Almost Blue

Meet the New Huns; same as the Old Huns...

As a follower of both Hibernian and Newcastle United, you can probably imagine how much fun Saturday 23^rd January was for me. First of all, unaccustomed to the role of competition favourites, Hibs succeeded in fluffing half a dozen more than presentable chances in the opening period against St Johnstone in the League Cup semi, before disintegrating catastrophically and recording a 3-0 defeat. Having already lost the 2020 Cup semi-final to lower division Hearts, a second defeat at Hampden in three months felt even more galling than expected. Thankfully, there wasn’t a great deal of time to mull over this disaster, as Newcastle’s predictably spineless capitulation to Villa kicked off soon after the St Johnstone debacle.

In the words of Steve Brooooth, all we could do was to take the positives (honestly; he really does say that), dust ourselves down (yes, he did) and move on to the next game (I know, I know), which were against Leeds and The Huns respectively. Two more defeats of course, though both utterly undeserved for differing reasons. In the second half Newcastle, inspired by new coach the Reverend Graeme Jones, threw everything at the unpopular, dirty, cheating Yorkshire bastards, but still came up short. At Easter Road, the game hinged on a sickening, unprovoked, unnecessary and predictably cowardly stamp on Ryan Porteous, by Alfredo Morelos, the solitary outfield bastard (McGregor’s still a filthy OB in between the sticks of course) still on the Castle Greyskull payroll from the first, trophy free decade of The New Huns’ existence. Having escaped censure for his disgusting assault on the prone Hibs defender, who later left the field injured, there was a certain inevitability about Morelos scoring the evening’s only goal.

The referee who had a clear sight of this act of thuggery was none other than Lord Lundy with a whistle, Kevin Clancy. As can be deduced from his name, he is ethnically Irish and almost certain a member of the Church of Rome. The disestablishment of the Scottish Labour Party as an elected organisation, marked the end of any vestiges of Socialist or socially progressive political representation for Scottish-Irish Catholics at either Westminster or Holyrood, meaning those whose roots are in that historically marginalised and oppressed minority, are required to play the Useful Idiot for their thirty pieces of silver. Clancy is renowned as being the most pro Rangers official since the days of Tiny Wharton and, while obviously not “on the square,” he has to dance barefoot for his Lodge masters, if he wishes to make a career in the higher echelons of the Scottish game.

Ironically, while the corrupt activities and sectarian ideology at the heart of Jeanette Mugabe and her husband Tough Guy Murrell’s Pizza Crunch Republic get worse by the week, New Rangers, under the tutelage of that famed alumnus of Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School, Steven Gerrard, get better by the game. No longer do The Huns fill their first team with slit eyed and shirty blade artists from Ayrshire or lumbering drunks from the darkest spots of the Black North; under Gerard they are swaggering to the beat of a different sounding non-Lambeg Drum, on a distinctly non-Orange cakewalk to the title. While the SNP’s Krankie Kommandants seek to ruin the life of that corpulent Ken Stott of the Highlands, Alex Salmond, something remarkable is happening at Ibronx. For the third time in Scottish football history, a club has dragged themselves off the dissection table and brought back to life their body politic to deny their traditional, fierce rivals the near mythical prize of 10 in a row titles. Old Rangers did it in 1974-1975; Celtic (with the help of both Andy Goram’s own goal v Killie) did it in 1997-1998 and now New Rangers, after only 9 years in existence, are about to do it in the most emphatic circumstances. As an institution, New Rangers may be as vile, sectarian and repulsive as their antecedents, but the team that Gerard has fashioned, drearily functional though it may be from front to back, are grinding Celtic’s pouting puss further into the dirt with every passing game.

Standing 23 points clear of the Tic, despite the trifling matter of 3 games in hand for The Bhoys (which they’ve no guarantee of winning), the real and most important fact to digest about this season is not just how far Celtic have declined, but how good Gerard’s team have been. Undoubtedly, they will match Celtic’s 2016-2017 achievement under Brendan Rogers, by going an entire league campaign unbeaten, though Gerard will have to address his side’s pitiful weaknesses in domestic cup competitions, if they wish to achieve anything resembling the dominance Celtic enjoyed under the now Leicester City boss as, with the greatest of respect, epochal sides don’t lose to St Mirren at the quarter final stage. Of course, Europe was always the nut Rogers failed to crack during his Parkhead tenure; in contrast, who would bet against a Leicester v New Rangers Europa League final? Gerard has really been pulling up trees in Europe, while poor Neil Lennon’s busted flushes stagger from one continental humiliation to another. It’s a sad thing to admit, but Neil Lennon is yesterday’s man, which is not what you want to be in football vortex defined by contrasting interpretations of 17^th century Irish history.

