The Outsider

 I tried to watch Gateshead v Brackley, unsuccessfully...

Friday tea time, I’d been to Enigma Tap to get my craft ale prescription filled. Unlocking the bike, I noticed the fella from Three Kings Brewery had showed up to drop some bottles off and take back a few empty kegs. Him and Luke started discussing business in the second lockdown; the swift conclusion was that things are shit and getting worse. Flattening the R number may or may not be a justifiable reason for reducing our society to an endless, miserable cycle of sleeping then working, without any recreational respite in the pub or at the football, but the blame for the catastrophic mismanagement of COVID-19 that has caused the preposterous curtailment of our basic human rights, rests entirely with Johnson and his shower of Tory twats.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, whoever was responsible for the disgraceful decision to allow universities to open their doors for freshers from all over the country, put them in mortal danger by insisting on face to face teaching and charge the poor sods £9k fees and a further £4 grand or so for the pleasure of being held under virtual house arrest in soulless concrete blocks, should have their arse kicked until the cows come home. The cause of the second wave is almost entirely down to the hideous mismanagement of higher education. As my trips throughout the Northern Alliance in the autumn demonstrated, attending grassroots football does not spread the virus. Of course, sense and truth have nothing to do with the Government’s strategies (we must have had a dozen by now) against the virus, which is why we’ve been shut down at grassroots level since Bonna Neet, regardless of the deeply negative effect it has on our mental health. I feel most alive at a game of football, especially when the lads I’m watching are playing for love not money. Take that pleasure away from me and I get agitated, fretful and panicky; I truly suffer when I can’t get to a game. Mind I was suffering more from the beer than anything else last Saturday, the first under lockdown.

For Saturday 14^th, I had the inspirational idea of watching Gateshead versus Brackley from a vantage point outside the International Stadium, reasoning that stood by myself on a windswept hillside would still prove a more atmospheric experience than taking a seat alongside the Heed Army under normal circumstances. Blyth Spartans were also at home, to NUFC’s 1972 nemesis, Hereford no less, but I reasoned Croft Park offers little or no opportunity for unobtrusive, quasi-legal snooping. Shame as I was thinking of a tortuous pun for the title along the lines of Up the Hill and Without the Dale, as Robbie has retired. However, since I didn’t go to Spartans, you can forget what I’ve just said.

Back in the day, and I was at Gateshead’s first game at the International Stadium in July 1974 against East Fife of course, you could just wander all around the ground. I remember terraces of stepped shale behind the goal at the Old Fold end, but nothing on the East side or the end towards the river. Once the Brendan Foster stand was built, whenever I went, we used to congregate at either of the two corners in front of the seats, often on the tartan track itself; a victory over South Liverpool on New Year’s Day 1975 and a second round FA Cup draw with Rochdale in December of that year stick in my mind. Unfortunately, it appears GIS is now as secure as Camp X-Ray, free viewing spots are almost non-existent. Along the West and Northern sides, locked gates and two metre high fences preclude entrance. Even the old, though now re-laid and rejuvenated, all-weather pitch is ferme a clef. The Gateshead College sports campus athwart the Felling By-Pass has annexed and flattened the whole of the South and Eastern sides, transforming barren land fit only for iconic Newcastle Brown Ale commercials, into football and rugby pitches.

This seemed to leave only one option; either trying to look inconspicuous while staring through an open gate at the side of the main entrance or get up high in the diagonally opposite corner and look over the wooden fence. Pretty soon after I made the decision to go adventuring, I began to regret it as I’m getting old. Climbing the bank and crawling through the dense undergrowth of brambles, furze and tangled thorns, I realised I was out of my comfort zone. Thankfully I was wearing my old German Army surplus parka, which stopped me being shredded from knee to neck and Jack Wolfskin boots, which gave me a semblance of balance on the soaked earth. I fell, slowly and gracelessly, twice, before abandoning my quest and slowly descending to the terra firma of Saltmeadows Road.

Back in my original position, I found the door had been locked, so I took up a position looking through the main reception and at the penalty area Gateshead were defending. At some point keeper James Montgomery clenched both fists in celebration, signifying The Tynesiders had taken the lead. Brackley rarely mounted an attack, so I mainly set my gaze on a 30 yard section of pitch that had only one player occupying it, except when Brackley applied a bit pressure at the end of the half. I must admit I’ve been baffled by the description of the National League North as Elite football. Anyone who saw Brackley’s full backs taking turns to project long throws straight out of play, generally clearing the bar by a couple of yards, would surely have seen my point.

For the second period, I climbed a shallow incline that afforded an unrestricted view of the goal at the river end, but none of the Old Fold penalty box. Typically, Gateshead quickly opened up a 2-0 lead and threatened to score every time they attacked. Again, the majority of my viewing was of depopulated greensward. In the last 10 minutes as night and temperatures fell, I figured the game was in the bag, so I headed back round to the main entrance; somewhat unbelievably, Brackley contrived a quickfire brace to take a share of the points, though Gateshead almost won it with the last touch of the game, when a cross into the box bobbled agonisingly wide for want of a touch. Full time: 2-2 and I’d missed every goal. Next week, they’re at home again. Anyone fancy it?

Incidentally, I must point out that I was the only person attempting to view the game today, which probably tells you more about me than you’d ever need to know.