Pyramid Selling

 New grounds, old ground, shared grounds, temporary grounds; as ever it seems those in the Northern League are more concerned with where not how the game is played. At least in the Alliance, all we care about is the beauty of the game itself. That, and swearing, as my trips to Washington v Redcar Town and Hazlerigg Victory v West Moor and Jesmond U23s showed me last weekend...

At the next level up from Percy Main in the non-league pyramid, things appear to be in a state of constant flux. The unavoidable result of teams such as: Consett, Dunston, Hebburn, Morpeth Town, North Shields and Shildon migrating upwards to the Northern Premier League in the last couple of seasons, not to mention the disappearance of Durham City, Jarrow Roofing and Ryhope CW, is a changed and somewhat volatile constitution of the previously unchanging Northern League monolith of the Mike Amos years. For a start, the league is down to 40 clubs from 44 and it seems likely that the promotion of each season’s champions and the opportunity for runners-up to follow them via play-offs, means that both a geographical increase in the league’s footprint (Pickering Town are newcomers this season, with hints that Harrogate Railway and Knaresborough are likely to follow in the future) and a dilution of the quality of competing teams. This is especially true of the bottom of Division 2, where up to 3 sides are liable for relegation, to be theoretically replaced by one from each of the feeder leagues, in the shape of the Alliance, the Wearside and the North Riding League.

Recently, the Alliance has provided the Northern League with a rebuilt Blyth Town, now free from any malign external influences, Newcastle University and their landlords Prudhoe YC, managed by Kennie Melia, ex of Chemfica of course. All 3 clubs are doing well. The North Riding League has only offered 1 new team; Boro Rangers, who are apparently a dynamic and well run club with dozens of teams from U7 upwards, in the process of building a new facility within the town. Unfortunately, in the interim, their ground is New Ferens Park, once home to Durham City (RIP); formerly, this was a splendid arena, but a decade and more of neglect leaves it looking tired and unkempt. Thankfully, it is only a temporary base and Boro Rangers, like their South Tees neighbours Redcar Athletic and Redcar Town, will soon be a credit to the league. The one blot on the landscape for Teesside is Billingham Synthonia’s enduring ground issues since leaving venerable Central Avenue for Norton and Stockton’s old place.

As regards new clubs from the Wearside League, revived Horden, energetic Jarrow and community-based Sunderland West End are all doing well, even if the latter play at the most soulless 4G cage I’ve ever had the misfortune to visit, at Ford Quarry on the South Hylton / Pennywell interface. This was where Washington, who’ve never been a settled outfit since leaving their original home at Albany Park (now houses) for the Nissan Complex, played while waiting for their new ground to be completed, of which more in a bit. Somewhat appallingly, it is also where last season’s Wearside League winners Chester Le Street United, not to be confused with the original Chester Le Street Town team of 50 years standing, will now play their games.

In the Alliance, we are used to teams coming into the league, then discovering they lack the infrastructure, talent or enough volunteers to keep going, and subsequently disappearing into the ether after a single, inglorious season. However, this has not been the case in the Northern League, until now. Chester Le Street United were formed in 2020, as an outlet for young players studying BTEC sport qualifications at Park View Academy in the town. Yes, a glorified college team. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, as Marc Nash with Shields and Ian Bogie at Gateshead, used to harvest the best young talent at Tyne Met College for their teams. The problem is when a team entirely composed of college players, who will possibly stay only for 2 years maximum, has to deal with a fallow crop. Like a Corinthian Athletic Club, instead of only signing those born in the Basque Country, they only sign lads barely old enough to shave. Fair play to them for winning the Wearside League, which is a tough competition with little room for sentiment or compromise, meaning they are in the Northern League on merit. Of course the elephant in the room, and the reason that the wider Northern League community is up in arms, are the ground issues surrounding this club.

Initially, Chester Le Street United intended to play their games at the rear of the Riverside cricket ground. Having been there several times outside of the normal cricket season, to watch Tynemouth CC in the All England Indoor 6-a-side regional qualifiers, I’ve noticed a couple of football pitches; one grass and one 4G. As these visits have been on a Sunday morning, I didn’t notice whether there were any floodlights. I never even thought to check for cover, seats or hard standing. Apparently, the place was in order though, as it passed an advisory ground grading inspection, allowing the club to be promoted. As the deadline for any works to be completed is September 30^th after the season starts, there is nothing that can be done to prevent Chester Le Street United abandoning this ground to use the Ford Quarry hub in Sunderland. The main issue with the Riverside is that the floodlights only focus on the 8-lane athletics track surrounding the pitch, as the requisite bus shelter style covered seating and standing is in place. The 4 games they played at the Riverside were all on Saturday afternoons, so the lighting was not as issue. However, Durham CCC and the local council have no plans to upgrade the lighting at this stage, meaning the decampment to Pennywell may be at least in the medium term, if Chester Le Street United continue beyond this season of course.

Meanwhile, one success story is that of Washington FC. After almost two decades of rootless wandering and a hand to mouth existence, they are now a fully-fledged community club, where the first team is the top of a pyramid of teams from U7 to adult. Their new home is at the Washington Hub, formerly known as the Northern Area Playing Fields. I took a trip there on a freezing, rainy Friday night to see them host Redcar Town. I have to say that the ground isn’t really finished; no food, no bar and no inside toilets, but it will be great when it is ready. The lack of lighting in the car park from the main road to the entrance could be a serious health and safety issue on dark nights as winter bites. By far the best thing about this facility, is the superb pitch: wide, flat, well grassed and a delight to play on. While Redcar’s 1-0 win from a late rebound wasn’t the best of games, to the extent it had me asking myself after an hour whether I really liked football anymore, the decent crowd of 180, including proud home supporters and optimistic Redcar followers, enjoyed proceedings. I doubt it is an experience to be shared by those who follow Chester Le Street United any time soon…

And so, what of the Alliance? Prudhoe YC have moved upwards, as has already been noted, while Cullercoats have thrown in the towel, meaning Cullercoats Reserves are now called Cullercoats, AFC Newbiggin are at Hirst Welfare not People’s Park and Burradon are back at their original ground of the Welfare. AFC Newbiggin Central are now known as Ellington, whose original teams have left the league. In the bottom flight, there are 10 new teams in a division that is running one club short; Amble (the High School), Blyth Rangers (Cowpen Park), Cramlington Blue Star (Action Park), Gateshead Redheugh 1957 (Eslington Park), Hazlerigg Victory (Dinnington Welfare), Heddon United (Walbottle Campus) and Stocksfield (Cricket Ground) we’ve seen before in various iterations, while the U23 sides of Wallsend Boys Club and West Moor and Jesmond are of no surprise. Hence, the only truly new club is Benton, who are based at Churchill Playing Fields. For me to recomplete my Alliance set, trips to Burradon, Blyth Rangers and Hazlerigg Victory were required. While a home fixture for Blyth is still awaited, I’ve pencilled in Burradon v Seaton Delaval when the Main don’t have a game on October 22^nd, while I decided on visiting Hazlerigg at their new, albeit temporary, base at Dinnington Welfare while PMA were away to (whisper it) Wallington on September 24^th.

Having been frozen, soaked and bored at Washington 0 Redcar Town 1 the night before, I needed some excitement to fall back in love with the game. This was initially lacking as stress became the primary emotion, as it took me 4 kinds of public transport to reach Dinnington from High Heaton. I should have taken the bike. Anyway, wandering down sunlit and deserted streets in a sleepy hamlet adjacent to the airport, I soon located Dinnington Welfare. This is better. This is the kind of place I want to spend my leisure time. A scenic welfare ground in a somnolent village on the far fringes of the city, which is where Hazlerigg are playing until their new facility, paid for and to be constructed by the developers who are building 570 bespoke detached homes on former greenbelt land in the village, is finished, which could be at least a year away. However, in their defence, at least Hezzy (as they are uniformly known) and the man who makes the club a reality, Mark “Bully” Bullock, have a realistic, time-specific, manageable and costed plan for the future. The village needs a football team and Bully will ensure it has one.

One can but hope that Hezzy’s new changing facility is closer to the pitch than Dinnington’s. In a show of utter indolence, half a dozen players drove from the changers, in an attempt to conserve energy I presume. It worked, as Hezzy tore into the visitors, West Moor and Jesmond U23s from the off. As I caught up with Bully and his assistant Andy, who I’ve known for a decade or more but not seen in ages, it became clear why West Moor had lost all of their previous games and why Hezzy are near the top of the table. The home side made and missed several gilt-edged chances, before ruthlessly pouncing twice in a minute before the 20 minute mark. This really should have been game over, but a hilarious piece of comedy defending, whereby the Hezzy keeper came flying out of his area and completely missed the ball, allowing the West Moor lad a chance to tap in to an empty net, made the game a contest again. Before the break, Hezzy restored a 2 goal lead with a great low finish, then the keeper messed up another clearance, hitting his defender on the back, but breathed again as the lad who tapped it home was miles offside. Strolling round the well-grassed pitch, observing the various locals walking their dogs or pausing on bike rides, I had a strong sense of calm and relaxation. This, to me, is football: community based and played for the love of the sport. It almost stopped me pining for cricket. Almost anyway…

After the break, the ref gave a soft penalty each; West Moor scored and Hezzy had theirs saved, but class and fitness told in the end as West Moor ran out of legs and Hezzy relentlessly cut through a stretched defence and punished them ruthlessly. The final score was a scarcely believable 9-2, but it was, sadly, a fair reflection on the game. At the end of September, dappled sunlight and decaying leaves were the appropriate garland for such a game. I’m glad I was there. I’m glad I sponsored the match ball and I can’t wait to visit Blyth Rangers.

