The Only Way Is Aesthetics

On Sunday coming, Newcastle United travel to sunderland in the Premier League, marking the overdue end of another two week international hiatus, of which the supposed highlight was the aquatic farce in Warsaw.  Consequently, this fortnight saw the Magpies, as is the wont of the current “owners,” predictably exploit a golden opportunity to spend the entire quinzieme on the front and back pages of both regional and national press, for matters completely unrelated to the game of football. One small shred of comfort for careworn and battle fatigued Newcastle fans can be taken from the fact that the next international break is not until March 23^rd; this does give Ashley and Llambias plenty of time to plan a real jawdropper for the week before Easter of course.  But will it be as shocking as the GAA’s decision to relegate seemingly perpetual All Ireland Hurling champions Kilkenny to the English GAA Football Championship? Some may see this as perfectly logical, bearing in mind that not only do the Cats view any game that isn’t hurling with utter contempt, but also Antrim and Galway fight off the shackles of geography to play in the Leinster Hurling Championship. I’ll avoid commenting further, as my interest remains in the people’s Garrison Game.

This week I had hoped to avert my gaze from the Premier League, though not to the subject of music this time, despite the fact I was delighted to pick up vinyl copies of a first pressing of what has become regarded as the finest folk rock album of all time “Liege & Lief” by Fairport Convention, as well as a double album collection of Trembling Bells’ sometime collaborator Bonnie “Prince” Billy during the past week. In addition, posthumous rumours of sexual impropriety by the venerated John Peel had spread rapidly across the internet. On Saturday night, I put such gossip to one side and danced, badly, to Teenage Kicks at the splendid Popklubb, where the simply wonderful Pat Nevin was the guest DJ. I kissed him on the forehead to forgive him for the goal he scored for Chelsea in a 1-1 draw at St. James in the 83/84 promotion campaign. I’d like to think he enjoyed that more than the Belgium v Scotland game I happened across after the Polish postponement, for which he was a summariser.

Actually, I had hoped in this Blog to be allowed to consider the widely perceived recent increase in radginess at local non-league level, in the wake of the Whitley Bay versus West Auckland, post-match pagger, courtesy of the Alex Francis tag wrestling and urban sprinting squad. I attended Hillheads last Tuesday, but there was no need to lay a wreath in the car park for Lee Paul Scoggins, as Bay tend to do their talking on the pitch. I speak as I find and I have to say, I’ve always enjoyed chatting with West Auckland boss Peter Dixon; apparently his team did not lose control when they had 3 sent off on Saturday, when losing 4-2 at home to Billingham Synthonia, while I enjoyed a glorious autumnal afternoon in the lesser Tyne Valley with Harry Pearson, at Ryton & Crawcrook Albion’s 1-0 home win over Washington, with 4 former Percy Main players spread between the sides.

Peter may be a hothead, but he’s an angel compared to the Wallsend Town kickboxing squad, who have recently been suspended by the Northumberland FA from all football until further notice. Those who’ve seen them in action in the Northern Alliance premier division this season will probably understand why. Similar grumblings of utterly unacceptable conduct, on and off the pitch, continue to haunt the impeccably attired Hebburn Town managerial Cosa Nostra, especially as regards their less than philosophical reaction to a last minute home loss to Bedlington. This is a subject to which I may return in the coming weeks, but unfortunately I must return, in this missive, to the vexed question of Newcastle United’s sponsorship deal with Wonga; it is a subject I had hoped I’d dealt with in sufficient detail last week. However, events require comment, opinions must be examined and clarifications issued.

As ever, there has been considerably more heat than light generated during the on-going debate that has involved all levels of Newcastle’s support, at various levels of intellectual and ideological complexity. The ludicrous non-story of Muslim players refusing to wear shirts sponsored by usurers was exposed as a farcical, mendacious canard on account (no pun intended) of the fact Ba, Ben Arfa, Cisse and Tiote didn’t bat an eyelid about donning the current Virgin Money design. However, this journalistic work of speculative fiction did serve a useful purpose in keeping the atrociously misused terms morality and ethics centre stage in this debate.

I’m not one to hide my light under a bushel; it gives me great pleasure to announce that last week’s Blog gained the greatest numbers of hits of any of the 121 different posts I’ve made since I established the site in July 2010. Clearly this question is far too important to be reduced to the level of a popularity contest. On such matters, being in the right, whether that makes one liable to accusations of being the only one marching in time while the rest of the battalion is out of step, is the most important thing. A lone, truthful voice can of course, be the one who points out that the emperor’s new clothes shouldn’t be sponsored by semi-legal loan sharks.

We’ll not dwell on the fact that the increase in traffic on this site translates in to just shy of 400 visitors in 7 days, with only one person leaving a comment, flattering though it was. The really encouraging aspect of this is the fact I’ve had almost 100 messages of support and comments in agreement on Twitter and Facebook, by text, email, phone call and face to face conversation, notwithstanding the previous paragraph’s points about being right and being popular existing as sometimes contrasting states. In fact, there have only been two people who have directly opposed my views on ideological grounds; one made an impassioned comment on The Independent website after my initial article, while the other published this superbly written polemic that can be seen here -: http://blackwhitered.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/wonga-not-fit-and-proper-for-toon/

