Cornering

 Issue 10 of Hopeless Football Romantic is now on sale; get it from @weareHFR or https://wearehfr.bigcartel.com/product/hfr-issue-10 please. There are many brilliant articles inside its covers & I'm proud that my autumn trilogy about Harry Pearson completes in here -:

Harry Pearson’s first book, The Far Corner; A Mazy Dribble Through North-East Football, was published in 1995. Ostensibly a diary of his attendance at 25 games, played at 23 different grounds during the 1993-1994 season, it is also a history and a celebration of the game in this corner of the world, not to mention a presumably unintentional semi-autobiography that is by turns screamingly funny and disarmingly poignant. Most importantly, it is possibly the greatest book ever written about football. Harry’s latest book, The Farther Corner; A Sentimental Return to North-East Football, is his fourteenth and a return to the subject that elevated him into the public consciousness after a quarter of a century interregnum. It is a fitting companion to his debut, but one that is garlanded in sombre colours as time has been a malign influence on both the game and the author; a man who I am truly honoured to call one of my closest friends. In the latest book, Harry attends 22 games (it would have been 23, but he got the kick off time of Hartlepool v Salford City wrong, arriving outside Victoria Park to see a stream of jubilant Poolies wending their merry way home after a last minute winner in a 3-2 classic) at 14 different grounds.

Having been a devotee of When Saturday Comes since I first came across it in Rough Trade records in Notting Hill back in November 1986, I was well aware of the evolution in football writing that spread from fanzines to books, such as Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. The coverage WSC gave to The Far Corner in early 1995 caused me to order a copy, which I devoured in less than a day. To say it was kicking at open door would be a massive understatement; you see, from the beginning of the 1993/1994 season, I had resolved to take in Northern League games on any Saturday when I wasn’t watching Newcastle, whether because of inaccessible or overpriced away games, the proliferation of international breaks or the cursed intervention of Sky television. Once in possession, I reread it, then read it again, before loaning it around my mates, all of whom adored it. Eventually, I plucked up courage to write to Harry, to ask him if I could interview him for NUFC fanzine The Mag, then nearly fainted when he called my home phone a week later.

On 18^th November 1995, Newcastle drew 1-1 at Villa Park, while Harry and I took in South Shields 1 Washington 2. It wasn’t the greatest of games, though it was one of the most important I’ve ever been to, as Harry and I formed a bond that has endured over the years, to the extent we took in Haltwhistle Jubilee 4 Hexham 3 on a soaking wet night that trumpeted the arrival of the non-league season in early September. In The Farther Corner, Harry recalls that trip to South Shields, whereby the home team and the ground were owned by uPVC window magnate John Rundle, who had turned the clubhouse into a licensed showroom for his products. So effective were they that Harry and I missed the kick off and first couple of minutes, on account of not hearing the ref’s whistle.

Beautifully phrased and exquisitely finessed, such 24-carat anecdotes pepper both books, adding depth and human interest to an already persuasive anecdote. However, whereas those in The Far Corner are uniformly uproarious, those in the new book are often more tear-stained than sepia-tinged. Witness the following aside in a chapter dedicated to Ryton and Crawcrook Albion v Washington in September 2018;

This fixture had a certain sentimental value to me as it was seven years before that I’d been reunited with Ian… After that first game (at South Shields), we took to roaming about together watching football all over the old Durham and Northumberland coalfields… Then Ian’s life hit a bump and by the time he’d got over his troubles I’d got problems of my own.

 That final sentence, disarmingly gentle and simple as it is, refers to as much sadness, despair and emotional baggage as could fill a five act tragedy: divorce, betrayal, unemployment, debt and an unbearable burden of sadness that would make you wonder how we didn’t give up. But then you remember; the Northern League brought us together and it was kept us going through the dark days, as well as providing a purpose for our middle-aged meanderings as a second wave of contentment benevolently blankets us both. However, despite what the last few paragraphs contain, this article is not me attempting to claim some kind of second hand celebrity status; it is an attempt to evaluate how things have changed over the last 25 years.

