Robbing Friday

When I sat down to write this blog, it was 7.30 Friday night and I simply didn’t know what to do with myself. Sure there were a dozen bottles of Hook Norton Gold and Fuller’s Bengal Lancer, not to mention half a case of Arabella Sauvignon Blanc 2010 and a similar number of Darnault St. Chinion 2007 that I could have been shifting, but a malaise had come over me. I should have been euphoric, having finished a fortnight from hell with coursework and UCAS references to deal with; I now had slack time on the horizon, including a trip to Carlisle with Percy Main and Wire at the Academy on the Saturday to enthral me. Sadly, I was at a loose end for the first Friday night since late February as the League of Ireland has closed down for the winter and my Friday night Twitter duties are at an end until the spring.

The previous week (Friday 11^th November) was the first post domestic weekend, but Ireland’s thrilling 4-0 win away in Estonia to the Euro 2012 qualifying play-offs kept my quota of Celtic fellow feeling topped up. I’m elated that Trappatoni’s team have made it through, for the first time since 1988. How well I remember that glorious Sunday afternoon at the end of my PGCE year in Leeds, watching footage from Stuttgart of Ray Houghton’s winning goal as Ireland ground the Saxon invader’s face in to the dust. It didn’t pay back the 800 years of oppression in full, but it was a fairly good start. The subsequent draw with Russia when we ought to have won and the cruel loss to Holland when Gullit’s header bounced crazily away from Packie Bonner like a Muralitharan doosra on a Colombo sticky were almost incidental to the joy of putting one over on England. There are rumours of a pre-tournament friendly at Lansdowne Road, for the first time since 1995 when English thugs caused the game to be abandoned after David Keely gave Ireland the lead, but I’d rather wait until we got to the Ukraine or Poland to gain maximum publicity for the next instalment of Erin’s revenge.

The domestic game in the 26 Counties wrapped up on Sunday 6^th November, when Sligo Rovers were a shade fortunate to retain the FAI Cup after a game which started like a tornado but blew itself out by half time. The hero was Ciaran Kelly, who came off the bench in the 119^th minute to save a brace of Shels penalties to send the cup back to the Showgrounds after a 4-1 spot kick success. Paul Cook’s psychological masterstroke in using the keeper who saved all 4 Shamrock Rovers efforts the year before at this stage, was out of place in a Sligo performance that was woefully lacking in ambition, with Richie Ryan and Matthew Blinkhorn particularly abject, though Rafael Cretaro sparkled from the bench and deserved a winner’s medal.

Sympathy is due to Shels who took the lead via Philip Hughes, had Barry Clancy unjustly sent off and saw Stephen Paisley put in an imperious man of the match performance at centre half. However, it has to be said they were knocked out earlier in the competition by Sheriff 3-2 at Tolka Park, only for the FAI to reinstate them after Sheriff had used an ineligible player. After that, Shels struggled past Limerick and St. Pat’s, after a replay, so perhaps Sligo deserve the cup on the basis they were the only unbeaten side in the competition.

Sligo were Premier Division runners-up to Shamrock Rovers, who won the title with a game to spare by 4 points, with League Cup winners Derry 3^rd. St. Patrick’s Athletic came 4^th, but will be kicking themselves for not winning the cup after being a goal and a man up on Shels after an hour of the first semi-final. Bohs managed to claim 5^th place, which was a fairly remarkable performance considering they started the season with rumours of their imminent demise constantly circling. The rumours are still there, but so are Bohs; sadly Pat Fenlon may not be, as he’s apparently off to Hibs and the best of luck to him in that task from a long-suffering Hibee. Bray were 6^th, and Setanta Cup runners-up Dundalk were 7^th, with UCD 8^th and Drogheda in 9^th; all of these lot managed to maintain their Premier division status, but Galway United, who managed to accrue the grand total of 6 points in the whole season, including a win away to Bohs, are allegedly relegated to Division 1. However, whether there’s a Galway United or even a First Division is a matter that won’t become clear until the February announcement from the L of I Licensing Committee.

Division 1 ran with 11 teams last year, after Sporting Fingal’s demise allowed Drogheda to be reprieved. Next season it has 9 teams currently entitled to participate, though as I say, things are currently still to be confirmed. What is undeniable is that League Cup runners-up Cork City were Champions, having won away to second place Shels on the last day of the season. The two of them were promoted outright. Roddy Collins did remarkably well to lead his Monaghan United side, 2010 play-off losers, up as play-off winners after beating Galway United. Limerick just missed out in 4^th place, with Waterford 5^th, Longford 6^th, Athlone 7^th, Mervue 8^th, Finn Harps 9^th, Wexford Youths 10^th and Salthill Devon last. Wexford avoided the wooden spoon by 3 points, gained in the last game when they beat the hapless Salthill.

As yet, there has been no scheduling of a play-off game for Salthill to maintain their status, presumably as the A Championship has now been abolished. Consequently, the 3 sides from the City of the Tribes are still in Division 1, even if Galway United are in disarray and Salthill have mooted resigning. Surely Michael D Higgins can make this his first priority in his presidency?

In addition to the difficulties of Bohemians, Galway and Salthill, Bray Wanderers are short of a few quid. Who knows what will happen; remember the abolition of the A Championship has cast FC Carlow, Cobh Ramblers, Fanad United and Tralee Dynamos adrift, as well as former members Castlebar Celtic and Tullamore Town. Whisper it quietly; there’s plenty of scope for a regionalised pair of First Divisions. Or is that too sensible of the League of Ireland?

Before this is decided, there’s the small matter of Shamrock Rovers remaining trio of Europa League group games; much as it pains me to say it, all the best of luck to them.

2010/2011

As featured in Toon Talk #7

Well, here goes with the last instalment of the Rock & Dole Years. This is a project that has occupied me since 2004 and the Editor has been gracious enough to support my endeavours by publishing the last 16 instalments of the series, from 95/96 in players inc #13 to 10/11 in Toon Talk #7. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

I began the series by writing about 74/75, which ended up being Joe Harvey’s last campaign in charge. Joe was a gentleman and we’ve had precious few of those in the hot seat at St. James Park over the years; obviously Sir Bobby and KK fit in to that category, while decent, honourable club servants like Willie McFaul and Glenn Roeder shouldn’t be scorned either, despite the manner of their departures. In a season that was every bit as tumultuous as the36 previous ones I’ve written about, Chris Hughton was denied the chance to join the hallowed triumvirate of loved Magpie bosses (Harvey, Keegan and Robson) and must remain in the respected second tier with McFaul and Roeder, when he was unceremoniously sacked on the flimsiest of footballing pretexts.

2010/2011 kicked off less than 16 months ago, but looking at the side that began the campaign on a hot Monday night with a 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford, it seems a lifetime ago. Of the 13 players who were involved then, 5 have been sold (Carroll, Nolan, Barton, Enrique and Routledge), 4 appear to have no future at the club (Harper, Perch, Smith and the permanently out on loan Xisco), while the 4 others are: Williamson, who is injured, Gutierrez and Coloccini, who are essential to the team and Shola, who is famous for scoring against the Mackems and for being Sammy’s brother.  The Man United defeat was entirely expected and bar one half chance for Carroll, we created nothing all night, showing that insistent supporter worries about a lack of investment in the team seemed well founded. Other than the journeyman Perch who’d arrived from Forest, the only other signings we’d made were Dan Gosling, who was a long-term injury victim and Sol Campbell, who was on honeymoon!!