What may have played into the hands of the Newco from Edmiston Drive this season, is the complete and utter absence of supporters in grounds. We can take it as read between now and the end of time that Rangers fans, old and new, will always engage in 90 minutes of sectarian bile inside football grounds, even if they are playing in Perth or Dingwall. Simply put, that is their DNA, their raison d’etre, their articles of faith. Having assembled the most loathsome following of any football club on earth, Old and New Rangers have often been hamstrung by the excesses of their fans influencing the conduct of some of their more volatile and cerebrally hard of thinking players; I’m talking Bilal Mhosni’s meltdown at Fir Park all the way back to Graham Roberts conducting the Hunnish horde here. In a silent and empty ground, football is all that matters. Realpolitik and Kulturkampf have taken an enforced gap year. Make no mistake, Gerrard has assembled a functional, efficient and wholly professional side, blending the aged Davis, Defoe and McGregor, with the hitherto unsung Goldson, Aribo and Arfield, with the more eye-catching talents of Kent, Hagi and, it has to be said, Morelos. The result is they’ve won the title by playing football, rather than by force of their sickening ultra-right wing ideology and institutional sectarianism.

Meanwhile, what of Celtic? The game was probably up before a ball was kicked, following the atrocious error of judgement that allowed Fraser Forster to return to Southampton, resulting in the panic signing of Greek keeper Barkas, who has not convinced from day one. With Scott Bain out of favour, this has left new signing from Cliftonville, the wet behind the ears Connor Hazard, to don the gloves; he looks nervy to say the least. Equally, Shane Duffy arrived from Brighton, assuming the title was a done deal and his slippers-on, reading the paper in a comfy armchair approach to the SPL, has seen the big stopper humiliated on the pitch and dropped to the bench to mend his ways. Laxalt is another underwhelming loan signing, enjoying a gap year in the Merchant City, while all Ajeti has to recommend him is that he isn’t Klimala. Celtic, while still boasting a midfield stuffed with players of flair, guile and mastery, such as Christie, Forrest, McGregor and the impressive Soro and Turnbull, have only the unreliable duo of Elyonoussi and Edouard, backed up by the willing, if ageing Griffiths, to rely on for goals. As for the defence; other than Ajer, you’d think Liam Brady was back in charge. Mind I would imagine Neil Lennon wishes he was.

The fundamental issue with Celtic is partly that Lennon has taken an underachieving and poorly recruited squad as far as he can. He appears vincreasing tired, drawn and tetchy in press conferences. Witness the aggressive defence of the wholly indefensible jolly to the world capital of Watches and Trainers, Dubai. Not only that, the distance between him and Peter Lawall is becoming a public embarrassment. Don’t get me wrong, Lennon has been a wonderful servant to the Hoops. Clearly, he will be regarded as one of the greatest managers and players ever at Celtic Park, though his race is effectively run. I’d suggest it is pointless to fire him this season. Instead, let him work his notice and look to appoint a new man in the summer.

One name being bandied around is El Fraudo himself, Rafa Benitez. However, I would suggest his dull, pragmatic, sterile approach to the game would not be tolerated at Parkhead. In fact, he’s more suited to the Rangers approach to the game. Perhaps he could replace Gerard, who I’d have at Newcastle in a shot. Frank Lampard has recently been bulleted by Chelsea and while I wouldn’t necessarily want him as NUFC boss, I’d definitely play him ahead of Shelvey and Hendrick. If I were asked who should take over from Lennon, I’d unequivocally state Eddy Howe is the man best suited, though that is for the future.

At the present time, we must give thanks that the Premiership and lower division Championship, home of the financially unviable Hearts, are still going. In terms of personal tragedies; my first is Hibs stuttering so badly, my second is the cessation of Leagues 1 and 2 and my third is the still empty terraces, but this vaccine may yet hasten a return to normality. Until then, we must count our blessings. There’s a League Cup final between St Johnstone and Ferranti to look forward to, as well as a Cup competition that probably won't have recommenced by the time they’ve unfurled the pennant round Govan way.

