Mo Surrender

Montrose 0 Cove Rangers 2; here's all you need to know about it. Links Fahren, as they say in Kinnegad...

I’m definitely making progress, ticking off the grounds on my quest to complete the whole of the SPFL. In a bit I’ll tell you about my trip to Montrose 0 Cove Rangers 2, but there’s also St Johnstone against Hibs on 2^nd January and Stranraer versus Spartans on 1^st February booked in. In addition, there’s an even money chance I’ll be sampling a bridie at Station Park in Forfar before Christmas, though that’s a bit up in the air at the moment.

So, ground 33 of the current 42; Links Park, Montrose. After an ill-advised impromptu sampling evening on Belgian brown beers and Chilean red wine, I still got up in plenty of time to make the 09.43 train but made catching it an unnecessarily hair-raising experience by accidentally booking an Uber going to Tynemouth Cricket Club rather than the Central Station. Luckily, the driver saw the funny side (not) and after a bit of App juggling, I was on my way, only £10 worse off than I expected to be. Worse news greeted me at the Central; Costa was closed for refurbishment and Greggs, whose coffee is appalling anyway, was queuing out the door. I settled for a litre of Brecon Carreg from Boots. Sensibly I kept some back, to rinse away the taste of an ill-judged coconut latte from Costa at Waverley. Never again.

With it being half term, the trains were packed and having to take 3 to Montrose (Newcastle-Edinburgh, Edinburgh-Dundee and Dundee-Montrose), the best things I can say about the outward journey is that the trains were warm, on account of the number of punters on board, and punctual, as we arrived in Montrose on time, at 13.35, saying farewell to a couple of carriage loads of bevvying Arabs en route to Pittodrie for their 17.30 kick off. Having both sampled the demon drink rather too liberally the night before, the demon drink was the last thing on our minds. The gusting wind off the sea at Montrose Basin, which is possibly 10 yards from the up platform at helped clear the cobwebs, as did a pleasant saunter through the well-tended streets of what appears to be a genteel, well-heeled former seaside resort. The charming main street is still home to several independent small shops, to the extent that a visitor from Tyneside would be struggling to find the three essentials of life, according our local retail outlets; vapes, tattoos and a spray tan.

After about 15 minutes, we came to the entrance of Links Park and, eschewing the last potential port of call for a drink, the adjoining British Legion, we went through the turnstile. Obviously, I was subject to a highly intimate body search, in case I was carrying “alcohol or pyrotechnics” as the stuffy little man in a hi-vis informed me. Being without fireworks or hooch, entrance was afforded me and I took in the miniscule club shop, where a braying Cumbrian groundhopper was hectoring the lassie behind the till regarding the authenticity of the club crest on the pin badges. I got a programme (dull) and a drinks coaster (no fridge magnets), before exiting and contemplating the need for refreshments.

For me, food was a priority and, all praise to Shelley, she had prepared me an awesome, healthy lunch; bulgar wheat and feta salad. It was gorgeous and so much better than the hideous looking ball of battleship grey rendered fat that was the mince pie at Links Park. The stained enamel greased (in)edible pipework that comprised the filling of the other option, a macaroni pie, was even more offensive to look at. Indeed, the taste was confirmed by Big Gary as being worse than the look. Nice coffee though; Douwe Egberts no less.

At about ten to three, the teams finished their warm-up and headed back inside for their final instructions. For the first time since we’d entered the ground, the voluble DJ fell silent. After an ominous pause, The Clash’s Should I Stay, or Should I Go? was the prescient song of choice, before silence descended once again and the teams emerged to the desultory clapping of what was later revealed to be a crowd of 691 resolute punters.

 

Of the two starting XIs, I only knew of one player on each team: the veteran former Staggie, Michael Gardyne, for Montrose and the could have been ex Hibby Fraser Fyvie for Cove. It was the latter who made an impression on the game and ended up on top. The first half veered between sterile and unwatchable as neither side was able to create a meaningful attack or exert any pressure on the opposition. Stood on the far, uncovered side, we had a good view of the imposing main stand and charming covered shed of a home end. The rest of the ground was two sides of shallow, uncovered terrace; decent enough in this weather, but I’d imagine it to be torture in the depths of winter, especially as Links Park boasts a 4G surface that doesn’t succumb to intense downpours or frost.

At half time we changed sides, to the standing section in front of the pie hut, between the stand and the covered end. Certainly, a different location seemed to do the trick in terms of improving the standard of play, as the game opened up and became considerably more adequate. This was no doubt helped by Cove taking the lead soon after the break when the splendidly named Mitch Megginson rolled a pass into the path of Michael Doyle who hit it hard and true into the bottom corner from the edge of the area. A very good finish and enough to stir Montrose from their lethargy. However, despite the best efforts down the left of both the veteran Steeves and the youngster Lyons, Cove repelled every Montrose attack, often by deploying a big boot down the middle to release the pressure.

As we became more emotionally invested in proceedings and the mutterings of the home crowd grew more intense, Cove effectively ended the contest with a lightning break from defence, which saw Fyvie squaring for Megginson to sweep home. Another good goal and sufficient to ensure the vast majority of the crowd instantly melted away, cursing darkly in the gloaming, as I reflected this would probably be the last time I left a football ground in daylight for the next 4 months or so.

