Walking Disaster

I've been playing a bit of walking football, with predictably mixed fortunes...

As you get older, the spectre of loneliness is an ever present curse. You might be retired and missing the interactions, good and bad, that work provides, even if you don’t miss the spirit crushing inanity of the daily drudge. Your kids could well have flown the nest and have their own lives to lead. Lives that only tangentially intersect with yours, and even then on an infrequent basis. You might be on your own, for whatever reason and in whatever circumstances that results in. Mates are more in name than in reality. Texts, not meet ups. People don’t do the local anymore, other than perhaps for the football and everyone’s growing tired of that these days. Fulham versus Palace on a Monday night? Nah. Too much of an ordeal. I’ll leave it thanks. There’s your team of course, but only if you can get, or afford, a ticket. Sometimes the rarity value of such occasions makes it an absolute pleasure to be among a large gathering of bile spitting moaners. Having a reason to be in crowded bars on a busy matchday reconnects you to a community you’ve felt more than semi-detached from in an era. Things won’t go back to how they were.

Sure, if you’ve still got a bit about you, there’s the garden, reading or watching a film or box set. All worthy time fillers, but pretty solitary vices. Music’s great too, but gigs cost a fortune and tickets, or travel need to be planned months in advance. When you’re there, the aches and pains of ageing backs and joints make it sometimes hard to deal with the whole experience of being on your feet for the thick end of 3 hours. And how often do you turn up to a show, expecting to know a few folks and spend the whole time fruitlessly scanning unknown nodding heads for a familiar face. And failing. Going for a walk, especially if you’ve got a dog, or getting out on the bike? Pretty good for mind, body and soul, but not a great way to forge human interactions. Likewise the gym, where most of the young ones seem more interested in scrolling than working out. Sometimes I wish I was posh and played golf. Only sometimes.

I retired at the end of last year and was delighted to do so. I’m still half a decade away from my state pension, but a more than decent occupational scheme that I’d religiously paid into from the year dot, made leaving graft an attractive and sensible option. I’m in my early 60s and still in decent nick health wise, so the big question for me was what the hell do I do with myself? I write stuff and make music, so the creative angle is boxed off, but some days inspiration doesn’t come. So what then? Sensibly I’ve not headed down the route of daily day drinking, managing to get an hour down the gym maybe 4 times a week. However, what I was really craving while I sweated through 500 cardio calories was group interaction. A bit of idle chit chat and a belated attempt at broadening my horizons. Suppose I could have joined a ramblers’ group or taken up watercolour painting, but such activities just didn’t appeal.

For almost my entire life, I’ve played team sports, specifically football and cricket. I still do. Just about. I’m an enthusiastic rather than competent keeper, a funereally slow offy (arthritis in the shoulder has ended any pretensions of leg spin) and an utterly inept batter (the hand to eye co-ordination has gone for good). However, I love both sports and aim to go on with them as long as possible, while acknowledging I’m one serious injury away from enforced retirement.

Considering we’re talking early January when I first found myself awash with free time and nothing with which to fill it, the cricket season was still months away, so that wasn’t a solution. I mean we’re right in the swing of it now and, sadly, I’m increasingly finding myself extraneous to requirements as Tynemouth CC 3s sit top of NTCL Division 6 Central and rarely call on my services, but that’s something I’ll cover in a few weeks in more depth. Instead, back in those cold, dark days at the turn of the year, I first considered Walking Football. It wasn’t something I knew anything about; other than the fact I was part of the target demographic. Ironically, in the league I’ve ended up in, keepers only need to be over 40. There’s pushing a quarter of a century of potential competitive action I’ll never get back.

North of the River Tyne, Walking Football is organised almost exclusively by the Newcastle United Foundation, which is the charitable wing of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) that uninterestedly owns the club I still semi-support. However, the great thing for the parsimonious PIF, even if I detect their influence on how the Foundation operates and the overarching philosophy it promotes, is that all funding is provided by those legendary munificent benefactors, the Premier League. To dial back on my rampant cynicism for a second, I will point out that every session the Foundation runs is completely free for all participants. Considering our weekly 6-a-side kickarounds between whites and darks now cost £7.50 per player, that’s a decent result. Especially as the Foundation run 10 different weekly sessions at an array of venues, with nothing stopping you, other than physical decrepitude, from turning up to every one of them.

I didn’t know any of this when I first put out tentative feelers about finding a team.  One of the finest fellas involved in the grassroots game on Tyneside is Mark “Bully” Bullock, the founder and manager of Hazelrigg Victory FC (aka “Hezzy”) of the Northern Alliance Premier Division. Bully has been involved with Hezzy for 2 decades now and has overseen the refurbishment of their ground at Hazelrigg Welfare, several promotions and cup wins for the first team, as well as the establishment of a Sunday morning side and a Monday evening over 35s outfit. Next season, they’ll have a team in the North East Over 40s league on a Saturday morning and they’ve already got a Walking Football team for the over 50s, which is why I got in touch with them. Responding to a post on Hezzy’s Facebook page talking about these veteran ballers, I mentioned that if they ever needed a keeper, then to give me a shout, as a newly enrolled member of the leisured classes, I was of the have gloves, will travel mindset.

My post got the thumbs up, but I didn’t hear anything else until mid-March, when I got a message from a name I didn’t recognise. Dee Howey. Turns out he was the organiser of Hezzy’s Walking Football team and was keen to sign me on as back up, as their first choice keeper was sometimes unavailable. From this initial contact, I learned that while 9 of the weekly sessions put on by the Foundation were effectively pick-up games where a rolling cast of participants played with no real competitive edge and little formal organisation, Thursday daytimes at Blakelaw in central north west Newcastle, saw 24 sides competing across 2 divisions. This was proper stuff. Two 20 minute, 6-a-side games each week, guaranteed. Strips. Registration, including proof of age. Referees. The whole shebang. I told him that I was more than interested and would be available every week, if required.

I felt elated to have been chosen, though slightly nervous as to whether I’d be of a decent enough standard. As a late diagnosed person on the Autism Spectrum Disorder, I have come to understand my abject terror regarding new routines, changing circumstances and unfamiliar locations is part and parcel of who I am. I’ve endured agonising terrors my whole life, going back to primary school, whenever I’m come up against something new, something challenging. That isn’t going to change now, nor is my obsessive need for order and regimentation around the house. However, I love football and I’d played at the old Blakelaw FC loads of times in the past. Also I knew, as a non-driver, and a complete public transport obsessive, that I could get one bus from near mine to the facility. I also reasoned that if I was crap, I didn’t have to go back, not that they’d probably want me to.  All looked promising, especially when I was added to their WhatsApp group (how did humans ever communicate before this was invented?) at lunchtime on Saturday March 21^st. That day, I was watching Percy Main away to Wideopen, ironically the village down the road from Hazelrigg, but I became distracted from our dismal 2-0 defeat when my phone absolutely blew up.

As well as my ASD diagnosis, I have suffered from (and inflicted on others) crippling depression and explosive anxiety. I’ve been medicated for both conditions for decades now; with only minimal efficacy I must admit. The first condition exists mainly in my head, and when it comes, I struggle to get out of bed, never mind putting my keeper kit on. Like most depressives, my condition manifests itself as a kind of private hell. Hiding away with the curtains drawn until the black dog passes is the only realistic way to get over it. Sometimes it lasts for weeks. If I’m lucky it can be gone in a few hours. Unfortunately, my anxiety is far more visible and has often resulted in volcanic eruptions of socially unacceptable conduct, on buses, in shops and pubs, or just about any public setting imaginable, when my fight or flight response goes haywire. Anxiety and ASD is a bad combination at the best of times and has almost been lethal for me on several occasions over the years. Generally because I’ve felt I’ve been ignored, belittled, misquoted, patronised or intimidated, and reacted badly. As a consequence, I’ve spent nights in protective custody, though never once been charged. That said, I have been barred from shops (Sainsburys won’t deliver to me) and pubs because of a range of incidents that seem to have got worse and more confrontational as I get older, though I’ve kept a lid on things these last couple of years.

For me, and a lot of other people, the 2020 Covid lockdown was a tough, tough time. The longer it went on, the more I feared a return to reality, or a semblance of it. Stuck indoors most of the time, I genuinely abhorred the thought of contact with other people, yet still desperately needed to get outdoors, just to breathe fresh air. One Wednesday evening late in June, I went out for a walk. The ostensible reason was I needed some Dreamies for the cats, but by the time I got to Tynemouth Co-Op it was near 8pm, which was closing time. As a result, the manager who was operating the front door wouldn’t let me in. I reasoned with him. I pleaded with him. I argued with him. He wasn’t budging and started being abusive about my appearance. Now back them I had dreadlocks down to my arse, a full beard and weighed about 3 stone more than I do now, with almost all the extra heft on my gut. I looked a state. I looked mad. And I suppose I was.

