundsharing with the rugby club at Blackwell Meadows, after 5 years in exile at Bishop Auckland’s Heritage Park. Since their return, home form has been good enough to propel them to 4^th in the National League North, which is one of the 4 play-off places below the sole automatic promotion spot. Then, disaster struck.

As is so often the case outside the football league, the ground grading requirements for clubs seeking promotion seem to be both perverse and incomprehensible. Amid the labyrinthine series of intractable regulations for promotion to the Conference was the new instruction that clubs must have 500 covered seats across two stands by 31^st March 2017, in order to be allowed promotion. Darlo have 500 seats in one stand; they’ve also just installed a hundred or so in another and have a block of 250 temporary ones that they paid for, still at Heritage Park, which they were intending to transport as and when necessary. Human error meant that Darlo believed the rules allowed for temporary seating to be used for the play-offs, as long as the club could show that it had obtained planning permission and had detailed plans to construct a permanent seated stand; which they of course do. Sadly, this isn’t the case and Darlo, as well as Poole Town in National League South, who have been similarly disbarred, are appealing the decision. There’s been no final judgement as yet, but the full statement, which is praiseworthy in its detail, transparency and honesty, can be accessed here http://darlingtonfootballclub.co.uk/statement-by-the-board-of-directors-of-darlington-fc-relating-to-the-national-league-north-play-offs/

Having researched into the Darlo situation, I then naturally had a look at their fixtures, as I quite fancied a trip to their new ground. Easter Monday was the perfect time; home to FC United of Manchester, a beacon club for fan ownership, now fighting to reclaim their slightly tarnished, previously ideologically incorruptible identity after a prolonged bout of internecine warfare that wouldn’t have been out of place in Kruschev’s days. Suffice to say, former Chief Executive and prime mover in the foundation of the club, Andy Walsh, left with his legacy somewhat battered after the risible involvement of the mobile disaster area Andy Walker in FCUM. Walker, another former Militant full-timer like Walsh, is a Teesside born, lifelong Liverpool fan (unquestioning veneration of anything and everything to do with Merseyside goes with the Militant ideology), who reinvented himself as a kind of PR guru to get on the payroll at Broadhurst Park. So successful was he that FCUM were brought to the verge of extinction by their dismal stewardship. Thankfully they’ve gone now, with FCUM stabilising in mid table and a new set of elected directors.

My other Easter Monday choices had been Blyth’s home game with Whitby, which went 5-1 by way of the home side, but the title was already won, taking the urge to attend off the table. As my almost deserted Metro swung by Percy Main, I remembered Purvis Park was hosting the Northern Alliance’s Amateur Cup final, which was won 6-0 by Hazelrigg over Cramlington United. In an almost deserted city centre, I saw a couple of people I knew limbering up in Rosies with early afternoon pints, ready for the beam back of Newcastle’s latest aberration as El Payaso de Mierda Benitez continues to produce laughably bad football while shamelessly trousering £5m a year and squandering automatic promotion.

Wandering down Pink Lane past The Forth, I mused how a collection of the more earnest and youthful bona drag popinjays of NUFC’s support had once met some of FCUM’s chief theoreticians for beers, before heading with them to Blyth, to support the away side against Spartans. Baffling and almost as incomprehensible as the tale of one of them choosing not to go into the game, for whatever specious reasons. Anyway, the preponderance of Belstaff and Stone Island attired big lads with Peronis confirmed that the Lincoln Transit Elite were refreshing ahead of a trip to Gateshead Stadium, where they won 2-1, with a brace of injury time goals, to almost confirm their return to the football league.

And so to the train; £13 return to stand with my back to the driver’s cab on a packed 3 carriage rattler, full of hungover Hens and returning squaddies. My ticket didn’t get checked going down or coming back on a far emptier, dirtier train, which always feels like money wasted. In fact, despite remaining totally sober, this was an expensive day out; £13 train, £5 Metro, £12 in to the game, £2.50 for a programme and £1.50 for some warm, brownish liquid masquerading as coffee. Good job I brought my own bottle of water and a bit bait. Part of my doomed economy drive included walking to and from the ground by different routes; both of which were canny hikes. Grimy, poorly maintained, low-rent Park Road and the confrontational, social housing of Parkside, before emerging to the bucolic pleasures of the A167 and 3 minute final leg in almost countryside to the ground. Coming back I took the A167 the whole way; admirably Victorian stonework akin to the fringes of York, then a rollercoaster up and down on a hilly road, parallel to the former Feethams and populated entirely by kebab shops. It seemed much quicker on the way back; perhaps because I knew where I was going, what time the train was and had started to regret wearing shorts in this weather.