By the time we got to the station, the lights of the departing 17.06 to Edinburgh ensured our journey back was a long one; 17.55 to Dundee, 18.47 to Edinburgh, 20.56 to Newcastle and a correctly booked Uber to the door. Thank goodness for the clocks going back after that. Roll on St Johnstone, Stranraer and hopefully Forfar. After that, the real work begins on the inaccessible Highland 6.

Boire Manger Pisser / Lambic Gueuze Kriek

An old man in a slightly steep city; some time with the Belgians....

I’m not sure when I first felt a longing to visit Belgium. Probably after I saw the family oriented romcom C'est Arrivé près de Chez Vous (or as it was called in English, Man Bites Dog), so that’ll be at least 30 years ago I’d imagine. This vague wanderlust was further reinforced once I’d read Harry Pearson’s A Tall Man in a Low Land: Some Time Among the Belgians (1998). Of course, rather typical of me, I then proceeded to do absolutely nothing about the urge, other than listening to the odd bit of Jacques Brel, putting mayonnaise on my chips and quaffing as much Cantillon beer as I could afford, so not much then…

Like much else good that has happened to me of late, turning 60 provided the motivation for actually getting off my backside and visiting the place. That and the retirement bounty I received from Teachers Pensions, which has also enabled me to lash out on a new kitchen, a new bathroom, a Vox 50-watt combo (how loud?) and to finally get the jungle of my back garden tamed by a chainsaw wielding professional (not Benoit Poelvoorde, in case you were asking). However, enough about the grown-up stuff, here’s an account of an oldish man in a slightly steep city.

Before I go any further, I have to thank my young’un Ben for not only being the best possible company I could have asked for during our trip, but for navigating the internet and the city itself in a way that kept us fed, watered and moving in the right direction at all times, though much of our activities were based on a secret dossier of pubs and cafes in the St Gilles district, prepared for us by Harry. Merci mes braves!

When planning the trip, the first important consideration was finding somewhere to stay. Fresh from his recent trip to Bologna with his beloved Lucy, Ben was fully conversant with Airbnb’s subtle nuances and, with Harry advising us that St Gilles was the most interesting and appropriate suburb for the likes of us, we booked a 3-night stay in a modest but comfy apartment on the catchily named Overwinningsstraat, which turned out to be the only word of Dutch we heard in that area all weekend. In fact, I probably heard more Arabic than Dutch in St Gilles. Considering 59% of Belgians claim Dutch as their mother tongue, compared to 40% who opt for French, it was remarkable how little the former is spoken in the capital. English, in contrast, is almost universal, though I did attempt my own version of Le Bon Usage as often as possible, with generally favourable results. You know it’s amazing how far you can get with a 44-year-old A Level Grade D, when circumstances demand it.

Once we’d got the digs sorted, we then needed to find an appropriate weekend. This involved consulting the Jupiler Pro League fixtures and, on discovering that local lads Royale Union Saint Gilloise were playing host to K.A.A. Gent on Saturday 19 October, we simply had to make it that weekend. Further investigation allowed me to discover that on the Sunday, a Challenger League (second division) local derby between Anderlecht’s Under 23 side (known as RSCA Futures) and the magnificently named Racing White Daring Molenbeek (2015) would be taking place at the Stade Roi Baudouin/Koning Boudewijnstadion, the ground formerly referred to as the Heysel Stadium. A two-game weekend is heaven on earth, especially when mixed with Belgian beer, frites and waffles…

I’ve been to Brussels main airport several times before; using it as a transit point for flights onward to places such as Bilbao and Vienna. However, it is no longer somewhere you can fly to directly from Newcastle. Having investigated the other options, involving flights to either Amsterdam or Dusseldorf, and from either Edinburgh or Manchester to Brussels, we opted for the latter, with Ben agreeing to drive. We did break our journey down on the Thursday night, staying with his grandparents and my former in-laws in South Yorkshire, which allowed us to reach Manchester with time to spare. An easy check-in, an expensive coffee and a three-quarter full plane, populated mainly by what I thought was a sex offenders outing, but turned out to be adult Pokemon game players on their way to a convention in Lille (I kid you not), saw us landing 20 minutes early in Charleroi Brussels Sud.

As the name suggests, this is Wallonia at its most Francophilic, but it was well-organised and dead easy to find the shuttle bus to Brussels Midi from outside. During the 90-minute journey, as an endless loop of banal covers of copyright-free  soul jazz, europop anthems from Smooth Operator to It’s My Life droned endlessly over the coach PA, it occurred to me that while Belgium may be home to Jacques Brel and Front 242, you never get to hear any of that sort of stuff in public. Thankfully, most pubs we frequented seemed to prefer a soundtrack of low volume Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen, which went well with the ambience they sought for.

To be perfectly honest, the main sounds I’d associate with Belgium that weren’t made by Modern Talking copyists would be emergency sirens (I’ve never heard so many ambulances in my life) and car horns, which Belgian drivers seem to prefer over indicators when signalling an impending turn. Almost ironically, despite the jarring soundscape, I found Brussels to be a very relaxed and indeed safe city. Even near the apparently notorious Midi/Centraal Station, there was little sense of unease or tension and no visible street crime. Women were able to walk freely and alone late at night, without any palpable sense of fear. That’s the sort of city I want to live in and frankly I don’t feel that safe in central Newcastle after dark these days. Perhaps I’m just a nervous person.