A sense of impending dread accompanied the first home game against Villa, who had gloried in our demotion back in May 2009. The foreboding intensified when Carew put the ball on the spot after 9 minutes; thankfully he almost hit the penalty out the ground and minutes later we took the lead with a thunderbolt from moustachioed Joey Barton, when Whees Keyse Louise in the Grauniad tried to suggest he performed a Nazi salute celebration. Ludicrous, but not as ludicrous as the pre match thought of us winning 6-0, but we did, with a Carroll hat trick and a Nolan brace. We followed this up with a 3-2 at Accrington in the League Cup, when Ryan Taylor scored a beauty and took a point from Wolves, when Karl Henry kicked everything below throat height, to end August on an even keel.

At the end of the transfer window, we bucked our usual trend by signing players; the unknown Cheik Tiote arrived from FC Twente and the equally unheralded Hatem Ben Arfa came from Marseille. They made their debuts in a 2-0 home loss to Blackpool, where we had 40 shots on target but couldn’t find the net, before Ben Arfa showed why we’d bought him with a stunning winner at Goodison against a thuggish Everton side who should have finished with 8 players on the pitch. The only downer was Harper’s shoulder injury that kept him out for 4 months. In midweek, we had an insane 4-3 win at Chelsea in the League Cup, with Shola grabbing a fabulous last minute headed winner, before James Perch’s needless own goal meant we turned victory in to defeat at SJP against horrible Stoke. Thus we ended September with 7 points and in 10^th place.

October started badly with De Jong’s disgusting leg break lunge on Ben Arfa that wasn’t even called a foul; in a game we undeservedly lost 2-1. It seemed to be getting worse when Charles N’Zogbia came back to haunt us with an early double to seemingly win it for Wigan the week after. Thankfully, we didn’t give up and Colo’s 90^th minute equaliser could have been the springboard that saved the season and set us up, ready to progress. Firstly, we went to West Ham and played them off the park to win 2-1 after going a goal down, before the Halloween extravaganza. The Mackems had been boasting just what they were going to do to us; their messageboards and fanzines predicted 3 and 4 goal victory margins; right score, wrong side. Nolan 26. Nolan 34. Ameobi 45 (penalty). Ameobi 70. Ameobi 75. We crucified them, on and off the pitch, as the Geordies ruled the unwashed with a rod of iron. How I would have loved to have seen Steve Brewse’s dial as 50,000 Mags launched in to a special version of “Daydream Believer,” especially for him.

Anyway, the week after this we won 1-0 at the Emirates, with a Carroll header; it seemed almost like after the Lord Mayor’s show, but it made up for the Gunners possing us 4-0 at SJP in the League Cup I suppose. Up to 5^th place now, we decided to be shit again; a Williamson howler let a dreadful Blackburn side win 2-1 at St. James, before Fulham stifled us in another home game 4 days later; it ended 0-0 without any chances of note. It got worse as we went to Bolton and were murdered 5-1, with Colo and Williamson (retrospectively) seeing red. A good point at home to Chelsea on a snowy Sunday was followed by a poor 3-1 thumping at The Hawthorns which, utterly undeservedly, saw Hughton get his cards on the Monday.

Scarcely believably the replacement was Alan Pardew, which is when things get seriously daft as his first game at home to Liverpool, saw us clout them 3-1 when appalling weather kept pre match protestors in the pub and not on Barrack Lane. Following the intervention of the weather, we had a predictably bleak Festive period, losing 3-1 at home to Man City, 2-0 away to Spurs and 3-1 at Stevenage (of all teams!) in the FA Cup. We did stroll past West Ham by the unflattering margin of 5-0, with a Leon Best hat trick. Allegedly that game was what persuaded Ashley to sell Carroll and replace him with Shefki Kuqi and Stephen Ireland, another crock who made 1 substitute appearance in 5 months.

I’m getting ahead of myself as we drew 1-1 at SOS, when they bagged an injury time fluke after another Kevin Nolan funky chicken dance and home to Spurs, when they scored at the same time with a Lennon beauty. Post Carroll, we lost 1-0 at Fulham when Sidwell’s elbow did Shola’s cheekbone. The next game was Arsenal at home; words simply can’t describe that second half. I defy you to watch Tiote’s equaliser and not punch the ceiling even now. Simply amazing; imagine if Nolan’s last minute effort had skidded in and not a foot wide?

From there a dull 0-0 at Blackburn, an easy 2-0 win at St Andrews and a safe 1-1 home to Bolton seemed to suggest things were petering out for the season. Just to keep us on our toes, the team were crucified 4-0 at Stoke and lost at home to Everton, before a decent run-in. We brushed Wolves aside 4-1 with Jonas scoring his usual beauty against them, drew 0-0 home to Man Utd, when Owen got dogs abuse and got a point at Blackpool, to make up for losses at Villa and Liverpool, when Carroll got some stick; undeservedly in my opinion.

We saw the season out with a 2-1 home win over Birmingham, a plucky 2-2 at Chelsea and the 3-3 versus West Brom, when if we’d won, it would have meant an 8^th place finish; instead we ended up 12^th. Considering we’d lost a £35m striker and our manager mid-season, this was probably more than we’d dared hope, though it still wasn’t enough to suggest the owners were serious about the club.

Thanks for reading this series; all the best to you and Newcastle United for the next 37 years and more.

More Than Just Name Calling?

The early afternoon of Saturday November 5^th was possibly as close to sporting nirvana as fans of Newcastle United could legitimately expect to get. Not only did Ryan Taylor score an absolute wonder goal, which alongside his winner over the Mackems and a series of assured, confident displays at left back have won over almost all of his doubters (as well as paying off the debt accrued by all those free kicks he got for Wigan against us), but also the team closed out a comfortable, almost assured home win over Everton to move in to second place in the Premier League. Considering relegation was assumed to be the inevitable result of the squad disposal policy of the summer transfer window by fans and pundits alike, that’s a hell of a place for the club to find itself.

As I’ve said on many occasions; you don’t hear many people talking about Nolan, Carroll or Barton these days, though perhaps alarmingly, you don’t hear many people mentioning David Santon either, but we’ll park that thought for the minute. With Tim Krul in the form of his life, Steve Harper’s move to Brighton on loan has caused barely a ripple among the support; much less the wailing and beating of breasts his pals on the Groat Market would have pretended it would have done. We’ve moved on. The amazing news is that Pardew is the most tactically astute manager we’ve had since Robson, which isn’t saying much I know, but the puppet is now being seen as the pragmatist. If Redknapp’s surgery to remove his VAT return doesn’t go swimmingly, I’d suggest Pardew is a candidate for the White Hart Lane gig, especially if that meant Lee Clark could return to Tyneside, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

To add to that sense of achievement on Guy Fawkes Night, the team remain unbeaten in the league with 25 points from 11 fixtures; if the same 11 fixtures are taken from last season (with QPR replacing Blackpool for the sake of argument), then we’re 18 points better off. In the series of games in between the unnecessary and unwelcome October international break and the recuperative and restorative November Premier League ceasefire, Newcastle won 3 times, at home to Everton, as we’ve noted, against Wigan (courtesy of a beautiful Cabaye strike) and away to Stoke, on a night when Pardew played Pulis at his own game and won by an innings. The ball-drying tactics were a masterstroke that made football tactics uproariously funny.  Lovely fella though Chris Hughton undoubtedly is (and I wish him nothing but success at Birmingham), he could not have set ps his team to play as quarter as well as Pardew has been doing. When I stated I felt Hughton deserved sacking after the Bolton and West Brom away games last year, I was accused of malice; I’d like to think it was foresight.