Being & Nothingness

 Issue #56 of TQ has just been published. I urge you to buy a copy, for many reasons, not simply because there is a complementary, complimentary zine about Shunyata Improvisation Group included. In that additional publication, I have these words about Sunyata Improvisation Group included, which makes me very proud and humble -:

Shunyata Improvisation Group: An Overview

The Shunyata Improvisation Group (we’ll go with SIG for short) have become a central part of my cultural existence in 2022. I first heard tell of them last October when they announced a free gig on a Sunday afternoon at the Unitarian Church on Ellison Place. I was all set to go and then, three days before, Mike Ashley sold Newcastle United, necessitating my attendance at St James’ Park instead. I would point out that sport and music are of equal cultural validity, so there was no way I’d exchanged the aesthetic for the demotic.

As a result, I was forced to wait until Auntie Joy 2 in Ryton at the back end of March before I got to see SIG. It was an epochal moment. I was stunned. I was captivated. They converted me in a house of the Anglican Communion. I nurtured my love of their somnambulistic, pastoral fragility, accompanying them in early May at the Late Shows in Cobalt Studios. Initially, I produced words; half scripted and half improvised, then I sat in on acoustic guitar while the TQ paterfamilias strutted like a pacific James Brown doing “Please! Please! Please!” on a 1960s telecast.

Subsequently, SIG appeared at the first TQ Lit & Phil soiree. They began with 2 minutes silence, then produced 28 further ones of bucolic, meditative pulchritude. I adored them even more when I discovered the improvisational quartet have practices. A discussion led to the discovery that these exploratory sessions end with the group sitting down to a meal together. I don’t think I understand what the zen principles they build on actually are, but I’m keen to find out. I am a devoted follower who travelled to my childhood haunt of Saltwell Park on July 10^th to see them perform.

Shunyata Improvisation Group: In Saltwell Park

Moving across Tyneside by public transport is an arduous process at the best of times. Trying to get from High Heaton to Low Fell on a Sunday that is simultaneously the hottest day of the year, the Mouth of the Tyne Festival and rugby league’s Magic Weekend makes it into an ordeal, as it takes the unbearable static stasis of delayed or packed buses and dials it up one louder than most people can bear. And yet there is beauty to be found among such tribulations.

Entering Saltwell Park from the Bensham entrance on a day when the verdant green grass of the northern field appears polished as it falls away to the boating lake where the water glistens like glass, the world is fixed and fabulous. As children, perhaps as many as a dozen of us would walk up and over Windy Nook Bank from Felling, feeling the ground quickly slip away as we descended through Deckham and Low Fell, anticipating the joys of a visit to Saltwell Park on breathless July afternoons like this one, whiling away the interminable six weeks off school in boisterous play and heat hazed contemplation in the baking heat of our early-70s adolescence. Half a century later, the floral clocks and statues commemorating the good deeds of long dead local dignitaries remain, hinting at a bygone era of sepia-tinged civic pride and Sabbath promenades providing solemn recreation for working families, away from the terraced grime and grinding poverty of industrial labour and insanitary living conditions they endured on the other 6 days of the week.

We walked the top path, eschewing the delights of Pets’ Corner, but skirting and admiring the rebuilt splendour of Saltwell Towers, the genteel tearoom, the privet maze, the bordering crematorium and thence to the splendid rose garden where, in stifling heat where the only breeze comes from the flapping wings of the resident doves, flying in languid formation, Shunyata Improvisation Group hold court. Initially, the four constituent members had wended their own madrigal ways through the woods, converging as guru shepherds and method teachers in the garden, though we’d missed that. I’d last heard music in the park in July 1981; a Gateshead Council sponsored Festival of Youth had included a Battle of the Bands talent contest, where Total Chaos had headlined, promoting their debut 7”; There Are No Russians in Afghanistan. No such Kabullshit today…

SIG were organic and beautiful; at one with nature. Gently they coalesced with the laughter of scootering children, the excited yelps of overheating puppies, the lowered breathing of shade-hungry pensioners in straw fedoras and the clicking shutter of a Hasidic cameraman. Sounds of nature and sounds of nurture. I fell asleep in my lover’s arms as the band played on; the rise and fall of her breathing acting as an amniotic, percussive soundtrack. This was Dirty 3 on quaaludes. This was a good day. This was an honour to attend.

Shunyata Improvisation Group: On Disc

According to the discredited workerist theories of Trotskyist cultural analysts, Northern proletarian males have always seen their job, regional identity and social class as the most important influences on their expressions of self-image, as these things give them a pervasive sense of empowering masculinity. Aesthetic preferences, positive attitudes to education and learning as a whole, as well as issues relating to personal sexuality tend to be of greater significance for those males identifying more with soi-disant petit bourgeois values. Such pleonastic opinions are, of course, errant nonsense, especially as they vouch aesthetic primacy for the likes of Sleaford Mods, like a contemporary version of latter period Cardew with an accompanying cider carry out, over anything experimental or non-linear in approach.

Such bovine, testosterone-tainted, autodidacts would hate the Shunyata Improvisation Group and their natural affinity to the non-hierarchical, impossibilist Socialist tradition, for they produce music that is democratic, egalitarian and free from any hint of self-aggrandisement. Nowhere is this more accessible in their oeuvre that the 2020 CD Pivot Moments. Recorded at Heaton’s First Avenue studios by a previous iteration of SIG that included Kate Oswell and Tobias Sarra, as well as NofC and trubba not, Pivot Moments is a modest banquet of almost carnal sensory pleasures. This is not just Come Taste the Band #2; it is almost an invitation to Taste Cum with the Band such is the ecstatic gourmandism found in the words.

Pivot Moments, while suffused with smatterings of pastoral, contemplative guitar phrasings and the gentle interplay of sound and silence, is an astonishingly rich half hour of spoken recollections. The two complementary mixes of the same piece, by trubba not and Joe Murray from Posset, turn mundane memories into gnomic aphorisms. It features human voices of those involved, narrating, reminiscing, telling tales during lockdown. The focus is pleasure, based on David Howcroft’s diagram intended for noting the sensory responses of the reader to any pieces of music. SIG talk to us of the feel of sand between your toes, the true taste of honey, losing yourself in a dusty book or clambering over waste ground. Infinite moments of minimal, private joy we can all relate to, because they are truly pivotal experiences. This is an addictive disc; I return to it repeatedly, seeking out every nuance of sound, experience and meaning, using it as an aid to introspective thought and contemplation. Truly beguiling.

I love the Shunyata Improvisation Group, live and on CD. The sheer euphoria found within the second piece, Refracted Intention, makes one return to this disc, again and again. It has changed me. I often play it when I leave the house so it can change the fabric of my home for the better.

 

 

The Most Beautiful Game

 Last week, I published a long cricket blog. This week's, from issue #19 of the brilliant North Ferriby fanzine View from the Allotment End is much shorter. It is, however, a heartfelt love letter to my beloved Tynemouth CC -:

Regular readers will no doubt be used to skim-reading my small-minded, petty, smug opinions and observations about football at all levels and standards. Indeed, I think I’ve been in all bar 2 issues of VFTAE since its inception and made a pilgrimage from my Tyneside home to what I’m now supposed to call The Dransfield Stadium, in November 2019 to see an abandoned game against Swallownest, when the floodlights began to malfunction somewhat spectacularly while the Villagers held a comfortable 2-0 lead.

Bearing these facts in mind, it may surprise you that I did not make it to either Hillheads in August 2021 or Grounsell Park in August 2022 when Ferriby were drawn away to firstly Whitley Bay and then Heaton Stannington in the Extra and Preliminary Rounds of the FA Cup at clubs almost on my doorstep. Not only did I avowedly turn my back on the Maoist approach to glory, by eschewing the single step that started the 1,000-mile journey to Wembley, I didn’t even glance at a ball being kicked anywhere on those days. Not by Newcastle United. Not even by my beloved Percy Main Amateurs. You see, on both occasions, I was watching the sport and the side that are now dearer to my heart than any pampered, preening soccer stars: Tynemouth Cricket Club of the North East Premier League.

We lost both games, by 42 to Chester le Street in 2021 and by 16 runs via the Duckworth Lewis Method at Whitburn in 2022. Cricket enthusiasts and those of a meteorological mien may not be surprised at that last result, considering the whole of Tyneside was stricken by monsoon conditions that day. However, the point I have to make is that, given the choice between grassroots or professional cricket and grassroots or professional football, I would opt for the sound of leather on willow every single time. Preferably at the amateur level, of course. Now, there are many reasons for that, both aesthetic and ideological, but I’ll try to sum the differences up in a single pretentious phrase; cricket is poetry, while football is prose. I’m attempting to communicate the idea that cricket, when played properly (ie not The Hundred or a boozy T20 game) is beautiful, elusive and almost always a distinctly personal pleasure, whereas football is solid, down to earth and, except in rare moments of sublime aestheticism by Messi, Cruyff or Pat Heard, easy to comprehend.

I do love football but, at various times and in various ways over the years, it has come close to killing me, whether that be the severe battering I took at the hands of Merseyside Police in The Stanley Park next to Goodison before a 4-0 trouncing in February 1985, or by irate followers of several local sides in clubhouses before, during and after games in the past couple of decades, not to mention the bona drag popinjays of the socknocenti getting all riled up on social media. By contrast, cricket saved my life. I don’t mean to exaggerate the importance of Tynemouth CC to me, but when I mentally reached rock bottom in 2015 and felt like suicide was the only way out of the stagnant pond of despair I was drowning in, the comradeship and support of people I’m now very proud to call some of my closest friends and, quite remarkably, team mates as well, kept me from doing myself in.