On the Friday night, I was an excited and then an intoxicated person. Ben directed us from Brussels Midi to Overwinningstraat on foot, collecting the keys from a dull looking pub called Café BJ that I never even set foot in, even though it was directly opposite. On the way we’d seen a grown-up version of Manneken Pis, or Vir Mingens if you’re a classicist, emptying his bladder in Porte de Hal Park, just across the road from where we were staying. Lovely, but not as lovely as the Vlaamse Karbonaden(Flemish Beef Stew) and Braadworst met Stoemp (pork sausages with potatoes), washed down with a stunning Chimay Blanche that Ben and I enjoyed in La Porteuse D’Eau, a glorious Horta-designed art deco Belgian restaurant.

From there, we slogged it uphill to the best pub in Brussels, Moeder Lambic Original and settled down for a fine session of Cantillon Gueuze, Cantillon Kriek and several other beers I no longer recall, apart from the stunning bottled Oud Bruin that is one of the finest and most punishing astringent ales I’ve ever supped. Harry has this to say about Moeder, which describes it more eloquently than I could ever manage; it is the most famous bar in St Gilles, rated as the best in Brussels. It serves about 350 different beers and a range of Belgian cheeses from small producers https://www.moederlambic.com/?lang=en   Just to show we were still capable of speech, we headed back down the hill, past a collection of Portuguese bars and restaurants, with customers supping Sagres and Super Bock, dropping in on a newish bar just round the corner from the digs, L’Ermitage, to enjoy an almost English IPA, before a knockout 12% Grape Saison that really put my lights out.

Next morning, feeling rough, we decided to do the tourist trail, but with one eye on a trip to the Cantillon Brewery that shut at 4 and wasn’t open on a Sunday. We needed to take one for the team. So, fortified by a stunning vegan breakfast of Soya Latte and a massive lentil and feta salad, we visited Manneken Pis, noticing the magnificent slogan: Boire! Manger! Pisser! on a café opposite and had a nose around the central square and palace. All very nice, but as Ronnie Drew said about a guided tour round Dublin, sightseeing’s grand but it’d give you an awful thorst. Hence, equipped with an awful thirst, we made our way, across the tracks, to Cantillon, to enjoy three of the finest bottled beers I’ve ever had. It's not perhaps a traditional tourist spot, hence the signs insisting NO FOOD outside the bar area, and it is blessed with some of the most uncomfortable seats I’ve sat on outside of non-conformist places of worship, but the slogan painted on the wall is one you can’t disagree with: Lambic Gueuze Kriek. And so say all of us…

Three bottles between us was enough to provoke somnolence and we took a rapid Metro ride back to the digs for a siesta. I fell asleep just as news of Percy Main’s 4-3 win over Great Park was confirmed, waking to news that Newcastle had lost 1-0 home to Brighton and Hibs 3-2 away to Dundee United. Perfect for putting us in the mood for our game. With a 20.45 kick off, we had plenty of time to make our way to Stadion Joseph Marien to see Les Unionistes at home to Koninklijke Atletiek Associatie Gent, who are also known as De Buffalo's and have an American Indian headdress as their logo, ostensibly because William Frederick Cody supposedly brought his Wild West show to Ghent at the turn of the last century. We stopped on the way for some traditional Belgian frites, which I had with curry and which Ben, for the second day running, had with Vlaamse Karbonaden. You can see their website here: http://www.friteriedelabarriere.be/ This did give us another awful thirst, which we slaked with regular 33cl cups of Jupiler at €2 a pop, once we arrived at Stadion Joseph Merien. Outside the ground, thousands of fans milled happily, chatting, drinking and chilling out. The evening was warm but brought with it a great atmosphere, like any game under lights, apart from the couple in front of us, sat on blue painted railway sleepers that lay on top of solid cement blocks in the visually pleasing West Stand. Clearly on a date night, it wasn’t going to plan. They arrived on 15 minutes and left on 75, didn’t speak to each other all game and while he drank prodigiously, she was welded to Snapchat. Hello Young Lovers.

We’d had trouble getting tickets. Initially, it seemed sold out and then only disabled tickets were available which Ben, unschooled in the French language, bought a pair of that the club subsequently cancelled. Thankfully, after I’d already grabbed two for the Anderlecht Futures v RWDM (2015) game, a whole load came on sale for Union. Just as well, as frankly our stand was only 75% full, with home bit behind the goal half full and the away end similarly occupied. The only packed part was the home ultras side opposite us, from where the Union Bhoys gave an incessant and impressive vocal backing to their team all game. Probably the only Unionists I’ve ever enjoyed hearing from. Fair play to De Buffalo’s; they were even more manic, with pyrotechnics aplenty at the start. Then after that ferocious overture, sadly, the game didn’t quite live up to it, ending in a fairly tame 0-0 draw. Good standard though; Gent are second top and RUSG are in the Europa League. Both of them would give the likes of Wolves a run for their money. Or Newcastle probably.

