This blog is the bones of an article I sent to Northern Alliance Press Secretary Jon Tait, who is compiling a book for the Alliance's 125th anniversary in 2015. I reproduce it here as a way of drawing a line under my involvement in that league. Keep checking back here for news of my next venture...
Aged 8, I attended my first Newcastle United game on January
1st 1973, when we drew 2-2 with Leicester City at St. James Park. A month later, my second trip to the ground
saw my first, numbing experience of the familiar pattern of underachievement
and failure that has followed Newcastle United around like a bad smell since we
last won the FA Cup in 1955, as we were knocked out of the same competition 2-0
by Luton Town; 40 years later, the wait for silverware continues, with only the
capture of the 2007 Inter Toto Cup to celebrate in the intervening period. It’s
fair to say I’ve often sought escape routes from following the professional
game, with non-league football having provided me with a regular reality check
for a good 20 years now. Initially, I watched Northern League football, without
really following a team until Benfield arrived from the Alliance in 2003; I
still follow them now, but from a distance mainly, as the wonderful Percy Main
Amateurs were a side who captured my heart, between 2007 and 2013. For six
seasons I wrote for the programme and for four mainly enjoyable years, between
2009 and 2013, I was proud to be Assistant Secretary and a member of the
football committee at the club.
My first experience of the Northern Alliance was seeing my local
side Heaton Stannington, who have been promoted to the Northern League and
whose programme I now edit, defeat Spital Rovers from Berwick by 2-0 on a warm
August afternoon in 1998. My son Ben, ex-wife and myself had just moved round
the corner from the Stann’s Grounsell Park in the summer of that year and, with
Newcastle playing away to Chelsea, in a match that ended 1-1 and was the final
one under the managership of Kenny Dalglish, I wanted to get the bairn out of
the house and hopefully to see a game.
At the age of 3 my son was already showing an interest in
kicking footballs, running after them and throwing them at his daddy. To
encourage this, I started to take Ben to see amateur football at a very young
age, just so he’d be aware that he may well be cold, bored and disappointed by the
experience of live football when he finally got to see Newcastle United in the
flesh.
On August 22nd 1998, Ben certainly wasn’t cold as a
glorious, still August afternoon lazily slipped past. Initially I was taken aback
by how basic the spectator facilities seemed, though not by the football which
was of a comparable standard to Northern League Division 2, where Heaton
Stannington now find themselves. It became clear to me over the years that the
Alliance is reminiscent of club rugby union of the 1970s; players playing a
game they love for the sake of it are at the heart of the matter, with
officials drawn very much from the ranks of former players and the odd
smattering of spectators being seen as an oddity rather than an expectation.
Committee members seem to be drawn from both sources, with a bad temper and an
utter lack of any sense of humour or human compassion being the only
prerequisites for these roles.
On Cup Final Day 2005, while Arsenal and Manchester United
played out a sterile, drab 0-0 draw, I was in the company of several
groundhoppers who had travelled from Leeds, London and the West Midlands,
happily taking in Seaton Burn’s comfortable 5-0 win over Sport Benfield in
Alliance D2 when a league official approached and asked, with a note of
incredulity that could have been mistaken as menace by those unfamiliar with
the cadences of the Geordie dialect, ”what are you lot doing here?” Perhaps
such attitudes and the impossibility of getting a bit of craic going with the
other spectators when only a dozen people are watching the game, most of them
being substitutes, injury victims and the committee initially led me to remain
as an observer rather than a fan of Alliance football. On the whole, I do not
regret the decision to become fully involved with one particular club, even if
the senses of gratification and appreciation were non-existent.
For the casual supporters, groundhopper and football addict,
the Northern Alliance provides a source of great joy in the early summer. The
lack of floodlights at almost all grounds means that midweek matches between mid-September
and early April are a complete non-starter. Hence, while the Northern League
wraps up its fixtures by the May Day Bank Holiday, the Alliance continues on
until Whit weekend. This is why my first experience of Percy Main Amateurs came
with a visit to Purvis Park on May 14th 2005, to witness the visit of Heaton Stannington,
who I was actually supporting, having watched them intermittently since my
first visit back in August 1998. Whenever Newcastle were away or inactive, I’d
watch Heaton Stannington to ensure I got to see a game each Saturday, though
this was something new; an away trip!
The game finished 3-2 to Heaton Stannington and I’ve no real
recollection of it, other than standing near the corner flag with Ben and
admiring the scenic privet hedge that acts as a barrier between the football
ground and the adjoining cricket pitch. The
two sides next met on a cold Saturday in February 2006. It was, in retrospect,
a momentous day; Newcastle won 2-1 at Aston Villa, I met my partner Laura for
the first time that night and, perhaps most importantly, I discovered the
essential spirit of Percy Main Amateurs. The club website carries only a brief
outline of the day’s events. In its entirety, the match report consists of the
following statement; “by all accounts an even game with chances at both ends
and a good performance by Percy Main.” To say the least, that doesn’t tell the
full story.