Perhaps I ought to have taken a leaf out of one of the Darlo fans’ fashion bible; a Weekend Offender sweatshirt and a Berghaus fleece provided an intriguing combination. However, despite lurid stories on social media and apologies in the programme (which must have been written well in advance as there was no mention of the play-off saga) about bad behaviour at Fylde and Alfreton, there seemed to be a dearth of Darlo lads out looking for Manc hides.  The sheer volume of cops, including camera wielding spotters, may have dissuaded any potential pugilists. Having decided to go in to the FCUM end, as I’ve seen Darlo enough times in the past to know what they are about, I was initially surprised to discover the travelling support wasn’t an immaculately attired, culturally progressive mass of Trotskyist trainer tribunes. Instead, it was just a big away following of non-league fans in the main; an older demographic of working class blokes and quite a few families. Some of them pissed and some of them angry, especially about the appalling quality of burgers being knocked out for £4, but it wasn’t a lairy or unpleasant atmosphere. Well, apart from the bloke next to me who got into a tedious, circular argument with the chief steward about how the bloke’s 7 year old son couldn’t get to see the game properly, as he was exactly the same height as the railings round the pitch. Earwigging this interminable conversational 0-0 draw kept me occupied for the 20 minutes until kick off as the crowd, now encompassing more of a traditional Mancunian match going vibe and many inventive flags, steadily built.

The final total was an impressive 2,147; with I’d imagine 300 or so from Manchester. It wasn’t a great day on the pitch for the visitors, even if they did win the singing contest, with many inventive chants, often in the face of adversity. I have to say, I was impressed by Darlington’s style of play; fast, ruthless, skilful and well organised, their quickly established 3-0 lead was totally deserved. The scoring was opened early on by David Ferguson, who lashed one into the top corner from 25 yards. On 13 minutes it was 2-0 when Ferguson’s cross was nodded home by Mark Beck, for a lovely picture book goal. It was 3-0 before the half hour when Terry Galbraith fired home from the spot after Beck had been fouled. Thereafter FCUM steadied the ship somewhat and got one back after 34 minutes when Tom Brown finished low past Adam Bartlett.

No further goals until half time, at which point a small trickle of well-bevvied FCUM fans were brought into the away end from the bar where they’d watched most of the game to that point. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but one bladdered radgie, apparently a Mansfield fan from Alfreton, started throwing his Paul & Shark ensconced weight around in a silly show of posturing. It was enough to send me to my phone and regular, gloomy updates of Newcastle’s crucifixion at Portman Road after the resurrection of hopes that had been Good Friday and Leeds, until the 94^th minute at least.

The second half was a quieter affair; the home side wary of pushing on, lest it invite a sucker punch from the visitors, kept the ball and drew the sting from the game. The skill level was encouraging, but the vision and finesse required to create opportunities was lacking. Gary Brown made it 4-1 after an exchange of passes with the marvellously named Cartman after 75 minutes. This was a reason for many FCUM fans to take down their flags and head for the exits, though the majority stayed and were rewarded with a fine consolation by Adeloye in the dying seconds.

So, 4-2 it finished and not once during the whole game did I hear any targeted negativity by the FCUM support. They understood the game and weren’t there for some ideological power trip or anarchists’ Easter egg hunt; in fact, I was the only bugger there with dreadlocks I think. I came away with the sense of a day well spent and a profound admiration for both clubs’ supporters. The lack of whinging wasn’t an absence of passion; it was borne of the realistic awareness that when you start a club at the very bottom, like these 2, you’re in it for the long haul as the vagaries and caprices of billionaire owners don’t impinge on the honest soul of the game as played by 1883 and FCUM. Let’s hope those charged with running the respective outfits can keep them on an even keel, progressing upwards season by season. 

Two Day Eventing

The North East Premier League 2017 season is back, thank goodness....

For several years now, my Good Friday routine has seen the noontide West Allotment Celtic v Whitley Bay fixture assume the role as the opening station of my Easter sporting pilgrimage. Not this year though. Having attended West Allotment’s depressing home loss to Guisborough Town the Saturday previous that had confirmed their relegation to Northern League Division 2, providing they rescind their provisional resignation submitted in response to an outrageous rent increase imposed by their landlords the Northumberland FA (an organisation with £400k in the bank), I decided against this. That game had been a profoundly depressing experience, akin to attending the funeral of someone I knew only vaguely.