 Anyway, GGTTH and Fuck the Hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His Struggle

 Steve Brooooth is having a hard, hard time. Nobody is surprised by this...

I have to say it was a blessed relief to see Trump fly off into the distance the other day, especially as his departure wasn’t marked by any further shows of armed strength by the deeply disorganized and educationally subnormal militias of hillbilly, neo Nazis he’s been courting these past 4 years; well, other than Redneck Robbie in Hazlerigg on Dixie of course. I’m not under any illusion that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could in any way be described as Socialists, but they do show a willingness to embrace progressive ideals within their early days rhetoric. Contrast the cultured, inclusive inauguration ceremony at the White House with the demotic despot’s lachrymose leave-taking from a near-deserted USAF base, to the strains of the Garden State’s foremost housepainter Francis Albert’s number one schmaltzfest.

We must pause here to remind ourselves that Dean Martin and Tony Bennett had far better voices than the little baldy guy from Hoboken who shared many a hot lunch and warm beer with Sammy Davis Jr. Sinatra was, without question, as rampant an egotist as Trump and someone who shared a preponderance towards delusions of adequacy with that other noted interpreter of Paul Anka’s second most famous number behind “Diana,” noted author and chip shop gourmand Steve Brooooth, whose piloting of Wor Farce 1 would have recalled the final seconds of the Hindenberg if Brooooth had been at the controls. Rather than minutiae of American politics, it is to the continued fall from grace of the House of Mag that I must now turn my gaze.

It takes some going to be a bigger shit show than the Republican Party, Celtic and HM Government’s response to the COVID pandemic combined, but Brooooth’s Front Foot Mags have effortlessly managed it. The Corbridge and Fossway reared squashy nosed buffoon has, with the season reaching its midpoint, somehow loosely held on to the reins of a team that are averaging a point a game, yet still sit a scarcely credible 7 points above the drop zone. This is despite a run of games that, since I last blogged about them, has seen a pitiful haul of 8 points from 10 league games, no wins in their last 9 games in all competitions, during which time they’ve scored 1 solitary goal, as well as piteous exits from both cups.

Among that litany of shame were two of the most spineless surrenders we’ve seen since that other bullshitting fraud, Graeme Souness was being paid handsomely for serving up horseshit hoofball to a disbelieving and disaffected supporter base. Even such witless, craven non-entities as Pards, Juan Cava, Sam the Sham, MacLexit and Joker Kinnear would have flushed purple with guilt at the sporting atrocities served up at Brentford and Bramall Lane where, against a side without a victory of any sorts in half a calendar year, Brooooth, having got his excuses in early by shamelessly calling for the season to be junked on account of Covid as, apparently, it’s immoral to still be playing football during a pandemic, sent out a side devoid of creativity and hamstrung by a selection that included 7 defenders. You know, it wasn’t this bad under Bill McGarry. In fact, it’s a bloody good job the grounds are empty; otherwise some ageing hothead would have been in the dugout remodelling old plasticine sneck’s bugle into ever more acute angles. This isn’t “My Way;” it’s “My Struggle.”

Possibly one of the worst things about both Newcastle United and football in general, is the ease of access to live games. I can watch the slow motion disintegration of Brooooth’s work in progress as they move higher up the pitch, apparently, on 4 separate viewing platforms, safe in the knowledge they’ll be shite on every one of them. I’ve seen every single one of Newcastle’s last dozen games, where the performances were, by turn: predictable, encouraging, pleasing, woeful, desperate, shameful, passive, spirited, unfortunate, wasteful, disgraceful and pitiful. I’ll leave you to match up the adjectives with the games.

These days, the NUFC Twitterati continue to come up with ever more insane ways to make the club the laughing stock of the entire global sports audience. The latest shady operators on the block are Newcastle Supporters Consortium Limited, who have appropriated the questionable tactics of Wor Fund, who sought to buy the club in the same way that Fire, Auto, Marine insured your car back in the day. The Ponzis in these current unhappy days seem to already have fallen out, presumably over a comb, with remaining deity King Keith employing the talents of the quick tempered and provocative DJ Marshy as his social media hit man, issuing profanity-drenched threats and insults to anyone who doesn’t acclaim them as the legitimate owners of Kafiristan United.