To cut a long story short, I had a complete and utter raging meltdown. Bad enough in itself, but even worse, some young ones filmed me on their phones and uploaded it to all social media platforms. I went viral. It was awful as it was totally beyond my control. My wonderful friend Anna O’Neill was an absolute star, in relentlessly pursuing Facebook and Twitter to get the offending videos taken down. This worked in stopping the further spread of the video, but the damage had largely been done as it had been seen about a million times, shared, downloaded and used as a stick to beat me, then and now. It’s still on You Tube if you want to search it out. People still do. In September 2022, a convicted hooligan jailbird taunted me about it in The Mean Eyed Cat. When I objected, he dragged me outside and kicked me repeatedly in the face on St. Thomas Street. I should have got the coppers involved, but I didn’t. In early 2026, I was alerted to a sticker in a pub toilet that was a still of the video, with the motto “crazy cat man.” Even 6 years later, I can’t escape an episode that publicly caught me at probably my lowest ever ebb. Not only does my past haunt me, but it also frightens me that social media has this power over my current mood and a public image, that is so far removed from my present persona. Perhaps the most awful impact this video had was the power to prevent me playing for Hazlerigg Walking Football team. Indeed, it almost prevented me from playing any walking football at all.

As I arrived to watch Percy Main at Lockey Park that March afternoon, I received notification that Dee Howey had added me as a friend on Facebook and included me in the Hazlerigg Walking Football WhatsApp group. He put out a welcome message, and I felt rather proud to be included in this new community. By the time The Main had laboured to a dismal 2-0 loss, things had changed. A person called James Kidd, who I’d known vaguely through grassroots football a decade or so earlier, and was apparently the current Hezzy Walking Football keeper, stated that if I were to become part of the Hazlerigg team, he was leaving immediately and proceeded, in somewhat unflattering terms, to denigrate me and, as a coup de grace, posted several links to the You Tube video of my meltdown of 6 years previous. In response, Dee Howey removed me from the WhatsApp group, sent me a message telling me I couldn’t play for Hezzy if I was going to “upset the rest of the team” and blocked me on Facebook.

Let’s be clear about this, I don’t necessarily object to Dee Howey responding in an insensitive way, as he runs a Walking Football team and isn’t a counsellor or social worker, but I do, in the strongest terms possible, object to James Kidd’s conduct. On account of my enduring mental illness, I am a vulnerable adult by whatever measure you wish to use. Certainly I am covered by the Equality Act and so, consequently, his actions could be construed at least as bullying and probably a disability hate crime. I doubt the coppers would have bothered to do anything if I’d taken a complaint to them, which I wasn’t minded to, but if I’d made a case to the Northumberland FA, they would have thrown the book at Hazlerigg Victory. Because of my admiration and respect for Bully, I didn’t want to do this. Instead, I contacted him that evening with an explanation of what had gone on. He was brilliant.

Hazlerigg launched an investigation in which Dee Howey was informed that he should have handled things better, while James Kidd was given a proper bollocking. I don’t know if this resulted in him leaving Hezzy, but in all the weeks I subsequently played at Blakelaw, including a game against Hazlerigg (we lost 5-0, but more of that later), I didn’t see him once, so draw your own conclusions from that. I was incredibly grateful to Bully for his input and was overjoyed that he had contacted the Foundation, to establish that one team needed a keeper. He forwarded me the email address of the Foundation’s Walking Football co-ordinator, a bloke called Thomas Graham, and encouraged me to get in touch, which I did.

Within 48 hours, Thomas replied, saying he’d linked me to a team called Lemington and that I could start playing from the next Thursday, which was April 9^th. On that day, I took the bus to Blakelaw and met up with my new team mates. I didn’t know any of them, but they are a grand bunch of 10 blokes, some of whom play every week and others who are more casual in their involvement because of life commitments. To be honest, we’re not very good. There were 10 weeks of the season to go when I got involved, and in that remaining time, we played 20 games; 17 in the league and 3 in an end of season cup. We won 4, drew 4 and lost 12, while scoring 24 and conceding 41. As a result we finished 10^th in the Championship and were runners-up in the Silver Plate. The competition is now having a summer break, though the other sessions run by the Foundation continue. I’m not involved in any of them.

While I didn’t know any of my team mates, I did know some of the other players. I played Over 40s for Wallsend Boys Club with two blokes Tim and John, though they’re in the higher division so I didn’t come up against them. I did face Kitchenware Records owner Keith Armstrong, who turns out for a team called The Misfits, and the co-founder of Viz comic Simon Donald, who is a handy player for Blue Flames. Indeed, it was the fall out of the game against Blue Flames that led me to consider whether I was prepared to continue playing for anything under the auspices of Newcastle United Foundation. It is a question that continues to perplex me.

In terms of the laws of the game, Walking Football is reasonably easy to understand. A pitch that is half the size of a full one, with 6 foot high goals. No balls above crossbar height. Kick ins when it goes over the side line and corners or goal kicks, as appropriate, when it goes over the end line. Only keepers allowed in the box, with keepers not allowed out. No tackling from behind or the side and never more than one on one when challenging for the ball. The big thing is the walking. It isn’t strolling or ambling, it’s like a cross between walking in the Olympics and impersonating Groucho Marx. One foot must be on the ground at all times. If not, it’s a foul. Four of those and it’s a penalty.

The referees we had had were mainly of a good standard, but during the first week I was quite taken aback when we all stopped because an opposition player was clearly running. No whistle came and the player scored. I politely asked whether it was a foul and the referee rather pointedly told me not to try and shirk the blame for letting in a soft one. A bit rude, if not disrespectful, I thought, but I tried to forget about it. In the fifth week, we played Blue Flames and were doing well; 2-1 up just into the second half. One of their players rattled in a great shot, but it hit the underside of the bar and bounced away. The referee, a different one, who stood immobile on the sideline at the halfway mark  all game signalled a goal. Even the bloke who took a shot said it hadn’t gone in. One of our players jokingly said to one of the opposition (not the ref) “you need your eyes tested if you think that’s a goal.” Result was a yellow card, and two minutes on the sideline, for “disrespect.” We kick off and lose possession. Being a player down is a nightmare, and they work it through for a simple tap-in. My response “well that’s bloody typical!” Now I’m yellow carded and sent to the sideline. We’re 3-2 down and two players short, so it’s unsurprising when they get a fourth.

At full time, I try to talk to the referee about the incidents. Pointless I know, but my primal need to be listened to came to the forefront. He wouldn’t engage. I didn’t shout, scream or swear. In the end, I walked away, seething. During the week, I get an email from Thomas Graham saying he’d like to talk to me, after my first game in week 6 (May 14^th) about my “conduct.” I turn up and play. We lose 5-0 to Hazlerigg. One of their players deliberately blasts the ball into my face when the whistle had already gone for over head height. No apology from him and no censure from the same referee as we’d had the week before. At full time, I go into an office area with Thomas Graham and some other bloke with a clipboard, stopwatch and whistle. They tell me that they’d considered issuing me with a warning as to my future conduct, after my attempt to engage with the referee the week before but instead have chosen to talk to me about “providing support” for any “issues” that might prove problematic for my continued involvement in Walking Football. I don’t believe I’m hearing this.

Things go from the surreal to a Kafkaesque nightmare when they inform me of how they’re aware of a video of me having a meltdown is in “the public domain.” They show me the Co-Op incident on You Tube. I ask them to turn it off. I tell them it is 6 years old. I’m upset. In tears. They tell me I can’t play in today’s other game (we beat Heaton Stannington 2-1 with a borrowed keeper), or any other one, until they’ve had a meeting between me and the Foundation’s Safeguarding Lead. All the time they keep pushing the idea that they want to provide a welcoming and inclusive space for everyone, other than me apparently.