Initially, emerging from the clutches of an utter emotional breakdown at the start of the 2015 season, I visited Preston Avenue, as much for the solitude as for the sport. Once there, I sat alone, spectating on the far side of the ground from the pavilion at Tynemouth, observing the complexities and intricacies of the game at close quarters. As a kid, I loved cricket, supporting Leicestershire, simply because Carlisle United’s captain Chris Balderstone played for them. I was delighted when they won the County Championship in 1975 when I was 11 and, inspired by events I’d followed mainly from the sports pages of The Daily Mirror, the next year I started playing for my local side, Felling, who I stuck with each summer until I went to university in 1983. Choosing to study in County Derry was perhaps not the wisest move for my burgeoning cricketing career, on account of the near incessant rain and scarcity of opposition in an area where the Gaelic Athletic Association (formed in 1884 by one Michael cusack, interestingly enough) held sway, but at least the utter indifference of local students and the attendant shrinkage of the pool of potential players ensured I got regular games for our woeful varsity team. Even back then, I realised availability was more important than ability at the lowest levels of the game. After graduation, I rarely played again for 30 years, though I always missed it. I wasn’t any use as a batter but having been beguiled by free-to-air BBC2 test match coverage of the Indian bowlers on their 1974 tour, I desperately wanted to be a spinner. I suppose I still do. In my mind’s eye, I can still recall the few wickets I bought in the dim and distant past, but I’d assumed those days were gone.

At the end of that first season watching Tynemouth, I headed to Eppleton in the wilds of County Durham on a glorious Sunday afternoon to see Tynemouth play in the Banks Cup final. I went by bus. It took almost 3 hours, door to door. Perhaps the best news that day was, as the clock reached 7.30 on a September evening, a car pulled up to offer me a lift. Now, as you’ll remember from my previous profile photos, dreadlocks down to my arse and a beard Topol would have been proud of meant I was difficult to miss. That said Vince Howe, Tynemouth’s Director of Cricket, didn’t need to offer me a lift, but I’m so glad he did. Despite the season ending that day, his friendly overtures gave me the confidence to take my place in front of the Pavilion with the regular gang from the start of 2016 and I’ve not moved on Saturdays from April to September since. Until this year at least…

For two years, I was simply a spectator at TCC until, having taken voluntary redundancy from my job as a lecturer, I ended up working behind the bar as a stopgap while I got fixed up with something else. I loved the atmosphere and the laughs, which is probably why, when a midweek social side was set up, I volunteered immediately. I still couldn’t bat and sometimes I couldn’t bowl properly, but I loved it. The feeling of taking 4-19 (all bowled) against Benwell & Walbottle will never be bettered, but just having a laugh and a few pints on a Thursday night with the lads made it all worthwhile. Of course, it couldn’t last and the effects of COVID and family commitments meant that because many of my fellow players were turning 30 and discovering parenthood or promotion at work for the first time, so they were almost forced by circumstances to give the game up. It meant the midweek team folded, but also that the Saturday 3s were consequently short of players. Cometh the hour; cometh the man…

By the end of the season, I  had played in 15 of Tynemouth CC’s third XI’s 21 games which, considering I turned 58 on 11 August, is pretty good. Unlike my average, which is just under 2, and that only on account of several not outs, but as any good batter will tell you, it’s all about the red inkers. On the positive side, I hit a boundary; my first one this millennium. I’d like to pretend it was a flashing square cut, but it wasn’t. A tentative prod to a rapid bowler whose deliveries I didn’t even see saw the ball hit the edge and fly over the slips. Rather better was my bowling; well, that wouldn’t be difficult, would it? My “mystery ball” against Civil Service, so called as it is a mystery to everyone how it doesn’t get clattered into the next county every time, where my victim took a huge swish, missed the thing and saw it hid middle stump halfway up. I’d like to pretend it was my googly, but it wasn’t. I did enjoy him skulking off and moaning that I was bowling too slow, mind.

Perhaps my finest moment this season was being asked to play for the first XI in a Friday T20 game away to Shotley Bridge: the home club of the great Paul Collingwood no less. Having lost a player to work commitments, it was either me or the skipper’s 72-year-old mother who would be press ganged into service. I got the nod as it was in coloured clothing, and I turned up in a pair of New Balance that matched our dark blue kit. Not that I had any kit of course. I ended up squeezed into some cast-offs that fitted me like a Cotton Traders gimp suit. However, I played; ensconced at short fine leg, I fielded the ball once and manage to remain relatively inconspicuous as we roared to a 10-wicket win in double quick time. Well, 9 wickets actually, as I’d taken the precaution of telling the umpires I’d retired out, just to be on the safe side. In all seriousness, this was one of my most precious sporting memories; the night I was a teammate of former Ireland and Durham player, Stuart Poynter.

As I’ve said, I still love football, but from mid-April to mid-September every single Saturday, weather permitting, I dedicate myself to cricket. It’s just a shame Ferriby managed to get knocked out of the FA Cup at the first hurdle, so I couldn’t see them play.

Mellow Fruitfulness

 The 2022 cricket season is over. Here's how things ended for Tynemouth CC and for me....

Week 16: For the second consecutive week, losing the toss consigned Tynemouth CC first XI to almost inevitable defeat. Last week it was away to Sunderland, while the last Saturday in July saw table-topping South North come to Preston Avenue, call correctly and gleefully snaffle a maximum 30 points. Batting first under lead skies, Tynemouth found themselves in familiar territory when Dan Thorburn and Ben Debnam both edged to Adam Cragg at slip, off Sean Tindale and Johnny Wightman respectively, leaving the home side 5-2. Skipper Matt Brown came to the crease in determined mood and had played 3 glorious boundaries in a rapid 15 before Tindale found the edge of his bat too, leaving Tynemouth floundering at 19-3.

A recovery of sorts was fashioned by some swarthy counter attacking blows by Stu Poynter and Esam Rahman, but when the latter was adjudged leg before to Fletcher, with Matt Kimmitt (0) falling in the same way, alarm bells were ringing at 72-5. While Poynter doggedly hung around, there was a flicker of hope, but this was extinguished when he became both Craggs’s third catch and Fletcher’s third wicket. Joe Snowdon (24) and new paceman Richard Stanyon (23*) showed defiance in the face of impending doom, but it was almost a surprise that Tynemouth managed as many as 136 in the stygian gloom of an oppressively humid morning by the coast.

Predictably, between innings, the clouds receded, and the sun came out, while the outfield dried and gained pace as South North began their chase in amenable circumstances, aided by less than challenging bowling. The score had advanced to 99 when Dithole (43) feathered a Rahman ball to Poynter behind the stumps. Despite Pollard’s 501^st wicket with the dismissal of keeper Peyton with a dozen still needed, there wasn’t even the consolation of a bowling point as South North came home by 8 wickets.

In the reverse fixture, Tynemouth 2s had no less of a crushing defeat. Despite a fine knock by Barry Stewart (70) and support from skipper Andrew Davison (39*) and Patrick Hallam (26), a total of 188 all from 55 overs never looked to be enough at Roseworth Terrace. Indeed, the home side got the runs three down after 38 overs, with no sparkling performances with the ball to be noted.

Thankfully, Tynemouth 3s came up with the goods once again, achieving a second consecutive win to move them out of the relegation zone. This time, Cowgate Sports were the side vanquished. Batting first, Tynemouth posted 152 and squeaked home by 8 runs, dismissing Cowgate for 144. Unfortunately, the weather intervened for the second week running for the Sunday 3s, whose game to Newcastle fell foul of the overnight downpour. A week previously, they had expectations of an almost cast-iron victory dashed when, at 58/1 in pursuit of 135, the heavens opened.

No such misfortune waylaid the Tynemouth Ladies softball team in their game against Stocksfield. On a scorching hot day TCC ladies played host in their final league match. They won the toss and opted to put Stocksfield into bat. The bowling displayed much improvement from the start of the season despite a few wides. The fielding was good, but Stocksfield’s batters gave few opportunities and finished on 101-1.

TCC, having never scored over 100, opened with Joanne and Helen who got off to a great start against some fast bowling from. Next in was Anya and Deborah, again keeping the runs coming with Anya scoring a few boundaries. Amanda and Michelle batted next, followed by Lauri, hitting 6s and Pam and then finally saving the best until last with Melissa and Lindsey scoring an impressive 43 in their partnership resulting in a total of 126 for no wickets.  A great end to the formal programme of matches was followed by a lovely picnic tea.

Again, I didn’t make the cut for the 3s, so was consigned to watching the 1s go down to a heavy loss at home to South North. This was the day of the 175^th Anniversary Photo, so I was down the club, in borrowed kit (cheers Polly & Matt) for 9.00. Just as the shoot was breaking up, rumours of me being required in the 3s because of a drop out in the 1s emerged. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for the team, Richard Stanyon managed to make it, so I sat and cooled my heels at Preston Avenue.

Week17: On Saturday August 6^th, Tynemouth CC first XI travelled to Lillywhite Terrace to face title contenders Hetton Lyons. With voting in the leadership contest now in full swing the Red Wall Tory members residing in the Houghton and Sunderland South constituency may well be considering putting their support behind outsider Rishi Sunak. It was Sunak after all who provided the Lyons CC with a Covid Loan that they have used so well. A new flat roof over the main bar, the creation of a snug second tv bar, a small outside space like a garden patio and over 100 metres of brand new fencing have helped transform the facilities of this friendly club. Their ever popular mini cafe remains open however and continues to provide the cricket watchers with all they need and the kids with all manner of sweets! 

The Lyons team is going well too and after skipper Stuart Walker won the toss, he decided to have a bat on a pleasant day and on a flat wicket that was on the slow and low side throughout. Walker took first guard himself but played on before his innings got going, to a ball from Andrew Smith. Jarvis Clay batted at three but struggled to find the pace of the pitch before he was brilliantly caught by Richard Stanyon at short mid-on for 16 from the very first ball bowled by Martin Pollard. The score was now 77/2 and former Durham player Gary Scott arrived at the crease to form an excellent partnership with young Ben McKinney who had opened with Walker. They took the score up to 183. Both players were solid in defence and showed good technique, pouncing on anything loose. The experienced Scott hit three mighty sixes over the newly erected fencing and youngster McKinney accumulated his runs with a performance full of maturity and great concentration for a player of his age. There’s a bit of a young Ben Harmison in his batting and on this showing, he might just follow Ben into the first class game. Phil Morse removed Scott for 58 and soon after Bangladeshi pro Rahatul Javid for 11.