Full time, we took an impossibly full bus back towards St Gilles (RUSG play in the neighbouring district of Foret), stopping off in the home pub of RUSG, Brasserie Verschuren, where the saison beer was truly the only disappointing one of the whole trip. Saturday was much quieter than Friday all over the city, so we ended the night with a couple of quiet ones in L’Ermitage and turned in just as Match of the Day was finishing. We’d managed in our secondary task of avoiding seeing the Newcastle headlights, thankfully.

Sunday seems a busier day in Belgium, or certainly in the morning and afternoon. As we took a long Metro ride from the South East to North West of the City, the train was quite full. Strangely, there were no obvious football fans on the train, though there could be geographical reasons for this. Anderlecht, whose first team had lost surprisingly 2-1 away to Beerschot on Friday night, play their first team games at the 22,000 capacity Constant Van Der Stock Stadium in West Brussels, but take their support from the whole country and RWDM (2015) are from the West of the city. Hence, our journey was not from the historic areas of RWDM support. However, even dafter than the Pokemon nutters on the plane, were a load of weirdos heading for a Heroes convention, dressed mainly as Disney characters. The fact this gathering was taking place in the National Balloon Museum, opposite the location where 39 innocent Italians were killed at the 1985 European Cup Final, was a sobering vision that did not sit right with me. However, it seems as if there has been a conscious decision in Belgium to erase brutal memories of the past, not just Heysel but the Marc Dutroux case and the infamous Brabant Killers have been airbrushed from collective public memory.

While the Heysel Stadium Disaster was almost 40 years ago, it seems to have been explained away by the fact that stadiums were all unsafe in those days. I’m not so sure if that’s an adequate response to the events of 28^th May 1985, and I do feel it is appalling there isn’t any memorial to those who lost their lives that night, other than the ornate main gate of the stadium, which is all that remains of the original ground in the functional, antiseptic 53,000 capacity home of Belgian football.

There were more than 50,000 empty seats for this one, begging the question why Anderlecht Futures opt to play here, as the crowd was split evenly between raucous RWDM (2015) fans, waving huge flags, and quiet family groups of Anderlecht fans, bolstered by loads of their junior teams and coaching staff in club outfits. It was a bottom versus top contest, and it went the way of form in the first half, with RWDM scoring the first goal we’d seen on Belgian soil. It should have been 2-0 before the break, but a wildly miscued header would prove costly. In the second half Anderlecht were on top the whole time as RWDM (2015) made terrible errors of technique and squandered possession. The two home goals were predictable, deserved and celebrated lustily, possibly as an excuse to get up from the typically uncomfortable Belgian seats. Certainly, the diving header for an equaliser had me punching the air in appreciation.

Come full time, we were starving, so a huge tuna baguette and a naughty custard croissant from a local boulangerie filled a hole until we sat down to eat in Bistro Waterloo just across Porte de Hal Park in the early evening. Ben went for meatballs while I had hoped for rabbit stew but ended up with pork knuckle in a mustard sauce. So much for my linguistic competence, eh? Whatever we had, it was excellent and a superb prelude to another night in Moeder Lambic Original. We got home for midnight and enjoyed watching Belgian football highlights on a Dutch language channel. A proper treat.

Monday morning, it was lashing down. With a quick farewell, we left St Gilles behind. A baguette and a waffle in the station, then a bus to Charleroi. Another quick flight and expert driving by Ben saw us in the house for 8pm. Forest v Palace. The one you’ve got to come back for? No, actually.

All in all, this was a wonderful trip to a wonderful city with wonderful company. I’d love to do another euro weekend with Ben, and I’d love to take Shelley to Brussels, for the culture and food, more than beer and football I must say. Let’s hope my aging limbs can stand another trip away in the near future.

 

Dancing About Architecture #2

The very wonderful TQ #72/73 is out this week. Please buy it & not just because it includes the following piece by yours truly that discusses the autobiographies of Sonic Youth alumni Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore -:

There are many different musical routes and experiences that have brought us all to this issue of TQ . Our interest in underground, experimental, outsider music could well have been engendered by an initial interest in one or more of the following genres, whether they encompass improvised or scripted practice: classical, jazz, folk, electronica (be that one or more of the ambient, dance or prog varieties) or rock, in any of its myriad forms. However, if your path involved detours among the many substrata of American post punk, including hardcore, straight edge, noise, or No Wave, I'd imagine the work of New York's Sonic Youth , especially during the 1980s, will have been of paramount important. Without a doubt, the vinyl triumvirate of Bad Moon Rising (1985), EVOL (1986) and Sister (1987), though markedly less avant gardethan the band's earliest material, are crucial highlights in the history of American art and noise rock, though everything the band released between their establishment in June 1981 and dissolution on November 14 ^, 2011, is of exceptional merit, even allowing for the fact that from Goo in 1990 onwards, Sonic Youth were a major label act, signed to Geffen Records .

Although Sonic Youth used both Richard Edson and Bob Bert as drummers in their early years, as well as Jim O'Rourke and former Pavement member Mark Ibold as bassists towards the end of the group's life, the quintessential line-up that played on most of Their greatest works consisted of Kim Gordon (bass/vocals), Thurston Moore (guitar/vocals), Lee Ranaldo (guitar/vocals) and Steve Shelley (drums). I only saw Sonic Youthin the flesh once. Having missed their 1986 tour, on account of residing in County Derry at the time (bands just didn't play in the north of Ireland back then), I caught them at Newcastle Riverside on March 17th ^, 1989. They were incredible. A stunning sonic maelstrom that almost literally lifted you off your feet. Perhaps not as extreme as Swans or as uncompromising as Big Black or as primal as Killdozer, but a seminal experience, nonetheless.