The next day, I get an email inviting me to a meeting at the Foundation HQ on Diana Street, opposite SJP, 10.00 on Tuesday 26^th May. I get there on time, having scarcely slept the night before with anxiety levels going through the roof. It is made clear, if I don’t do what they say, I’ll have to “step away from the Foundation’s provision.” What choice do I have? They talk about referring me to Adult Social Services. Seriously! Then they remind me of the code of conduct for all players. I ask them about the disability hate crime involving the former Hazlerigg Victory player. Their response is that they can’t do anything about this as it was outside of a Foundation session. I ask about the player blasting the ball in my face and the referee’s failure to act. They tell me the referee saw nothing wrong and felt it was an accident. They can’t comment why the player didn’t apologise. I ask if I can get my travel expenses reimbursed. Apparently it isn’t Foundation policy.

I ask whether they feel I have been treated fairly by being stigmatised because of a previous episode of mental illness. They say it is unfortunate I feel the way I do, but all they are trying to do is create a “safe and inclusive space for all players and the community as a whole.” I ask whether this is reflected by the fact there isn’t a single non-white participant among the 24 teams that play at Blakelaw each week. They point to the fact there is women’s team and several other female players, as well as a team of early onset dementia sufferers as an example of their inclusive ethos. I ask how come there isn’t a team representing the LGBTQIA+ community then. They don’t have a reply.  I wonder aloud if the institutionally homophobic PIF that owns Newcastle United may not be as benevolent and compassionate as the Foundation would like to pretend they are. Silence.

At the end of the meeting, we don’t shake hands. I leave after making an undertaking I won’t question refereeing decisions in future, and we agree I don’t need any intervention from Adult Social Services regarding my conduct 6 years previously. There is an agreement that I can play at Blakelaw from that point onwards. I do and we lose the rest of our league games, as well as 2 cup ties out of 3. On the last day, Peter Beardsley is guest of honour, charged with presenting the trophies. He’s someone who knows all about having spurious allegations thrown at him by Newcastle United employees and not being allowed to defend himself properly.

The season is over, until August apparently. If I’m asked, I’ll play again, basically for something cheap to do with my time that gets me out the house for some exercise. The actual football, despite the results, has been great but I won’t pretend that the whole experience has done anything other than leaving me feeling totally underwhelmed and even more suspicious about the ideology the PIF advances across every aspect of Newcastle United, including the charitable arm of the operation.

 It’s just not cricket you see.

 

 

 

 

 

2025/2026 Fanzine CV

 

At the end of every football season, I send all the programmes I have collected over the previous 12 months to a fella in Northamptonshire, who puts them for sale in the memorabilia hut at his club. To quote Eric Bogle; “year after year, their number gets fewer…”

The same is true of fanzines. Indeed, these days I only seem to get my work in print via North Ferriby’s wonderful “View from the Allotment End” and, of course, the Percy Main programme, which I edit. Hence, at the end of 2025/2026, I have managed to get articles in the following publications -:

Percy Main Amateurs; 13 home programmes

“View from the Allotment End;” issues 28, 29 & 30, articles about Scottish football

And that’s the lot…

Mastered Mind

Newcastle United 2025/2026. Mostly shit...

And so, to no-one’s surprise, Newcastle United rounded off the thoroughly dreadful season 2025/2026 with another predictably incompetent away non-performance at Fulham. Woeful. Abysmal. Disgraceful. Unacceptable. In doing so, Nice Guy Eddie emulated his stellar predecessors Brooooth and El Fraudo with the team ticking over in 12^th place, and then only because Everton and Leeds had similarly downed tools in the Smoke on the final day at Spurs and West Ham respectively, playing a toxic brand of anti-football that wouldn’t have been out of place during the Jihadi Juan Cava interregnum. Having looked a bit better of late, Howe decided to rip up the script, to hammer square pegs in round holes, then watched on helplessly as it didn’t work. The whole 58-game debacle was summed up by Willock’s pitiful, pathetic attempt to block Kevin’s free kick that led to the opening goal, displaying the kind of half arsed, commitment-free defending we’ve not seen the likes of since Dyer’s “I’m a teapot” cameo at the Nou Camp a quarter of a century ago. When Elanga and Wissa, two of the worst summer signings we’ve made since Scott Sloan and Neil Simpson in 1990, came on, I gave up on the whole sorry affair and headed for the garden at Elder Beer. Nice pints on a glorious day, with no further darkening of the mood caused by the shower of undermotivated, tactically clueless mercenaries phoning it in on the Thames.

Looking elsewhere at the final table, congratulations must go to Villa, for not only securing Champions’ League football, but strolling to the Europa League. Considering the storm clouds that gathered around them after last season’s closing day events at Old Trafford, you have to say Emery’s team have done a fantastic job. While conceding that the Europa League is of a less exacting standard than the Champions’ League, their success in it, as well as achieving 4^th place, does somewhat undercut Nice Guy Eddie endlessly bemoaning the difficulties presented by Newcastle’s fixture list in the campaign just ended. Perhaps he could take a leaf out of Emery’s book. Buy the correct players (perhaps not Harvey Elliot). Select the best team. Employ proper tactics. Get good results. Not rocket science is it?

While I’m at it, I’ll also extend the warmest possible congratulation to Bournemouth on achieving European qualification, though I wouldn’t want to have to fill Iraola’s shoes next season, as well as recognising the incredible job Regis Le Brewse has done with sunderland. They finished 5 points and 5 places above us, deservedly won both derbies and have a European campaign to look forward to next year. Incredible. We truly have been mastered by red and white bastards. Fair play to them and fair play to Brentford too. I thought Keith Andrews would have been up against it following on from Frank, but they’ve been solid and strong all year. Then again, palming Wissa off on us has strengthened them immeasurably. All of the clubs I’ve just mentioned are well run off the pitch and coached superbly on it. Little wonder they’ve had good or great campaigns. Meanwhile, we languish in the underachievers bracket along with the likes of Liverpool, even if they got CL football somehow and Chelsea, who reached a cup final, not to mention those real basket cases, Spurs and West Ham.

It seems clear that Howe will remain in charge going in to next season, after some kind of annual appraisal summit with the PIF paymasters at Matfen Hall. However, I remain to be convinced that squad rotation, retention, resale and recruitment, whoever is nominally in charge of such responsibilities (if anyone), will be effective enough to bear out the optimistic suggestion from some that, like Manchester United, who only 12 months ago could have been a real bet for relegation if Amorim has sold Fernandes, we’ll benefit from only playing domestic games. While that might be a good shout, if Howe rediscovers his tactical nous, the lack of European football may make it harder to recruit quality additions, especially if the absentee PIF ownership remain as distant and uninterested as they have been since they took over. Still, at least the club has already made some major capital investment, not in terms of players, but by buying up a load of houses on Leazes Terrace. Hopefully, this means the East Stand will be extended and we can put to bed any ludicrous notion of building a white elephant new stadium that wasn’t remotely necessary, even when the more hard of thinking of our support were worshipping the PIF’s bloodstained bone saws. If you’d been to the Villa game this year or West Ham loss last season, you’d have seen half of the self-proclaimed loyalist supporters the world has ever seen hitting the exits as soon as we went 2-0 down. This didn’t happen under Ashley, even when we were 4-0 behind to Arsenal within half an hour. Makes you think, eh?

So, how did we get here? I last wrote about Newcastle United after the spineless surrender in the Derby; a performance so supine it suggested to me that the Gallowgate Flags display should be made up entirely of white ones, as surrender in the meekest of fashions is the way we go about things on Tyneside, or so it seems. After that, there were 3 lovely weeks off from the trials and tribulations of the club thanks to the international break and the FA Cup. All we could do was sit back and marvel at the performances put in by Tonali and Woltemade on international duty, while taking to social media to learn that those two, plus Bruno, Gordon, Hall and Livramento (who is apparently now shit because he’s always injured) were all going to be sold. In terms of actual news, the only confirmed departures were Ruddy, whose had a lovely couple of years warming the bench and doing the odd hospital PR visit, and Trippier. Make no mistake, the latter has been a legend at NUFC. His legs may be going, but I shudder to think what we’ll be like without his organisation and leadership going forward.

In the run up to the Palace game, Hoppy gave another shallow and meaningless interview where he said nothing of substance, apparently meant to reassure everyone that Nice Guy Eddie is staying. A couple of months later, the script remains unchanged, though mainly because we can’t think of a realistic upgrade who actually take the job if it was offered. Personally I’d love Simeone as boss, mainly because of his dress sense. On a serious note, the abject surrender at Selhurst Park made you wonder if it was actually possible to make a coherent case for Howe’s continuing employment. It’s a bloody good job that Mateta didn’t start this game or we’d have been in for a real hiding, instead of a shoddy and shit defeat to a team who couldn’t be bothered to shake a leg until gone 70 minutes, courtesy of a needlessly conceded late penalty.

