Hopelessly Romantic Football Fans

Apparently the magazine Hopeless Football Romantic is coming out of hibernation with a new issue fairly soon. That's good news as I penned the following piece for it about 18 months ago. When HFR went into abeyance, I revisited this article & it was used in a shortened form in View From The Allotment End #5, as well as Benfield's programme v Washington this season. However, I'd like to reproduce it now for a couple of reasons; firstly because the Northern League really ought to be emerging from this recent enforced lay off & secondly because the lad Dougie I refer to is getting hitched next week, on St. Patrick's Day, to the very lovely Niamh, in the quintessentially Irish setting of Corpus Christie College Chapel in Oxford. I'm not invited like, but they have my best wishes & this as a tribute. Next week, we'll be back to normal -:

Twenty two years ago, Newcastle United versus Manchester United could have justifiably laid claim to being the biggest club game in the world. In the era between the sun setting on the starched formality of Serie A and the emergence of La Liga as the enduring, de facto home for technical brilliance and attacking splendour, contests between the gung-ho optimism of Kevin Keegan’s flawed cavaliers and Alex Ferguson’s wily roundheads saw romance come off a poor second to pragmatism almost every time. 1996 was the key year of that ephemeral rivalry; Keegan was gone by mid-January 1997.  Ferguson, as ever, held the upper hand; a double over the Magpies saw the Reds dismantle a seemingly impregnable lead or unsurmountable deficit, depending on your allegiances, to win the title. Newcastle had the best team, but Man United had the best players in Schmeichel and Cantona; in the crucial game at SJP, the former performed heroics and the latter scored the only goal. Going forward, the stakes were raised as Keegan beat Ferguson to Shearer’s signature, then handed him a debut at Wembley in the Charity Shield; the Champions humiliated the upstarts 4-0. However, the subsequent league campaign was a closer affair, with the two sides cheek by jowl at the top of the table in the autumn.

The first league meeting was to be on Tyneside; Sky TV predictably intervened to move the game to Sunday 20^th October, at 4pm. Tickets were as rare as rocking horse excrement, but back then I treasured my season ticket more than anything else in the world, bar the bairn and my then missus, so I was alright. Indeed, so were two of my mates from Dublin; Declan and Dougie were on the committee of the Newcastle United Irish Supporters Club and they secured a couple of seats for this one through Declan’s links with John Hall, the subsequently reviled but previously adored Magpie chairman. Flying in first thing on Saturday morning, the lads made it down to our house in Spital Tongues, literally a decent goal kick away from St James’ Park and learned that the plans for the day were not a 12 pint shift on the gargle, but a Northern League Division 2 game instead.

Looking back on my connections with Newcastle United, I can sense the slackening of the emotional bonds from the start of 1994/1995 onwards. From the moment I moved back to the area after finishing University in 1988, I never missed a home game and, despite playing a couple of seasons on Saturday afternoon football in the nether regions of the North East Amateur League, I was also a regular, almost frequent, away traveller, back in the days when you could decide to hit the road in support of the team if you woke up early enough on a match day morning.  I suppose 1992/1993, the Keegan promotion campaign and 1993/1994, the debut season in The Premier League, were the high points of my travelling days. I got to almost every Saturday game I could, but one thing that had already begun to irk me was the number of spare Saturdays, caused by television moving games, ITV before promotion and Sky afterwards, not to mention the interminable international breaks; in 1992/1993 we had 12 spare Saturdays and 13 the year after. This wasn’t to my liking; the NUFC season ticket was sacrosanct, but in August 1994, when I turned 30, we decided to try for kids. At that point I grew up, or tried to, and stopped going to away games, mainly to save money. Instead, utterly independent of the almost contemporaneous publication of the finest ever sporting book, Harry Pearson’s love letter to NE football and the Northern League in particular, The Far Corner, I resolved to have zero spare Saturdays in future, because I was going to watch non-league whenever possible.

On Saturday 3^rd September 1994, with the Premier League on an international break, I consulted the day’s local football fixtures in The Journal and plumped for Blue Star against Shildon, as I could get the Metro straight there. Also, as a fanzine devotee, I’d enjoyed a couple of issues of South West Durham Dadaism in the shape of Shildon’s Far From a Madding Crowd and hoped to meet legendary eccentric editor Frank Smith. I didn’t. He was having a sofa delivered, apparently. Instead, I sat and watched a game of low quality thud and blunder on a bumpy pitch, which ended 1-1 courtesy of a couple of set piece headers, in front of about 130 people. It cost £3 entry and the programme was 50p, so the financial investment was negligible. However what struck me, apart from the fact hot drinks were served in mugs that you were entrusted with bringing back yourself when you’d finished, is how proud both sets of fans, players and committee members were of their respective clubs. On the way out, a Blue Star coach, collecting the corner flags, cheerily exclaimed “thanks now. See you again.” Without thinking, I replied “hope so” and, as I waited for my train at Callerton Parkway, I knew I meant it. There was a bloke, busy with his own allocated job, who’d taken time out to speak to a person who he’d never met before. It wasn’t like that in the Premier League or at SJP, where I remember the announcement of the crowd on the scoreboard, along with the phrase “the board thanks you for your support,” being met with a mass outbreak of two fingered gestures and profane language. In non-league, clubs are genuinely pleased to have people show up and visit them.