While I fully appreciate the author’s points; there remains one particular intractable bone of contention where all our subsequent marginal disagreements spring from. I simply can’t agree that there are certain capitalist companies who are more acceptable as sponsors, as their business practices aren’t as reprehensible as Wonga’s; to me, all capitalist companies are equally contemptible. I don’t fully accept that there are those organisations that aren’t as bad as others. However, I’d concede that is a minor, recondite philosophical point and that author’s main intention isn’t to promote responsible capitalism. His main disagreement with me stems from perceived meaning behind my choice of language at certain points in the initial Independent article, specifically the phrases willing suspension of disapproval and waste of breath, that he claims can be interpreted of tacit support for Wonga if a Faustian pact can be entered in to, resulting in the arrival of 3 players in January. Ignoring the cheap point that I have to watch the team and I know how badly those 3 players are needed, let’s examine the words I used. Sadly, I can take no credit for inventing the phrases in question; the former being a corruption of the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, often used in relation to audience response to Shakespearean tragedy and the latter un hommage to William Butler Yeats, whose An Irish Airman Forsees His Death I’d been reading almost immediately before penning my article.  It’s wryly ironic that a misquotation from Yeats has resulted in the birth of the terrible beauty of Newcastle United fans denouncing each other for the degree and nature of their objection to the Wonga deal.

A couple of days after the initial news of the deal broke; the unrepresentative, discredited rump of NUST appeared embarrassing, rather than fashionably, late to the party with a predictably limp and mealy-mouthed email. Taking time out from bellyaching about Ashley for ignoring their letters asking for a meeting, or even a day’s work experience at Darsley Park, their press release consisted of banal platitudes about the effect of pay day loans on our supporter base being phoned in by an organisation who didn’t fully grasp the motions they were going through. While pay day loans may be a blight on the lives of our supporters from Blakelaw to Meadowell and Marsden to Blaydon, that’s far less territory than the Casablanca to Cape Town constituency of arch imperialists Tullow Oil, whose meaningless slogan Invest in Africa adorns the shirts of our local rivals.

The latest, soporific issue of The Mag includes several articles that seem to object to the new sponsors, mainly on the grounds that the club’s public profile may be damaged by the Wonga deal, as they’re not a sufficiently glamorous or prestigious brand to be associated with our club. Perhaps the contributors would prefer Harvey Nichols or Prada instead? Either that or we can call in the cast of Geordie Shore to advice which companies are a la mode enough for Newcastle United. Basically, other than the Blog mentioned above, almost all of the criticism of the Wonga deal is not based on ethics but on aesthetics, at which point morality becomes irrelevant. Will we soon hear atrichorous chuckleheads chanting Ode to a Grecian Urn to the tune of Blaydon Races?

As the clamorous response begins to appear as formless and confusing as Altman’s Pret A Porter, the campaign in the press continues to be led by David Con-Hot-Air of The Grauniad. Perhaps aware of the vast numbers of redundancies on his title and a need to make himself indispensable, he’s taken time out from retweeting, whether for reasons of personal insecurity or rampant narcissism, any example praise for his latest book he can find, to assuming the self-elected role of the white knight on a pantomime horse, wielding his simple sword of truth and sense of British fair play against the money lenders. All well and good, but if you lay down with the aesthetes, you’ll catch their fleas; his paper has been responsible for a merciless anti Newcastle United agenda, promoted by Marina Hyde, Barry Glendenning and Lousie Taylor for a decade now. While blaming Con-Hot-Air for the behaviour of his predecessors may be akin to castigating Karl Robinson’s slick MK Dons outfit for the sins against football of their previous incarnation as the Wimbledon Crazy Gang, it must be stated that The Grauniad has never apologised for the scarcely believable screeds of anti NUFC bile they produced.

The matter has even been raised in the House, as the Northern Group of Labour MPs took time out from campaigning for a bold Socialist programme designed to confront the evil, anti-working class agenda of Cameron’s Tories (yes I’m being ironic, tragically), to get their mugs on Look North by making shallow, vaguely censorious pronouncements about how they opposed the club’s deal with this immoral company. Presumably, erstwhile NUST board member Chi Onwurah and her comrades will soon be publishing The Ethical Potential Premier League Sponsors Table, naming those moral capitalist finance houses and multinational corporations it is deemed acceptable for clubs to cut deals for shirt sponsorship with in the future. Perhaps we’ll see Newcastle United sponsored by The Body Shop in future?  Amidst this rhetorical, quasi political, populist posturing, the serious issue of the utter abandonment of both their principles and responsibility for effectively representing the interests of those who elected these MPs has been pushed to one side.

The member for Wansbeck, Ian Lavery, a man who combines his job at Westminster with the Presidency of the National Union of Mineworkers and being the Chairperson of Ashington FC, responded to the Wonga deal by sending back his season ticket to SJP, no doubt fuelled by moral indignation and not because he’s presumably got enough things on his plate to keep him busy without tipping up to see the Magpies twenty-odd times a year. His season ticket was in the Platinum Club incidentally; personally I’d not be able to afford a seat there unless I took out a loan. Does the Northern Group of Labour MPs have a friendly credit provider they can recommend to me? Of course, if Mr Lavery finds at any time in the future that he’s missing his visits to St. James, either for sporting or networking reasons, I’m sure he’ll be able to find another fella called Ian in the Irish Centre who can always get his hands on spare tickets.

However, to be scrupulously fair, I’m sure most, if not all, north east Labour MPs will be at the TUC organised A Future That Works march and rally in London this Saturday, against the vicious Tory austerity measures, along with an estimated 200,000 others. Despite the fact that I call myself a Marxist and that I am a union activist, I’ll not be there, even if 2 members of my branch are going in my stead. Personally, I’ll be at North Shields v Alnwick Town in Northern League Division 2, doing my bit for the armchair class struggle. Perhaps the unpalatable truth is I’m more of a dilettante than a militant, which may not be a beautiful thing to say, but it is the truth…