As usual the team was the wrong one. The absence of Ramsey and Woltemade reduced our creativity to less than zero. Nothing in midfield and beyond risible down the flanks, on a day when Murphy had his worst ever game for us. Then again, Barnes was no better when he came on. Just the sort of performance to show we’d put the Mackem fiasco behind us and were ready to face a Bournemouth side who’ll just played Arsenal off the pitch. I remember the final game of the failed MacLaren experiment, when Howe’s Bournemouth came up here and ran rings round us in March 2016. It was grim that day and equally as bad this time around. I hadn’t planned on even seeing this as Tynemouth CC 3s were starting our season at home to Kirkley 2s, but the chance of a freebie in The Magpie Suite, courtesy of my pal Graham, was simply too good an offer to turn down. While the football was rancid, the catering was top notch. Honestly, the smoked salmon was to die for. The desserts looked incredible too, but I was a good lad and turned them down. Still had more than a few pints though, then snuggled into my comfy, padded armchair where the old Sky TV box used to be, and saw us play crap. Bournemouth ran rings round us, scoring the same tap in twice. At least there was oat milk for the lactose intolerant among us to enjoy in our half time coffee. Being honest, we did improve slightly after the break, but it just wasn’t good enough. Once Bournemouth got the winner, there was no urgency, no fight and no plan for us to get back in the game. At least Tynemouth 3s won by 9 wickets and I got a free programme, souvenir pin badge, well fed and hammered for free. Didn’t stop me speculating whether we’d actually pick up another point in the rest of the season though.

We didn’t the week after at Arsenal of course. However, we should have done as a highly nervous home side were nervous, dislocated and close to fluffing their lines. When I saw the starting XI included Burn, Willock and Murphy, I actually thought Howe was taking the piss. At least he finally got round to dispensing with the dreadful Ramsdale, who I hope we never see again. The reality was a single goal loss, but Osula could have scored in the first minute, but fell over, and Wissa blazed over a gilt-edged opportunity at the very end he ought to be ashamed of missing. I don’t think this game took us any further forward in terms of Howe’s suitability for the job, but that microcosm of a late miss showed us exactly what Woltemade is capable of in setting it up, and sadly exactly what Wissa is about when he skied the ball.

The on-line doom-mongering reached such a crescendo that most of the Twitterati had us relegated in 18^th place, which was never going to happen, but I did see us dropping to 16^th if we didn’t get our act together. Thankfully, we did just that against Brighton. Just back to John’s in Kildare after a trip to the Leeside derby between Cork City and Cobh Ramblers, I watched it on his dodgy stick, while keeping a check on Percy Main’s home game against Stobswood Welfare (won 5-0!!). While I still had beef with Howe over the continued omissions of Ramsey and Woltemade, you have to say Nice Guy Eddie got this one right. Murphy? Great crosses. Burn and Osula? Great headers. Barnes? Composed finish. Even Pope, dodgy kicking apart, made a couple of brilliant saves. Ramsdale wouldn’t have made the miskicks, but he wouldn’t have made the saves either. On the whole, this was a good, deserved win. All Howe and the players can do, to make us believe in them, is to win games of football. We haven’t done that enough in the league this season, but we did so today and I was happy to take the positives from that.

On-line, we’d apparently “morally” lost that game, as Brighton had a spell when they were on top. It didn’t matter when we kicked off against Forest, with Woltemade back in the team. I tell you what, we played bloody well, apart from Woltemade sadly. We absolutely deserved 3 points out of this game and Eliott Anderson’s equaliser was as unexpected as it was undeserved. Obviously those who sought to blame Pope and Hall for it are the sort of moaning bastards who are never satisfied. I mean, look at Osula, who is now starting to look the part. Obviously, he’s never going to be top class, but he’s got better. Markedly so. How come? Experience? Confidence? Or whisper it, coaching? I’ll let you decide.

Then came West Ham. A few things occurred to me after this one. Firstly, why the hell haven’t we played like that more this season? Quick, open, expansive play is what we’ve been crying out for all year and it’s a bit bloody late in the day now for the proper NUFC to show up. Secondly, weren’t West Han awful? Other than Castellanos, they didn’t look interested. The only fight they showed was Soucek, who should have been off for a handball and a penalty we didn’t get, when he laced Bruno in the head. Twice. Thirdly, wasn’t Osula great? Two excellent finishes can perhaps allow us a modicum of gratitude for the manager’s decision to persevere with him. The partnership with Woltemade (great goal today) shows promise. Finally, I loved the warm applause for the departing Trippier and Krafth. The latter was a good, solid pro who gave us everything and we really could have done with him at times when injury stretched the squad so thin.

It’s just a shame that Fulham drained all this positivity away. Anyway, let’s rest, regroup and try to be competitive at least next year. Anthony Gordon? Thanks and farewell. Don’t let the door bang your arse.

Men & Boys

Here's what I've been reading & listening to over the last while...

MUSIC:

Since I last wrote about my cultural adventures, I’ve had the pleasure of 3 live experiences, all of which had their merit. First up was the King of New York and the real Poet Laureate of North Shields (Sam Fender; who?), the genius that is Johny Brown at Pauline Murray and Rob Blamire’s Polestar Studios. Along the street from The Grove and in the lee of the Byker Wall, this is the first time I’d been in Polestar since they decamped from the Ouseburn. It was a real family affair that night. Rob was outside having a smoke and a cuppa, Pauline was inside, being the perfect host and the bairns Grace, behind the bar and Alex, doing the sound, gave the place a lovely, warm, dynastic feel.

I met up with Craggsy and Mike, so we felt obliged to have a quick detour to Two By Two to try some glorious Snake Eyes in its natural environment, before returning to see Johny, who was accompanied by BOHJ cohorts James Stephen Finn on guitar and Pete Smith on keyboards. The gig was to showcase Johny’s stunning recent, bildungsroman album “Dream A Memory of Home.” It’s a brilliant record and it worked equally as well live, with standout tracks such as “Hymn to Speed” and “When Football was our Game” garnering warm, supportive applause. Johny can even take that old Roxy Music smoocher “Dance Away” and turn it into a compelling torch song for the lonely and lost, but it was the anthemic “Rosemary Smith” that really had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

Having had some serious health troubles over the past few years, Johny has embraced his mortality and come back fighting, in one of the most intensely creative periods of his nigh-on 50-year musical career. He’s a poet, a prose writer and he’s playing acoustic guitar. The man is a marvel. He also told a rather risqué (risky?) story about the late, great Les McKeown of the Bay City Rollers, but we’d best not go into that here. Much love to one of the world’s greatest musical treasures. Johny, not Les.

 

In contrast to the cosy intimacy of Polestar, the next venue I set foot in was the bleak, cavernous expense of the O2 Arena in Leeds, where Ben, Dave and I journeyed to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor play one of only 2 English dates on their 2026 tour. Now I love Leeds, having spent a dizzying year as a postgrad in the LS6 area in the late 80s and Ben spent 4 years there in his student days, but neither of us feel a remote need to overnight there any longer. There just isn’t enough of a sense of adventure, compared to visiting Glasgow for instance, to draw you in. The three of us have seen GY!BE perform jaw-dropping sets at Barrowlands and the Manchester O2, so expectations were high, especially after a couple of enjoyable liveners in North Bar, which seems to have dialled down the Nathan Barley tribute vibes since I was last in, but this was a gig that just didn’t catch fire for any of us. The last time we’d been here was for Mogwai in February last year and I secured a superb spot against the far wall, stage right, to rest my weary legs and aching back. It was pretty packed that night, but not as oppressively rammed as this one, which was to be expected with the scarcity of GY!BE’s live appearances on these shores.

As ever, O2 security checks were as intrusive as anything the IDF could have come up with and having been corralled into the venue, it remained so full we couldn’t get forward in any way shape or form. Stuck behind the mixing desk in an oblong room with an intrusive, overhanging balcony, we barely saw the video projections, never mind the band. With such unfortunate circumstances, I felt curiously disengaged from a band who normally scoop me up into their emotional maelstrom. Yes, it was good as the sounds produced were as fabulous as ever, but it wasn’t great. For a start, they simply weren’t loud enough.

The backing videos seem to have changed from trains and buildings to flowers and trees, and the lead instruments are now as much the bass and drums as the violin. The focus of GY!BE seems to have changed, even if there was no new material to consider, to a more compassionate, less intense vibe. I’m fine with that, but I do hope they return to Barrowlands next time they visit, as it is the best venue on earth. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was investigating the new Greggs product, the chicken roll. Avoid. It tastes like sawdust.