Musically, all the members of Sonic Youth were endlessly creative. As well as the band's 16 studio albums, the four of them participated in a baffling number of collaborations with many different musicians and released a shelf-bending series of solo records. Since the band's demise, both Moore (twice) and Ranaldo have played solo shows in Newcastle, at The Cumberland Arms in Byker of all places. Tickets sold out instantly and I didn't get to any of these gigs, but I did have dealings with both of the other members in 1994, interviewing them for Newcastle based listings magazine, Paint it Red . Steve Shelley, affable and charming, drummed for The Raincoats when they first reformed and I caught up with them backstage at Riverside between soundcheck and set for a relaxed chat. The other, considerably less enjoyable, encounter was a telephone interview with a tetchy Kim Gordon about her Riot Grrrl project, Free Kitten , that she'd formed with ex- Pussy Galore guitarist Julia Cafritz. I thought at the time, and still do now, that the Free Kitten project, especially the debut album Nice Ass , was an ill-disciplined, self-indulgent mess. I wasn't the only one to express that opinion, which Gordon was all too aware of. Presumably this is why she slammed down the phone on me after half an hour of small talk that studiously avoided reference to her new project, I asked when Sonic Youth would be getting back together. Fortunately this incident doesn't get a mention in Gordon's excellent 2015 autobiography, Girl in a Band , though in its pages, she still bristles at the reception Free Kitten got. Good job I didn't make mention of her Harry Crews outfit who released a steaming 12” pile of ordure in 1989.

Some important facts to consider: Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore married in 1984, had a daughter Coco in 1994 and precipitated Sonic Youth's public disintegration in 2011 when their marriage ended in highly acrimonious circumstances after Moore left Gordon for Eva Prinz, who he is now married to. Last year, Moore published his autobiography, Sonic Life , which is a very different beast to the one his ex-wife released 8 years previously, both in terms of content, approach, and attitude. In some ways, you'd think the two books are talking about a completely different set of experiences, rather than a shared, if disputed, narrative.

It was always a nagging regret of mine that I'd not read Gordon's book, which had been released to universal critical acclaim. That regret became an unquenchable thirst once I'd got about halfway through Moore's take. Her book is 273 pages long, concentrating on her childhood for about the opening quarter of the book, but focusing mainly on her and Moore's partnership, both from a personal and a musical perspective, with considerable emphasis on their daughter and her impact on their life . I know the cliché that time is a great healer, but back in 2015 both Kim Gordon and her daughter were absolutely decimated by Moore's desertion of the two of them. Girl in a Band features an unflinchingly honest account of the sudden disintegration of a previously happy, if not perhaps idyllic family circle, and how badly it affected both mother and daughter. In contrast, Sonic Life is 480 pages long, he spends the first couple of hundred pages cataloging all the records Moore loved in his early teenage years, then the gigs he and his best friend Harold drove to New York City from their home in suburban Connecticut , before he found a place to live in the Big Apple and formed Sonic Youth . From that point, we get an exhaustive, though completely fascinating, account of every album and tour the band embarked upon. In only the last chapter, barely a dozen pages in length, does Moore give his guilt-free account of how he turned his life round 180 degrees, in a matter-of-fact way that is astonishing for its lack of both emotion and insight . Frankly, I simply can't understand how such selfish, narcissistic actions can be validated by Sonic Life being awarded the accolade of Rough Trade's Music Book of the Year for 2023.

I'm glad I read both books and I certainly won't allow the revelations, or otherwise, gleaned from either publication to influence my attitude to Sonic Youth's extensive back catalogue, though I was certainly more interested in investigating Gordon's 2024 album , The Collective , than in anything Moore may release in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bad Blood

 NUFC; September 2024. We've got Johnny Johnny Johnny Johnny Johnny Ruddy on the bench, on the bench. NUFC; October 2024. We've got Roger Roger Roger Roger Roger Thornton on the board, on the board.

Percy Main's narrow 10-0 loss away to North Shields Athletic in our local derby last weekend was the last game I'll see of ours for a while. However, and I must be clear about this, the result is not what will be keeping me away from Purvis Park in the immediate future, as I'm fully aware of the fact that both management and players are giving their utmost in highly trying circumstances . No, the fact is I'm going to be busy for a few weekends in a row. Saturday 12 October will see me at Durham Gala Theater for a reading by David Peace from his new novel Munichs (and we're off for a pint afterwards). Yes, I won't be at a football game, astonishingly enough. Saturday 19 I'm in Brussels with Ben to see Royal Union St Gilloise v Genk, as well as to sample the odd lambic or saison. Saturday 26 sees me attending Montrose v Cove Rangers as I zoom in on completing the 42. Hence, I'll not be able to see The Main until our trip to Burradon New Fordley on the first Saturday in November. The fact we lost 8-0 at home to them back in August has already tempered my expectations, unlike large numbers of those who intend to support Newcastle United, who reacted to the loss to Fulham and drew at Everton with the kind of wry sense of humor akin to Macduff's response to the murder of his family in the Scotch Play.

