First of all, what encouraged you
to get into football? Which team did you support growing up? What was the
reason behind supporting them? Do you remember the first game you attended?
What was the score? More importantly, what started you on your groundhopping
adventures?
I’d best state at the outset I’m
55, so I’ve been a football fanatic for coming up 50 years. Growing up in
Newcastle, a single club city, there was only ever going to be one team for me,
or there was until Mike Ashley came along. Anyway, my first visit to St James’
Park was on New Year’s Day 1973, when we drew 2-2 with Leicester City and I was
hookedby the atmosphere and sense of spectacle from that moment. I went with my
dad, an uncle and a cousin for a couple of years, until firstly my old man
jacked it in when Joe Harvey was sacked as Magpies manager in 1975 and then my
uncle did the same when Malcolm MacDonald was sold to Arsenal a year later. My
cousin was more into heavy rock than football, so he bailed out as he’d started
listening to Alan Freeman’s show on Radio 1, so I began going with a bunch of
mates from school.
The ground collecting, rather
than hopping as it isn’t my primary football supporting activity, began during
1992/1993, when Newcastle’s promotion season saw them feature on ITV on Sunday
afternoons, rather than Sky, over a dozen times. These fixture changes gave me
plenty of free Saturdays and, rather than waste them in the house, listening to
commentary on the radio or watching updates on telly, I decided on a whim to
start the process of ticking off clubs in my locale, initially in the step 5
& 6 Northern League, as well as (then) near-ish league clubs like
Darlington, Hartlepool and Scarborough. Around this time, Harry Pearson
published the best book about NE football in history, The Far Corner, which inspired me to contact him. We met up, became
firm pals and, over the past quarter of a century, have visited some truly
primitive grounds, watched some awful football then drank some terrible beer.
Ground collecting isn’t always fun you know…
You were programme editor for
Newcastle Benfield in the North East. What makes a good football programme to
you? What do you hope to achieve with your programme?
For me, a programme should always
have plenty of reading in it. I always seek to showcase writing of a comparable
standard to that you may find in the likes of Wisden, The New Statesman or the
London Review of Books. I like long form opinion or observational pieces,
sometimes about other sports, because they inform and stimulate the reader. Adverts are a necessary evil, puzzles an
acceptable diversion, but pages of decontextualized match photos do nothing for
me. Remember, many readers will be visiting your club for the first time; a
club history and pen portraits of the players and management are essential to
give them a feel for where they are visiting. Also, I firmly believe programmes
should cost no more than a quid.
Do you have any rituals or
superstitions when it comes to supporting your team?
Regardless of climactic
conditions, I wear shorts rather than jeans during British Summer time. Once
the clocks go back, I wear the same 2 pairs of socks to games; in rotation when
the weather is clement and both together when it’s cold.
Did you have any football shirts
growing up? Who was your footballing idol?
I got a full, heavy serge, cotton
Newcastle United kit for Christmas 1972. It held water like a sponge and
stubborn muck stains were impossible to remove. Goodness, I loved it. A couple of years later, as my idol was then
Eric Morecambe, who was Luton chairman, I got one of the iconic orange Hatters’
Admiral tops with the thin white and blue stripe down one side. It was the most
colourful thing I owned in the 1970s. Incidentally, I’ve still never visited
Kenilworth Road. As regards a football
idol; all the mavericks like Stan Bowles, Tony Currie, Robin Friday, Alan
Hudson and Frank Worthington appealed to me because of their avowedly
anti-establishment aura. My favourite
Newcastle players were Terry Hibbitt, Pat Howard and Micky Burns.
Can you give us a brief insight
into Newcastle Benfield? Ground, league, etc? Ambitions for this season and
beyond?
We were formed to participate in
Saturday football in the Northern Alliance, the lowest league in the pyramid up
here, in 1988 as Heaton Corner House, playing in a public park in Walker. After
a few name and ground changes, we were accepted into the step 6 Northern League
Division 2 in 2003 as Benfield Park. We won promotion at the end of our first
season and have been at step 5 in Northern League Division 1 ever since and
Newcastle Benfield since 2007. Our honours consist of one League championship
in 2008/2009, when we went from fourth to top (for the only time in the
season,) courtesy of an 86th minute winner at the last game played
on Penrith’s old Southend Road ground and 3 League cups. We play at Sam Smith’s
Park in Walkergate and our record crowd is 926 for an FA Cup fourth round
qualifier in October 2006, when York City beat us 1-0. We’ve reached the FA
Vase quarter finals twice, but always seem to come unstuck in the North West
(Chadderton, Atherton, Runcorn and Vauxhall Motors accounting for us in recent
years).