McKinney then brought up his century to applause all around the ground. This was a high class century and an innings to enjoy ending on 117 when he was bowled by Esam Rahman. As the Tynemouth bowlers began to tire Robert Talbot crashed a 20 ball 39 allowing his skipper to declare with the score on 269/5 after just 50 overs.

The interval was hugely enjoyed by the Tynemouth faithful. Bacon (either normal or crispy) sarnies and tea from the café, followed by Di Brown’s remarkable individual Pavlovas. Strawberries, raspberries, double cream and a meringue as light as the dancer herself. This was truly Bake Off level cuisine. Many thanks, Di! 

With the two Bens (Debnam and McGee) missing this week, it was left to 17 year old Dan Thorburn and student Matthew Kimmitt to open for the away side and they made a good fist of it putting on 38 for the first wicket in good time before Kimmitt was out lbw to off spinner Aaron Feroz. Thorburn was next to go but not before he’d played some nice shots on his way to 49. Another promising knock from Dan who is starting to make his mark at this level. Surprisingly the number 3 slot was given to Phil Morse, but the experienced left hander played a good hand and with Matty Brown looking in sparkling form they took the score to 119/3 when Morse was bowled by Robert Talbot for a handy 23.

With plenty of overs remaining the game was nicely balanced as Professional Stuart Poynter strode to the crease to join his skipper, Matty Brown. However the game was about to be turned on its head. Poynter was off the mark with a delightful paddle shot behind square leg. He assumed two runs, Brown thought three. Brown kept running. Poynter not keen. Mix up and Poynter tragically run out at the bowler’s end. There was a hush around the ground. A sense of disbelief as the diving Poynter slowly got back to his feet and wandered off head bowed. Brown banged his head with his bat. It was a bad moment for two of the best and most respected players at the Club and a sense of panic seemed to follow as first Brown and then Joe Snowdon were dismissed in quick succession. 119/2 had become 126/6 in the space of 15 minutes and hopes of a Tynemouth win had all but gone. Andrew Smith fought long and hard, but the returning South African Chris Ralston had him caught behind and he then proceeded to clean out the tail. A word or two however for a terrific counter attacking innings from Esam Rahman. His 48 off 47 balls was a quality innings and included two huge maximums. The full scorecard is here  https://nepremierleague.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024314

And the current League table here, showing Tynemouth in 8^th place with 5 games remaining and a gap of 35 points from the relegation places. https://nepremierleague.play-cricket.com/website/division/101591

Tynemouth 2s hosted Hetton Lyons, dismissing them for 161, mainly due to devastatingly elegant spell by James Carr (6-47), including a first over hat trick. Tynemouth won by 5 wickets, with Patrick Hallam (43), Joel Hull-Denholm (37) and Robbie Bowman (30) doing most of the hard work.

The upturn in fortunes at St James Park has made tickets for Newcastle United home games a prized commodity. As a result, the promise of the opening day of the season caused a rash of unavailability to sweep through Tynemouth 3s, resulting in the recall of ian cusack after two successive victories that he played no part in. The opposition Civil Service side included the distinguished Caribbean academic, Professor Don D Marshall, cousin of the late West Indies great, Malcolm Marshall. Unlike his cousin who measured 5 foot 11, Dr Don is rather closer to Joel Garner in terms of stature and, perhaps surprisingly, his bowling is more akin to Roger Harper’s than any of the legendary West Indies pace attack that terrorised English batting in the 1970s and 1980s.

Having won the toss, skipper Hay surveyed the hand he’d been dealt and chose to bat, perhaps reasoning that getting the game out the way before things kicked off at SJP might be the best approach. However, prophecies of doom were wide of the mark as, despite the early wicket of Dan Storey, caught on the head for the second week running, Hay and the returning Hamish Swaddle-Scott almost brought up the century by drinks. Unfortunately, Hay was out for 48 last ball before drinks, edging The Professor to slip, leaving Tynemouth 97/2. This dismissal was in part revenge for Hay’s savage straight drive off Marshall that almost decapitated the notoriously slothful cusack, doing his stint as umpire.

After drinks, the Civil Service came back into the game, with Dr Marshall removing father and son pairing Paul and Lewis Hurst, as well as keeper Alosh Jose, all without scoring, though in fairness to Jose he received the ball of the day on a dead pitch that lifted sharply and hit him on the glove. Swaddle-Scott (48) and Adam Tugby (28) held the inning together, with little material help from the other 8 batters, who contributed 5 between them as Tynemouth subsided to 151 all out from 39.4 overs. Dr Marshall took giant steps to the pavilion, having returned figures of 9-2-29-5.

The Civil Service response, witnessed by approximately 100 denim and leather clad motorcycle enthusiasts, enjoying their annual Harley Davidson Enthusiasts weekend, briefly threatened to implode when skipper Hay made a dreadful mess of opener Bonam’s stumps. However, it was a false hope as, despite cusack’s delicious homage to Bernard Bosanquet that bamboozled Yadav into perishing courtesy of horrid leg-side hoick, the Civil Service came home to win by 8 wickets. This result leaves Tynemouth in 8^th place of an 11 team division with only 1 side to go down. That side are Monkseaton, who the 3s visit next Saturday; the gap is 30 points, so this is a real 60-pointer. https://tynemouth.play-cricket.com/website/division/103210

 The Sunday 3s lost to South Northumberland Academy by 6 wickets. Batting first, Tynemouth posted 159-9 from their 40 overs, with Finn Hodgson (27) and Chris Beever (25) top scoring. Dan Watt had his usual steady game with the ball (2-34) and the spinners Hallam and Aditjandra each chipped in with a wicket as part of a losing cause.

My first ever wicket for the 3s. I simply can’t tell you what a pleasure it was to see the batsman almost overbalance when trying to hit me out the ground, missing by miles then sulking off, complaining I bowled too slowly. Wonderful stuff. Even better was watching Don D Marshall at close quarters; the statuesque academic was a complete gentleman and a joy to play against. Shame we lost again though.

Week 18: On Saturday 13 August, Tynemouth CC first XI travelled to the Village Ground to take on the ever competitive Burnmoor team. The early morning sea fret that had been clinging on to the north east coast like a sloth for 24 hours was nowhere to be seen to the west of the A19 and the game itself was played in hot and sunny weather. The ground looked in great shape; another Club that has invested its “Covid loans “monies wisely with new seating, fencing and planting making the place feel more welcoming.

The wicket looked flat and true and the outfield quick as lightning; cut short and baked in this summer’s heatwave. Today was the return of the 50 over format with coloured clothing and orange ball. No more draws in 2022.Home skipper Alan Worthy won the toss and decided to have a bat first but was bowled by Esam Rahman for just 6. Marcus Brown then joined Ross Greenwell and they moved the score on nicely both showing good timing and at 71/1 off just 15 overs it looked like a long hot day in the field for the visitors. However, fresh from his recent wicket hauls for the second team, the elegant Jimmy Carr made an early breakthrough to have Greenwell adjudged lbw for 30.

Wickets then started to tumble as Burnmoor seemed intent on pressing for that big score only to be undone by the medium pace of Carr and Andrew Smith and two terrific catches from Joe Snowdon and Dan McGee. The game had taken a major and unexpected turn as the home side collapsed to 132/9 leaving Tynemouth in control. However there was to be a sting in the tail as Alex Cole and Graeme Bridge, batting at 10 and 11, managed somehow to conjure up a fifty partnership and give their side a score to bowl at with 186 before Matty Brown took the last wicket with his very first delivery. Carr and Smith picked up 3 wickets each. It felt an under par score despite the last wicket stand but the experienced home attack would not go down without a fight.

Tynemouth were delighted that Ben Debnam and Ben McGee were back to open the innings and once again the two Ben’s got the innings off to a purposeful start, against the bowling of Pakistani Professional Waqas Maqsood and former Durham County quick Josh Coughlin before Debnam nicked one behind off the impressive Alex Simpson for 25. Dan Thorburn, at 3, was out thought by the wily Graeme Bridge and when McGee went for 25 the game was finely balanced at 74/3 and  it was up to skipper Brown and professional Stuart Pointer to make the difference. It was a similar situation to last week at Hetton Lyons when Poynter was most unfortunate to be run out attempting to get off the mark. Indeed it’s been a summer where Poynter has had a good share of misfortune, until today! Perhaps it was his Irish mum watching and looking after the kids or maybe it’s the imminent arrival of the touring Leprechauns who play at Preston Avenue on Thursday but whatever it was Stuey had the luck of the Irish today starting with his very first ball! Josh Coughlin beat him with a beauty and the ball clipped the outside edge of the off stump, yet the bails remained in place much to the consternation of the home players and spectators. A crucial let off.

Poynter also gave a couple of chances early on which were not taken but once he settled in, he played a gem of an innings. Brown was batting steadily at the other end and the partnership moved on to 145/4 when the skipper was out lbw to Simpson for a useful 36. Frustratingly the first ball after a drinks break. Burnmoor now felt they had a squeak and Maqsood was brought back into the attack. He delivered too as he dismissed Rahman and Snowdon for low scores; however Poynter by now was in sublime form defending stoutly and attacking with some delightful trademark sweep shots and some blistering cover drives off the front foot. His 61 not out saw his team home.

This was an excellent win by the Tynemouth team against tough opponents and on a day of fret at the coast and sunshine elsewhere dare I say that the fret of relegation has now gone and the team can look forward to their last four fixtures looking up the table and targeting a respectable sixth place finish.