In years gone by, Newcastle United at home to Leeds under floodlights in front of a sold out crowd of seething drunks would have been a footballing event of obligation. However, I declined another dose of the eye-bleedingly prosodic anti-football that Senor Prosodia Rafael Pardew-MacClaren-Carver Benitez is inflicting on an increasingly restive NUFC supporter base. Half of them are still in thrall to a rapturous cult of the personality that can best be described as a collective delusion akin to premature adultation, while the rest snipe, moan and twist from kick off to full time in the ground and every waking second on social media. If and when Newcastle do go up, then it will be the time to debate the merits of this campaign and the achievements or otherwise of the personnel involved. Then again, it is 12 months hence when Benitez needs to be judged, having somehow been given a free pass following relegation last season when his team accrued the less than impressive total of 2 points from fixtures against Sunderland, Norwich and Aston Villa.  Anyway, we’ll no doubt return to this subject at a later date.

I also dismissed any notion of the Newcastle Thunder v Barrow Raiders rugby league fixture I’d taken in two years previous, where the travelling fans appeared to be dressed like 1970s Slovak tourists on a coach holiday. Barrow won by about 40 points, but there was an encouraging crowd of 1,032. I fancy a trip to funky Kingston Park to see Toronto in a Friday night game later in the season.

Anyway, these no doubt worthy but less than compelling alternative attractions were sidelined in favour of the opening day of Durham against Nottinghamshire at the Riverside. This was a choice made partly on account of a desire to show solidarity with a county betrayed and traduced by the Machiavellian insensitivities of the ECB and partly because it was only a fiver to get in. While I wouldn’t count myself as a Durham fan per se, as Northumberland are unquestionably my county, I am sympathetic to the cause of the Prince Bishops and, having been born south of the river and endured the opening 19 wretched years of my miserable existence in the historical territory of County Durham, I do have a birth right to follow then. The thing that has always baffled me about Durham (my pal Jan from Oxford apart) since their elevation to the status of a First Class county, is that they’ve attracted a whole rake of glory hunting fans with no obvious connection to the county; perhaps like Borthwick and Stoneman their loyalties lie with Surrey now?

In keeping with the Easter traditions of suffering and penance, my journey to Chester le Street was arduous and uncomfortable. I left home in steady drizzle at 9.05 and arrived at Tynemouth metro to see trains simultaneously pulling away in either direction, with the information screens proudly explaining a Sunday service meant the next trains were not due for 30 minutes hence. Rather than do nothing, I opted for the bus; not the relatively rapid 306 to Haymarket, but the glacially slow 1A to Low Fell, replete throughout with thirsty proles en route for a day of gambling and bevvying in the fleshpots of Wallsend and Byker. It took 90 minutes; the 21 that followed behind a mere 16 more minutes to deposit me in Chester le Street. With Good Friday being a Sunday in public transport planners’ heads, this one only went as far as Chester le Street market place rather than on to Durham (or in some instances Bishop Auckland, if you please), leaving me an uncomfortable walk through a mass gathering of radicalised Christian extremists who, accompanied by the Sally Army band, were belting out There is a Green Hill Far Away. Sickening and almost unpleasant as the ranks of toothless simpletons already on the gargle in the large selection of ropey pubs either side of the main drag.

A slow walk to the ground under slate and ebony skies as befitted the Christian narrative of the day, with the giant, incongruous floodlights showing the way, in contrast to the semi-secret, publicity-shy entrance kiosk, where I was eventually relieved of my fiver. It was 11.56 when I finally took my seat. Durham were 26/1, so I’d missed the Cook and Ball story of the first wicket. So much for the overseas saviour; he followed this up with a duck in the second innings.

A combination of cheap entry and Bank Holiday ennui had produced a healthy crowd in excess of 2,000; considerably more than the opening day of a normal championship game, according to Durham member Gary who I quickly hooked up with, after he’d finished schmoozing with Lizzie Ammon and Martin Emmerson in the commentary box. Much of the crowd consisted of bespectacled, slightly deaf men in their 60s, attired in Cotton Trader fleeces and Durham CCC caps, armed with flasks, newspapers and modest picnic lunches, stoically peering through the gloom; hypersensitive and intolerant to the isolated spots of rain blown on the breeze to streak their lenses and moisten half-completed Sudoku and crossword puzzles.