The third and final gig I’ve seen was at a third different venue. The Lumiere Experience; a candlelit classical string trio doing Fleetwood Mac covers at Trinity Church on Gosforth High Street. Now, like everyone I suppose, Fleetwood Mac are a secret pleasure we don’t talk about in public, but this was really good, compared to the execrable Rumours of Fleetwood Mac at North Shields last year (night before Mogwai in point of fact), when we walked out halfway through. Not only were the band lousy, but the audience consisted of beery, coked-up radgies who ignored all the basic protocols of gig etiquette. This was a very different experience, and one I’d quite like to repeat in Winter when the effect of the candles would be even more impressive. The three piece consisted of cello (taking the bass parts), viola (rhythm guitar) and violin (vocals and keyboards). These classical musicians did justice to the whole Fleetwood Mac oeuvre but particularly impressed on “The Chain.” Thankfully we were sat on comfy chairs, which was a relief for my bony arse, and the audience (apart from a wearying number of latecomers) were attentive, though the presumed TB patient in our row did annoy me slightly. In all seriousness, this was a wonderful take on the cover band genre. Imagine how this would work with Teenage Fanclub songs? Perhaps less so with Whitehouse, to be honest.

Another band that probably wouldn’t cut the mustard when reinterpreted by a classical string trio are Throbbing Gristle. Next year marks half a century since “Second Annual Report” was released and I’ve been tasked with reappraising it for TQ magazine. Guess what? I’ve never previously possessed a copy, despite still owning “Third And Final Report” and “20 Jazz Funk Greats” since they hit the racks. As part of my research for this piece, as well as getting a copy of Cosey Fanni Tutti’s “Art Sex Music,” which is next on the to read pile, I sourced a CD of “Second Annual Report” on Discogs. I tell you what, it’s still an astounding piece of work. God only knows what people made of the lyrics to “Slug Bait” or “Maggot Death” at the time, not to mention Genesis haranguing the audience in Southampton. Aside from the violent imagery and confrontational words, it is the primitive electronics that really set TG apart from other acts of that era. Eerie, creepy and utterly unlike anything else at that time. Or now. Glorious.

That’s a word I would also use to describe the Fleet Foxes debut album that I found in a charity bin for a couple of quid. The main question I have is how did I miss this lot almost 20 years ago?  This beautiful record has a timeless quality, drawing on music from many places and periods, including the pre-rock era. The astonishingly accomplished five-piece labelled their work as "baroque harmonic pop jams", a neat way of encapsulating their vocal-led creations that feature a complex mesh of voices but have the instant allure of the most commercial chart hits. Probably their most famous number “White Winter Hymnal” perfectly captures the magic Fleet Foxes weave, with its sense of quasi-religious devotionals, while “He Doesn't Know Why” dovetails the two versions of California suggested by much of Fleet Foxes' music: the doo-wop and barbershop-influenced pop of the Beach Boys and the harmonically rich folk-rock of Crosby Stills Nash & Young. Bloody great.

As is St. James Infirmary’s “At the Globe,” recorded live at a TQ soiree in September 2024. I attended this gig and remarked at the time, “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 enjoyed the release of the 2-track CD of the performance from wormhole World even more. Both “Kanthing” and “Dogzenkatz” are excellent bits of work. Well done lads.

I really want to like the current iteration of Swell Maps, as I absolutely adored the original band but, as we sadly know both the Godfrey brothers, Epic Soundtracks and Nikki Sudden (who was a bit of a dick it has to be said) are no longer with us. Hence, the band that released “C21,” which I bought against my better instincts are basically Jowe Head plus some hired hands. Admittedly, these hired hands, including David Lance Callahan and Luke Haines, have got some pedigree, but it’s basically Jowe Head and a backing band. I’ve got a Jowe Head solo album; “Unhinged.” It’s alright in a self-consciously whacky sort of way and “C21” is far better than that, or the live Swell Maps album I got on Record Store Day a couple of years back, which is pretty rank. The Peel Sessions album last year was brilliant, but that was the original band and “C21” sadly isn’t. Several of these songs were written back in the day, by Epic, Phones B Sportsman (David Barrington) and John Cockrill, but only the single “Vertical Take Off and Landing” really hits the spot. The rest of the album is frankly a bit dull. I’d still go and see them mind.

The other little curio I’ve picked up recently was the Norwegian CD zine “Stoy Staffet” #2. This includes 4 different electronic sound artists, the first (Marg) invited by the editor, the second (J. Folke) invited by Marg, the third (Markus Lipsoe) invited by (J. Folke) and the last (Absalon Paaske) invited by Markus Lipsoe. It’s an excellent concept and an intriguing listen, even if electronica isn’t really my bag, but I will be investigating it again, especially if guitars are involved.

BOOKS:

I mentioned last time that I’d bought a load of books from my pal Matt Moir and I’ve slowly been going through them. Some of them I already owned, some I’d read and didn’t have copies of, while others were duplicates and there were some, such as Matt’s A Level History book on Stalin by Alan Bullock and a biography of The La’s that didn’t appeal. Obviously Alan Bullock’s thoughts on The La’s would have been a good read. Hence, after charitable donations, I ended up with 38 books to get through, many of them on music. I’ve found my way quickly through Sam Knee’s photobook of late 80s / early 90s grungy guitar bands and punters, “A Scene In Between,” that was cute and nostalgic. Other titles that didn’t detain me long included plodding, chronological, though superficial biographies of Syd Barrett (“Crazy Diamond” by Mike Watkinson) and the appallingly entitled trustafarian slob Gram Parsons (“God’s Own Singer” by Jason Walker), as well as Tony Wilson’s less than trustworthy hagiautobiography “24 Hour Party People,” which is a jolly good read, even if we’re in the presence of the epitome of the unreliable narrator. Why is he so nasty about A Certain Ratio and Vini Reilly I wonder?

There’s also Mick Middles book “The Fall,” written about 25 years ago when Mark E Smith was still an objectionable drunkard, but at least a talented one, before it all came tumbling down. Middles is at pains to point out how good a pal he was to MES. Whoopee eh? Bryan Charles writes 154 wildly pretentious pages of memoir interspersed with a lucid dissection of Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee.” Lots of long words, but I very much enjoyed it. I also got a lot out of a couple of historical books Matt passed on to me; Jack House’s proto-psychogeographical analysis of his home city, “The Heart of Glasgow,” that I found fascinating. Equally good is the first volume of Robert Kee’s history of Ireland, “The Most Distressful Country,” that mainly covers the 1789-1866 period and leaves the reader in no doubt that Robert Emmett was an absolute charlatan.

I’ve also acquired some other books of my own choice. Staying in Ireland, Brinsley MacNamara’s “Valley of the Squinting Windows” talks of small town prurience and bigotry in County Westmeath around the turn of the twentieth century. It’s a good read, encompassing sexual morality, sexual jealousy, the influence of the Church and Nationalist aspirations. Obviously it was banned by Dev and his lot for years, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. Collected from the local free library, “The Naked Face” by Sidney Sheldon, is a rattling good whodunnit page turner, whereby a psychoanalyst starts having his patients murdered, but it soon dawns on him, he is the eventual target. Mafia hitmen, a good cop and a bad cop, not to mention an eccentric private dick and lots of blood loss make this is a truly entertaining read, with a trademark plot twist at the end.

When I read “The Shipping News” back in the day I enjoyed it very much, so I was pleased to find E Annie Proulx’s diverting collection of short stories, “Heart Songs” in the free library. It’s a series of brief, homespun country tales that while not establishing her as the Flannery O’Connor of New England, does have some bizarre and surprising takes on rural life in the backwoods near the border. The last free book was Bohomul Hrabal’s “Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age,” a dizzying 100-page sentence about a drunken, lecherous shoe maker in inter war Prague and Moravia. Silly rather than sexy, I still found it a lot of fun. Perhaps I’ll look up “Closely Observed Trains” in the future.

The best and most important book I’ve read this year is David Keenan’s stunning “Boyhood.” The book begins with the abduction of a young boy is abducted outside Partick Thistle’s Firhill ground, the first timestamped reference in a journey that takes the reader from World War II to late 1980s Glasgow. Loosely based on the Ancient Greek concept of anabasis, meaning ascent or journey, multiple histories and story arcs intertwine, drawing on a whole galaxy of characters and ideas.