Meanwhile, Tynemouth 2s hosted Castle Eden and triumphed by 6 wickets, maintaining their 10 point lead at the top of NEPL Division 2 with 4 rounds of fixtures remaining. The visitors won the toss and elected to bat. In an even innings, 6 Castle Eden batters made double figures and all 6 Tynemouth bowlers (Neil Bennett, Chris Beevers, Richy Hay, Sam Robson, Barry Stewart and Matty Walton) found themselves among the wickets, as the visitors made 199 all out from 45.4 overs. In response, Tynemouth 2s made the runs required in 34.3 overs, 4 wickets down. Patrick Hallam (63) top scored and had notable support from fellow youngsters Robbie Bowman (50) and Joel Hull-Denholm (30), as well as skipper Andrew Davison (39*). The scorecard may be viewed here: https://tynemouth.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024791

In NTCL Division 5 South, Tynemouth Saturday 3s took a significant step towards ensuring their safety, while pushing local rivals Monskeaton further into the relegation mire, by completing the double over their near neighbours in the latest edition of El Coastico at Churchill Playing Fields. Asked to field on a hot afternoon once the sea fret had been burnt off, despite getting off to a solid start Tynemouth struggled to exert any real pressure on the Monkseaton batters. Coupled with lapses in concentration whilst fielding Monkseaton were able to build a good total of 197/6. The 6 wickets to fall fell at regular intervals with each bowler (Watt, Ashton, Snelders, Storey and Waller) picking up 1 victim each with 1 run out; Storey and Snelders being the pick of the bowlers. The reply was a much better effort. Anchored superbly by Chris Grieveson (82*) with strong partnerships with Storey (15), Turner (19), Swaddle-Scott (40) and Tugby (17*), Tynemouth got home with 9 balls to spare ending on 198/3 to take 28 points for the victory. The scorecard can be seen here: https://tynemouth.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024791

I was on holiday for this one, watching Ayr United 2 Hamilton Academicals 2, so have little to add to this.

Week 19: After a season that had remained untouched by the vagaries of the British weather, Saturday 20 August saw rain affect the outcomes of both games involving Tynemouth Cricket Club. The first XI travelled to Whitburn and played almost a full game before the esoteric complexities of the Duckworth Lewis Method decided to outcome in favour of the home side. Batting first, Whitburn were soon in trouble when skipper Paul Shields skied the second ball of the day to Ben Debnam at mid on from the bowling of Phil Morse. Things looked even more promising when Jack Burnham picked out Barry Stewart in Esam Rahman’s second over, leaving Whitburn 8/2.

The home side staged something of a recovery and made it to 85, before Kevin D’Almeida was caught by skipper Matt Brown off Sam Robson, who also had Rafay Khan caught by Stewart as wickets regularly fell. The pick of the bowlers were Rahman (4/30) and a metronomically accurate Stewart (2/24), though there was much to commend Morse’s tidy 1/32 as Whitburn were dismissed for 172 in 43.3 overs. The fact that Whitburn failed to bat all their overs meant that the initial spots of rain that slightly delayed the Tynemouth replying didn’t result in a reduction of either the overs available or runs needed. Indeed, until 25 overs had been bowled, unless Tynemouth had either scored the runs required or been bowled out, the only result possible if the weather were to intervene would have been an abandonment.

With Barry Stewart due in at 9 and Sam Robson at 10, it is fair to say this Tynemouth team batted a long way down, which is just as well as the halfway stage saw the visitors languishing at 53/5. With Debnam (7), Thorburn (7), Brown (9), Poynter (1) and Rahman (2) all back in the pavilion, prospects for an away win looked as bleak as the clouds gathering overhead. Only Ben McGee (40*), playing with his trademark elegant correctness, had repelled the excellent bowling of Shakespeare (10-3-13-3) and Muchall (10-2-26-1). Thankfully, the outstanding Tynemouth batter of 2022, Joe Snowdon, was able to wrest the initiative from the home team. From a seemingly impossible 61/5 after 30 overs, with a deficit of over 40 on the Duckworth Lewis par, he contributed a counterattacking 47 of real fire and malevolence. Only when he feathered a wide one to keeper Shields from May in near darkness, with Tynemouth almost level with the DL target, did reality intervene. Phil Morse was soon out stumped, attempting to club his way to victory, which was the cue for an almost biblical downpour. Tynemouth ended on 127/7 after 41.4 overs, presenting Whitburn with a 16 run victory.

The reverse fixture at Preston Avenue saw Tynemouth 2s post a total of 202 all out. After subsiding to 42/5, Graeme Hallam (39), Richy Hay (39), Matty Walton (35) and Andrew Lineham (28) helped the side to a respectable total. This was all in vain as, after a single over, the heavens opened, and the game was abandoned with Whitburn 3/0.

On Sunday, the Sunday 3s travelled to Chester Le Street on a fine sunny day and won by 4 wickets. The home side batted first and reached 170/7, with Chad Koen (3/36) standing out. In reply, the Sunday 3s achieved the required total for the loss of 6 wickets; Patrick Hallam (45), Robbie Bowman (44) and Ben Richardson (33) provided the bulk of the runs.

No game for the 3s, as the resignation of Riding Mill left us inactive. Consequently I headed to my favourite other ground, Whitburn, to see us lose via the Duckworth Lewis Method.

 Week 20: The last Saturday in August saw Tynemouth Cricket Club first XI entertain Chester Le Street at Preston Avenue. Yet another warm and sunny day was granted by this seemingly never ending summer and conditions were perfect for cricket. The pitch had been used several times before, but it was flat, hard and looked full of runs. The outfield looked a picture once again.

Visiting skipper John Coxon won the toss and decided to bowl first and it was home skipper Matty Brown who opened with Ben Debnam against the pace of Robbie Dawson and the guile of Quentin Hughes, who made an early breakthrough dismissing Debnam lbw attempting a sweep shot. Phil Morse came in at three but could only make 10 before he also went to Hughes, stumped by keeper Jake McCann. Stu Poynter then joined Brown and the pair began something of a recovery mission; both playing stylishly and with positive intent. However Hughes picked up his third wicket of the day, and the prized one of professional Poynter when he mishit a sweep shot and was caught well by Jake Dickinson in the deep for 25. Brown and Joe Snowdon followed soon after leaving Tynemouth struggling on 82/5. Fifteen year old Joel Hull Denholm, on debut, helped steady the ship by batting time along with Esam Rahman with 41 and Andrew Smith with 21, but it was Richard Stanyon, batting at 9, who made a real impact, hitting 36 off 40 balls to help his side to 194 before he was bowled in the final over. The mercurial Hughes and young leg spinner Josh Wilson were the pick of the Chester bowlers; 3 wickets a piece with their combined figures reading 6/49 off 20 overs. All in all though there was a sense this score was well under par.

Club stalwart and ground advisor Alan Billany was helping with light roller duty during the interval as groundsman Paul Jackson worked on the worn ends and marked out the crease in trademark Tynemouth blue. Wife Kelly was working behind the bar, pouring ice cold pints behind for the growing number of spectators, thirsty in the sunshine.

Suspicions that the home score was a bit short were confirmed soon after the resumption as Coxon and fellow opener McCann set about the home attack in eye catching fashion. A right hand / left hand combination, they both played with style and fluency matching each other run for run until McCann was caught by the juggling Hull Denholm at long on from the bowling of Phil Morse, leaving the Keets well placed on 115-1.  Morse then immediately bowled Coxon and with the very next ball almost had a third wicket though a huge lbw appeal against Quentin Hughes was turned down by the umpire, much to the chagrin of bowler, keeper and fielders. 

Hughes then settled in well and along with Chester’s Andrew Smith calmly took the score close to victory. A couple of late wickets from Stanyon and one from Rahman were testament to the endeavour of the Tynemouth attack but again it lacked any real penetration or control and the runs chase  was a comfortable one. Nineteen wides were bowled which is too many at this level of the game. Here is the full scorecard from the match 

https://nepremierleague.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024354

With only 4 points secured the team still needs 7 more from their last two matches to be certain of avoiding relegation, so a win next week at Jesmond would do nicely!

This is the current NEPL League table showing Tynemouth in 9th place

https://nepremierleague.play-cricket.com/website/division/101591

In contrast to the first team’s travails, Tynemouth 2s strolled to a 7 wicket win over their Chester le Street counterparts at Ropery Lane. Batting first, the home side were dismissed for 149, with Josh Koen (6.2-2-12-3) the stand-out bowler. The runs required were knocked off in 18.2 overs with Robbie Bowman (69 from 50 balls) leading the way. This result leaves Tynemouth top of the table with 2 games remaining. Sadly, their interest in the James Bell Cup ended at the quarter final stage in midweek, when Washington 2s got the better of a tight 15-over contest.

Perhaps the best news of the weekend was the Saturday 3s winning away to Lintz 2s; a result that dispels any mathematical chance of relegation. Having won the toss, stand-in skipper Ben “Keeno” Richardson, who has taken over the mantle of the team’s most uxorious social media participant from Dan Storey, decided to bowl. It was Storey who made the breakthrough with 15 on the board, before Keeno himself chipped in with a more than useful 2-41, while Paul Hurst bowled unchanged at the other end, producing figures of 2-32. He was replaced by his 14 year old son Lewis who also claimed a wicket. The stand-out bowler was ian cusack, whose immaculate use of flight and guile brought him a wicket with his first delivery, recording an impressive 2-25 from his spell. As a result Lintz accumulated 196-8 from their 40 overs: a stiff, but not an insurmountable task for Tynemouth.