I haven’t told you the best bit though; their number one tactic appears to be encouraging supporters to email Boris Johnson. Now as you know I’m no apologist for that pile of subhuman excrement, but I’m prepared to concede that he does have other things on his mind than getting on the lap top to fire off several screeds of warm words, promising to get stuck in and sort out a deal whereby a squalid, blood and petrodollar fiefdom with a track record for human rights abuses even worse than Northumbria Police, can take over the club lock, stock and roll out a barrel of crude. Alright, so Johnson and Matt Hancock probably took on the Blades Business Crew outside The Eldon the other week, which is why Britain’s foremost Islamaphobe Patel was left to mishandle the daily briefing, but he’s not really interested in grown men cyber sobbing about Jeff Hendrick getting a starting place ahead of Shelvey. Then again, Newcastle fans have absolutely no sense of perspective, or indeed irony, when it comes to the importance of the club in the wider world. What do you expect from a collective who seem to regard Almiron as anything more than the worst bits of Muto and Lua Lua combined

You know, we should lay off the insults directed towards Brooooth and NCSL as Steve Wraith, perhaps for the noblest reasons, has been lobbying for an end to the trolling campaign of hatred that has seen one idiot turn up outside his door on a midweek morning for a row. The same nutter, we’ll call him Frank Dallas, has recently accepted a police caution for making violent threats to perhaps the worst NUFC troll on Twitter, Ian Hannon. This is a bloke who agreed to be on a 1 hour You Tube documentary with Steve, to argue the toss with his nemesis Ben Johnson. Simply because this Ben lad, who seems to be generally alright, if a bit prone to anger, doesn’t rate Brooooth, Hannon started a campaign of sordid hatred and vilification, including setting up multiple Grindr profiles, to enact some kind of twisted vengeance. A small, rotund, atrichous, dead-eyed sociopath, Hannon speaks in an unnerving monotone and frankly appears not to feel he has done anything wrong. Well, as the tectonic plates of law enforcement round Pontefract continue to move imperceptibly, we’ll just have to wait a while longer until he gets his day in court and six months in the Big House.

In the meantime, Pontefract Peachy has cosied up with King Keith, no doubt to the accompaniment of a DJ Marshy playlist, featuring the greatest moments of the Violent Femmes. It was either that or building up a profile of Brooooth on Grindr after his Gerald Ratner style press conference after the Blades and before the Arse, when he sounded like every other fat, boring, middle-aged fan, whining about the players not trying. Was this playing to the gallery or did he mean it? Who knows; whatever the reason the effect was the same; a predictable second half capitulation where Emil Krafth looked like he was suffering from some kind of inner ear infection that played havoc with his balance. Don’t stop there; Lewis on the other flank was dogshit, Lascelles is a nice bloke and a fine club captain, but he’s either not recovered from Covid or not good enough to play first choice centre back, not least because he’s the worst one at the club and Shelvey is a lazy liability whose Hollywood balls are now strictly straight to DVD Alan Smithies material.

The serious point is that, having thrown half the squad under the bus after the Sheffield United debacle, the other half fared no better in the final analysis against Arsenal. Don’t get me wrong; we have enough good players to put out a good team. The problem is the manager knows nothing about tactics, simply can’t motivate the team and has fewer allies in the dressing room than Trump has on Capitol Hill. We might be fucked you know.

With Villa, Leeds, Everton, Palace and Chelsea as our next 5 games, losses in the first 2 of those will mean our absentee landlord and his bong-eyed Captain Boycott having to make a decision. However, if the only show in town is Mark Hughes, why bother? The only good thing about the Welshman is he’s so quietly spoken you’ll not hear the horseshit he comes out with in interviews. Frankly, our only hope is Saint Maximim returns in his splendour. He was convalescing for so long I had thought about trying to crowdfund a documentary, called Looking for Number 10, then not making it after Joe Public stumped up a decent wad of cash.

Perhaps the saddest thing for me is that the dross served up by Newcastle United is making me turn my nose up at the rest of the fare on offer. As for the rest of the Premier League, I would say that I only truly enjoy watching Man City and Leicester in full flight, as even Liverpool, now that Salah appears to have gone on a work-to-rule, are pedestrian and uninspiring. I don’t know whether it’s my age or what, but being genuinely shocked that Wayne Rooney is old enough to retire or that Theo Walcott has almost reached his mid-30s shows the disengagement I have from the top flight, except for Mourinho’s still superb press conferences. Don’t get me wrong, I continue to love Championship football, as I’m preparing for Newcastle’s challenges next season.