The other game in October saw a marvellously entertaining 2-2 draw with Spurs, when Shola grabbed a point with a stunning strike past the miraculous and ageless Friedel. In the aftermath of this goal, my celebrations in the Leazes wing of the Milburn Paddock (yes, I actually stirred myself to attend this one) caused my phone to become unlocked and dial a random number. Touchingly, it saw fit to call my late father, whose number I’ve been incapable of deleting from my phone ever since he passed away the day after Bobby Robson. I think the old fella would have appreciated it, as he always defended Shola. Here’s hoping Ameobi Senior can get back to fitness and score a few more of those beauties; he’s only 135 behind Shearer now, so at the current rate of progress, he’ll be our top goal scorer of all time around 2030. Perhaps as a result of the quality of the Spurs game, the crowd was 3k up for Wigan, though there were dark mutterings among my informers of mass a return of the whinging tendency, who demand entertainment or the opportunity to moan about everything under the sun before the mascots have had their photos taken; whilst the twist-faced twats are endemic, I’ll not be back at SJP regularly. Indeed, my next scheduled appearance is against West Brom on December 21^st.  It better not be a bleak midwinter.

Going back to November 5^th, the fact the club moved back down to third after Man United beat the mackems, courtesy of an obligatory, obsequious own goal by former Red Wes Brown, no doubt as a celebration present to mark Ferguson’s 25 years in charge, took nothing away from Newcastle’s magnificent early season run. Perhaps the only low point was the extra time loss to Blackburn in the Carling Cup. The third of a trio of crazy, goal-drenched games that all went to extra time (2-1 at Scunthorpe and 4-3 at Forest) ended with the return of that gnawing, horrid, hollow feeling of impotent despair that defeat engenders. Let’s hope it isn’t destined to be a more frequent visitor than of late; sadly, the fixture list has been unkind to us with a bleak and unpromising set of games to come. However, the real downer about Blackburn was rumours of bad fan behaviour.

A week after NUST rose like lambs after slumber to host their mini-conference on the future of football (which apparently involves zero discussion on the ethics and conduct of the Supporters’ Trust), the past of football reared its ugly head. The same sort of pissed, brainless low-lifes who turned Darlington away in to Christmas Eve in The Lowther circa 1983 with added replica tops, were out in force at Blackburn. Unfortunately, the racist comment brigade was there as well. Having been to Arsenal v Bolton the night before and marvelling at the cross section of races, ethnicities and creeds at that game, I mused just how some of our lot would respond to the presence in the crowd of a sizeable proportion of young women attired in hijabs. Perhaps such stark and unequivocal proof that not only do well live in a multi-ethnic, multu-cultural society, but we’re part of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural fanbase of a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic football team  may make some of the EDL-supporting, Carling quaffing, poppy fetishists face up to their idiotic prejudices as well.

Clearly I don’t attend many Newcastle games these days and I’ve not been to an away game since Hull in 2009, so I don’t know the full story. I suspect there are isolated pockets of idiots who are reflecting the intolerant zeitgeist of British society as the death agonies of capitalism affect us all. That said, it isn’t acceptable; I’d love our crowd to be self-regulating, but some times that isn’t possible. We discussed this at the Utd4NUFC meeting on Monday 7^th November, where our mission statement was agreed. It states -:

1. To encourage and promote open and honest communication between NUFC and its fanbase, encompassing individual fans and members of supporter associations or similar organisations, with the aim of helping the club excel both on and off the pitch.

2. To respect all participants and their views in order to be an accommodating forum for anyone with an interest in the betterment of NUFC.

 3. To form a credible coalition, representative of the diverse range of opinion held by all those who comprise the fanbase of NUFC.

 As a coalition we are open to and accepting of all opinions except those which are discriminatory on the grounds of race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation.

How an individual reacts to racism in the ground is up to them, but it was tentatively agreed, if the incident is during a home game, the minimum responsibility for any fan should be to take the seat and row number, then report it to a steward or the club, if you don’t fancy facing some bonehead down. However we deal with it and however few the incidents are, this infection needs cutting out now. Let’s be vigilant and assertive in the face of fascism. This is especially true, not only with the Anton Ferdinand incident, but the abuse suffered on 5^th November by Richard Offiong playing for Spartans versus Colwyn Bay and at Percy Main, when our own Aristote Diamos was racially abused by a Carlisle City player. This stinks; it really does. And I haven’t even mentioned the appalling incident with racist abuse meted out to Sammy Ameobi on Twitter, which has resulted in a couple of arrests of 17 year olds. Some have responded to this by saying they’re only kids; well my son’s 16 and he thinks racism is completely and utterly unacceptable. He would challenge anyone who said anything racist, so don’t try and play the age card. We all need to act like civilised human beings.

Getting back to the team, obviously, there are the gloomy naysayers who point to the current crop of crocks, with Tiote, Cabaye, Marveaux and Obertan joining Ameobi and Williamson on the injured list, though quite how bad the situation will be when we return to competitive action on November 19^th is another matter. While it’s untrue to say the club is in a false position because “Newcastle have played nobody yet” (according to received media wisdom), the next 3 fixtures will be very instructive, though I no longer feel the urge to watch Final Score through my fingers whilst hid behind the sofa.  

With trips to Manchester to play citeh then United in successive weeks, before Chelsea come to visit at the start of December, it is a moot point whether a fast tracked return of any or all of those currently unavailable is a sensible move, considering the fixtures after that are the marginally less intimidating quartet of Norwich, Swansea, West Brom and Bolton.  Indeed, a couple of batterings at the hands of the really big boys may inspire an owner less inscrutable than Ashley to beef up the squad come January. What will happen to Newcastle when the window opens is as much of a mystery and as impossible to predict as ever. The fact still remains; the club is as intriguing off the pitch as on it.

As I completed my first draft of this Blog on Wednesday 9^th November, the news broke that St. James’ Park was to be immediately renamed as the Sports Direct Arena. As you can imagine, this caused the kind of hysterical shit storm that clogged the airwaves and local press for 3 days. While 99% of people were against it, I felt, as a matter of principle, I was required to swim blithely against the tide of popular opinion. You see, I have no problem with this, as I’ll always refer to the ground as St. James’ Park. I do think Ashley should pay for the privilege of having the naming rights to the ground, but I’ll expend neither energy nor hot air on the subject, nor lose any sleep about it. It’s the same as the cut price season ticket deals that were announced after the Wigan game; what a fabulous concept, but what atrocious club PR.

As ever, we heard less than half the story. While Llambias graced Radio Newcastle with some arrogant flannel about it being his job to maximise corporate income and Bobby Moncur toed the Sports Direct line in a way that would have got him chained to the railings in Belfast with a bucket over tar over his head around the time he was lifting the Fairs Cup, the real story broke on Friday night. Northern Rock, no doubt suffering further financial privations, have pulled out of the club sponsorship deal with immediate effect.

Basically, this leaves Newcastle United £15m down and with no name on the front of their shirts. Now, with Captain Colo renegotiating his contract, there is an unpleasant way to make up that saving. Thus, it may be the case that having SJP rebranded is  a bitter pill to swallow, but a necessary one, if Newcastle United are going to be run at a profit, as Llambias seems to insist.

This one is going to run and run, as always.

Fragments of Unpopular Culture 9: What Makes You Laugh?

The following all make me laugh. A lot.