I don't know about you, but I'm becoming ever more conscious of the fact I'm too old to understand how youngsters analyze football these days. Don't even begin to ask for an explanation of the Man City court case that, apparently, they and the Premier League both won (I thought that was called a draw?). Even matters on the pitch are too complicated for us old fellas these days. To me, the final score is what matters, meaning that Newcastle v Man City and Everton v Newcastle are worth the same at the end of the day. I mean, I do recognize a point against City is a more praiseworthy outcome than a point against the Scouse Mackems, but apparently, I'm being naïve and old fashioned (at the same time?) and that I need to get with the program by looking at the stats and XG in particular in order to grasp the complexities of the modern game. Frankly, no thanks; football is an art, sometimes a brutal one, not a science, so don't try and blind me with equations and theorems. Let's just look at how often the ball hits the net, or otherwise, as at Goodison Park.

Since the last international break, Newcastle have played 5 games (four of them in the league and one in the League Cup). While 4 were broadcast live, the only one I got to see was the Everton one. The Wolves game was the first time it struck me this season that allowing my cheap deal with Virgin to expire and not sign up again for a Sky Sports package may have been an error. After putting up with BBC website coverage of a performance that seemed to be going nowhere, I switched the thing off after an hour. I’d seen the solid start, mini collapse and late rally at Bournemouth, and it seemed we were only going to see the first two elements of that recipe on this instance. Of course, in the same way that you’re never more than six feet away from a rat, modern technology means you’re never more than 10 seconds from a goal alert. Notifications of the blinding long-range strikes by Schar and then Barnes had me dancing round the living room. Of course, I didn’t know about Pope’s brilliant late save until I saw the highlights. He’s no good with his feet you know, as the social media doom mongers insist. Whatever the truth in that assertion, the simple truth was that, on the back of the score from Molineux, if Newcastle won at Fulham, they would go top of the Premier League.

We didn't. We lost badly and I blanked all coverage of the highlights, by ignoring Match of the Day , because I think sulking silently is the most mature way to handle defeat. Things might have been different if Joelinton's early effort had stood, but it didn't, and things didn't get any better from that point onwards. I would point out though, at the end of last season Newcastle finished in a slightly disappointing 7th place, after suffering terrible injuries, a loss of form and putting in as many a shoddy performances as sparkling ones. This season, we're in exactly the same position after turning in a series of, apparently, terrible performances that should see us sack Howe while sticking with him, spend £300m in January while waiting until next Summer before bringing more players in, at the same time as selling Gordon, Longstaff and Trippier while building a team around them.

The really crazy thing though, is just how many people seem to know the intimate details of a supposedly blazing row/power struggle between Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell, with the shadowy presence of James Bunce (whoever he is and whatever he is paid to do ) lurking in the background. Back in my day, the club was owned by Westwood (is a Pirate), Russell Cushing signed the checks and Joe Harvey managed the team. End of story. Now we've got a whole panoply of suited executives doing lots of different important tasks. Even this week, some chancers were commenting wisely on social media about what a “shrewd move” it was to appoint a new director I've never heard of (“we've got Roger Roger Roger Roger Roger Thornton on the board, on the board"). I suppose it makes a change from signing yet another goalkeeper ("we've got Johnny Johnny Johnny Johnny Johnny Ruddy on the bench, on the bench"), although it won't do anything to silence the hysterical squealing from the Fourth Estate or prevent another doom-laden True Faith h editorial telling us exactly what to think.

Whatever the truth behind the Howe/Mitchell Mexican stand-off, the really sad news is that Darren Eales has been diagnosed with a fairly severe form of cancer. It's a tragedy for him and his family. Let's hope it isn't used as a way for various self-appointed fan oracles to empire build on the back of it. One thing the under 30s have got right is their absolute contempt for the Chronophiliac apologists for the House of Saud and the atrichorous chuckle heads who insist that we all keep on keepin' on. All of this came about in the week of the AFC Wimbledon postponement, leading up to the Man City game. I think most of us were dreading this one, not just because we'd not been playing great, but because they're so maddeningly good. In the end, a solid point and a sparkling team performance (the best of the season) restored something like positivity to the NUFC supporting world.

I really will have to give the AFC Wimbledon game a bit of a swerve as I was down in Manchester watching another mesmerizing gig by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. All I'll say is that it was good to see the Mythological Greek get some pitch time, meaning that Johnny Johnny Johnny Johnny Johnny Ruddy had to stay on the bench, on the bench. Despite the win, there were still murmurings because Osula wasn't at the same standard as Isak yet, but moaners like that are never satisfied.

Goodness knows what they made of Jordan Pickford and Anthony Gordon sharing a laugh and a chat at full time after the Everton game. Fair play to little arms for doing his homework for the penalty and also to Calvert Lewin for recognizing after the game he'd fouled Burn and not the other way round. In truth, we should have won this and the reason we didn't is the lack of a proper alternative to Isak, as Wilson appears to be claiming PIP these days. Let's hope he gets well soon, although I doubt he will, as we face Brighton (H), Chelsea (A), Chelsea (H – League Cup), Arsenal (H) and Forest (A) in the next series of matches. We need 6 points minimum and a cup victory to be achieving anything close to a reasonable set of results. 