On account of prevailing climactic conditions, it was understandably a bowlers’ paradise. Notts have the best pace attack in Division 2 and the pressure on the home side was intense and unforgiving; Burnham soon departed after leaving a straight one from Fletcher, Jennings (whose class had shown through as he actually seemed comfortable out there) was beaten for pace by Pattinson in a potential mini cameo of Ashes meetings to come, while Richardson was caught at slip after a hideous half hour of uncomfortable wafting. The home team went to lunch at 68/4 and a sedate lap of the ground, accompanied by a phenomenally pricey Illy flat white was the order of the day. As ever in these instances, we fell into conversation with visiting fans and enjoyed general, carefree cricket chat; it was so nice to enjoy a sporting event devoid of malice, other than the opposition quicks of course.

After the interval, it got no easier for the hosts. Collingwood trapped in front by Ball, Pringle caught by Read next delivery and Coughlin departing the same way to Gurney; Durham were 71/7 and Notts increased their lead over the hosts to a mere 73 points. Then, an element of recovery; Mark Wood made 11 and Graham Onions, as stick thin as ever, hung around for a brave 2 until Pattinson made an awful mess of his stumps. So, last man Chris Rushworth came to the crease to join Stewart Poynter at 110/9. The pugnacious Ireland wicketkeeper batsman, who is Tynemouth’s county player, had suffered a nightmare run of form for Durham at the end of last season, but he came good today. A series of aggressive blows as the bowlers strained unnecessarily for that final wicket and a sit down in the pavilion, saw Poynter make his highest score for the county; 65 out of 162 all out when he missed a straight one from Fletcher. To see the chunky and dogged figure improvising aggressively made the Tynemouth part of my cricketing DNA swell with pride.

Notts may have the best attack in the division, but Durham aren’t far behind in that respect. Graham Onions had Smith caught by Collingwood for 4, before a truly joyous experience. Chris Rushworth’s dad Joe is a pal of Gary’s and he dropped by for conversation. This was just in time to see Chris bag Libby and then the prize scalp of Alex Hales, reducing Notts to 7/3. A couple of subsequent LBW shouts were ignored and Notts battled their way back into the game, at 36/3 at tea.

Another hot drink was required as the temperature fell, wind blew up and clouds gathered again; the lights had been on all day, but they could do nothing about the rain that came at 5.15 with Notts steadying to 85/3. We took our leave; Gary’s new car bringing me back far quicker than public transport would. Ironically, the players came back on at 18.45 for 8 final overs, with Mark Wood bowling Lumb to leave the score 92/4 at the close. By that time I was snuggled up warm at home with a homemade spinach and okra curry, ready for the inevitable disappointment of Newcastle United and shallow braggadocio of grown men on social media lionising those who’d beaten up an opposition supporter at full time in the lee of the Gallowgate. Repulsive.

And so to Saturday. Firstly, I sat through a wind-ruined disaster of a 1-0 defeat in my beloved Benfield’s final home game of the season against a determined West Auckland Town side, scrapping for points to avoid relegation. As the truly awful 90 minutes dragged by, my mind strayed to events elsewhere; specifically the opening day of the North East Premier League season and the fortunes of my pair of teams, Newcastle and Tynemouth. The former were hosting Eppleton; the latter were visiting Benwell Hill. As is ever the case when football and cricket seasons overlap, pragmatic decisions have to be made; too indolent to make the morning session at Jesmond, I headed for the final stretch at County Club, arriving at 5.00 as tea was ending.

Home skipper Jacques du Toit, as ever to be found fortifying himself with a trusty Marlboro at the top of the pavilion steps, had declared on 235/9, leaving Eppleton a generous 61 overs to make the runs. They had begun steadily enough, reaching 108/2 from 25 overs at tea. Around two dozen spectators shivered under blankets and in long coats as the unforgiving westerly that had already made Benfield toil fruitlessly, but it wasn’t the weather that brought us there, was it? Brief words with Chris Youldon, currently completing his personal tour of all 44 Northern League clubs with a stint at Dunston UTS, but out injured for both sports.  A handshake from Oli McGee as he took the field, complimentary words to his brother Ben who’d made an impressive 91, the opportunity to chat with their parents in that relaxed, friendly way that makes cricket such a joy. These are the reasons we return, year after year.