The relentless pace of Keenan’s anarchic narrative and sense of place demands to be experienced rather than passively read. Huge, monolithic slabs of text, with barely a full stop in sight, give way to shorter bursts spat out like a flurry of blows to the solar plexus. The result is exhilarating and overwhelming in equal measure. Guardian angels, ritualistic murder and talking horses are just a few of the gems in Keenan’s kaleidoscopic imagination. When Keenan’s on this sort of form, he deploys imagery that provokes hilarity, disgust and pure wonder, sometimes at the story’s expense. That said, when one strand of the book melds into another, it feels like a direct hit with an Exocet of language or plot; a bright flash of connection in a deluge of history, mythology and Glaswegian surrealism.

Cutting a clear route through the sensory jungle is Keenan’s love for his home city, soaked into every page. Anyone with a vague memory of those hedonistic times will revel in his descriptions of the rough-and-tumble of those streets and the wild energy of late 80s culture. “Boyhood” is another awesome Keenan book. Genuinely thrilling; furiously precise and furiously ordered. Magnificent is the best word for it. An utterly essential read.

 

In the Ghetto

My take on the 2026 Council Elections in Newcastle...

At the very outset, I am compelled to say that I hold an unwavering belief in the founding principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and all other companion parties in the World Socialist Movement, as established in 1904. The 10-point declaration of the SPGB correctly holds that Capitalism is utterly unreformable and needs to be replaced with a leaderless Socialist society, established through electoral means. This perspective is known as the impossibilist position, but it works for me. Only once in my life, the 1989 European election, did I have the privilege of voting SPGB, so I have at times followed the line of the SPGB in writing WORLD SOCIALISM on ballot papers when there is no Socialist candidate. In such crucial votes as the election of a Tyne & Wear Police Commissioner or the referendum on PR (remember that?), I doubt my actions held much sway, but you have to stand up for what you believe in.

However, I am also a pragmatist when it comes to material conditions. As a Branch Secretary for UCU for approximately 15 years, I believed in voting in a way that best served the interests of my members under Capitalism. An example of this is my knowledge that workers’ conditions were best served by remaining in the EU, which is one of the billions of reasons I voted Remain in 2016. A decade on, the implications of that terrible day continue to haunt this country and may, in 3 years’ time if there isn’t a sea change of popular opinion, result in the most repressive set of anti-worker laws since before the Great Reform Act of 1832 being introduced to the statute book. Also, as a weary supporter of largely meaningless, anodyne forms of milksop progressivism, I rejoined the Labour Party in advance of the Corbyn experiment, after having to jump through some hoops as a result of the ideological wreckage of my misguided decision to stand for the loathsome, failed Trot venture TUSC in the 2014 council elections.

The Corbyn experiment started off with such promise, but the tactical catastrophe that was partly to blame for the abject schooling Labour got in the December 2019 General Election, whatever the sinister reasons behind that debacle, disenchanted me from reformism forever. I think also the abject failure of Your Party to get off the ground shows how the Corbyn experiment is doomed to failure.  For some reason though, I never got around to cancelling my Labour Party membership, which gave me the chance to vote in the last leadership election. Guess what? I voted for Keir Starmer, incredible as that may seem. I had fondly expected that he would me some kind of safe pair of hands, with a degree of competence guaranteed when it came to running the country. The events since the unexpected landslide of 2024 have told a very different tale. We don’t need to list the failures of this corrupt, genocidal, repressive regime here, as I’d like to focus these words more on local considerations than national or global ones, for reasons that will become clear imminently.

Having endured the misfortune of being born and brought up in Gateshead, specifically Felling, that scenic fishing village on the South Bank of the Tyne, I sought to extricate myself from that area as soon as possible, leaving when I was 19. After University and all that palaver, I become a resident of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1990. Since 1998 I’ve lived in High Heaton, in the wards of Dene and Manor Park. To clarify, I haven’t moved house in that time; the boundaries and ward names have changed. For that entire period, the Liberal Democrats have held all 3 seats in my ward. Obviously, I have never voted for them. However, the repulsive political infighting in the controlling Labour group on Newcastle City Council, that saw my good friend Nick Kemp ousted from his role as leader on trumped-up charges that had no foundation and that he was utterly exonerated from, not to mention the disgraceful sidelining of Jamie Driscoll in his attempts to run for North East Mayor, were probably the final straws that saw me finally withdraw any pretence of supporting Labour in the recent council elections. I made this clear in the following Facebook post on January 29^th.

“Here’s a serious political post… in the wake of Jamie Driscoll being unveiled as the Green Party candidate for Monument ward, I’ve been thinking about what will happen in this May’s council elections in Newcastle. Being honest, I don’t see Labour or the Tories winning a single one. Newcastle isn’t the city it used to be, thankfully. It’s largely a vibrant, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, tolerant and inclusive place to live. The vast majority of residents are in favour of socially progressive policies, rather than race hate, endless rounds of austerity, the suppression of free speech or support for Israeli genocide. Just witness how Heaton has about 1,000 Palestine flags flying and zero Union Jacks. As a consequence, I see the Green Party (who I’m voting for, despite still being a member of Labour) winning in every bohemian and multi-ethnic part of the city. Even the upper middle class areas will vote progressively in electing Lib Dems. The Fash will win in Walker and the white West End, despite being taken over by the failed Tories who got us into this mess in the first place, because that section of society seem to prefer simple lies to the complicated truth. Of course, the blame lies entirely with the capitalist system, which is what we really need rid of. #HelterSkelter #comingdownfast”

On the day after polling but before any results were announced, I forecast Newcastle would elect 30 Fash, 29 Green, 16 Lib Dem and 3 Independents, no Tories and no Labour, resulting in a Green / Lib Dem coalition, which as yet hasn’t been formally agreed, though must surely be a matter of time.  I don’t want to tell you I was right, but I nearly was. The results saw the following councillors elected: Liberal Democrats 25, Greens 24 (with the highest number of votes), Fash 24, Independents 3 and Labour 2. No Tories, much to the disappointment of those performative narcissists in Leafy NE3 who’d returned one last time, which is why I’d probably have gritted my teeth if I lived in Gosforth and voted Lib Dem.

We’ll come to the reasons for those scores in a while, but let’s rewind a bit first. In the middle of March, I received an email from Labour Party headquarters, from the Complaints and Disciplinary Team in the Governance and Legal Unit, stating -:

“We are writing to inform you that the Labour Party (the Party) has received an allegation that you have committed a Prohibited Act contrary to the provisions of Chapter 2, Clause I.5 of the Labour Party Rule Book (the Rule Book), namely  supporting (as may be defined by the NEC) any political organisation that the NEC in its absolute discretion shall declare to be inimical with the aims and values of the Party.”

There was a load more censorious shit after that which I won’t bore you with, but basically, one of the regional goon squad snoopers had been scrolling through social media, looking for indications of dissent and disloyalty from members and hit the jackpot with my post, which had been deemed sufficiently serious for me to face expulsion for activities contrary to the Labour Party’s constitution. Imagine if we still had Clause 4 with the current shower of neo-Liberal shitbags at the helm? Anyway, I didn’t bother replying as they had me banged to rights, so I cancelled my monthly direct debit the same day.  Party HQ, showing its real sense of priority, soon contacted me by phone, letter and email, asking me to restart my subscription. I didn’t bother. Frankly, I’d only ever been a paper member since I rejoined, as the local ward meetings are held at Heaton Stannington FC and you’ll probably know that’s not an institution I’m ever likely to set foot in.

Thus, with the umbilical link to a Labour Party I’d first joined in 1979 finally severed, I cast my vote for the Green Party in Manor Park ward, knowing that I probably lived in one of the safest Liberal Democrat strongholds in the whole city. So it proved, as Hubbart, Stone and the other one whose name I can never remember, romped home with thumping majorities and no doubt congratulated themselves of the opportunity to run the City in the same, farcical and incompetent manner they did between 2004 and 2011. This result in the petit bourgeois enclave between Jesmond Dene and the Wills Building was entirely expected, for reasons of history and social demographics as much as national trends. In a sense, if we ignore the historical fact that Newcastle was Labour controlled from 1974 to 2004 and from 2011 to last week, effectively the same is true of almost every other ward in the city.