Strong Words Softly Sung

As I’m off to see and talk to David Peace, Macdara Yeates and Nick J Brown in the next couple of weeks, I thought I’d best tell you what I think of their latest words and sounds in a cultural blog that encompasses August and September. Oh, we also went to the pictures. For the second time this year, if you please. The Critic is a preposterous slice of melodramatic cheese, but McKellen, as ever, is worth the entrance fee alone. Anyway, now on to proper culture.

Music:

Despite the fact I’m about to praise one of the finest CDs I’ve heard in years; this latest set of observations is about to be overshadowed by live performances by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, not to mention their latest soon-come album and other new products by Bardo Pond, Jill Lorean and Shovel Dance Collective. This is not to say I’ve endured some crap gigs and releases of late, far from it. Certainly I can’t praise my mate Richy Hetherington and his song-based project Lovable Wholes or his more experimental solo stuff as Katpis Tapes highly enough. The former project came about after the tragic suicide of Richy’s younger child and many of the songs Lovable Wholes, which mainly consist of him and his other child Hope, perform live, such as at The Globe in mid-August and on their wonderful Show You’re Working Out cassette, are slow, sad, gentle, loving numbers. The bring a righteous tear to the eye in public and floods of them in private. If you haven’t done so, grab a copy of the memorial Songs for T album that Richy curated. All profits go to teenage anti-suicide charities.

Richy gave me a couple of CDs for my birthday; Drooping Finger’s Arthur’s Hill and the remixed version of the same, Arthur’s Hill Reimagined. I strongly prefer the first one as I didn’t really get much from the remixed efforts. It’s an interesting ambient concept, but not as appealing to these ears as Lee Dickson, in his alternative guise of Gerry Mandarin, cutting up the back catalogue of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop for the mind-bending esoterica of Sound Affects. This one is very much worth hunting down. Another pal, Canadian Dave, has long felt I need to have gaps in my back catalogue plugged, so he got me Royal Trux’s Accelerator album for my birthday. I’d seen them live in 1993 I think it was, but this album was a new one of me. Vicious, abusive, brief and bawdy, it spits in your face and then punches you on the jaw. Just the sort of horrible, bratty noise punk that couldn’t last. And it didn’t, when they chose heroin over music as a lifestyle choice. Hell of an album though. The neighbours hate it.

In terms of other gigs, there was Wrest at Barrowlands that I mentioned in this blog: https://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/2024/09/wrest-be-thankful.html and we’ve sorted out tickets for their show at The Grove in December. A whole family outing indeed. If they take off, as looks likely, they’ll never play a venue that small again. The same probably won’t be said of that Wansbeck institution, St James Infirmary. At the last TQ Live event of the year, Gary Lang was accompanied by Mark Oliver, for a Krautrock influenced set that sounded, by turns, remarkably similar to Can and then to Soft Machine’s We Did It Again. No bad thing of course and I enjoyed this. I also enjoyed the next act, the more improvised and less structured Modulator ESP. In parts, it sounded almost like a gamelan orchestra, in others like a munitions factory on overtime, but never less than impressive. Ideal music for drawing pictures in your head to.

Now, to finish with, one of the finest albums I’ve heard in years; Traditional Singing from Dublin by Macdara Yeates. I’ve always been a sucker for unaccompanied Irish songs, especially the sad, almost sentimental numbers that establish cruel England is to blame. There’s no rebel songs here, and some of the best numbers are from well without The Pale, specifically Galway and Leitrim, but Yeates’s voice can stand alongside anyone you want to name. Luke Kelly, Joe Heaney, Christy Moore; Macdara is on the one road to being as great as anyone of them. Now, the album as a whole isn’t perfect by a long chalk. In fact I’d go as far as to say there are 3 songs on here I don’t like at all, but when he gets it right, the music soars, it flies, it explodes. It’s a thing of beauty talking about ugly times and awful events, but that’s the lot of the Irish and it makes me so proud to be one of the second generation diaspora mourning, like earlier emigrants in far Amerikay, for a distant land they’ve half forgot, and which has changed beyond all recognition since they were last home. I tell you what though; I challenge anyone to listen to The Shores of Lough Bran (a song I’d not heard since 1983), Rocking the Cradle (the auld fella made sure I was familiar with Paddy Clancy’s version from infancy) and Joe Heaney’s awesome Boys From Home without bursting into floods. Fine songs given fine, fine treatments by a truly exceptional talent.

 

Books:

This autumn has seen some of the big hitters release their new works, but there are still a few other books I picked up on the way. My mate Harry gave me Wisden 1965 for my birthday, which is helpful to look back on what was happening that sunny Tuesday when I emerged into the word in 1964. Not much really, to be honest, other than the first day’s play at Lords in a two-dayer between the Combined Services and Provincial Universities, where one of the umpires was the marvellously named J. F. Crapp. Another pal, Rod, gave me the mildly diverting bog read Cricket’s Craziest Moments by Will Wooton, which kept me amused on a bus journey at least. Rather more seriously, I was given a £30 book token by my friends Christine and Brian, for which I was enormously grateful. With it, I bought three books I’d long wanted to read; ee cummings The Enormous Room, William Faulkner As I Lay Dying and Peter Handke’s The Left Handed Woman. The latter, which is about 80 pages long, is one I meant to read as an undergraduate, having been beguiled by The Goalkeeper’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, but never got hold of it. Very modern, very Socialist, as Basil Fawlty would say. The other two, which are by turns a charming autobiographical sketch of the insanity of war (rather like a Catch 22 set in the 14-18 conflict) and a grandiose, Southern gothic dynastic masterpiece, were ones I’d didn’t get round to during my MA in C20th American Literature, but that everyone else praised to the high heavens. I think Faulkner’s is the greater work, but I’m glad to have read both.