Coming Down Fast

 Helter Skelter 2021.......

National Lockdown #3. New Variant Coronavirus. The Beast from the East #2.  Trump’s Tramps. Brexit Year Zero. Newcastle United. Dry bloody January. The fucking Tories imposing restrictions the Roundheads would have balked at, in a disastrously Cavalier fashion. Happy New Year eh? No wonder many are looking wistfully back to 2020 with something approaching nostalgia if this is the best 2021 has to offer us.

The wisest words anyone said to me during the whole of that last, benighted plague year were spoken by young Ben McGee one sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-September. We were sat on the players’ balcony, half drunk, watching Tynemouth 2s beat their Sunderland counterparts in the semi-final of the Banks’ Bowl. It was not a game that stayed long in the memory, despite it being the last one I saw in an already drastically curtailed season. What did stay with me was the way in which the trainee legal eagle summed the cursed, declining world up so perfectly. While not a Marxist, Ben marvelled at how the Capitalist system that had ruled much of the planet for nigh on 400 years, was built on such unsteady foundations that the very first human who contacted Covid-19 had effectively destabilised the Global means of trade and supply and the attendant distribution of power and wealth.

Four months on, with our human rights calcified and erased, harking back to trhe privations endured by the underclasses before the Great Reform Act and the Abolition of Slavery, the ruling elite seem no further forward in their muddleheaded struggle to save humanity from the twin spectres of disease and decay. The 100,000 deaths and counting that Johnson, Hancock, Patel and the craven imbeciles who rush to tongue their ideologically infectious assholes, are responsible for, may just be the beginning of the mendacious and maladroit plan for mass murder that the Khmer Bleu will inflict on us.

For this piece, when I discuss Coronavirus, please be aware that my remarks are centred wholly on the situation in England. While it appears that Celtic have been employing the help of the same buffoons as the Tories for their public relations strategy, the inescapable truth is that, even if Jeanette Mugabe ends up in jail for her devious, ad hominem prosecution and persecution of Alex “Cuddles” Salmond, she has done her best to avoid turning Scotland into the charnel house England has become.

Since Johnson belatedly responded to the announcement on 31 January 2020 that there were cases of Covid present in England, by announcing National Lockdown #1 on 20 March 2020, there has been little if any evidence of cohesive thinking, planning, proportionate or appropriate responses to the pandemic by the pricks in power. Other countries have seamlessly stifled the virus with a minimum of fuss, while the reactive response in England has been to work and infect the heroes in the NHS to death, as the brazen, braying dishonest donkeys allegedly in control have singularly failed to keep anyone safe and, predictably, have reverted to type by lining their pockets by dishing out corrupt contracts to their chums. Witness the outrageous, though thankfully withdrawn, recent proposed school lunches that even Johnson rejected; starvation rations more fitting to the gulag where Ivan Denisovich languished than the nutritional needs of any growing child in, allegedly, one of the most advanced civilisations on the planet. Don’t worry though; after the shiftless mea culpas over a bag of carrots and a loaf of dry bread being presented as sustenance, the morons have now instructed schools not to feed children over half term. For what died the Sons of Rashford?

Looking back now on the misguided Eat Out to Help Out initiative, when big plates signified big strides forward in the race to normality, it is possible to feel a soupcon of sympathy for the poor bugger who thought the whole thing up. However, whichever meathead (and I’m training both barrels on Gavin Williamson here) thought it was a good idea for schools to go back in September ought to be shot with shit. Mind the same useless wankstain who ushered in the social disaster caused by a return to the classrooms was minor in terms of the catastrophe that was the start of the academic year in almost every University, deserves shooting with an assault rifle.

Sending schools back was simply a malicious, cut price way of turning teachers into glorified child minders, so the majority of those who could have been furloughed were corralled into getting their noses back to the grindstone, thus enabling the Capitalist class to bathe deeper bin money. While that was as sordid a motive as I’ve ever come across, it fades to moralistic philanthropy when compared to the vile grab for cash that saw students firstly coughing up nine grand for fees and the thick end of another five for accommodation and then coughing up their lungs as hundreds of thousands of young people from not just all around the country, but all around the world, were forced to mingle and then be confined to barracks in a grim Halls of Residence cell, doing their degrees on-line. If they tried to escape their digs, they’d find barbed wire fences restricting their movements at Manchester Met and trigger happy flatfoots removing their consciousness with tasers by the side of the Trent.