Subsequent free Saturdays in the run up to Christmas 1994 saw me visit Whickham, Whitley Bay, Dunston Fed, Hebburn and South Shields. I didn’t know the term groundhopper, but I was becoming one, as I didn’t really support any team. Indeed, the enduring love I bear for my team Benfield didn’t begin until almost a decade later, in 2003 when they joined the Northern League. I know I’ll follow them until I die, but I’ll always look back on my formative experiences of the local game as a spectator with enormous fondness. Of course progress towards completing the Northern League “set” was painfully slow in those early days; there were Newcastle games to factor in, bad weather postponements and trips to other clubs when on weekends down at the in-laws in Yorkshire. Also, the demographics of the league have changed in the past two decades; a whole raft of teams in East Durham have disappeared (Peterlee, Horden, Murton and Shotton Comrades), as well as a similar set from the West of the county (Evenwood Town, Ferryhill Athletic and Spennymoor, though at least the reborn latter lot have gone up the pyramid).

All things considered, I was utterly determined to pursue a full house, as well as spreading the gospel of non-league to the unconverted. Consequently, half an hour after Declan and Dougie had dropped their bags off at ours, we were on our way to Albany Park on the evocatively named Spout Lane, to see Washington against Ashington.  I’d taken Declan up to Portland Park in March 1996, to see the Colliers beat Alnwick Town 3-2 in a Northumbrian derby, so he was happy to see the home town team of Jackie Milburn in action again. Dougie just liked the fact the two club names rhymed. These days Ashington play at the impressive Hirst Welfare and Washington are at the functional Nissan complex. While both teams are a division higher, their fortunes have fluctuated, with both teams enjoying highs and lows, though their heart and spirit remains undiminished.

That day, Ashington must have taken 50 fans; daft, drunken lads enjoying their day out. They sang incessantly about their club, banging a repetitive rhythm on the corrugated metal roof of the covered shed opposite the club house. The home support were older, more circumspect, but equally passionate.  Ashington won 1-0 with a goal in the last 15 minutes and at full time, the players and fans cavorted with each other, celebrating as if they’d won the Champions’ League. However, let’s be frank about this; whatever level your club plays at, the taste of victory is equally as sweet. The crucial difference is that defeats at non-league level may be disappointing, but they don’t produce the gut-wrenching agony felt by Premier League followers as the emotional involvement isn’t reinforced by a massive financial investment. Those poor sods on Arsenal TV on You Tube might want to consider that before loosing off another bile-spattered rant about what a disgrace their club is.

When the game was over, we followed the rest and made our way straight across the pitch to the clubhouse. The Washington supporters were gracious in defeat and genuinely intrigued as to why 2 Irish lads had pitched up; pints were bought and complimentary post-match bait devoured, before we shook hands and said our farewells.  At that point, disaster seemed to have struck. Declan, in the days before mobile phones and lap tops, had travelled over in possession of his Psion Palm Pilot, a personal data assistant the size of a DVD case. Somewhere, somehow, he’d misplaced it; bad move that one.  It was considered very hi tech and valuable, especially by his employers, who’d be furious with him if he didn’t return to work with it on the Tuesday. I left my phone number with the club committee on the off chance it might turn up and we forgot about it, as best we could.

Of course, Sunday was a day none of us will ever forget. BOOM! Peacock header; 1-0. BOOM! Ginola volley; 2-0. BOOM! Ferdinand header from a Shearer cross; 3-0. BOOM! Shearer taps in after Schmeichel had saved from Beardsley; 4-0. BOOM! Albert puts the cherry on the top with a lob so precise and so beautiful I will never tire of seeing it; 5-0.  Full time and the city centre’s in full on Mardi Gras mode, though word of mouth talks about a lock in at the Belle Grove to watch a full rerun of the game. We sit through it with unnecessary late night bevvies and crawl home around 1.00. This is when I remember I’ve been out the house for 12 hours, leaving my wife and 15 month old son to cope. We’ll park the guilt there as she was genuinely delighted with the result.

She was also delighted with a phone call she’d taken around 5pm. Just as Newcastle and Man United were kicking off the second half, the Washington groundsman had rung up to say he’d found “that computer thingy the Paddy fella lost” while he’d been marking the pitch, ahead of Tuesday night’s game against Chester le Street. What amazed me wasn’t just that Declan’s job was now safe once again, but that while not just the whole of England, but the eyes of the entire footballing world were on a game taking place less than 10 miles from Albany Park, a Washington supporter and volunteer was giving up his Sunday afternoon to prepare the pitch that we’d thoughtlessly shambled across the previous day. To him, what happened at St James Park was irrelevant; his club was Washington and he was doing his duty for them. In those days I marvelled at his dedication; now such involvement would be second nature to me if Benfield needed stuff doing.

Declan and Dougie had been sensible in booking the Monday off work and an evening flight home. They slept late, long and loud. Luckily, being in education, the missus and I were both on half term, enabling us to make the trip to Washington to collect Declan’s Psion. We met the groundsman at the Washington FC clubhouse. He’d already made a pot of tea which, as lifelong coffee drinker, I realised the importance of forcing down to show gratitude. He gave the Palm Pilot a quick wipe with a duster, then handed it back. In return, I offered him a £10 note. He wouldn’t hear of it. I tried to say it was a donation to the club; again, no interest. Finally I suggested a charitable donation. To which he assented. On the bar was a collection box for Age UK; this septuagenarian groundsman, a former player and lifelong supporter, gratefully pushed my money into the slot saying, “it’s always good to help the old folk.”

We shook hands and took our leave, with his final imprecation being “come and see us again.” It took me more than 3 years, but I did, returning in September 2000 for another Washington v Ashington game, which ended 3-3. As I paid in, I saw him resting against the pitch rail, survey his handiwork over a well-earned brew; “hello son,” he said, “nice to see you back again.” I never did learn his name, but I’ll always be thankful to him for saving my friend’s neck with his boss. And, more importantly from a personal perspective, for teaching me, in the best way possible, why football doesn’t begin and end with the Premier League. Given the choice between Newcastle against Man United or Washington v Ashington, I know that on the whole, I’d much rather be on the bus to Philadelphia.