Love: Vol. 0

The first available train south from Central Station. Prosecco with friends. Fritz Lange summer season at the ICA. Buying the Daily Telegraph aged 12. Taking primary school age offspring to al fresco Shakespearean tragedy. Being taught how to pass a rugby ball. Silence. Going to the toilet in the Bodleian. Roasted garlic aroma. Rolling over in bed and missing the bus. Intolerance. Curt, solemn exchanges that close the door on the past. Bicycles. Contempt for the weak sensibilities. Porridge. Discussing Nietzsche. Marinetti. The A1. The Thick Of It. Forgetting about your grandparents. Early 70s repayment mortgages. Mutual inter-generational contempt. Refusing to disclose school sporting fixtures. Watching The Ascent of Man rather than It’s A Knockout. Brian Sewell. Militant. Vegetarianism. Vic Godard. Jean Luc Godard. James Bolam. Holland Park Avenue. Losing your regional accent. Not knowing the names of those you are related to. Passive opposition to violent heterosexism. Gazpacho. France.

Fashion Crisis hits Barton Stacey

Dear All. This is a very serious message that I hope you can pass on to as many people as you can. Last night at the big ASDA in Winchester a 49 year old Malaysia / Edinburgh / Ballymena / North Shields man in a yellow polo shirt went missing. Fortunately their policy when something like this happens is to lock the doors. The 49 year old Malaysia / Edinburgh / Ballymena / North Shields man in a yellow polo shirt was found in the toilets with an overweight bald middle aged man suffering from depression and his assistant cat from the Curva Nord with a drug problem. One was glueing a mask on him, while the other was writing across the front of the 49 year old man from Malaysia / Edinburgh / Ballymena / North Shields's yellow polo shirt. This comes from a shelf stacker called Charlie Posh who was there last night. Please pass the message round to as many as you can and remain extra vigilant in the company of other 49 year old Malaysia / Edinburgh / Ballymena / North Shields men in yellow polo shirts.

A Christmas Crimewatch Carol

Once upon a time there was a lovely little football club who played at their own lovely little ground, called Paradise Park. Unfortunately this little club had fallen on hard times; the team weren’t very good, even though some very hard-working Villagers looked after Paradise Park. Happily a young knight called Jay and his band of fabulous footballers made things wonderful on the pitch. Unfortunately, things were suddenly less than perfect elsewhere, as the hard-working Villagers, who only wanted to share a pizza among themselves at Christmas time, were terrorised by the incessant complaining or Evil Edna E-coli and the Whinging Welder.

In a dark, dirty corner of Paradise Park lived Freddy the Freezer. Freddy was a brave, strong and very accommodating cold store for lots of food. Sadly he had been in the service of Evil Edna E-coli, the Kitchen Kaiser, who had allowed Freddy to get filthy inside; in fact he was so filthy that green and black mould was growing all over him. Evil Edna E-coli and her partner in grime the Whinging Welder cackled with joy as they thought their dirty work was done and they left Paradise Park forever (or so they pretended). Thankfully, some hard-working Villagers spent all their summer Saturdays scrubbing and scrubbing Paradise Park’s kitchen until Freddy’s silver surfaces sparkled superbly. Freddy was happy when lots of buns, pies, chips, vegetarian sausages and even ice creams came to live inside him, as the kind Villagers worked hard to make Paradise Park as happy off the pitch as on it.

Then disaster struck. One sunny Sunday the hard-working Villagers arrived at Paradise Park to discover Freddy the Freezer had been switched off, but none of the hard-working Villagers were responsible for this terrible act of sabotage. Luckily Freddy hadn’t been switched off long and all his food was saved, but the hard-working Villagers thought hard about this incident and made a helpful sign to put next to the on/off switches so the Whinging Welder or Evil Edna E-coli wouldn’t be tempted to switch off Freddy the Freezer by accident, when they shouldn’t have been there in the first place!!

Freddy the Freezer had some kitchen chums who had just been brought to live at Paradise Park by the Kind Cook. They were Sammy the Sugar Bowl, Tommy the Tea Spoon and Mickey the Milk Jug. For three happy autumnal months they made the hard-working Villagers, the fabulous footballers and their visitors happy as they helped to sweeten and flavour the tea and coffee everyone collected from the Kind Cook.

However, one stormy Saturday as winter arrived, Sammy the Sugar Bowl, Tommy the Tea Spoon and Mickey the Milk Jug all disappeared from Paradise Park. Where had they gone? Had they been kidnapped? Freddy the Freezer thought he knew; Evil Edna E-coli had got her dirty mitts on them, with the Whinging Welder turning a blind eye.

There is no happy ending to this story; the hard-working Villagers are angry and the Kind Cook is out of pocket after her gifts to the lovely football club were kidnapped. All the hard-working Villagers can do to keep Paradise Park safe is to use their new friend Pamela the Padlock to keep things out of sight as best they can and stock take after every home game.

So, if you see some sad and lonely sugar bowls, milk jugs or tea spoons far away from their proper home, please send them back to Paradise Park.

Jackanory

Fragments of Unpopular Culture 8: Das Gruppe

For many, many years, The Fall used to be my favourite band in the world, ever, of all time. From the first time I’d heard them in late 1978, when my cousin played me “It’s The New Thing,” their second single, right through to a shambolic, non-performance at the Sage in October 2004, I’d spent over 25 years in love with the band. I bought every single release of theirs, attended every gig I could, proselytised them in print and even wrote for a fanzine called “The Biggest Library Yet,” which was based entirely on The Fall. These days, of course, I realise Teenage Fanclub are the best band in the world and The Wedding Present are the second best. However, on Friday 4^th November, The Fall are playing Newcastle and I’m taking Ben to see them. He’s 16 and I think he’s expecting to hear “Winter,” “Touch Sensitive” and “Theme From Sparta FC.” He won’t, but it’ll intriguing as ever to hear what they do play. As I said before, I’m out of practice writing gig reviews or music based pieces in general, so instead of trying to write what I think about them, here’s some stuff I did in the past that’s about The Fall.

The second article I ever wrote for “The Biggest Library Yey” was about my first ever Fall gig, which had been back in June 1980 at the Tyne Theatre on Westgate Road. This is what I said -:

Stepping Out

Wise-ass American film critics would call it a 'rite of passage'. We linguistically sober Little Englanders would refer to it as all part of growing up! I'm talking about my first ever Fall gig. It happened on 28 June 1980 at the Newcastle New Tyne Theatre. The gig cost £2.00 and beer was 43p a pint. I was a month away from my 16th birthday and was on something of a high, having just completed my O levels and secured a job in an electrical components factory. This particular night was a Saturday and I was still coming to terms with having £25 in my pocket in respect of my first week's wages.

The gig was being promoted by a wonderful organisation called Anti Pop that had done the Au Pairs and Delta 5 the week before and, wait for it, Pink Military Stand Alone (remember them?) the previous night. The New Tyne Theatre was not new at all, but an aged musical hall that had done time as the Stoll 'erotic' cinema before lying dormant - like its former customers presumably - for many years. It's still doing service as a theatre and infrequent musical venue; in fact, I saw Kristin Hersh there in April 1994. The best thing about the New Tyne was that all the seating was as it had been, thus me and about 10 mates commandeered one of the Royal Boxes, complete with velvet drapes and opera glasses, in order to get a better view. First on were local band Flesh, both of whom worked in the local Virgin Records store and were absolute shite. They released a record once: a cover of 'My Boy Lollipop' in the manner of Suicide. This was a decade and a half ago, remember.