As yet, the level of infection and numbers of cases linked to Universities reopening has not been publicised, but to my mind it was the single worst example of social repression by the Tories and their mates the Boys in Blue during the entire pandemic, which is saying a lot since I’ve not had a proper pint since early November. Universities are full of young, intelligent, vibrant minds; after a summer of rebellion for the Black Lives Matter protests, the Government didn’t want any of this Free Speech malarkey inconveniencing them. Did you know all political demonstrations are currently illegal under the Lockdown legislation? You do now.

The drip feed of grudgingly imparted information such as that is what has persuaded me that the Tories, shower of incompetent imbeciles that they are, do have some vaguely defined ulterior motive for the seemingly random acts of unkindness that restrict further our human rights. Basically, on account of the fact that the overwhelming majority of slothful conformists who voted these bastards in, could not be relied on to crawl off the settee and away from the telly for more than 30 seconds, there is absolutely no chance of a contemporary Yeomanry assembling to defend the interests of their overlords. Not unless Sports Direct is doing camo gear in 3XL that is.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Coppers are the ones to look out for, as Babylon are bloodthirsty for power. Witness how the Met are able to randomly and wantonly execute black youths with impunity; it’s coming to a high street near you soon. Witness plod at Tynemouth Metro on New Year’s Eve afternoon quizzing those arriving on Metros regarding their home address and reason for the visit. That’s just fucking scary. Mark my words, sooner or later, some over adrenalized pig is going to let loose a few deadly rounds on a gang of curfew breaking kids, just trying to have some fun without getting hassled by The Man.

The situation is already out of control stateside. I’ve no particular affection for the Democratic Party, but at least they don’t wave the flag for QANON or advocate the widespread culling of young black men. The Republicans have always embraced the lunatic fringe on the extreme right and Donald Trump’s personal battalion of neo Nazi, redneck fucktards, aided, abetted, funded and armed by the security forces working inside the US Capitol, aren’t going away soon. One great thing about the failed coup was that so many Republicans had to publicly raise their hands and back. I am fairly certain that either Biden’s inauguration or the largely symbolic impeachment of Trump will see minor terrorist acts at state capitols across the Union. Though I’ve a feeling Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, the Windy City and the Big Apple won’t take such shit lying down. January 20^th could see Helter Skelter coming down fast and wouldn’t that be a fine thing, ladies and gentlemen?

 

 

 

 

The Shining Path

 We've been locked down again haven't we? Well, this is the last football I got to see before the curfew -:

It had to happen, didn’t it? Just as we were feeling our way gingerly back into the glorious world of competitive grassroots football, Johnson, Hancock and all those fucktards admitted that, once again, they’d failed to confront the pandemic properly and predictably decided to punish the rest of us, by slinging the whole country into Tier 4. Of course, this isn’t a lockdown, a circuit breaker or any other minimally comprehensible lexical aberration, it’s just another necessary step on the journey to normality that maintains its default position just beyond the far side of the horizon, however quickly or slowly we approach it.

Of minimal concern to the population as a whole, especially the #NUFC Department of Twitter Sofology who were still drunk on indignant arrogance after Broooth’s Front Foot Mags phoned in a JPEG flag of surrender long before the Boxing Day bollocking at the Etihad kicked off, was the fact I was denied the chance to see live football of any standard on St Stephen’s Day. No Northern League games at all and no entry to elite games which, for the purpose of the tiers of repression, included Blyth Spartans 2 Gateshead 2. Imagine how 2,000 half-drunk punters in Croft Park, throwing oath edged talk back and forth across the Plessey Road DMX, would have created the perfect antithesis to the supposed true meaning of Christmas. Well, we can dream.