Our manager is Stu Elliott, an
ex-pro with Newcastle and many other clubs. He coaches at the NUFC academy, as
does our most famous player, ex Newcastle, Reading, Cardiff and Northwich
striker Paul Brayson, who is still banging them in at 42. Our record appearance
holder is ex England beach football international, keeper Andy Grainger, who is
virtually ever present since 2003, when he was released by Darlington. With the Unibond League splitting into 3
parallel divisions on geographical grounds for next year, we really hoped to be
up there challenging for one of the minimum of 3 promotion places as the
quality of the Northern League will be seriously diluted (witness the loosening
of its previously vice-like grip on the FA Vase), but we appear to be marooned
in mid-table, even allowing for games in hand. There’s always next year I
guess…
Who is the toughest opposition in
your league?
It’s a tough league full stop;
we’ve lost to relegation certainties and humbled champions elect over the past
16 years. Put it this way, I think the 3 to be promoted at the end of the
season will be: Consett, Hebburn Town and Stockton Town who are all as strong
off the pitch as on it.
You can bring 3 PL players to
make up a 5 a side team, with 2 Newcastle Benfield players. Who do you sign and
why?
We’ll contribute Andy Grainger in
goal and Paul Brayson up front. If we’re
talking about the current season, then it has to be van Dijk, de Bruyne and
Aguero; three players who read the game sublimely well. If it’s going back to
the formation of the Premier League then Kompany, Viera and Cantona simply
couldn’t be beaten. Shearer on the bench I suppose.
How many grounds have you
visited?
Good question; over 300 from
Wembley to Wembley Town. I call myself a ground collector rather than hopper as
my primary football interest is watching Newcastle Benfield. I only watch other
teams when I can’t watch my own. I must state that, whatever the standard of
football, supporters care as passionately about the result whether it’s
Barcelona or Brechin City. Hence anyone who watches football regularly is as
valid and important a member of the game’s body politic as any other. I despise
the notion of superfans and the idea that certain standards of football have a
kind of “purity” attached to them that others don’t.
What is your usual match day
routine when visiting a new ground?
A programme, a pin badge and a
pie are my purchases of choice.
What makes non league unique to
you?
The fact I choose to watch
Newcastle Benfield doesn’t make me a better fan than my neighbour who has 2
season tickets for St James Park. At the moment, I cannot envisage the
situation whereby I will not watch a game of football, 90% of the time a
non-league one, every Saturday during the rest of my life. I love the fact I
know many, if not most, opposition fans, players and management, in the
Northern League. You see, as I get older, I like my gigs to be intimate, my
pubs to be quiet and my football to be grassroots. Others prefer the opposite
and that works for them, so I won’t criticize.
Have you ever visited any games
abroad? What makes the experience different in other countries? Have you
visited any obscure grounds? What made them different to the others?
My family were all Irish, so I’ve
been to 20 League of Ireland grounds over the years. Additionally, I lived in
Slovakia for 2 years, in the capital Bratislava. The team I followed were
Petrzalka (they beat Celtic 5-0 in CL qualifiers back in 2005) and my principal
reason for travelling around the Transdanubian Basin was watching Petrzalka
lose 2-0 to the likes of Dunajska Streda and Banska Bystrica. Having visited
loads of grounds in this country on my own, it wasn’t massively different
abroad, though I struggled with the programme on most occasions. I did learn
loads of new swear words of course.
As regards obscure grounds,
possibly Balintore Athletic from the North Caledonian League, Athy Town of the
Kildare League and Deportivo Betono from the bottom division of the Basque
regional league are not the sort of venues most ground collectors, or even
football fans, have on their radar.
What is the best goal you've ever
seen, live and in general? The best game you have ever watched? The worst? In
general, and ones that you have attended on your travels?
English League: Alan Shearer,
Newcastle v Everton, December 2002
English Non-League: John
Campbell, Benfield v Billingham Synthonia, January 2012
Best League game: Newcastle 5
Brentford 1, March 1993
Best Non-League game: Benfield 5
Runcorn Town 4, December 2018
Worst League game: Newcastle 0
Barnsley 0, November 1990
Worst Non-League game: West
Auckland 1 Whickham 0, January 1997
Your favourite grounds to visit?
England: Valley Parade, Bradford
City
Scotland: Easter Road, Hibernian
English Non-League: Woodhorn
Lane, Ashington
Scottish Non-League: Dunterlie
Park, Arthurlie & Hannah Park, Shotts Bon Accord
Defunct English League Grounds:
Highbury, Arsenal & Leeds Road, Huddersfield
Defunct English Non-League
Grounds: Portland Park, Ashington & Kingsway, Bishop Auckland
What grounds are you planning on
visiting in the next few months?
I’ve never been that bothered
about doing the whole 92, but Scotland is a different matter. I want to have
the 42 SPFL grounds done by the end of next season, so Airdrie, Alloa and
Dundee are in my sights. I only need Cobh Ramblers and Cork City to complete
the League of Ireland, so a trip “back home” is on the cards as well. There are
a few Northern Alliance park and school 4G pitches that I need to experience as
well.
Can we expect to see you down at
Squires Gate in the near future?
Who knows what the FA Cup or FA
Vase have in store next season? In general, Lancashire is an area where I’m
poorly travelled; a situation I need to address.
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