Next to read the boards were Clicks, a band memorable only for having ex-Penetration guitarist Garry Chaplin as leader; they had played one gig the previous April as Iron Curtain and used Munch's 'The Scream' for their posters and t-shirts; Joy Division crossed with the Velvets, unpalatable now but very popular among the long overcoat proto-Bunnymen brigade. Now perhaps this doesn't seem to be much of a night to remember so far but Cabaret Voltaire, in their atonal electric Dadaist phase, were on immediately before The Fall and achieved an enormously polarised reaction. I thought they were brilliant; the rest of the audience bombarded them with glasses, jeers and phlegm. To be truly innovative, you must be prepared to endure the opprobrium of those less advanced then yourself I mused, then went for a pint.

When The Fall hit the stage, I had the horns of a dilemma to sit on; should I remain in the Royal Box with a perfect view, or should I venture to the front in search of a better atmosphere? There was no problem with sound quality, it was diabolical everywhere, but it was important for me to find the right spot to spend the second most important night of my life thus far. Subsequently, a man I did not know and have never seen since came up to me in a pub, the name of which I can't remember, and gave me a bootleg of the gig (did I cover myself legally on that one?) and what strikes me is just how long a gig it was. Perhaps it was the overpowering stench of Evo-Stik from the prototype punk retards in the bogs or just the sheer excitement I felt, who knows? It certainly affected my mental equilibrium. Anyway, most of the evening passed in a blur. As was their wont at the time, The Fall slipped in eight unreleased songs out of a 16-song set. I spent a lot of time inventing possible titles for the newies, such as - and how I cringe now - Totally Wild.

When I arrived downstairs, I discovered the closest I could get to the stage was about 50 feet. Contrast this with The Fall's next appearance at Newcastle in October 1981, when I spent the gig sat on the stage at the dismally naff Hofbrau German Bierkellar; this was in the days before Riverside and finding a place to play was almost impossible. The reason for being kept at a distance was the roped off orchestra pit area that hailed back to the Music Hall days. No doubt it had been maintained during the time it was a cinema to ensure the dirty raincoat brigade didn't impale themselves on the stage, attempting to ravish the Swedish nurses or lesbian nuns on the screen. Faced with this huge gap, I returned back upstairs. Sadly, unlike Royal Variety Command performances, all performers and audience didn't turn to applaud us and throw red roses at the end. My main memories of the set were of how wonderful 'Impression of J. Temperance' and 'New Puritan' sounded.

The only downer was at the end. As the gig would finish after the last bus and I hadn't a clue about taxis at that age, my dad had arranged to pick me up. Horror upon horror for me and my cousin, as my dad and uncle were waiting directly outside and proceeded to drone on for the 15-minute journey home about how dreadful punk fashions were and how the music is just noise - much in the same way as I go on about jungle/ techno nowadays.

Fall set at Newcastle New Tyne Theatre, 28.06.80
The N.W.R.A. / 2nd Dark Age / Impression of J. Temperance / City Hobgoblins / Totally Wired/ Muzorewi's Daughter / Fiery Jack / Gramme Friday / Printhead / English Scheme / New Face in Hell / Choc-Stock / Diceman / New Puritan / Psycho Mafia / Stepping Out

That was written back in 1994, which marked the halfway point between that gig and now. I’m amazed to see how much of a middle-aged, middle class snob I appear in the words I wrote back then. I hope I’m more tolerant now. I keep a copy of every single publication in which I’m had something printed, which extends to about 1,000 magazines, I’m not joking. One of these years I’ll sit down and catalogue them all. Every so often I’ll dig a few out and have a read; it’s instructive. I cringe as I fulminate over long disbanded, utterly obscure bands and make outlandish proclamations about the future of Newcastle United, none of which came true.

I didn’t think anyone read them until last October when a Canadian Fall fan contacted me and asked if I’d a copy of the tape from the June 1980 gig. As it happens I did, so I sent it to him and, amazingly, he sent me a copy of it back on CD, together with copies of the October 1981 gig (set list; The N.W.R.A. / Fantastic Life / Look, Know / Jawbone and the Air Rifle / Hip Priest / 2nd Dark Age / Lie Dream of a Casino Soul / Session Musician / Just Step Sideways / Who Makes the Nazis / Container Drivers // C'n'C-s Mithering > I'm into C.B. / Prole Art Threat / Deer Park) and one at Newcastle Riverside in June 1986 (set list: My New House / City Hobgoblins / Living too Late / Lucifer over Lancashire / Bombast / Riddler / Hey! Luciani / L.A. / Couldn't Get Ahead / Gross Chapel-GB Grenadiers / Hot Aftershave Bop / Prole Art Threat / Barmy / Cruiser's Creek).

Looking back now, it astonishes me the memories it brings back. All of the Felling Punks up in the Royal Box at the New Tyne Theatre, in 1980. In 1981, John and I accompanied by Rob, a lad who played bass in a band with me, who had a brain haemorrhage in 1987 weeks after graduating from University. He survived, but I’ve never seen him since, though his mother was in the same MA class as me. In 1986, fresh from University, only back in Newcastle a week, and Paul, Jeremy and myself were almost thrown out of the Riverside for dancing on the side of the stage to “City Hobgoblins.”

The quality of the sound may not be the best, but the quality of the memories is. I used to love The Fall and I still love the memories I carry of them.

In the second issue of “The Biggest Library Yet,” I contributed this piece -:

Close Encounters

Trying to get backstage at a Fall gig is almost as tricky as being initiated into the Freemasons. Out of an audience of 700, only three people managed it that night: me, my partner Sara, and my sister Elaine. The scene was a bizarre one.

'My lads', as Smith would call them, sat in one corner drinking beer and eating peanuts, whilst in the other MES stared out of the window, smoking like a laboratory full of beagles and drinking champers. On being introduced to him by the road manager, he shook us firmly by the hand, stood us a beer and let me shout things through his personal megaphone. He was disarmingly charming, offering us cigarettes, signing autographs and apologising for swearing in front of the ladies. He said they would seriously consider playing my wedding reception 'for about a hundred quid', informed us that he and Saffron were to be married on 27 April that year and politely excused himself as they had to be going. We left stunned and in awe - this was like visiting the Pope for me.

Sadly, European tour dates meant they couldn't do the wedding, but they sent a telegram saying: 'Apologies for our non-appearance. Keep your nerve. Your pals Mark E. Smith and The Fall.' It is framed and on display in our dining room.

Finally, in issue 13 of “The Biggest Library Yet,” I had this to say -:

Ol' (style) Gang

I've been a devotee of The Fall for 20 years now. All the tantrums and changes of direction taken by MES I've accepted without question. Yet, the incidents in America this spring left me a worried man. I really thought it was the end of the band. To be left with two members, one of whom had a court order against the other, seemed an insurmountable obstacle to the band's future development. As for the rest, well Karl Burns's frequent departures are simply par for the course. Personally, I like any Fall line up that features him more than ones that don't. I don't believe either Brix's Second Coming or especially Tommy Crooks could either ever be looked upon as an adequate replacement for Craig Scanlon. He was a genius. The Scotsman was no great loss. However, it was Hanley's departure that really struck home. How the hell he'd put up with everything Smith threw at him for so long amazed me. Yet I was equally amazed by the fact he finally said Fuck It and left.