I understand and accept that the Fash won in Gateshead (including Felling), South Tyneside and sunderland (unsurprisingly) and are now the official opposition to Labour in North Tyneside, but despite having been brought up in Gateshead and worked for most of my professional career in South Tyneside, sunderland and North Tyneside, I’m not au fait enough with the local conditions on the ground in those boroughs to make any detailed comment. I would make the observation that the North Shields ward returning a Green councillor may be down to some of the electorate mistaking exactly what kind of Green was on offer.

Looking at the post-election map of Newcastle, it is clear that there has been a cataclysmic change in local representation, resulting in the comprehensive ghettoisation of the city’s politics, on class and ethnic lines, as well as ideological ones. To deal with the outliers first; the Chapel ward in the north west, which basically consists of the large private 1970s estate of Chapel Park and parts of West Denton. On first glance, it would have seemed this once safe Labour territory, would be a Labour / Fash marginal. However, same as in 2018 and 2022, it elected 3 Independent councillors. Kenton, in the north of the city, returned the only 2 successful Labour candidates at this election. Again, like Chapel, it seems traditional patterns of voter loyalty came into play. The Independents of Chapel and the Labour ones in Kenton are well-established, popular councillors who do the proper dirty, donkey work for their constituents. Email them or ring them up with a problem and they’ll try to sort things out for you, regardless of who you are or in which box you placed your X.  So, at least in those areas, the politics of an earlier generation, focussed on who will get the bins emptied, roads maintained and look after early years education, still come into play. I can offer no explanation, other than the obvious, why the third councillor elected in Kenton, was a Fash, with the other Labour candidate trailing in 6^th, more than a thousand votes behind her party colleagues.

While there were 2 other mixed wards: Castle (in the far north of the City, comprising of the historical villages of Brunswick and Hazlerigg, where there have been recent and significant amounts of new housing, resulting in the ward having its boundaries redrawn to include the vast Great Park estate), returning 2 Lib Dem and 1 Green and dear, benighted Walker, where a massively popular local Green candidate topped the poll, followed by a brace of Fash, the rest of the city, from the river to the airport, voted tribally.

Other than contempt for Labour, from all sectors of the city population, I don’t think tactical voting was an issue in Newcastle. If you look at the map of results, the Fash took all of the white West End, whether that be areas of grinding, inexcusable poverty and hideous social deprivation such as Benwell and Scotswood, or the lower middle-class areas of semi-respectability such as Throckley and Newburn. While immigration may be an issue for the uneducated and unemployable residents of Denton Burn, this is certainly not the case in semi-rural Walbottle, which has probably the same population demographic as it did when the city council, under its current guise, became an entity back in 1974. The same is true of Walkergate I believe, but the stupidity of residents there waving the 12, 39 or 40 buses past as they head towards Byker and on through town and up the West Road, knows no bounds. Bear in mind, the single thickest man in the whole city lives in Walkergate and you can see why the flags they’d rather fly round Appletree Gardens are the swastika and the Star of David.  I guarantee you that the politics of hate, fear and ignorance are embraced willingly by the overwhelming majority of Fash voters, who probably think that their new councillors will return Newcastle to being the mythical, homogenous white city with full employment and massively regenerated housing that it never was. Hopefully, it will dawn the dismally hard of thinking in the electorate that they’ve been sold a pup by buying into the Fash’s rhetoric, long before the next general election, otherwise my declining years will be spent systematically ticking off the destruction of the last vestiges of human rights and the welfare state in this country. I don’t think it is being alarmist to say that if Farage’s Fash or, even worse, Lowe’s Ultra Fash, are returned to power in 3 years’ time, it will be the last chance any of us have of voting for anyone.

But let’s look at the positives for Newcastle as a city in the wake of these results. Firstly, with a combined total of 49 councillors, the Greens and the Lib Dems will no doubt form some sort of coalition. In terms of socially progressive and inclusive community politics, this can only be a good thing. Remember, in 2024 we didn’t have any race riots in Newcastle, unlike every other town in the North East. That simply isn’t our multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, largely tolerant and totally inclusive city’s ethos. We voted Remain in 2016 remember. There is a huge groundswell of progressive, inclusive political thought and ideology in many parts of this city. It was of no surprise that Byker, Heaton and Ouseburn went Green. These wards are inhabited by the grandchildren of those 1970s radicals who were part of the extra-parliamentary left in the good old days. Monument too, but that is also a multi-ethnic ward which, like Arthur’s Hill, Elswick and Wingrove, saw the Asian community decamp, en masse, from Labour to the Greens. That must be a salutary lesson to Labour regarding their anti-immigration rhetoric and slavish support for Israeli genocide. You reap what you sow. As for the rest, the vast swathes of 1930s semis in the north and north east of the city voted Lib Dem. They have done before and will do again, because the seeming death agonies of Labour give those who reject the irrelevant Tories and hate the authoritarian rhetoric of the Fash, no realistic choice.

 Of course, a third of these seats will be up for re-election next year. As we can’t predict who will be Prime Minister by the time I’ve finished editing this post, let alone in 2027, it is too soon to tell what will happen. However, as I predict the eventual coalition of Lib Dems and Green will do a reasonable job in the short term of healing divisions and keeping the city ticking over, a lack of blood on the streets may well see Labour win back the seats lost to the Fash, whose potential for implosion and criminal fecklessness cannot be discounted.

Let’s look forward to the next General Election in 2029. Who will I be voting for? WORLD SOCIALISM.

Market Forces

Cork City v Cobh Ramblers, North Kildare v Cork Harlequins & Treaty United v Wexford... I've been home for a while in the old country...

When I finally completed all 42 Scottish grounds with a trip to Queens Park v Raith Rovers last November (and I’m writing this before the play off between Brora Rangers and Edinburgh City, in the knowledge I may have to make a trip to the far distant Highlands at some point), I needed a new challenge. After taking in the League of Ireland’s domestic curtain raiser at the Aviva Stadium (Bohemian 0 St Patrick’s Athletic 0) at the end of February, it occurred to me that, having started visiting LofI games in December 1985 with a trip to Ballybofey to see Finn Harps 2 Derry City 7, I really ought to tick off the last 4 grounds that remained for me. These were Cobh Ramblers, Cork City, Kerry and Treaty United. The major problem was that all of them are in the province of Munster, in the south west of the country and the only Irish Airport served by Newcastle is Dublin. Thankfully my mate John, resident of Maynooth, County Kildare, but hailing from Boyle in County Roscommon, was prepared not only to give me a bed for a few days, but to accompany me on this extreme ground collecting adventure, which will need to be done in two parts (at least), of which this was the first.

The four places I need to visit are all homes of clubs in the League of Ireland First Division, which consists of 10 clubs playing each other 3 times a season, as opposed to the Premier division, which consists of 10 clubs playing each other 4 times a season. Because of the geographical issues, I decided to make the trip over on a Bank Holiday weekend, as the teams play on a Friday (the regular match day) and a Monday. Effectively, this meant I was looking at Easter, May Day or the first weekend in August. Having consulted both the fixtures and Ryan Air’s website, I plumped for £30 return fares and the May Day weekend, with the Leeside derby between Cork and Cobh and a trip to Limerick (aka Stab City) for Treaty United versus Wexford.

With Ben’s car in the garage, I couldn’t get a lift to the airport on the Thursday evening, so I headed for the Metro. The display board at South Gosforth told me of “delays systemwide,” which set alarm bells ringing, though a train for the Airport (proudly displaying OUT OF SERVICE) got me there to check in on time. As I’d been fleeced by Ryan Air for bringing on a case, I was allocated priority boarding and took a window seat with nobody sat next to me for a short and smooth trip across. I got in my 10,000 steps in by walking from the terminal to the exit and then caught a 16 bus to Drumcondra, where John was waiting for me. We got the train to Maynooth and, because it was already after 10.30, we decided against a pint and I got my head down sharpish, in preparation for long journeys over the next few days.

After a good sleep and a fortifying breakfast of rashers and white pudding, we took the W6 bus to Hazlehatch Station and our first train to Portlaoise, along with some overdressed young ones on their way for a day on the gargle at Punchestown races. Next up, a train direct to Cork and a short walk to the Premier Inn where we’d booked in for the night. A quick drop of de bags and then we went out exploring De Banks. Cork’s equivalent of Temple Bar is Oliver Plunkett Street, and we settled into The Oliver Plunkett pub for a bit of grub. The Irish Stew was pricey at twenty quid, but excellent, as was the Muskerry IPA. I’m slightly ashamed I didn’t go for the vin du pays of Cork, Beamish stout, but there was plenty of time for that later.  