The fact the total was reached with more than 7 overs to spare is almost entirely down to Captain Keeno who contributed 150*, including 13 boundaries and 11 maximums, to an overall total of 199-5. With Adam Tugby dismissed second ball, Dan Storey perishing for 5, Joe McAvelia making 15 and Neil Sturrock out to a grandiose waft for 10, the importance of the skipper’s swashbuckling knock cannot be overstated. That said, young Lewis Gault made a vital contribution in holding up the other end for s 52-ball 3 that frustrated the Lintz attack and allowed Keeno to lead his troops home in some style.

I took a wicket with my first ball and after 4 overs, I’d figures of 4-0-10-2. I was in dreamland. It was insane. Then I came up against a left hander who hit the last 3 balls of my last over, the 40^th, to the boundary. There’s something to work on over the winter, eh? Mind Keeno’s incredible 150* was just incredible. What a knock. What a win.

Week 21:  On Saturday 3 September, Tynemouth CC first XI were away to Newcastle. The game was played at Jesmond, Northumberland cricket’s spiritual home for so long, but now a ground owned and run by the Royal Grammar School. There was a touch of autumn about for the first time this summer, with leaves on the outfield and sweaters on the players and spectators. Even Vince Howe had swapped his trademark shorts for a pair of jeans.

Jesse Tashkoff, Newcastle’s Young Kiwi skipper, won the toss and elected to bat first under grey skies, but it was Tynemouth who grabbed the early initiative, with Andrew Smith dismissing both Ben Robinson and Matthew Stewart for single figure scores. Bobby Green and Joe Anderson were next out, leaving the home side struggling at 89/4 on a wicket that looked pretty flat and an outfield where a straight hit is little more than a nine iron these days. Tashkoff then joined Charlie Robinson and they put together a terrific partnership of 152. Robinson did ride his luck a bit, as his innings was a mixture of flowing drives and anxious flashes, but runs are runs and the away team struggled to contain him without the services of Esam Rahman who damaged a knee fielding a ball on the lush outfield and could only bowl 4 overs. Robinson made 94 before he hit a sand wedge to Richard Stanyon at long on, from the bowling of Dan McGee. Tashkoff at the other end played a fine innings, combining elegant stroke play with occasional power hitting and on occasions, a deft touch. His century was well deserved before Phil Morse had him clean bowled for exactly 100. Brodie Glendinning and the coffee making Jacques Du Toit looked to accelerate the scoring rate with Jacques once again smoking off the field and then smoking it on the field! A 50 over score of 315 /9 was impressive and whilst the Tynemouth attack was overwhelmed at times credit is due to both Phil Morse and Isaac Murray who bowled accurately throughout.

A good start was needed from the visitors, and it was provided by Debnam and McGee. The two Bens flew out of the traps with a flurry of early boundaries. Debnam, in particular, timed the ball beautifully and couldn’t believe his luck when on 32 off just 28 balls, he smashed a full toss from Joe Boaden towards the cover boundary and was brilliantly caught at his ankles by Jesse Tashkoff at cover point. A quite stunning piece of fielding, provoking disbelief from the opener. McGee with 16, Matty Brown with 33 and Stu Poynter with 57 kept the scoreboard ticking at a run a ball but they weren’t able to put together the major innings needed to chase down the total though Phil Morse played a lovely cameo innings of 43 off 40 balls which included 3 mighty maximums, one sailing over the Pavilion and onto Osbourne Avenue. The Newcastle total was never really under pressure, and it was left to Jessie Tashkoff to clean out the tail with his 4 wickets. On about the only cool and damp day of the summer this game had a warm feel about it though, with the bat on top of the ball most of the day and some impressive cricket played by two young sides in a great spirit and on a beautiful ground. The full scorecard can be found here:

https://nepremierleague.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024327

Bonus points picked up here by Tynemouth coupled with defeats for others elsewhere means that the team is now safe from relegation. Next Saturday, Tynemouth will host already relegated Eppleton. The current League table is here:

https://nepremierleague.play-cricket.com/website/division/101591

On Sunday, the two teams reassembled at Jesmond for the final of the Northumberland County Cricket Board Bobby Smithson Trophy. Batting first, Tynemouth posted an impressive 174/6 from their 20 overs. Ben Debnam again got the side off to a good start, hitting 39 out of an opening partnership of 64 with Matty Brown (21), who was out soon after. The keynote partnership of 90 was between Phil Morse (35) and Stu Poynter (53), who helped Tynemouth post an impressive total. In reply, Newcastle fell just short in reaching 168/9, though the home side were only rally in contention after collaring skipper Brown’s last over for 17 runs, though the skipper (2/36) did chip in with 2 wickets. Stand out bowler was that man Morse (4/27), who has been in excellent form and an absolute credit to the club all season. His 4 wickets today, in addition to his punchy knock in the Tynemouth innings, saw him justly named Man of the Match as the Croons lifted the Smithson Trophy for the second time.

If Tynemouth 2s can match or better South Northumberland’s result next week, when they visit Ashington 2s, they will win the NEPL Second Division. With only the final round of games to go, they sit 12 points clear at the top of the table after beat Newcastle by 4 wickets. Having dismissed the visitors for 183 after 47 overs, with Josh Koen (4/43), skipper Andrew Davison (2/19) and the predictably elegant James Carr (2/26) taking the game to Newcastle, Tynemouth knocked off the required runs with exactly 10 overs to spare. Barry Stewart (59) was top scorer, with able support from Davison (38*), Joel Hull Denholm and Graeme Hallam (22*), atoning for a troubling 7 wides during his bowling performance, as another win was secured.

The Saturday 3s ensured their safety by winning at Lintz last week and so were able to enjoy a good game with Lions at Preston Avenue. The visitors batted first and amassed 180 all out, with both Dan Storey and Lewis “Geoff” Hurst bagging 4 victims apiece. The total was a stiff but not impossible one, though matters quickly went awry when the myopic cusack, attempting to umpire, appeared to have mislaid the memo relating to the 1935 change in the LBW law, when he gave skipper Hay out to a ball that pitched outside leg stump. The law change was brought in following the infamous “Bodyline” Ashes series and only the ghost of Harold Larwood could possibly have approved of such a farcical decision. Unsurprisingly, cusack was soon relieved of his duties by Hay, who took over, and saw cusack unceremoniously run out by half the length of the pitch for a sketchy 1. Before this Neil “Tony” Tugby had channelled his inner MS Dhoni with a glorious helicopter shot on his way to a magnificent 15, while Ben “Keeno” Richardson had learned fortune can be a cruel mistress when, following his unbeaten 150 at Lintz last weekend, he was out without scoring, having been caught on the boundary, second ball. In the end, Tynemouth 3s were dismissed for 117 and, after some Madri-fuelled group therapy, emerged smiling and ready to face the challenges of Newcastle at home next Saturday in their final game of the season.

Possibly the worst decision ever made by an umpire, ever. However, in my defence I have to say I went through all the checks for height and whether the ball was hitting. I just failed to consider that the ball pitched outside leg stump. Sorry Richy. We can laugh about it now, but I know he will never, ever forget this decision. And neither will I.

Week 22: The incessant rain that poured down all day Friday and on Saturday morning brought a premature end to the 2022 cricket season for all 3 Saturday teams representing Tynemouth Cricket Club. The first XI’s home game against Eppleton at Preston Avenue was the first casualty of the day, with the result that Tynemouth end the season in 9^th position, which is a slightly lower placing than had been hoped for. However, there is the consolation of winning the Northumberland Cricket Board Bobby Smithson Trophy, captured a week earlier against Newcastle at Osborne Avenue.

Another trophy that will spend the year at Preston Avenue is the 2022 NEPL Second Division Championship. Holding a 12-point lead over South North going into the last day, Tynemouth soon learned fate was not in their hands as their game at Ashington was washed out, giving the Croons a further 5 points, but knowing that if South North could fashion a win over Hetton Lyons, the 20 points on offer would take the title to Roseworth Terrace. Nails were bitten to the quick in Tynemouth club house as almost all active players gathered for an end of season social event. Some chose to put this contest out of their mind by watching Percy Park versus Penrith on the adjoining field, while the brave ones endlessly refreshed internet feeds and social media. Around 4pm came the news that the game at Hetton had been abandoned with the hosts 78/3, meaning the title went to Andrew Davison and his team, resulting in raucous singing and much downing of distempering draughts. Well done to Davo and the boys, who last won this title in 2018.

One wag observed that the hysterical reaction of the 2s was matched by the Saturday 3s when they won the toss, but being honest, the second half of the season has seen skipper Richard Hay and his regularly changing squad knuckle down and secure a more than creditable 7^th place finish in Northumberland and Tyneside League Division 5 (South). The abandonment of Saturday’s game with Newcastle meant the Jesmond outfit could only finish a spot below Tynemouth.

That concludes the 2022 season on Preston Avenue and, I must say, it has been an honour to prepare these reports (with enormous help from Vince Howe, some input from Richy Hay and no contact whatsoever from Davo), but an even bigger one to represent my beloved TCC on 15 occasions. We’ll not talk about my win percentage, eh?

Indeed, a season where I went in to it thinking I’d not play any cricket has seen me play more than at any time in perhaps the last 40 years. 13-0-70-3 and a dozen runs may not be the greatest returns in the world, but I’m 58 years of age and I love this game, my club, my team and my team mates. I will play again next year, if selected of course, aiming to reach targets suggested to me by Poll; score 10 runs in one innings and learn how to bowl to left handers are enough to focus on for now.

Winter well everyone. Forza Croons!!

Sean Noise & Fatuous Fiction

 Here's the latest cultural round-up......

