Glazed Expressions

On June 30^th, 2003, Joseph P. Overton, Senior Vice President of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy at the University of Michigan, died from injuries sustained in a crash while piloting an ultralight aircraft, soon after taking off from the Tuscola Area Airport near Caro, Michigan. He was survived by his newlywed wife Helen, though his main impact on the world was his concept of the Overton Window, which is a way to track the range of opinions tolerated in public discourse. Overton stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. According to Overton, the window encompasses the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme in the current climate of public opinion. After Overton's death, his colleague Joseph Lehman further developed the idea, postulating that the degrees of acceptance of ideas by the public can be roughly viewed as a 6 point continuum showing, from the least to most acceptable, responses that brand all ideas as falling into one of the following categories -:

Unthinkable

Radical

Acceptable

Sensible

Popular

Policy

As Noam Chomsky observes; The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

On January 2^nd, 2012, Guisborough Town beat Newcastle Benfield for the first time after 8 previous unsuccessful attempts. The game ended 3-2 to the visitors and there was nothing controversial about the goals. The bone of contention for this game was a volley of abuse by Guisborough player Jamie Poole, which was directed at Benfield’s young winger Jordan Lartey whose response showed he was convinced he had been the victim of racist hate speak, which seemed to be backed up by a cursory examination of the sound recording of the game which had been filmed by Sky Tyne & Wear. Despite the clarity of the recording, no charge was brought by the North Riding FA against Poole or anyone involved with Guisborough, as video evidence was not deemed acceptable at that time by the county association, who had and who retain, overall responsibility for adjudication in all cases of player misconduct. The saddest part of this whole unhappy narrative was that poor Jordan was never the same player again. He lost heart, quit the club at the end of the season, played fitfully at a lower level and drifted out of the game for good in his very early 20s, no doubt disillusioned by the lack of support by the authorities for another young victim of abuse. He doesn’t play at all now.

On September 28^th, 2019 I included the paragraph immediately above this one in a piece I wrote for the programme I edited and published for Newcastle Benfield v Guisborough Town, which took place that day and ended in a somewhat acrimonious 2-2 draw. On October 2^nd, I was offered the opportunity to resign from my role and my place on the committee of Benfield, or to be unceremoniously sacked. As someone who refers to the club as my beloved Benfield, there was absolutely no way I would put my own agenda before the good name of the club so, with the heaviest of hearts I sent this email -:

I have been made aware of an official complaint about an article I published in a recent programme. Having reviewed the content, I totally accept it was an inappropriate item to appear in an official club publication. As a result, I have decided to resign as Newcastle Benfield programme editor and concentrate my energies on supporting the team from the ranks.

Succinct and accurate I thought. Unfortunately, the club opted not to use it and simply tweeted their thanks for my efforts and stated that I had resigned with immediate effect. Now that’s not strictly accurate as I was 75% of the way through compiling the upcoming programmes for the visits of Northallerton Town and Bedlington Terriers, so I ploughed on and finished the pair of them, while simultaneously temporarily disabling my Social Media accounts to get away from the noise and innuendo that casts a shadow even over Step 5 football. In the cyber world, a touching number of people inquired as to my welfare, so I took care to respond to every one of these mates and acquaintances in turn. Their compassion was deeply appreciated.  Of course, the rumour mill was in overdrive by this point; I was reliably informed by someone I play cricket with, who announced to the whole Whats’App group for our team that he’d heard I’d “been sacked for racially abusing a Guisborough player,” which is the diametrical opposite of the truth, but almost an inevitable slice of gossip, bearing in mind the human capacity for salacious gossip in the absence of a complete statement by Benfield. 

