Lionhearted

What’s the worst way to lose a game of football; farcical own goal? Last second keeper error? Clear foul in the build up? Outrageous, unpunished handball? Cruel deflection? All of them have their merits in the end of term report at the school of hard luck stories, but for me, the penalty shoot-out is the absolute epitome of sporting tragedy, providing the winners glory without a sheen of honour and the losers naught but futile, bilious anguish. To have come so far and then lose in a manner that makes the apportioning of blame so simple and yet so unnecessary a task, truly does macerate the most indomitable of spirits. There is no possibility of a response or even a riposte after the ignominy of failed kicks from the penalty mark. This is the end, beautiful friends, the end.

When that cursed shoot-out concludes a Cup final in the last game of the season, with the added spectacle of ungracious, shirtless victors cavorting across the turf, spraying lager over each other, the sense of loss is as profound as the death of a loved one. Having seen Richie Slaughter and then Dean Holmes denied from 12 yards by Shane Bland on Easter Monday 2019 at Seaham Red Star’s ground, to hand the Brookes Mileson Northern League Cup to West Auckland Town, I felt considerably more miserable than when my mother died. I was almost physically sick; such was the anguish and despair. This, after all, was my beloved Benfield on the losing side.

Here’s a quick bit of background; Newcastle Benfield FC, formed 1988 as Heaton Corner House, home ground at Walker Park, merged with Brunswick Village in 1989, won Northern Alliance Division 2 in 1990, then moved to Sam Smith’s Park for the next season, changing their name to Benfield Park, merging with North Shields St Columba’s in 1995, to become Benfield Saints, joining the Northern League in 2003, changing to Benfield Bay Plastics in 2005 and, finally, in 2007 adopting Newcastle Benfield as our name. 

My first visit to Sam Smith’s Park was for a Northumberland Senior Cup quarter final against Newcastle United back in February 1995. It was a dank, foggy February evening with exhaled breath and cigarette smoke climbing in spirals through the floodlit gloaming, when the crowd attending must have been a ground record for the time; especially considering our current record was the 926 who showed up, not including me, for the visit of York City in the FA Cup in October 2006. York won that one 1-0 and Newcastle United won my first game 3-0 and I recall little, if any of proceedings, other than the cold and the lack of a clear view of the pitch, which isn’t something that often disturbs me these days, as our crowds remain resolutely around the 150-200 mark.

I’ll admit back then, only a couple of years into my non-league odyssey, I knew nothing about Benfield, other than you get off the Metro at Walkergate, and only fractionally more about the Northern Alliance. Even worse, I presume I was supporting NUFC rather than the Lions. In my defence, that night was more than 3 years before the great Cusackian migration to High Heaton and almost 8 and a half seasons until Benfield Saints (as was) ascended from the Alliance to the Northern League.  Coincidentally, unintentionally and passionately, within a month of the Lions entering the Northern League and one whole week after I’d moved into my current abode, I fell madly and completely head over heels in love with Benfield, which is a state of affairs I can’t imagine will alter at any point during the rest of my life.

That first game in daylight was an FA Vase preliminary round tie on Saturday 27^th September 2003; Newcastle had played the night before, losing 3-2 at Arsenal and consequently I was at a loose end. My game of choice just had to be the one closest to home. The walk from mine to Benfield takes about 15 minutes; enough time for anticipation to build. I wasn’t exactly excited, but I was more than a little intrigued by the thought of having my own Northern League club of choice, almost on the doorstep. I sat in the back row of the same stand whose front row I sit in today and thoroughly enjoyed a warm, late Summer afternoon, made all the better as Benfield, then as now with Andy Grainger in goal, beat Thornaby 4-1. From that day on, my affection for Benfield grew, especially as my lad Ben, in those days a handy keeper for East End Under 9s, loved to station himself behind Andy Grainger and learn from the finest and most consistent non-league keeper I’ve ever seen, while munching on an enormous hot dog from Snack Attack; Ben that is, not Andy. The bairn and I became regulars and saw some memorable games that first year, such as Shildon thrashed 6-0 and Thornaby clouted 7-0 in a League game; it was a great deal of fun being there, which wasn’t something I was feeling about Newcastle United. Indeed, I fell out of love with NUFC completely when Bobby Robson was sacked in 2004, but it took until 2009 before I finally divested myself of the indefensible habit of lining Mike Ashley’s pockets.