MUSIC:

In this section, I’m not proposing to discuss live performances at the Lit & Phil or Saltwell Park by Shunyata Improvisation Group, nor their CDs Balances and Pivot Moments, as such discussion will form part of an article about Shunyata in TQ #56, which I intend to blog on this site in the near future. However, I must say this of the inaugural TQ night at the Lit & Phil in June; it was an absolute pleasure to encounter the pastoral, ethereal beauty of Mobius and also to be present for the debut performance of Hen, where I had the opportunity of hearing Paul Taylor at the old Joanna, in the flesh, for the first time ever. Similarly, my own performance at a spoken word event at The Engine Room on August 2^nd and as part of the second TQ Lit & Phil gathering, together with Posset and Chelsea Hare, on August 19^th won’t be reviewed, as I’m intending that to be part of an end of year piece for TQ #59, which will also be blogged here. Suffice to say, Tom, as Chelsea Hare, produced a rich and warming set of slightly off-kilter acoustic pop ballads that morphed gorgeously into gooey slices of left-field improvisation and noisome noise. Additionally, Joe Murray’s work as Posset has long been lauded on Tyneside and beyond. A son of Bishop Auckland who cut his teeth 30 years ago singing arcane indie with a dozen bands such as Lumpsucker and Foil, his exquisite use of Dictaphone and found sounds produces beguiling collages that disturb and beguile in equal measures. The free ensemble CD he gave out at the gig, Fresh Like Irish Moss, is on rapid repeat on my turntable as we speak. A glorious no-fi talent I’m proud to call a pal.

Before I look in detail at my recent musical purchases, let’s examine the only gig I’ve been to during the period under examination; Sea Power at Cullercoats Crescent Club on August 6^th.  Cards on the table; I was largely unimpressed by both Sea Power’s decision to ditch their British prefix and their reasons for doing so. This, combined with a distinctly flat sounding new album, in the shape of this year’s Everything was Forever had me fearing they were on a distinctly downward spiral. However, I’ve seen them on 10 occasions at 9 different venues over the years and, being frank, they’ve walked on water every single time. Despite the obvious limitations of Cullercoats Crescent Club as a venue, such as unspeakably hideous beer, the presence of a couple of hundred baffled pensioners out for a regular Saturday pint and an endless supply of genial, replica shirted middle-aged men, happily in their cups after NUFC had laced Forest all over, this was a glorious gig. Admittedly there were no bears in attendance (though this was compensated by the appearance of more foliage than when Great Birnham wood came to High Dunsinane hill) and the set included 70% of the new album, though not the finest track, Lakeland Echo, but from an opening Machineries of Joy, by way of a stunning Cleaning out the Rooms and a barnstorming Carrion / All in It, this was a vital band dialling it up to eleven, as ever. Of course, the encore did it for us all; an anthemic Great Skua brought the house down and the lights up but, as is ever the case in these awful post-Brexit days, the ability to transport us back to kinder, more optimistic teams a mere decade and a half ago by the loving Cri de Coeur that is Waving Flags always, and I mean always, reduces me to tears. I still love this band.

As regards recorded music, I’ve bought quite a few CDs since last time. Even discounting the Shunyata discs and the aforementioned Posset promo, there’s still 7 new purchases to be addressed. Of those I’ve purchased, there is no doubt, or indeed surprise, that my favourite is Alex Rex’s poetic journey into hell, Mouthful of Earth. It is Dante meets Bosch meets LaMonte Young; as eerie, queasy, atonal and uncompromising as you’d expect. To create an album that works both as a collection of poetry and a musical offering is a notable challenge, but with Mouthful of Earth, Alex succeeds with his usual boundless, energetic originality. When Neilson sings, it is often more than singing. As a lyricist, his frame of reference is uniquely wide, and his imagination dark, disturbing and dramatic. His singing encompasses everything from broken Dylanesque, nasal crooning to expressionist, declamatory yelps, often lapsing into a half-spoken, slurred narrative.

In every one of his songs over his double decade career, Neilson has revealed himself to be a poet, though Mouthful of Earth is the first spoken-word Alex Rex album. It collects poems written before the pandemic and sets them to experimental drone music from 2006 created by Neilson, Alastair Galbraith and Richard Youngs. The result is moving, brooding and darkly funny; all those things you associate with Alex Rex and Trembling Bells, but more concentrated, more resonant. Things are weird, as we hear of birds screaming, birds gouging confessions in the sky; ‘Epileptic birds with eyes of light.’ Hysterical starlings. It is a love poem of sorts, but with results that are as brutal as they are surreal. Such bizarre imagery drenches the whole album. On It Must be Love, Neilson describes his future self as a profane, decrepit clown and describes a personal apocalypse drenched in artificial colours.

The music may have been composed or improvised years ago, but it is entirely relevant to the poems; the screams and wails and drones of Andromeda Chained to a Rock have a mythic, wild eeriness. Wastwater is backed by something between shimmer and clatter. Alcoholic’s Parabola reclines on dissonant chimes and broken, wordless voices while Neilson examines two separate curves of his life, drinking and music. The misanthropic bird’s nest of Dog Person offers up a world-weary philosophy in little over a minute, the words seeming to take their cue from the unstable percussion.

Neilson is known for his collaborative spirit as much as for his experimental predilections and both come to the fore on Charity Shop Prophet, wherein Lavinia sings a witchy, wordless backing vocal while Neilson’s own free-jazz drumming underpins a piece that juxtaposes historical and biblical reference with sexual desire. This kind of fractured beauty can be found all over Mouthful of Earth, even amongst the weeping sores and river-coloured piss and shitty jogging bottoms of Slight Return. The repeated insistence that “I love you” and the reassurance that “it will all be over soon” represent the bleak irony of hope.These poems bring with them the feeling that we are all dancing on our own funeral pyre, but that doesn’t mean that we should stop dancing.

If you’re keen to dance on the graves of the Ruling elite, then the eponymous Freakons album is just the thing for you. A collaboration between The Mekons, with Jon Langford and Sally Timms the most prominent members, and Freakwater, from Chicago and the Commonwealth of Kentucky, singing broken-hearted mineworker ballads of death, despair and defiance. It is a sombre but stirring brew. This is a raw, sprawling, folksy, transatlantic country juggernaut. Stories of mining disasters, ecological catastrophes and bad times all round. Twelve cuts: traditional tunes and selected originals that sound just like they too were crafted over the centuries. Proper stirring subject matter all round. Janet Bean and Catherine (Freaks) are the singers per se, Langford and Timms are more of the hollering and protesting persuasion. It works as a whole, with expert help from talented harmony singing and guitar playing friends. Alternate tracks jump back and forth across the big pond like a belching steam ship.

Standout tracks? Phoebe Snow is Appalachian country noir, dragged up from the Kentucky and West Virginia coal seams. A pained, screaming fuzz guitar solo charges through the campfire folk. Mannington Mine Disaster is self-explanatory. A rousing defence of men lost underground due to the boss man’s cruel negligence.  For connoisseurs of The Mekons, the band have you covered with rabble rousers Abernant 84/85. The two seams blend together best on opening track Dark Lords of the Mine. In totality, Freakons is a warm and roughly hewn collection that feels like a beery, teary lock-in you wish you’d been invited to.

The third of the more commercial artists (you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet…) to be considered, are the venerable Wire and their long-overdue official release of Not About to Die. Originally, it was a bootleg cassette of scrappy Wire demos recorded in the late 1970s that circulated among EMI employees in the early 1980s. Wire were in the middle of hashing out some ideas for what would be their second and third albums, Chairs Missing and 154, respectively, but Not About to Die was considered to be nothing more than a work-in-progress that was certainly not for sale. While some rock bands have tolerated bootleg recordings being passed around among their fanbase, plenty of groups have tried to seize the cassettes so they can sell the music themselves, though Wire never seemed too keen on Not About to Die. They had no problems with Document & Eyewitness, a warts-and-all live show known for being especially confrontational, but they ignored these demos for decades until now, when Not About to Die has been granted an official release.

In terms of post-punk, the “punk” side of Wire’s inner equation was doing most of the heavy lifting in their early days. By the time the band recorded these demos, their sound was in a state of flux that only proper studio time could fully capture. Songs that appeared on Wire albums like Being Sucked in Again and Two People in a Room unsurprisingly sound like late 1970s stripped-back post-punk. Not About to Die still has some surprises, like an adrenaline-fueled thrashing of The Other Window where Colin Newman takes the lead vocal instead of Bruce Gilbert. An early version of I Should Have Known Better appears as Ignorance No Plea, replacing the final product’s dramatic gloom with some rhythmic, pounding back up Graham Lewis. Indirect Inquiries sounds nothing like how it does on 154, stripping away all of the song’s subtleties and nuances and replacing them with clanging guitars.

Tracks that Wire recorded professionally but were released as b-sides are represented here with Options R and Former Airline. Underwater Experiences, the song Wire recorded and performed many times over the years without committing it to an album, is one of Not About to Die’s more sprawling moments. Lastly, there are the songs you would have otherwise never encountered if not for Not About to Die. The album gets its title from the lyrics to Stepping offtToo Quick, a two-minute song that Newman promoted as having “the best intro to any song ever”. As one guitar hammers out harmonics, the other repeats an ascending triad. Just as Lewis’ slowly walking bass reaches the root, everyone bashes out the same chord while Robert Grey attacks his hi-hat. It’s all rather polyphonic for punk music, and it totally flies in the face of the rousing tune that follows. This may sound like a cliché, but with Wire, even the discards and demos are better than most artists’ entire careers.

Browsing on Bandcamp, I checked out the TUSK page, in light of the news there won’t be a festival in 2022. I was pleased to see an offer of 3CDs for £5. These were: Good Cop, Bad Cop by Derek Bailey, Tony Bevan, Tony Hession and Otomo Yoshihide, A Spoonful of Yeast by Herb Diamante and Friends, and Other Thunders by The One Ensemble Orchestra. The latter is my favourite; a live recording of the Scottish unit, which combines the sedate beauty of Dirty 3 with the Penguin Café Orchestra. It is certainly something I’ll listen to often, unlike the first named set. Yes, I realise the late guitarist was a genius, but he can be a bloody uncomfortable listen and I’m not sure I can bear another 80 minutes risking tinnitus to get through it again. The one in the middle features a (presumably) pseudonymous singer fronting the likes of Sunburned Hand of the Man on standout track Riga. For the most part this is a dirty, sludgy ersatz Cramps style stomp, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I know nothing about the project or the titular crooner.

