Epatez La Bourgeoise!!

T.S. Eliot claimed that “April is the cruellest month,” and while there may be some truth in that, there is a persuasive argument that mid July is the most noteworthy week in the calendar for red letter days, with the period 12^th to 15^th July containing successive dates of equal portent and importance.

On Thursday 12^th, renowned racehorse and helicopter owner Michael Owen, two months after he was granted a free transfer following his 3 year sojourn sat either on the bench or treatment table at Old Trafford, took to Twitter to declare that he’d not be stepping down to Championship level football to further his career and would retire rather than play at a lower level; brave words from someone who managed the grand total of 6 goals during his time with Manchester United.

Clearly this announcement of a desire to continue “playing at the highest level” was on account of two factors; firstly because the amount of unearned income he’d be able to soak up for achieving the square root of jack shit from Cardiff or Bolton wouldn’t satisfy his insatiable avarice and secondly because the upholstery on physio couches in the second tier wouldn’t be luxurious enough for him to relax on in style while poring over “The Sporting Life” each morning. No doubt some billionaire-bankrolled vanity outfit offering him unimaginable wealth and zero commitment will come in with a deal; my tip is the man who is held in contempt by the fans of every club he’s played for (Liverpool, Real Madrid, Newcastle and Man United) will accept a 2 year sinecure in Dubai, before disappearing off to count his enormous pot of gold. The man embodies everything that is wrong with modern football and I struggle to cogently express the contempt I feel for him.

However, his trifling Twitter inanities have been superseded in the public consciousness by Rio Ferdinand’s less than subtle 140 character attack on Ashley Cole, following the latter’s appearance as a defence witness in support of John Terry. To claim Ferdinand was being racist is not a standpoint I can agree with. I am uncomfortable with Ferdinand’s terminology and if it had been a white person saying the same thing, it would obviously have been racist in tenor, but Ferdinand is a black man; someone who has endured the institutional racist structures of capitalism from the day he was born. He may be a fabulously wealthy footballer, but at the end of the day, his skin pigment has marked him out for abuse and prejudice at every step of the way. To claim otherwise is to be as wide of the mark as those who state, without evidence, that Celtic are as bad as Rangers, but more of that later.

As we all know, Terry was found not guilty of racially abusing Ferdinand’s younger brother Anton. This verdict, given by a magistrate rather than a jury, as the case was not heard in a Crown Court, has been widely and roundly condemned by those with sketchy understanding of the English Common Law. Legally, what Terry did or did not do is immaterial; he has been found not guilty and, regardless of the removal of the double jeopardy concept from the judicial framework, the Crown Prosecution Service will not reopen the case as, in line with their guiding operating principles, even where a revisiting of the case would be in the public interest, as there is not a realistic chance of a conviction, the affair is at an end. Basically, in English law, the principle of innocence until proven guilty is the founding rock of the whole judicial system. Scrolling through the entire 15 page judgement handed down by Senior District Judge Howard Riddle (http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/r-v-john-terry.pdf), who was the presiding magistrate in Terry’s case, the last sentence of all is the most relevant when debating Terry’s guilt or not; there being a doubt, the only verdict the court can record is one of not guilty. I am no lawyer, but I feel certain the prosecution brief in Terry’s case failed to do the evidence justice, rather than the Magistrate wrongfully letting off a felon. Unfortunately, if you believe in justice and the legal system, you have to believe in all of it, not just the bits that you agree with. Consequently, there is no option but to abide by this judgement, even if the temptation is to set off on a coruscating critique of bourgeois justice and the role of the legal profession in maintaining the capitalist status quo.

Basically, the prosecution failed in its duty to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Terry was guilty of the offence of which he was charged. Of course Terry is a thoroughly dislikeable man and as much of a folk devil for the wrongs of the modern game as Owen, but being a lothario with parasitic family members with career criminal tendencies, isn’t a hanging offence. What Terry said was appalling, unacceptable and downright disgraceful; it will surely lead to the FA charging him and issuing a lengthy ban. This subsequent course of action is possible, not just because Yohan Cabaye received a 3 game ban for a “tautening of the facial muscles,” that indicated malice aforethought in a challenge during the cup tie at Brighton (yes I still have a bee in my bonnet about that game and the fallout from it), but because FA rules require far a less stringent proof of guilt than in a court of law. They can and they must throw the book at him.