The existence of Ark was not a surprise. I mean remember Blue Orchids, The Creepers, Kissing The Blade. Fall spin off bands are not a new phenomenon. Ark were due to play Newcastle in August. I was never in a dilemma whether to attend or not. At the time I was in Ballina, County Mayo on holiday. I'm not that surprised at the news that Ark have disintegrated. I mean having played in the Fall for all that time, any other band must be a complete anti-climax. I hope Steve Hanley finds fulfilment in his new job as a school caretaker. I doubt it somehow.

Anyway, as regards The Fall, I wasn't surprised MES decided to carry on, nor was I surprised at the shambolic nature of the first couple of gigs. Things seem now to be resolving themselves. I am delighted at the quality of the performance at LA2 on August 12. It was the day after my birthday and I wasn't there, still being in Ballina, County Mayo. The tape doesn't lie.

Having followed The Fall for 20 years, you start to get fairly traditionalist in your tastes. To me, the golden years have been from Dragnet through to Room to Live and Extricate up to Code: Selfish. For a start there's none of this so called pop sensibility on any of these records as Brix didn't appear on them and, Code: Selfish apart, there's very little in the way of electronics. I'll qualify all this by saying Frenz Experiment is probably my third favourite album, but it doesn't really fit in with the point I'm trying to make. I remember the old Sounds journalist Dave McCullough in 1979, possibly a review of the infamous glass-throwing Lyceum gig with A Certain Ratio, saying he loved (the original) Human League because they used unusual instruments to make perfect pop songs and The Fall because they used normal instruments to make totally original sounds. One August night in 1998, they seemed to have returned to that state of affairs.

I don't agree with The Fall doing this nostalgia tour of the States, though it does give MES a chance to attend the court hearing and if they played the Blackpool punk fiasco, I just wouldn't go, but the stripped down four piece sound is almost atonal enough to be music to my ears. Ol' Gang is no longer a Sister Ray soundalike, but a gentle piano piece. There's the cover of F-olding Money, a rockabilly number that's new to me, which comes over as White Lightning with the bassline to Words Of Expectation grafted on to it. Plug Myself In has falsetto vocals and Bo Diddley guitar riffs. Some bloke comes on stage and shouts 'Mark Will Sink Us' over and over again until the band returns and cover the Saints' This Perfect Day. Wonderful. I'd love The Fall to continue in this vein, but I'm fully aware that a studio full of tricks will no doubt supercede any desire for a stripped down sound when it comes to recording new material. It's just encouraging he's still alive and able to make music after what's gone on of late. Now I'm looking forward to a new English tour, especially as I'm no longer barred from Newcastle Riverside.

Capitalism

There are two statements that I’m able to make about myself that I feel proud to hear myself say; firstly, I have a 16 year old son called Ben and secondly I am the UCU Branch Secretary for the College where I’m a lecturer. Parent and union activist; two difficult, responsible but ultimately incredibly rewarding callings. It isn’t often I can combine them, but this October half term, I managed just that.

Cameron’s vile, deceitful, rapacious coalition Government, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to fund double-digit pay rises for their cronies in big business and the banking sector by hammering the Teachers’ Pension scheme. Instead of 6% contributions, we’re now expected to stump up 9% for a scheme that will not be based on final earnings, but average career earnings, which could cost anyone starting off in the scheme anything up to about £250k over a lifetime. The scheme is not short of a bob or two currently; this change has simply been mooted to enable financiers to bathe in money while upwards of a million education professionals are faced with penury in their declining years. It’s a scandal and a disgrace. Well, UCU along with many other education unions aren’t having it. We were out on strike on March 23^rd then June 30^th and we’ll be out with about 3 million other public sector workers on November 30^th. Before then, a representative of each UCU Branch was charged with the responsibility of lobbying Parliament on Wednesday 26^th October, in half term week to avoid disrupting the education of our students as we are professionals above all else. The task each of us were given was to talk to the MP for the constituency in which the College sits rather than where the union official lives. Hence, instead of contacting Nick Brown, MP for Newcastle East, I made an appointment to see Mary Glindon who represents North Tyneside on the Wednesday at 12.45.

This arranged, I decided to take Ben with me, as we’d had such a great time in Euskadi in the summer. Obviously, he’d require more than just politics to keep him interested, so I looked for a game to watch. Firstly there were the choices of Brentford v Stevenage in League 1 and Barnet v Southend in League 2, but I’d done both of those grounds and baulked at the idea of each of us paying £19 and £17 respectively. Instead, the Carling Cup came to my rescue. Following Percy Main’s dire recent form I’ve joked that I’m falling out of love with the amateur game and in love with the Premiership, so it was handy that Arsenal were drawn at home to Bolton Wanderers, especially as tickets were only £10 a pop.

I booked cheap train tickets and a room in the Best Western on Seven Sisters Road, which was The Bates Motel, meets Mind Your Language, boasting a brilliant view of Finsbury Park and clean enough to be well worth £55 a night. It also had the benefit of being within walking distance of the Emirates, which meant we could take a stroll down past Highbury in the early evening and amuse ourselves with an informal tour of the new ground, which is incredibly impressive and its environs, which were remarkably clean and orderly, considering the size of the audience (well Gooners are renowned for their mute passivity). Indeed the 56k crowd who turned up proved Arsenal to be a very different beast to Newcastle United; the support consisted of every nationality imaginable, all co-existing in perfect harmony. I think Newcastle’s crowd would be improved if we had more young Muslim women taking in the games, but that’s for my next Newcastle blog.

Outside the ground, food vendors sold everything from cous cous to jerk chicken and the discarded drinks containers were as likely to be Stowells mini wine bottles as they were fiery ginger beer. Bottles of dog were conspicuous in their absence from the N5 pre match palate. From a distance, the ground resembles a conference centre or airport terminal, but the clean, wide walkways and tasteful design made it feel welcoming and impressive at the same time. I was particularly impressed with the integral historical references that ensure Arsenal are a club who know football existed before the Emirates, before Wenger and well before the Premiership. To be fair, their hard core support know this as well; though the camera clicking day-trippers (ourselves excluded) may struggle to recognise names such as Charlie George and Liam Brady, never mind Cliff Bastin and Eddy Hapgood.

In the ground, we took our seats in the East Lower, only 2 rows from the front, but it was an excellent view. Around us fans of many different nationalities spectated in semi excited silence; it was like an outdoor pantomime in many ways. The fact that everyone in the immediate vicinity bar us changed seats at some point in the evening added to the sense of it being more of a family outing than a serious game of football. However, it was a bloody good second half and it was blessed with 3 great goals. Firstly the impressive Kakuta set up Mouamba for an unexpected Bolton opener, before Ashavin and then Park scored beauties to win it for the Gunners, despite an exciting late Bolton flurry.

As I don’t do away games, I’m unlikely ever to be at the Emirates again, but I’m delighted I went. Ben had initially been a little intimidated by the intense nature of Finsbury Park, but he relaxed and enjoyed the evening once we’d left Seven Sisters Road behind, so I took him for a traditional night out in those parts. I had thought of the notorious Silver Bullet, but opted instead for a few quiet pints in the famous Arsenal boozer, the Twelve Pins. Lousy Guinness mind.

Next morning we had our “continental breakfast” (self-assembly ham and cheese toasted sandwiches and yoghurts), before heading to Covent Garden so Ben could buy some overpriced stuff from Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green shop, staffed by a couple of talking clothes horses with Hoxton fins that Nathan Barley would find parodic. Nice array of shirts on display, but I wasn’t allowed to buy any; Ben got a long sleeved Polo and a blouson jacket, with £5 change from a tom and a half. From here, we went to Parliament.