So finally, we come to Tabhair mo ghra go Conamara (Bring My Love to Connemara); a set of 22 Sean-nos field recording performances, supervised by Terry Yarnell in rural Galway in 1970. I’d come across Veteran Records, the label that released this and many other field recordings of that era, in an Other Lives obituary in The Guardian. A quick perusal of the catalogue saw this one stand out for me. As a devotee of the genius of Seosamh Ó hÉanaí and Darach Ó Catháin, I am always on the lookout for similar styles of material. While this is of variable quality, two sets of performers, the Keane sisters (Rita and Sarah) and Sean ‘ac Donncha are good enough to be spoken of in the same breath as Joe and Dudley. The heartbreaking Keane sisters’ composition The Home I Left Behind is matched by ‘ac Donncha’s take on Joe Heaney’s The Bogs of Shanaheever, which is possibly the saddest song about a dog I’ve ever heard. Of equal import is Tom Phaidin Tom’s rendition of the hitherto unknown, to me at least, Brave Hynes and Bold Dermody. This CD is an absolute treasure and a glorious gateway to a world that is lost forever. I’m intending my own musical tribute, entitled Sean Noise soon enough…

BOOKS:

By and large, I try not to buy new books, except when absolutely unavoidable. Mainly this is to do with the negative impact on the planet of the superabundance of superfluous printed matter. This position is one which does restrict my access to freshly released material, especially as I have an utter disinclination to read on-line in whatever form that may be, so at times, I must be a hypocrite. I had no choice but to purchase a virgin copy of Sunbathers in a Bottle by Magnus Mills, as he is one of the few authors whose entire works I must read. This latest one is the follow up to 2020’s The Trouble with Sunbathers and is a continuation of the depiction of life in a theme park version of England that has been purchased by a foreign power. It’s daft, it’s mad and it’s deeply allegorical. As in every Mills novel, the nameless first-person narrator is hopelessly out of his depth and utterly unable to control a series of increasingly insane events, the significance of which seem to pass everyone else by. It’s Kafka meets Eric Sykes, and I will endlessly hoover up Mills’ madcap world view.

Putting aside the temptations of new-mown paperbacks for one second, I am delighted to note that at almost every turn, there is access to a plentiful, if not unlimited, supply of unwanted, pre-owned books that I feel the urge to read. One such source was the Auntie Joy 2 gig at Ryton back in March, where I finally picked up a copy of Mystery Train by Griel Marcus, often lauded as the greatest book about popular music of all time. I’m not sure if it’s that good, but it is one hell of a read. Chapters on Harmonica Frank, Robert Johnson, The Band, Sly Stone and Elvis Presley educate, inform, fascinate and provoke by turn. The only part that fails to ring true, for me at least, is the section about Randy Newman who, with the benefit of hindsight, was and is a zero-trick pony of minimal talent and even less importance.

Another surprising source of reading material was the clubhouse at Percy Main Amateurs FC where, during recent refurbishments, an enormous stock of football books was unearthed. Taking it upon myself to dispose of these titles in the most equable manner possible, I quickly punted about 100 of them, at a quid a pop, to Celtic and sunderland minded chums, not to mention a huge number to exiled Reading fan Steve James. There’s about 40 of them left and you can check here to see if there’s any that interest you: http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/2022/08/is-this-library.html Just drop me a message if you want any of them.

I did have a delve among them and a few grabbed my interest; first up was Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters by Edinburgh-based, Middlesbrough-supporting, all-round smarmy know-it-all Daniel Gray: a man so lacking in humility he makes The Blizzard’s Jonathan Wilson seem like Ghandi by comparison. The premise of the book is, having resided in Edinburgh for getting on for a decade, Gray has become detached from what it means to be English, so he decides to embark upon a series of apparently solo boozy weekends that take him from Kenilworth Road to Brunton Park and all points in between. The actual travelogue of decaying grounds, disappointing pubs and dismal curry houses is worth your time, but the banal pretension of the overarching theme of cultural deracination is neither convincing nor remotely intriguing. No doubt if you told Gray, Wilson or any other camp follower of the cult of David Conn-Artist that their scribblings are pretentious drivel, they’d smile knowingly and quote Derrida and Lacan right back at you.

Stan Ternent was born in in Stoneygate at the bottom of The Felling; a place where they took the kerbstones in before last orders. Like many areas of NE10, it had a significant number of Irish emigres as its core population. Hence the bloke who played for Burnley, Carlisle and his boyhood team the Mackems (did you ever set foot in the Columba Club on a match day?), who probably thought Derrida and Lacan played centre half for St Etienne, namechecks the like of Corny O’Donnell and Father Stronge in their roles at the Felling’s foremost Fenians on the Fulwell End. This is the part of Stan’s story, reflecting on Pat Stronge’s sermons that denounced Newcastle United as true-blue agents of the counter reformation, that appealed to me, but we don’t get enough of it. Instead, after about 80 pages, it’s time for Stan to regale us with anecdotes about his time as a diet Neil Warnock in the manager’s seat at Blackpool, Hull, Bury and Burnley. It was published when he still held command at Turf Moor, before his star descended with woeful stints at Gillingham and Huddersfield, before he went out of the game in 2008 or thereabouts. Frankly, I can’t imagine Stan the Man shifted many copies as it is a niche read, but I’m glad to have read it, even if only to discover what an appalling shit and problem boozer Ian Porterfield was.

Stan Ternent may seek to present himself as a flinty disciplinarian of the old school, even if he comes across as a low-carb Terry Butcher, but he has nothing in his career as a player or manager to hold a candle to the achievements of the late, great Eddie Turnbull. Firstly as a player, as one of the sainted Famous Five, then as manager of the well named Turnbull’s Tornadoes, Eddie was an Easter Road legend. Simply put, he was one of Hibernian’s greatest players and greatest managers who served the club with distinction and was always proud to wear the emerald, green shirt of Leith’s finest. His long-overdue autobiography Having a Ball tells the career of a true gentleman, who also served Queen’s Park and Aberdeen with some renown as a manager. Of course, as a player, he was a one club man and, to his dying day, his club was Hibs. I’d recommend this avowedly nostalgic read about a bygone era from the pen of a long dead football hero to anyone sickened by the avaricious mercenaries in the professional game these days.

A slightly sobering read is the almanac of woe that is Motherwell, On This Day by Derek Wilson. Unlike comparable tomes on Celtic or Liverpool, for instance, this is a series of unending misfortune, whereby each May tells of broken dreams as seasons end fruitlessly and August recounts early optimism dashed by another Old Firm thrashing before the leaves turn golden. Seemingly, not a day has gone past without a hammering at Fir Park or a thrashing on the road. It’s enough to turn you to drink, which is the only explanation for how Jimmy Greaves put his name to the risibly plotted and woefully character-led football novel The Final, written in conjunction with booze-fuelled hack Norman Giller. Make no bones about it, this book is tripe; the story of a priapic pisshead playboy being kneecapped by the cuckolded vice-chair of the club he’s about to leave to scupper a dream move abroad. Definitely a toilet read, especially when you run out of paper.

Of course, there are other sources of books than Percy Main FC and other celebrities who’ve apparently written landfill fiction. Take Barry Norman’s Sticky Wicket for instance; I got this from the Literary & Philosophical Society when I played the gig there. It’s slightly wordier than Jimmy’s magnum opus, but the plot is no better. Here we have a TV news anchor of little or no merit, professionally or personally, whose only leisure interest is playing for his village cricket team. However, in the week leading up to their annual challenge game with the Lord of the Manor’s select XI, who just happens to be the hated father-in-law, Andrew (the eponymous left arm orthodox spinner and would-be lothario) gets an unbelievable amount of female attention, as well as a private detective following him around, snapping away. Anyway, in a breath-taking denouement, they win the game by a solitary run, his wife leaves him for an archaeologist, he loses his job and shacks up with a bit of stuff he’s had his eyes on for years. Tripe.

The selection of chaff I got from the Lit & Phil demonstrates that there are many different types of celebrity dross that made it in to print. Take for instance former Ask the Family host Robert Robinson’s portentous screed of hokum, The Conspiracy, which tells of a secret decision by all the heads of state of constituent members of the UN signing up to a hush hush protocol whereby a sterilising medicament is added to the water supply to solve the problem of overpopulation in a humane way. Of course, this news leaks out and some liberal longhairs (this is set in 1968) decide to sabotage the programme. They do, but the tracing paper thin plot has an elusive, portentous aspect to it that I failed to grasp, so I wasn’t sure whether to feel sad or elated at the end of the book.

The very worst book I’ve read this last while was Joe Orton’s Head to Toe. Unlike Orton’s properly lauded dramatic comedies of manners, this picaresque piffle is ostensibly a novel. It isn’t really; it’s a sprawling, formless pastiche of Swift meets Peake, failing to impress either in imagination or execution. If this was how Orton saw his writing career progressing, then perhaps Kenneth Halliwell did us all a favour in that Islington bedsit back in 66.

Currently, I’m just finishing off Dangerous Ground, the leaden-footed autobiography of Roger Cook. Oh, it really is boring; the way he repeats, in tedious detail, every punch, kick and headbutt he endured making his dull documentaries about subjects we cared little about in the 80s and mean even less nowadays. I’d suspect the number of thumps and bumps he received switched off his ability to produce emotions. Still, it’s a good preparation for David Keenan’s Industry of Magic and Light, I guess. Well, once I’ve finished Monument Maker it will be…