At the end of that first season, Benfield finished runners-up to Ashington and achieved promotion to Northern League Division 1. That’s where we’ve been ever since, though only a final day win away to Consett in the last league game ever played at their old Belle Vue ground, maintained top flight status after a particularly exacting 2010/2011 campaign. Over the past 15 years we’ve seen some brilliant players in blue and white at Sam Smith’s Park: the magnificent centre half pairing of Phil Lumsden and Kev Leighton, combining elegant interceptions and teak-tough tackling, the midfield artistry of Paul Antony, enthusiasm of Steve Bowey and tenacity of Alu Bangura, wing wizardry by Adam Scope and Ian Graham, as well as the legendary goal machines: Michael Chilton, Stephen Young, John Campbell, who scored the best goal I’ve seen in my entire life in a 1-1 draw with Billingham Synthonia in February 2010, Dan Taylor and, best of all, Paul Brayson; 42 in September and the scorer of 200 goals in the last 5 seasons.

We won the League Cup for the first time in 2006; an Alu Bangura 30 yarder crashed into the bottom corner against Washington Nissan at Dunston’s ground. We won it again in 2009 on a Friday night at West Allotment’s Blue Flames; Andy Grainger played like Gordon Banks against Pele as we saw off Penrith 2-0 with the clincher by Ian Graham still one of the finest finishes I’ve ever seen. This came only 10 days after we’d won the title; 1-0 away to Penrith after the last game at their old Southend Road ground. We’d never been top all season, until Steven Young’s delicate, curling 86^th minute effort made the dream come true, taking us from 4^th to 1^st. Mind I wouldn’t go for a celebratory pint afterwards as they were using the local Tory club for post match refreshments. There was a third League Cup win in 2011, when Spennymoor were seen off at Dunston, with Andy Grainger again the hero. We were runners up in 2013 against Spenny at Consett and, sadly, in this season just gone, when our newcomers Dennis Knight, Dale Pearson, Joe Robson, Jake Thompson and Reece Noble have distinguished themselves alongside experienced campaigners like Mark Turnbull, Richie Slaughter, Jake Orrell, James Martin and Rhys Evans, not to mention the legendary Brassy and Andy Grainger, the raven at our Tower of Benfield.

There have been disappointments over the years; not all managers have worked out (no names, no pack drill) and our record in the Northumberland Senior Cup is woeful. One final in all that time, which we lost to Whitley Bay, the only year it wasn’t played at St James’ Park. The FA Vase remains elusive; three defeats in the quarter finals and the same number in the last 16. League form is patchy, always; we finish top 10 consistently, but we should be top 5, especially going forward with the FA’s plans for league reorganisation at Step 4 finally emerging in considerable detail. You see, after 16 years in the Northern League, it seems to me as if the time for change is just around the corner; if all goes well in 2019/2020, we may be looking to take a step upward as part of the FA’s reorganisation of Step 4, the level above where we currently operate.

The top 4 Northern League Division 1 sides, along with the same number from the Northern Counties East, will be promoted into the Evo Stik Northern Premier League Division 1 East in May 2020. Further boundary work will see marginal clubs, presumably such as Stamford, Wisbech and Spalding, laterally moved to create a Northern Premier League Division 1 South (or Midland?), parallel to the existing East and West divisions. For those heading upwards from the Northern League in 2020 and later, the bugbear of significantly increased travel has been largely addressed by this move, as has fixture overload with all Step 4, 5 and 6 divisions being limited to 20 clubs and Step 3 expanded to 24.

Such modifications, as well as the judicious use of Bank Holidays for games that kick off at 3pm and not noon, like it’s a pub league where the game is incidental to us all getting hammered as soon as the final whistle blows. The rules are crystal clear; the league table will be the single ultimate, meritocratic arbiter. It has to be; anything else risks the nebulous and contentious spectre of unscientific subjectivity muddying the waters. That aside, I think this is the greatest opportunity for ambitious clubs to progress and crash through the glass ceiling that has been bearing down on the Northern League for two generations or more.