When Harry’s writing, which includes books on such disparate subjects as: agricultural shows, Belgium, cricket, dog walking, the internet and professional cycling (in Belgium, naturally), came to public prominence, he was universally referred to as a Middlesbrough fan; this was very true at the time of The Far Corner, which includes an excited epilogue about Steve Gibson’s plans for a new ground and the installation of Bryan Robson as manager, the two of which had been announced just as the book went to press. News of what was to become a decade of joy for the Teessiders gave The Far Corner a decidedly upbeat ending, just as reference to walking through Newcastle on the day he’d taken in Ashington 1 Whickham 1 and the Charltons’ boyhood home, arriving in town just after The Magpies had qualified for the UEFA Cup after beating Arsenal 2-0 on the last day of the season in May 94, had made the final chapter so uplifting; seen through sepia tones a quarter of a century later, it almost provokes a tear.

And yet, in The Farther Corner, we live in an era where 8 of the grounds he visited in 93/94, as well as 3 of the Northern League sides featured (Evenwood, Gretna and Langley Park), no longer exist. While Ashington, Bishop Auckland, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and West Allotment (very soon we’re promised) upcycled their crumbling old grounds, the tragedy of Darlington abandoning beautiful Feethams and the farce of Durham City’s travails that resulted in them groundsharing at Willington, while eternally finishing bottom of the NL second division, are cautionary tales for fans of any club where a chairman of chief executive talks blandly and mendaciously about plans for a shiny new stadium.

Of course, it isn’t only tales of sad misfortune or rank incompetence that scar the North East landscape with half-remembered, defunct arenas which changed Harry’s focus so markedly in this latest book. He doesn’t set foot in St James’ Park, though he fully appreciates and cogently articulates why the Ashley Years have wrung every scintilla of joy and hope from a famously optimistic set of supporters. Neither does he visit the Stadium of Light, preferring to touch lightly on the wreckage of SAFC, much in the way of a Victorian paterfamilias steering conversation away from the shameful deeds of an institutionalised sibling. In fact, he doesn’t even go to Boro; like the players, the supporters and everyone bar Steve Gibson, he just can’t be chewed with them.

Much in the same way that Harry’s personal and professional lives betrayed him, with the shattering end to a 25 year relationship and a heartless P45 from The Guardian, where he’d been the shining star of the sport section for over a decade, football at the higher levels offers him, and by implication all of us, neither a sense of comfort nor entertainment, but instinctive revulsion at the sordid, money-saturated, pantomime it has become. Thus, it is no surprise to discover more than half of the chapters of The Farther Corner are devoted ostensibly, we’re talking Harry and his legendary predilection for digression here, to the three Northern League clubs he has developed a passionate affection for: Dunston UTS, Newcastle Benfield and Ryton & Crawcrook Albion.  Of course, the other chapters on: Consett, Darlington, Esh Winning, Hartlepool, Marske United, Morpeth, Newcastle University, South Shields and Sunderland RCA, are equally fabulous in their descriptions and digressions, not to mention the deft delivery of hilarious punchlines and crippling blows to the emotional solar plexus.

While there is scope for argument that being a Tyne Valley resident, Ryton and to a lesser extent Dunston, are his local teams, the truth is, Harry has good friends at all three clubs. He talks warmly of his pals Jimmy and Margaret at Dunston, admiringly of the tireless Steve Carter, the secretary at Ryton, while even managing the odd good word about a man who looks like some wild Irish folk singer and his beloved, estranged Newcastle Benfield. In just about every chapter, Harry talks about conversations, pints and outings with an array of kindred spirits, slightly eccentric perhaps, who value him not just as a brilliant writer, but as a bloody brilliant bloke, even if he is too bashful to admit this. In that sense, The Farther Corner is more than a wryly amusing sports book, it is Harry’s tribute to friendship, compassion, support, community and the undeniable social glue of non-league football that binds these trends together and gives us something tangible to cling on to in these desperately challenging times.

Please buy this book. It’s brilliant.