It was a cold but clear afternoon, with temperatures pegged
slightly above freezing by a biting wind and ready to decline as the shadows
lengthened. With Newcastle away to Villa and Benfield at Squires Gate in
Blackpool in the FA Vase, I had resigned myself not to seeing a game, but
walking past Grounsell Park, I saw the goal nets were up and corner flags in
place. Having purchased a cup of hot brown liquid of indeterminate provenance
from the ATS garage next door to Grounsell Park, this being the sole source of
sustenance available near the ground before the opening up of fashionable
Italian delicatessen Dean & Daniela’s, I was ready to
make up approximately 15% of the crowd for this crucial Northern Alliance
Premier Division game.
The opposition was immaterial to me as I was simply thankful
to be able to see a game, but the claret and blue strips of the away team
immediately told me it was Percy Main I’d be watching. 2005/2006 was a rancid
season for the Main; a final playing record of won 4, drawn 4, lost 26; goals
conceded 94, goal difference minus 65 led to a fairly predictable last place
finish. As Heaton Stann were to finish in fourth place, a comfortable home win
was to be expected. In fact, this was one of only about half a dozen games I’ve
ever seen fail to finish; the other non-completers have been a couple of times
for fog, three times because of a deteriorating pitch in monsoon conditions and
once, in an Over 40s league game I played in for my team Heaton Winstons at
home to Southwick WMC because of high winds. None of those reasons applied
here.
Heaton Stannington versus Percy Main Amateurs is the only
game I’ve seen abandoned because of fighting. This wasn’t just a couple of
players pushing and shoving, or any of the proverbial handbags, this was 21
blokes having a full-scale brawl that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a
Wild West Saloon during the Goldrush or the Bigg Market taxi rank at closing
time on Christmas Eve.
It was an incredible spectacle to watch; with the game
goalless and only a few minutes remaining, a disputed throw-in on the touchline
led to a swift and frank exchange of opinions that soon escalated in to a
no-holds barred fight. Rather like those staged wrestling bouts that Kent
Walton would commentate on at the end of World of Sport where half the
audience at the Fairfield Hall Croydon or Wolverhampton Civic Theatre would
climb through the ropes and do their best to launch a few shots at whoever was
available, seemingly everyone from both clubs were windmilling, gesticulating
and snarling on the touchline about 10 yards from where I stood, with no sign
that it would all be over with a few handshakes and rueful smiles any time
soon.
The referee and linesmen beat a tactical retreat as the
melee continued unabated for several minutes. Looking on from the sidelines
were about 8 spectators, which was a typical crowd for the Stann. One fella,
earphones in, surveyed the damage and said “Toon are winning 2-1; Given’s saved
a penalty and Babayaro’s been sent off. Mind it seems boring compared to this.”
As I turned to leave, a bloke about my age who had only arrived as the
fireworks were going off, turned to me and said; “football eh? Bloody hell!”
The person who appropriated Sir Alex Ferguson’s immortal words following the
1999 Champions League Final was Villagers secretary Norman de Bruin. He, more
than anyone else, built upon the fascination I had with Percy Main following
that astonishing introduction, and is the reason why I started to write for the
programme and did the best I could to help out at Purvis Park. It was a 7-2
defeat at Wark the following year that led me to take the plunge and abandon my
season ticket at St. James’ Park, so I suppose you can call me a glory hunter.
Whilst being involved with Percy Main, I had the pleasure of
visiting every Alliance Premier Division ground, with the notable exception of
Blyth Town, as well as more than half of those in the first and second
divisions, not to mention clubs who are no longer with us, like Wark, Chopwell
and Newcastle East End. Win, lose or draw, I found within the Alliance a
camaraderie and unity of purpose among all clubs that includes just about every
single person I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with, on a casual or formal
basis, to be superb company.
At times, it was very hard work being involved, especially
when we were short-handed because of holidays or illness, or worse when
personalities clashed as they often did at Purvis Park, but I never begrudged a
minute of my time and never once received a word of thanks for anything I did;
though nor did I expect any. It was just as well I had such a tolerant attitude
to giving up my time, because we were talking noon until 6 on a Saturday or 4
until 10 when we played midweek at the end of the season (no floodlights you
see). Until the very end, I remained 100% committed to Percy Main, as I am now
to Heaton Stannington; indeed, as I approach my 50th birthday, I
simply can’t envisage my life not involving my devoted obsessions of:
ultra-left wing politics, cycling, Real Ale, obscure indie music at gigs where
the bands outnumber the audience, writing articles for esoteric magazines and
websites and, best of all, non-league football, with specific reference not
just to Heaton Stannington, but to Percy Main Amateurs, whose results I will
always look out for.
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