The Riverside, where Durham were imploding in their second innings over 230 behind Notts, may be large and impressive, but it has little soul and less poetry. Osborne Avenue is beautiful; a ground to fall in love with. The gloriously whitewashed walls of the graveyard in lieu of sightscreens, the art deco grandeur of Osborne Court mansion flats behind the still bare trees and memorial benches on the far side, and the solid, honest dependability of the large Victorian terraces, now often subdivided into luxury apartments for the Jesmond young professional legal and financial elite, whose roofs JDT often has cause to pepper, as he admonishes another impudently loose delivery. Nothing had changed other than the absence of the familiar, reassuring cloud of cigar smoke that normally wreathed Doug Hudson. However, following a health scare in the autumn, he is off the pungent Havanas; good for his recovery but aromatically of mixed blessings. Dare I say it, he seems to be off the profanities as well…

Alas Eppleton seemed to thrive in this adorable haven; 111/3 then 134/4 after a contentious run out, before sedate progress to 200 seemed to indicate an untroubled away win. Then it got interesting as wickets tumbled in a clutch; it was 206/8 and the pressure was on. Oli bowled a maiden, appealing in fruitless earnest after every dot ball; nothing doing. Four byes and four overthrows in the next dozen balls released the pressure and Eppleton eased home to win by 2 wickets with 4 overs unused. A disappointing result, but as usual a rare and noble pleasure to watch cricket in such surroundings. Not to mention the chance to browse the bottle shop equivalent of Fenwick’s toy fair, in the shape of Rehill’s glorious selection of craft ales and wine.

Sunday promised a maiden visit of 2017 to Preston Avenue, for Tynemouth Academy against South North 3^rd XI; a promise that was betrayed by light midday drizzle turning into afternoon rain. Abandoned without a ball bowled and so we move to next week. A busy Saturday; Record Store Day, Wallsend Boys Club Over 40s in the Ironside Cup at 10.30, then Benfield ending the season at Chester le Street before I can even think of cricket. As I’m duty bound to attend the Benfield end of season do, it looks like I’ve no option other than to send my apologies to Tynemouth who host Durham Academy and opt for the grudge match when champions Chester le Street come to Osborne Avenue.

The noise you can hear is them appealing for the light already…..

Blink 442

I love this photo of the first team squad of my beloved Newcastle Benfield FC, before the recent 6-0 win over Sunderland RCA. That was the night my club raised nearly £3k for Ward 34 of the Freeman Hospital, where our own Kieran Wrightson was successfully treated for cancer. The players did their bit as well, which got us on to thinking in the clubhouse about those whose careers at Sam Smith’s Park were brief and inglorious. After a bit of head scratching, this is our here today, gone tomorrow, blink and you’ll miss them, Benfield team from recent seasons. No offence meant -:

Sean Korsbo: Man of the Match on his only appearance away to Consett in 2014. Chucked it after he was left out the following week and made a single appearance for Whitley Bay after that; now with Walker Central

Aaron McEwen: Timid son of Steve Bowey. Went to Chester Le Street but didn’t make it there either; now in the Alliance with Birtley

Moses Makinde: Brilliant for an hour in his only home appearance, did his hamstring and went back to Germany the day after; enigmatic

Laurent Sansom: Monsieur Merde. Signed from Leam Rangers rather than Paris St Germain; hauled off after falling over against West Auckland and gifting them a goal; never seen again

Big Dave Barratt: Superstar DJ. Huge, bearded, ursine utility player, who answered a cry for help when we were down to the bare bones last March; never let us down

Matty McCarthy: Self-proclaimed “Best Midfielder at the Club;” hauled off in his only ever appearance back in August, then went to West Allotment, Whitley Bay and obscurity

Matty Wade: His dad won us the double; Matty never won in a tackle in his one outing away to Ryhope CW, failing to turn up for the next game then leaving for Australia

Bruno Pilatos: Arrived from Jarrow Roofing on the Monday, played as a subbed sub at Dunston on the Tuesday to no great purpose, went back to Roofing on Wednesday

Tomasso Panzavolta: Immaculately attired Italian; one sub appearance away at Consett when we struggled for a team then disappeared

Nathan Jack: Unplayable at Kendall in the FA Cup; unavailable every other game

Robbie Nolan: Invisible man; more clubs than Jack Nicklaus

Subs:

Ryan Gladstone: Mind’s gone blank…

Mark Brown: Played once at home to Morpeth; let in half a dozen

Liam Mooney: Not a patch on his legendary old fella, Chalkie

Shaun Utterson: Ran away to America

Michael Baxter: Another who prefers Walker Central to us…

Mind, every single one of them is better than this clown....