Queuing for entry, we were stood at the statue of Oliver Cromwell, which you’re unlikely to see at Hunky Dorys Park. I mused how history is told by the victor; to the English, he’s the father of democracy. To the Irish, he was a notorious butcher and mass murderer, who performed genocide on the Irish people. Ironically, the office where he signed Charles I’s death warrant is now occupied by the Labour MP Brian Donohoe, whose ethnic origins are fairly evident.

Passing through Westminster Central Hall to the Central Lobby, we were met by Mary Glindon, for what was the real purpose of the visit. Without being indiscreet, the former governor and student of the College, who had been a North Tyneside councillor for the ward in which I work, was a great supporter of our cause and gave UCU’s campaign her unequivocal backing. Even better, she took us for a tour of the Palace. We sat in the public gallery, received copies of the day’s order papers, took coffee on the next table to John Prescott (I didn’t see if he had 3 tins of Carnation Milk with his) and went out on to the terrace.

At that point I met someone who has been one of my heros for upwards of 35 years; Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover. At almost 80 years of age, he was as intellectually sharp as a tack and he gave a firm handshake, before launching in to an impromptu denouncement of the government’s policies and a call to Milliband to “realise that extra parliamentary protests are telling the party exactly what we should all realise; the fight doesn’t end on November 30^th, it starts then.” Inspirational stuff and even more important when he responded to my simpering and gushing by saying “we should always avoid the cult of personality.” It was an honour.

Having been shown to the tiny broom cupboard where Emily Davison, the suffragette who threw herself under the King’s horse in the 1913 Derby, had secreted herself, in order to fill in the 1911 census with the Palace of Westminster as her address, we took our leave of Mary. Frankly, this tour was the real highlight of our trip and I was both honoured and humbled to be shown around.

Anyway, from there we took the tube to Notting Hill Gate, took a trip down Portobello Road as the neighbourhood got progressively scruffier and scruffier, before stopping off in Rough Trade records, to get the new one from Veronica Falls and for Ben to purchase “Nevermind” by Nirvana. From there, we wandered up to Ladbroke Grove, which continues to be as intense as it was 25 years ago. Ben was clearly nervous in such surroundings, which are admittedly a far cry from the mean streets of High Heaton, so instead we got out of there to Euston Square and wandered down to Bloomsbury for a rather acceptable very late lunch / extremely early dinner at a little Italian place, before grabbing the train back. All in all, a great trip, spoiled only by Blackburn beating Newcastle after extra time but, as I said earlier, that’s for my next blog.

Fragments of Unpopular Culture 7: We Oppose All Rock & Roll

November’s going to be a busy month for me, music wise. On Wednesday 2^nd it’s Roger McGuinn at The Sage Hall 2, Friday 4^th is The Fall at Riverside (sic), Monday 7^th may be Magazine at the 02 Academy, while Monday 14^th is definitely Veronica Falls at The Cluny and Wire at the Academy on November 19^th round off a hectic couple of weeks. There’s plenty of football on as well of course, so I’ll probably not get to blog about the music. This is a shame as Hazel Plater’s marvellous book about Riverside includes a couple of my old gig reviews (EMF from January 1991 and Sugar from October 1993). As a kind of consolation, here are a few words I scribbed in May 2009 after seeing Maximo Park at the Academy and February 2010 when I saw Billy Bragg at the Tyneside Cinema. Hope you disagree with me….

The first gig I ever went to was a homecoming as well; Lindisfarne at the City Hall in December 1976. Well, the second gig actually, after I got taken to see The Clancy Brothers in 1968. Basically, I've seen a lot of gigs; brilliant ones, average ones and absolutely terrible ones. I've been at gigs so drunk I've almost fallen asleep and stone cold sober. Recently, I've been to two gigs in the space of 5 days with my 13 year old son, both of his choosing.

Last Sunday we saw Cage the Elephant at the Academy 2; now I'm no fan of Rage Against The Machine, but these lads, who also reminded me a bit of Beefheart were fabulous. Young enough to care and loud enough to impose. In a couple of years they'll degenerate in to woeful funk rock plodding like RHCP always did, but right now they are hot stuff.

Now I wasn't keen on seeing Maximo Park; I'd done my time with them in 2003 at the Cumberland and the Cluny in 2004. Not the 100 Club Punk Festival I’ll grant you, but I'd gone the distance with them. Frankly, I'd not heard anything since "Our Velocity" either. Young Ben wanted to go with his mates, so I paid for the tickets, with him promising to reimburse. Surprise, surprise, his mates didn't get tickets before it sold out, so I was left playing the role of Indie Dad.

I think there comes a time when gigs need an age limit; I say this as someone whose idea of heaven is Teenage Fanclub & The Wedding Present playing a 400 capacity room that's about two thirds full, with nobody under 30 present. Maximo Park should have had an upper age limit of 43, keeping me out. I didn't know how to conduct myself; sober, I whinged at the £2.50 pint of flat pop I bought, lost the bairn in purchasing it, complained about the beer showers ("at £3.50 a pint, how can they afford to throw it away?"), enjoyed the lightshow, didn't know any of the words & felt my feet ache after a long day at graft.

I did enjoy seeing two 30 something women have a punch up when one danced in to the other, as their husbands cringed and I felt the singer, who probably thought he looked like Malcolm McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange" actually reminded me of Freddy Parrot Face Davies.

Actually, it wasn’t a bad gig, though I think I'll give the Evolution Festival with The Wombats, The Maccabees & Mystery Jets a miss. The bairn is going with 14 of his mates, who he plays rugby with. Work that one out......

Very earnest, very worthy, in a patrician Social Democratic, Fabian sort of way. Billy could be the Sidney & Beatrice Webb of the 21st Century. He hosted a screening of the documentary about his sterling work in the Jail Guitar Doors project, followed by an excruciating Q&A session, when I lost the nerve about asking should he sponsor an Ex Con Factor talent show. Then 2 of the JGD "graduates," Leon Walker, who was the Jamie T it's ok to like & Jonny Neeson, who was Leo Kottke meets The Streets - both intriguing talents – did a few numbers. Then Billy did "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley, "April Fool's Day," written in conjunction with prisoners in Walton Jail, "I Keep Faith" and "Last Flight To Abu Dhabi," about the RBS bonus situation.

All in all, a very worthy cause. Glad I was there, but it had more than a whiff of the primary school end of term concert than I had been prepared for……

Eddy

I had a message on Facebook from my mate from Felling days Stevie Carruthers, regarding my dad. It appeared he is friends with the husband of my dad's first ever girlfriend, Lillie. She and her husband Tony live in Bathgate and he asked if I'd ever played for Bathgate Thistle, which of course I haven't, though I have twice been to Creamery Park, blogging about my second trip here http://payaso-del-mierda.blogspot.com/2010/07/bonfire-of-vanities.html  So, on what have been my Mam and Dad's 54th Wedding Anniversary, here are the notes of a talk my dad gave to my son Ben's classmates at Cragside Primary School about his memories of wartime Felling, which were then turned in to an article for The Chronicle.
 

I WAS 11 years old when I was told that Hitler was finished and that we had beaten the Germans. I can recall the six years that had passed when we had to suffer blackouts, no street lights and shortages of certain foodstuffs. I remember being told to be easy on the butter I was spreading on my bread. We had a bigger supply of margarine so I said I would have that. I have never eaten butter since. You had to stand in long queues for any commodity. My gran used to send all of us to the wet fish shop at the bottom of the pawnshop stairs on Felling High Street where we would queue for what seemed hours to get into the shop, make our purchase and go out through the back door clutching one hen's egg. Woe betides any of us who did not get the commodity back home in its shell. The 1941 winter was particularly hard. I think we had snow about three feet deep. 