Basically, when the FA introduced the concept of the non-league pyramid, the fiercely parochial Northern League blue blazers and brass hats insisted on remaining in complete isolation, with then chair Arthur Clark and secretary Gordon Nicholson making the mind-boggling decision not to accept a role as one of 3 direct feeder leagues into the Conference. Once Nicholson had finally been removed from office, the league belatedly came to their senses and went, if not quite cap in hand then with an air of studied contrition, to the FA and were glad to be situated 3 rungs lower than the initial offer. Meanwhile, the Northern League had seen the more ambitious clubs such as Blyth Spartans, Bishop Auckland, North Shields and Whitley Bay quit in search of pastures new. Of course, only Spartans managed to make a go of it and the other 3 returned, slightly chastened, whence they came, with considerable subsequent success over the years in the case of both Shields and Whitley it has to be said.

The fable of these prodigals, plus the plummeting vapour trails of the Icarus Airline tours of Step 4 by the seemingly cursed Durham City and now defunct Newcastle Blue Star, not to mention the murky dealings that allowed Spennymoor to assume Evenwood Town’s registration in the league after the original Moors flatlined, were used as scary bedtime stories, delivered in the manner of a pouting, theatrical martinet, by the Northern League management, especially former chair Mike Amos, to frighten clubs into staying close to their own hearth. Other than Whitby in 1997, no Northern League champions accepted promotion to the Northern Premier League until the reformed Darlington did so in 2013. Since then Spennymoor in 2014, South Shields in 2017, Marske United accompanied by runners-up Morpeth Town in 2018 and now Dunston UTS in 2019 have all ascended the ladder of ambition.  This is in spite of the atonal Northern League choir evangelically proselytising their doctrine of footballing pre-determinism by endlessly bellowing

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them high and lowly,

And ordered their estate.

from their single hymn sheet, while proclaiming that all things remain bright and beautiful, as long as the status quo isn’t disturbed. Such flat earth, apocalyptic doom mongering has been utterly disproved by the sight of South Shields, Marske United and Morpeth Town’s taillights fading as they disappear over the horizon. The supposed geographical isolation of the north east may not have been eradicated, but the worst aspects and anomalies (South Shields away to Colwyn Bay anyone?) have been ameliorated by the new West, East and Midland Evo-Stik divisional structure. The very real possibility of Knaresborough Town (and what a day out that’ll be eh?)being moved from the Northern Counties East to the Northern League shows that the parameters and boundaries of the world’s second oldest league are not just in a state of flux, but radically changing for good, if not the universal good…

It is fair to say Morpeth Town didn’t face the prospect of forced promotion positively a year ago; indeed, Chairman Ken Beattie even mooted legal action against the FA to try and remain in the Northern League. It’s amazing what hindsight shows you; Morpeth, despite still enduring trips to Wisbech and Spalding, have been crowned Champions of Evo Stik Northern Premier league Division 1 East by a dozen points and I’m delighted for what Nicky Gray and his lads have achieved.  Certainly, there’s not a hint that they wish they had local derbies with Ashington rather than Darlington to look forward to.

Of course, this restructuring exercise won’t work for every club. While I could see, in no particular order, Bishop Auckland, Consett, Hebburn, Stockton and Benfield immediately hoping to benefit from the opportunities provided, I would also imagine the likes of Ashington, Billingham Town, Penrith and hopefully Whitley Bay also wishing to better themselves. Some outfits will be more than happy to continue where they are, for a multiplicity of reasons; financial, historical and locational being the most likely. Pragmatic realism is often a more sensible driving force when one is cutting cloth according to circumstance.

For the Northern League, the challenge will be to maintain 2 divisions of 20 clubs, especially in the face of seeing only promotions upwards and no demotions inward, probably denuding the top division of at least 4 clubs. As a result, the standard of the top division will inevitably be diluted, but that is the cyclical nature of football. The reason the Northern League Division 1 has never been stronger may just have to do with the lack of upward mobility over the years. The real question is about the second division; when the likes of Brandon United can only keep going by accepting an offer from Northern Alliance third tier outfit Coundon and Leeholme to take over the playing side, lock, stock and barrel, because their current Welfare Park facilities extend as far as being a pitch with a rail round it, it begs the question whether ground grading rules should be relaxed to allow an influx of teams of higher playing standards but without facilities to match? I feel it is a question the FA will be answering soon, as their soon to be published plans for Step 7 leagues to be run by county associations may have some bearing on this.

Good luck to all clubs at steps 4,5, 6 and 7, with especial good luck to my beloved Benfield. I sincerely hope restructuring works for us, but even if it didn’t, I’d still be there supporting us if we were back in the Northern Alliance, playing at Walker Park and calling ourselves the Corner House again. I’m Benfield ‘til I die.