To put things in context, I was more upset by having to step down as programme editor than by the deaths of my parents. I’m not being overdramatic when I say that either. I’ve never been very good at being a bloke and so the written word has been my vehicle of choice when trying to shout above the noise of alpha males. The problem is, the written word, on paper or on screen, is more enduring than the spoken one, which is why it can come back to bite you on the arse. On the Wednesday I learned of the inevitable course events, I wanted to die. I stood at Palmersville Metro Bridge in North Tyneside and spent an hour searching for reasons not to climb over the side and grasp the electric overhead cables below. On the Thursday, I contemplated leaving the country for good, getting away from everyone and everything as I’d made yet another mess of my life. On the Friday anger and despair turned to acceptance and understanding, if not agreement. If I wanted to carry on supporting the team I’ve loved for 16 years, it would have to be on their terms not mine. The verbal pugilist needed to take a vow of silence.

While I stand by the veracity of what I put in print for the Guisborough game, I realise I was on a hiding to nothing. What happened stunk, but it happened. I couldn’t reopen the case as both judge and prosecution counsel. In the current world, the effect of the Overton Window on public opinion in an era of authoritarian populism means that the beliefs and views I hold dear, relating to Brexit, the Royal Family, the north of Ireland, benefits, militarism, immigration, the economy and almost every point of political debate, not to mention the style of football Newcastle United played under Rafa Benitez, are viewed by many as somewhere in the Unthinkable category. I’ve got the choice between a seat on the backbenches at Sam Smith’s Park, or being a firebrand who is unwelcome in our ground. For this reason I have to try to bite my tongue and keep my own counsel about anything other people may find controversial which, until our society turned insular and mean, I hadn’t ever thought could cause offence or upset. It isn’t just my club where such public circumspection is required, but possibly every single one at our level. Driving people away because of a supportive Facebook status about Greta Thurnberg may be an unlikely course of events, but it’s something to bear in mind.

Of course, my attempts to hide in the long grass on social media haven’t always worked and I know I am disliked by a vast range of associates known and unknown to me, to the extent I considered the idea of a blog about the 50 people who hate me the most, but I found the subject too depressing for even my self-abasing mien.  Instead, I decided that while my disputatious nature is never going to win me any friends, it has been running for 55 years and so I may need to keep a permanent eye on it, ready to rein it in like a frail pensioner taking an unpredictable Mastiff for a walk round the local park, lest it causes any further uproar. Whisper it, but I think I might just have found a way through the woods.

On Saturday October 5^th, 2019, I went to watch Benfield away to Ryhope CW; for the first time in six years, I was an ordinary punter and not a committee member. This meant I didn’t go on the club minibus as has been my wont over the years. Now if I’d been feeling really bitter, this is the point where I could make a bleak pun about being thrown under the bus; but I’ll not, because I’m not. Instead, I went by Metro, which was far too full of screaming kids, shouting parents and morose teenagers, but it got me from Tynemouth to Sunderland. In the week when a list of England’s most deprived, or possibly depraved, towns and cities was revealed, I find it amazing that Chisnau on Wear doesn’t get a mention. It’s like a full-scale version of Legoland remade my Banksy; it’s 2021’s post Brexit urban dystopia in living monochrome. Even the buses can’t wait to be out the place, judging by my driver dumping me halfway to the top of Tunstall Hill, about a mile after the stop I’d actually wanted to be off at.

Entering the ground, I’ll admit to feeling nervous, so instead of the usual coffee and a chat with the usual suspects, I did something I’ve not done in years before a game. I relied on some Dutch Courage to get me through things; a couple of bottles of Black Sheep, though the 5 minute wait to be served while the barman filled his lungs with rich, soupy, vape goodness out on the patio, did nothing for my paranoia.  Comfortably numb, I watched the goalless first half by myself, while we attacked the other end and turned down the chance of a half-time cuppa in the hospitality Portakabin. Of course, it’s difficult to be anonymous in a crowd of 71 and those of the committee who were there stood near me in the second period. It felt natural, though that could be because of Benfield putting in our best performance of the season and storming to a 3-0 win. Everyone was back in their clubhouse at full time, for a celebratory pint and hot dog; this was a very good day. I even got a lift back in the minibus, meaning this wasn’t just a good day; it was a vision of the future. It has nothing to scare me, as I can now breathe lungfuls of fresh, free air, now that the sash on the Overton Window has been thrown wide open.