In contrast to the accepted practise of the last couple of dozen years at least, the Northern Alliance, instead of embracing its usual pragmatic 2-week shutdown occasioned by local authorities closing their facilities for the holidays, offered clubs the chance to play games on either or both of Monday 28 December and Saturday 2 January. The Massacre of the Innocents was the preferred option of 24 clubs, though frost and floodwaters reduced the actual number of fixtures played to 5. A degree of staggered kick-offs allowed double headers, with a packed gathering at Scotswood seeing the stalemate between Newcastle Blue Star and Burradon New Fordley, with fewer onlookers taking in FC United 0 Prudhoe 1 at the Langdale Centre, while Morpeth FC kept up their 100% win record with a 2-1 victory in a home game switched to Newbiggin.

My unaffected choice was for two games at the same venue on reliable 4G. Druids Park, latterly home to West Allotment Celtic who, as yet, haven’t debuted at their new facility at East Palmersville Pavilion, now the official home of Ponteland United Reserves, hosted the first team, as their muddy pitch at the old High School was frozen solid in a reversed fixture against Blyth Town, whose South Newsham home was similarly adamantine underfoot. The deciding factor for me was the promised appearance of my mate Graham, who I’ve not properly seen in a few years, accompanied by his younger son Tom, respectively a former Ponteland United youth coach and player, at the old Wheatsheaf Ground.  In the circumstances, paying £2 entry was a perfectly sensible requirement. I’d guess the game pulled in about 150 spectators, with a good smattering of actual Blyth fans, Ponteland types and a rake of groundhoppers.

In the end, the only people who may have regretted turning out were the two goalies, who failed to cover themselves in glory for the first four goals, with the Blyth lad fumbling two shots for tap ins and the Pont keeper twice setting up his wall like a crystal meth addled bricklayer. Running the line was the godlike genius of Keith Scoffham, whose raised eyebrows and wistful chuckle told how the septuagenarian superstar viewed the efforts of both custodians as the ball whistled past them. Blyth took the lead for the first time from the penalty spot on 65 minutes and held on for the win in a tough and tight tussle. It was a good game and great to see Graham again, though I fully understood why he and about 130 others pushed off for the warmth afforded by a seat at their own firesides, rather than hanging about for the undercard of Newcastle East End Reserves against Whitley Bay Sports Club A.

The onlookers had thinned out to a couple of dozen mates and hoppers, including me of course. Being a connoisseur of the Northern Alliance Third Division, I was delighted to be joined by Chemfica Amateurs’ senior netminder, Tyrone native Pete Holland; a good keeper, a sound man, a skilled raconteur and one of our lot. Best of all, he was good for a lift home afterwards. He, like me, reacted negatively to the arrival of a van full of the Peelers, though it turned out they were there for benign purposes, supporting one of their number who was featuring for the Coastal club. I’d not had the pleasure of seeing NEER this campaign, though I had seen Chemfica Amateurs dismantle WBSCA 7-2 at Churchill Playing Fields back in September.

The standard of play wasn’t expected to be particularly easy on the eye, and it wasn’t. Despite the 4G surface, the players seemed to believe they were ankle deep in clarts and struggled to move the ball effectively, though Whitley’s Mario Carangelo finished a smart move to put the visitors ahead. After that, NEER came back into the game and, as we thought, equalised via a scramble. Being honest, it wasn’t the best of games and I was more concerned with giving my attention to Pete’s magnificent recounting of Loyalist clown Jeffrey Donaldson’s vituperative reaction to the latest Spider-Man Playstation game that features a pixelated CGI of the Leinster flag, representing Ireland, on the outside of a mythical United Nations building. Donaldson, who’s a fucking lunatic incidentally, issued a strongly worded complaint to the game’s designers that he also opined in Hillsborough Castle, for no apparent reason anyone other than Arlene Forster and Edwin Poots could begin to comprehend, responded with characteristic banal fury; Northern Ireland's future within the UK won't be determined by what's in a Playstation game.

So engrossing was this story, we somehow missed NEER taking the lead. Consequently, the bizarre own goal that we thought put WBSCA ahead was actually an equaliser. Thus, when NEER were given a stonewall penalty in injury time, I found it baffling that NEER reacted wistfully and philosophically rather than with agonised howls when the spot kick was blazed over the bar and into the car park of the deserted Wheatsheaf hotel, that once gave this ground its former name but, in Covid-19 times, resembles a budget version of the Overlook. I suppose it is fitting, as the Northern Alliance has been the shining light of my year. Even if it took until I got home to find out the proper score… goodness only know when I'll be able to do that again.