Tonight, before sitting down to write this, I was dropping some recycling off at my local Sainsbury’s where, totally by chance, I came across an abandoned, unread 40^th anniversary edition of Alastair Gray’s sublime Lanark. Of course I’ve read it and of course I’ve loaned it to someone who didn’t give it back, but no matter I’ve got another copy now, as well as a still-wrapped musicological study of Don Cherry that looks a tough read. So confused was I by my discoveries that I forgot to buy bread, muesli, mouthwash and shower gel. No wonder I got my weekly shop for a shade over £20. However, talking about books in supermarkets, back in mid-August, Shelley and I were out in Hexham and browsing through the charity book pile in Waitrose (man), I came across one of those OUP Open University playscripts of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise that was on a module about the enlightenment. It’s also supposed to be one of the earliest German language plays by the inventor of Deutsch dramaturgy. It is quite daring, as it is a plea for religious tolerance and inclusivity among Christians, Jews and Muslims. Not the sort of thing I’m normally keen on reading, but well worth 20p anyway.

Nick J Brown is a fella I’ve got to know via Twitter, partly on account of his passion for German football and his love of County cricket, which obviously elevates him in terms of civilised attitudes. I’m hoping to meet up next week in Manchester when I go down with Ben and Dave to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Long story short, Nick is a writer and now, indeed, he is a published novelist with the appearance of To Rise in the Dark. In a yet to be published review for TQ magazine, I decry the lack of quality fiction about music, but I wrote that piece before I had a notion this book would exist. It’s a great read; three teenage bandmates meet up again after 30 years at the funeral of the other original member. Accompanied by the deceased’s daughter, they go on a Mancunian pub crawl and during it scores are settled and axes ground. It’s a book that boasts excellent character delineation, a realistic and manageable plot, along with punchy dialogue and real sense of location. Like all the best writing about music, it doesn’t dance about architecture, as there is no attempt to describe the music itself. Instead, you care for these three ageing, fallible blokes and the distraught daughter. There’s a minor shock at the end, like all good books, but nothing terrible happens, which I was glad about. I strongly recommend this read.

So, that only leaves us with, in chronological order of reading, Irvine Welsh’s Resolution, Roddy Doyle’s The Women Behind the Doors and David Peace’s magisterial eulogy to the Busby Babes, Munichs. Where to start, eh? Well, I’m not really into compiling orders of merit here, but I will say, even if I’m bound to be accused of favouritism, that David’s book is the one I enjoyed the most. His solemn, forensically elegiac account of events from the crash in February to the bathetic cup final loss to Bolton in May, never strays near sentimentality, but provides a truly compelling and convincing narrative. We are actually in the heads of Jimmy Murphy, Bobby Charlton, Bill Foulkes, Harry Gregg and Matt Busby. We understand and we empathise, assisted by a superb ear for the cadences of ordinary speech from Barnsley and Dublin, as we intrude and share the grief of those left behind. It is truly a stunning novel, but I do wish he’d hurry up and get that bloody book about Yorkshire CCC written.

I also enjoyed Doyle’s book very much. Those familiar with his work will know the northside everywoman that is Paula Spencer; now 66 and with an on / off older lover up by Howth. It’s the time of COVID and Paula’s eldest child, the one who’d made a packet materially, has jacked it all in and left the family behind, to come back home to Mammy. It’s a profound shock to Paula, dealing with ageing, loneliness and the utterly unexpected difficulties provided by lockdown. Despite Doyle’s tendency towards pedagogical preaching, it is an excellent and important book. Certainly, if his work now sees him trying to tie up the loose ends of the lives of the characters he’s returned to previously (specifically the Rabbitte family), then I won’t be complaining. All you need to know is that Paula is a fighter and a survivor, who never gives up. I’ll always be in her corner, cheering her on. DNS forever!!

On the subject of tying up loose ends, the clue to Irvine Welsh’s intentions are made clear by the title of Resolution. Like several of his other novels, such as The Sex Lives of the Siamese Twins or The Blade Artist, the book moves at full pelt, sacrificing nuance and subtlety for broad brush dollops of plot. It is almost as if he needed this book to be written, to allow Ray Lennox some closure, so he can move on. Yes I enjoyed the rattling, breakneck pace, which allows you to ignore many of the less plausible plot devices, but when you think how the young lads in Trainspotting were immaculately delineated to the last fibre, in a book where they were almost paralysed by their surroundings, you feel that Welsh has lost something of his art by churning out glorified pot boilers like this.

Well, the next time I’ll be culturally blogging, new works by Michael Houellebecq and Ian Rankin will have come and gone. Told you it was an Autumn for big hitters.