The Terry verdict was announced on July 12^th, which marked the 323^rd anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, which was an event that was often sung lustily about in The Shed, back in not just pre Abramovich but pre Matthew Harding days, when Chelsea were that little corner of West London that remained forever stuck in 17^th Century County Louth. There was a fanzine about Chelsea and their comrades in sashes, Linfield and Rangers entitled The Blues Brothers that was at great variance from my own take on Irish history. Suffice to say, seeing the scowling faces of the No Surrender zealots, it makes you wonder just how miserable they would have been if they’d lost the Battle of the Boyne. Of course the weather has been so lousy this summer; they probably struggled to get the bonfires lit on the eve of The Twelfth.

Clearly, the future of Newco was weighing heavy on the minds of Billy Boys everywhere. Despite the gerrymandering machinations of the utterly discredited SPL Chief Executive Neil Doncaster and the nonsensical, alarmist protestations of his SFA counterpart Stewart Regan, the grandsons of King William were rightfully denied not only a place in the Scottish Premier League, but also a dangerously fudged compromise of a parachuted place in Division 1. Following a 10-1-1 vote against them in the top flight, a 26-5 majority wanted them placed in Division 3, which is where they will most likely be, if talks to bring this about are successful. The clock is ticking, as their first fixture is away to Brechin a week on Saturday and the vexed issue of a 12 month transfer ban has yet to be addressed. Perhaps the most heart-warming fact of all is that finally Rangers will be given a chance to play league football in England, as they’re due at Shieldfield on August 25^th to take on Berwick Rangers. Quite what genteel Tweedmouth will make of 2,000 lairy Teddy Bears is quite another matter.

In all seriousness, the placing of Rangers in Division 3 must be applauded from every angle, which is no doubt reflected by the fact that an enormously high majority of their own fans wanted to be placed at that level, to effectively start from scratch. The fact that Scottish league clubs have looked at the sporting integrity of their competition, listened to the wishes of all supporters in Scotland and not been swayed by vague threats of a drop in revenue, as alluded to by Doncaster and Regan and then voted in such huge numbers for the bottom tier option has to be applauded. It is a bit of a shame that this vote was knocked back a day from Orangemen’s Day to Friday 13^th, but there is a pleasing logic to the horror connotations provided, especially if you’ve ever visited Ibrox.

The thing that annoys me most about The Old Firm, and as a Hibs supporter I’m used to regular maulings by both clubs, is how those outside of a Scottish context (I’m including the overwhelming majority of English fans in this) have seen the decision to put Newco in Division 3 as a kind of principled suicide pact by the Scottish league clubs. English fans see the decision only in terms of income generated and not the integrity of the competition. When this is pointed out, the nonsensical utterances that “they’re both as bad as each other” are blandly trotted out, presumably by those who think Rio Ferdinand is a racist. No, they are not; Celtic are nowhere near as bad as Rangers. The number of charges against Rangers for sectarian chanting (“The Famine Song” is both the most offensive one imaginable and the most popular among the Gers most intense fans) is simply staggering and this, combined with the illegal accounting practices that have bought them most of their honours in the last 10 years, have combined to make them uniformly despised outside of their Ibrox home. In the opinion of the rest of the Scottish game, and as a Hibee I must pay tribute to Hearts for their unbending stance on this, it is time for Rangers to atone for their wrongdoings and to come back as a proper club and as a better club, on the pitch, off the pitch and in the boardroom.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of other opportunities for the less than tolerant elements of Scottish society to spread their poison. I told of the Orange Walk query at the end of my trip to Shotts; well on Saturday 14^th, at Whitley Bay 1 Airdrie United 1 in a pre-season kickabout at Hillheads, a shadow was cast over my enjoyment by the appearance of 2 Union Jacks with SDL embroidery on them. Ironically, Newco’s arrival has helped propel Airdrie United (a club born after the liquidation of Clydebank) to Division 1. However, if Newco means Year Zero for Scottish football, then so be it. At least the Airdrie fans didn’t have a song sheet to rival the Ibrox hordes.