If you’d known where you were going, you could have walked to Cork’s ground at Turner’s Cross in no time at all, but as we didn’t, we took the 203 bus and headed into the fantastic, welcoming pub outside the ground, The Corner Flag. Here, Beamish was taken at a very reasonable fiver a pint and we mingled freely with home and away fans, before taking our place at the far end of the ground on the side of the pitch. This being Ireland, it began tipping it down, so we escaped the deluge by getting seats behind the goal. The crowd was 4,610 in a ground with a supposed capacity of 7,770. There were possibly 500 away fans and an empty block next to them, but I couldn’t see where else you could squeeze another couple of thousand in. Entrance was £15, but with kids for a quid, it swelled the gate and resulted in probably the highest percentage of people not watching the football of any game I’ve ever been to.

 

There was a good reason for that. The game was appalling. Previously unbeaten table toppers Cork City, under the stewardship of Barry Robson and David Meyler, were looking for an immediate return to the League of Ireland Premier Division, by assembling a team of giants and playing one dimensional hoofball all night. It was awful to watch and at least little Cobh Ramblers, who’d never previously won a game at Turner’s Cross, tried to play football when they had the chance. Despite my dad and his family hailing from Bandon in County Cork, as well as being a fervent supporter of Cork hurling (and to a lesser extent football), I’ve never felt any attachment to Cork City, as Bohs are my Irish team, and tonight’s encounter didn’t change that. Of course, you need to factor in that the history of association football on De Banks is almost as tortuously labyrinthine as British Trotskyism in the post WWII period. Over the years, venues have included both Turner’s Cross and Flower Lodge (now the city’s second GAA ground, renamed Páirc Uí Rinn), as well as a series of defunct clubs including:  Fordsons/Cork F.C. (1924–1938), Cork Bohemians        (1932–1934), Cork City I (1938–1940), Cork United I (1940–1948), Cork Athletic (1948–1957), Evergreen United/Cork Celtic (1951–1979), Cork Hibernians (1957–1976), Albert Rovers/Cork Alberts/Cork United II (1976–1982) and Cork City II (1984-present), with a brief interregnum as FORAS (Friends Of  Rebel Army Society).  Anyway, Cobh won this one with a softish penalty for handball on 77 minutes and I admit I was pleased. I’ll bet you there wasn’t a cow milked in Queenstown that night!!

At full time, we avoided the potential headache of a packed bus by taking a taxi through the backstreets of south Cork back to Oliver Plunkett Street and the welcoming embrace of the famously eccentric Hi-B Bar. As the sign says, No phones. No shots. No please? No pints. A cracking little upstairs bar that looks like an old person’s sitting room, complete with coal fire. We had a couple of Beamish in there, before it got oppressively full and hot. Google recommended The Long Valley opposite and we settled in there. John was delighted to see his favourite Smithwicks on offer, but I stuck with Beamish. We stayed until closing, by which time the place was deserted and freezing, then headed back to the hotel and crashed out. There were plenty of bars still open, but with a combined age of 134 and a gallon each on board, we decided to be sensible.

Next morning, we checked out and went to the station. There was a replacement bus to Mallow (“no rush lads; take your time” as the train fella said) and then we got the train up to Portlaoise and changed for Hazlehatch, again in the company of overdressed young ones on their way to Punchestown races for a day on the gargle. We had a slight delay waiting for the W6, meaning we got back to John’s a minute after Newcastle took the lead against Brighton. In a reverse of my usual Saturday routine, I watched Newcastle (via a dodgy box) and kept an on-line eye on Percy Main’s progress against Stobswood Welfare (we won 5-0). After that, we watched Monaghan stage “the greatest comeback since Harry Houdini” in beating Derry in the first Ulster semi-final, before Dublin eviscerated Louth in the first Leinster one. With Newcastle emerging victorious, I could actually enjoy a Saturday night Match of the Day for the first time in months, before getting another, good sober night’s sleep.

Sunday morning, I decided I’d go and see some cricket. North Kildare were hosting Cork Harlequins in the Leinster Cricket League. John decided against a four mile track down the side of the Royal Canal in the direction of Kilcock, opting for Kildare v Westmeath in the second Leinster semi-final and Armagh versus Down in the second Ulster one. If it had been raining, I’d rather have seen Limerick v Clare in the Munster Hurling, but the day stayed fair and so I headed for the cricket. North Kildare Sporting Club is a little piece of Surrey or Hampshire transported to the exurbs of Kilcock. Not only was there cricket to watch, but also lawn bowls (not the sort you get in Cork or South Armagh) and a rugby final replay between Ashbourne and Tullamore. I ignored the bowls, saw about 30 seconds of the rugby and concentrated on the cricket. Cork batted first and made 222. They were 130/3 from 23 when I got there before subsiding to 148/8. A late revival saw a semi-decent score at a pleasant, smallish ground with a proper village feel, but hardly any benches to sit on. Kildare weren’t particularly fazed by the total, as Moize Haider flayed 95 off 67 balls, being brilliantly caught on the fence trying for another maximum to bring up his ton. Yash Kalasannavar (58) gave good support and there were a couple of silly dismissals as they tried to get it done before drinks. In the end, North Kildare won by 5 wickets with 22 overs to spare and I had my first pint of Guinness of the whole trip (lovely it was), before John collected me.

We went to eat in Dowling’s in Prosperous, on account of it being the pub where Christy Moore and Planxty started out. No music this time, but a glorious chicken dinner and a fine pint of black porter (they didn’t have Beamish), in a pub full of miserable Kildare fans on their way back from defeat at Tullamore. From there, we went to Farrington’s microbrewery in Rathcoffey. A lovely pint of 5.2% Out on Bale IPA, but terrible, rude service. From thence, back to John’s local, The New Town for plenty Beamish. We called it a night around 12, watched the GAA highlights on The Sunday Game (facile wins for Armagh and Limerick), then crashed out in preparation for the trip to Limerick.

 

Same drill as Saturday. W6 to Hazlehatch Station, train 1 to Portlaoise, train 2 to Limerick Junction and train 3 to Limerick Colbert. We arrived spot on time at 2.19. There’s much to be said about having railways in public ownership. Irish trains are quick, clean and reliable because profits aren’t going direct to venture capitalists but are being used to reinvest in the infrastructure. Money from the EU helps as well. Another thing we can blame on Brexit…

Limerick, I’m pleased to report, lives up (or down) to every negative stereotype going. It looks like Gateshead and stinks of weed. Litter-strewn, almost deserted and plagued by young fellas riding up and down the main drag on scraggy ponies, it’s like the 1980s never left this place. After an expensive and average meal in a supposed Texas Steak joint bedevilled by terribly slow service, we wandered in the direction of Garryowen and found Markets Field without a problem.  I have to say it’s a lovely little ground, reminding me of Elgin City or Montrose. Tickets were a fiver and we took a seat in the 1,200 capacity stand. The crowd for this one was about 500, including a dozen or so from Wexford, as hurling and rugby are the games of choice along the Shannonside. Also, the history of association football in Limerick is almost as convoluted as it is on De Banks. From 1947 to the present day, there has been Limerick FC, Limerick United, Limerick City, Limerick 37 and currently Treaty United, with home games played at Markets Field, Hogan Park, Jackman Park, Crossagalla, Thomond Park (improbably enough) and now Markets Field again. Add in the fact they were managed by both Neil MacDonald and Sam Allardyce in the past and you have a real basket case of a club.

That’s why I was so elated when the plucky, limited lads of Treaty United beat a technically superior, tactically astute but woefully blunt Wexford side with a scrappy 95^th minute rebound. Although, I loved the pre-match music as well; “Jump Around,” “Last Night,” “Just Like Heaven” and, predictably enough, The Cranberries. However there’s got to be a degree of cognitive dissonance going on when “Zombie” segues into “Sean South From Garryowen,” which the teams came out to and was sung lustily by the whole crowd. Marvellous. Best pre-match ever. Imagine if Portadown came to visit, or if they got into the Champions’ League final…

Afterwards, we had an easy walk back to the station, catching trains to Limerick Junction, Portlaoise and Hazlehatch, then the W6 bus and a good night’s rest. I came back on the Tuesday, via Maynooth to Drumcondra, the 16 bus, a Ryan Air flight that landed early, the Metro to South Gosforth… and then a taxi as it wasn’t running to Four Lane Ends. Brilliant eh?

Now it’s time to plan for my next visit. Cobh Ramblers v Wexford on Friday 31^st July and Kerry v Cobh on Monday 3^rd August? You heard it here first….