Talking of songs, I must have been about 12 years old when I first encountered the music of Woody Guthrie. One Saturday afternoon during the baking summer of 1976, I was listening to Alan “Fluff” Freeman’s show on Radio 1. It must have been in the summer, as during the football season I’d either have been at St. James’ Park (35p in to the Gallowgate and 40p in to the Leazes in those days) or listening to the Magpies’ usual away day capitulation on Radio Newcastle’s “Home & Away” programme presented by George Bayley, as the newly launched Metro Radio’s distracting adverts ruined the continuity of second half commentary. Anyway, in preference to Jonny Miller’s triumph at Royal Birkdale in The Open, Bjorn Borg’s debut Wimbledon success or Tony Grieg’s England suffering a 5-0 trouncing by the West Indies, I opted for some music.

At some point on that breathless, stifling afternoon Freeman played “1913 Massacre,” the tale of the deaths of 73 children in a stampede at a Christmas Party held by striking copper miners for their families in Calumet, Michigan. The murders were occasioned by scabs erroneously claiming there was a fire in Italian Hall, where the party was taking place, then locking the exit doors, causing a mass panic and deaths by suffocation, in the manner echoed by the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster.

Never before had I heard such music; plaintive, declamatory singing about a tragic incident over a simple acoustic guitar backing. I found the song immensely powerful and upsetting at the time and I still do. I last listened to it on July 14^th, Bastille Day, as this marked the 100^th Anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth and the bitter tears of upset and rage still flowed, not just at the tragic events, but at Guthrie’s castigation of the conditions of capitalism that gave rise to the whole situation; “see what your greed for money has done.”

Last July, Ben, Laura and I took in The Mouth of the Tyne Festival, pogoing and skanking the afternoon away to the joyous, righteous sounds of The Buzzcocks and Neville Staples. Clearly such a quality line-up on the rates could not be repeated, so this year’s festival, featuring McFly and The Wanted, was given a wide berth. I’ve not heard any reports about their performances, but I am no doubt they didn’t come together for a final encore of “This Land Is Your Land,” to commemorate Woody’s centenary, which is just as well.

One person who has a reputation for covering Woody Guthrie songs, including a highly arresting version of “Deportees,” is unapologetic Liberal Democrat voter Billy Bragg, or Baron Bridport as I like to call him, in recognition of his sterling work in helping to dismantle the last vestiges of the Welfare State. Bragg first crossed my radar in 1984, not on account of his then wishy, washy, hand wringing, soft left, reformist politics, but because of his beautiful love song, “St Swithin’s Day,” a festival which takes place on July 15^th each year. On that basis, it is a shame Bragg couldn’t have been in the North East last weekend (he was actually in America, playing a festival on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay)as there was a great opportunity for a double header; Sunday at Tynemouth and Saturday in Durham for The Big Meeting, where he could have shared a platform with another firebrand loony lefty (I’m joking here) Red Ed Milliband.

A fella I work with, Dan, comes from the former Durham mining community of Hetton. He’s a good lad Dan; a lifelong black and whiter from the Mackem heartlands who plays in top quality new folk octet Dennis (I’ll return to them in the future where their EP is released and they’ve gigs to play), who include a brass section from the Hetton Colliery Band. Despite being a strong advocate of his local community and its traditions (his grandfather worked underground), Dan doesn’t take in The Big Meeting any more, on account of the fact that politics and comradeship have been replaced by crass, day long boozing and trivial local disputes that turn, with depressing frequency, in to alcohol fuelled brawls. Rather like the situation regarding some misinterpretations about the Old Firm rivalry, simple lies replace complicated truths and the spirit and philosophy of Gramsci is again the guiding principle to understand anti social behaviour. Pisshead pit yakkas having a collective false unconsciousness…

Sadly, we live in troubled times where the hegemony of reaction and repression is reinforced and redoubled at our every step. Mes amis, il est maintenant temps pour nous de épater la bourgeoise.