One day, I was about six years old at the time, my mother asked me to go to Storeys, the local corner shop. She gave me half a crown (2/6) which equates to twelve and a half pence these days, but back then probably half a week's wages. I remember running in the snow to the shop when suddenly the half crown flew out of my hand. No matter how my mam and I searched we could not find it in the snow. It must have been weeks later when all the snow had melted one of the neighbours turned up at our door and handed the coin to my mother. She had found it about 20 yards further down the street to where I thought I had lost it. Lots of areas of open ground were turned over to agriculture. In the field at the bottom end of Felling they planted potatoes, and I think they used Italian prisoners of war to tend them. One day one of these men came running up the street. The cry went up that he was an escaped prisoner. He passed us as we were playing in the street but a few yards further up a man ran out of his garden gate and tackled him to the ground. He was kept there until the police came and took him away. We all had Anderson shelters in our gardens in case of air raids. When the sirens went we had to scramble out of bed and go to the shelter and try to get back to sleep. I remember one night my eldest brother, Harry, was helping us to the shelter when he pointed out through the landing window 'Look at the Flaming Onions.' He said these were the tracer shells being fired at the German planes. I don't know if this was a local name for them or something he made up. 

When the raids became more frequent we did not wait for the sirens to start but went to bed in the Anderson shelter at our normal bedtime. If there had been a particularly long raid during the night next day's school would often be cancelled. I know I turned up at Falla Park Infants at least once to find that school was closed; having spent the night in the air raid shelter we were unaware that there had been a raid. One of the things we used to enjoy after an air raid was looking for shrapnel. After the shells had exploded in the air small fragments would fall to the ground and these were what we were looking for on our way to and from school. One night while in the shelter we heard a terrific thump at the back of the shelter. My mother was convinced we'd been hit by an unexploded bomb. However, next morning, when my eldest brother Harry got up to do his early morning paper round he discovered that what had hit was the empty casing of an incendiary bomb. Like most places in the North East there were mineral railway lines in the area. The nearest to where we lived was the one which ran from Heworth Colliery to Bill Quay Staithes. We often used to play there because next to the winding house was a pond where we could fish for tiddlers. 

One Sunday my brothers Harry, George, I think my sister Maureen and myself had been there as usual and were making our way home when this plane, which looked huge to me, flew very low overhead. It was so low we could plainly see the airman at the back. We were waving to him and he waved back to us when a woman from Grange Crescent, just next to the line, grabbed us and said 'get inside can't you see that's a German plane'. We were told that plane was shot down near North Shields. I wrote earlier of food shortages. One thing which disappeared completely during the war was bananas. I remember coming home from school with a few of my mates when a man in the next street asked us if we would like piece of banana. Of course we all said yes. He thought he was a bit of a wag and when I opened my mouth to try it he put a piece of cucumber on my tongue. To this day I cannot stand the smell or taste of cucumber. 

There were lots of slogans on posters on the walls, official ones like Dig for Victory, Careless talk costs Lives, Put that Light Out. One famous unofficial one was Mr Chad. He looked like the head of Humpty Dumpty looking over a wall with a slogan asking things like 'Wot no Fags'. One more thing I remember during the early days of the war was the smoke screens which were placed around the main roads of the town. These were about the size of a dustbin with a long chimney on top. I think they were filled with used engine oil and were set alight at dusk by soldiers. We were told these soldiers were conscientious objectors. We used to play around these and, of course, we got covered in filth. My mam would say 'look at the state of you, you look as if you had been working down the pit'. I recall these smoke screens stretching from Split Crow Road through Crowhall Lane and on down Watermill Lane. Some local residents were of the opinion that these smoke screens were an attempt to fool the Germans that this was the route of the River Tyne. Fortunately for us residents this did not happen and we were never bombed. 

There were also Ack Ack sites in any convenient spot, and during any air raid the adults would voice their opinions as to where the enemy planes were flying, they reckoned they knew the distinctive sounds of the guns from each site. I could understand the Nook ones (nickname Big Bertha) or the Wrekentons, but I never could fathom out the Langbentons or the Squareuns. We also had the barrage balloons, the one the Lairies was the one already featured in your paper which brought down a British plane, (incidentally it was believed at the time that the pilot was Canadian). There was another balloon site at Jonadab near Heworth Shore. Other wartime measures were the tank obstacles, huge barriers made out of concrete built out from the pavement on to the highway which cut down the width of the road to allow the passage of a tram but not a tank. We had one of these on Sunderland Road outside of the Duke of Conaught pub. I was never sure if this was to prevent tanks from moving into Felling from Gateshead or vice versa. Also scattered around the town were static water tanks in case of bombing by incendiary bombs. One of these was sited in an old factory building next to Adamson Greens engineering factory opposite the Duke of Conaught pub. Unfortunately one evening the factory wall collapsed and thousands of gallons of water flooded the shops and houses opposite. I remember seeing the state of Thubrons shop especially. I recall my mother telling us of the day she saw Spillars being bombed. She had been walking across the Bankie Fields towards Dorothy Street when this German bomber flew over quite low and dropped its bombs on the other side of the river and hit the flour mill. 

After peace was declared practically every street became decked out in flags and bunting with huge white cloths saying 'Welcome Home' with the name of the serviceman who was expected, whether he was a returned prisoner of war or a serviceman who had just finished fighting. I remember the bunting outside of my grandmother's house saying 'Welcome Home Mattie'. I remember a priest asking me where he had been held prisoner when I said he hadn't been a prisoner but had fought in the desert he just said 'Humph' and walked down the road. Of course there were bonfires on any available site whether suitable or not and I must not forget the street parties. Trestle tables were commandeered from church halls and such or people used their own dining tables and chairs. Some of the tables appeared to stretch for hundreds of yards to my young eyes, covered in white cloths and laden with more food than I could ever remember seeing. Pianos and wind-up gramophones were brought out into the street and everyone joined in singing all of the wartime favourites such as White Cliffs of Dover, We'll Meet Again, etc. Of course it was not all over then. There were still three months to go with the war in the Far East with Japan, and some of the families still had sons or husbands out there.

The following is the eulogy I was honoured to give at my Dad’s funeral in August 2009. RIP Eddy; I miss you every day mate.

Looking at all those of you, from whatever aspect of my dad’s multi-faceted and richly rewarding life, who’ve come here this morning, not simply to pay your last respects to him, but to celebrate what a fine, fascinating and enduringly supportive man Eddy Cusack was, fills us all with humility and a deep gratitude. Of course Eddy himself (and by referring to him in such a way I hope you don’t feel I’m being disrespectful; I was proud to call him my dad, but, like you all, I knew him as Eddy), wouldn’t have expected you all to have traipsed all the way over here just on his behalf, as the absolute keynote of his entire life, as shown in his dealings with every single one of us here today, was an unassuming humility and an insistence on putting everyone else’s needs and requirements ahead of his own. He was, as a husband, father, grandfather, brother (in all the senses of the word bearing in mind his varied interests and commitments), friend and colleague, utterly selfless to an extent I’ve never seen in another human being.

The music you heard as Eddy’s coffin was brought in, was “The Peers’ Chorus” from “Iolanthe,” which was a piece of music Eddy particularly relished singing and a fine singing voice he had, which my sister Elaine was lucky enough to inherit. Through my dad I developed a deep and abiding love for Irish traditional folk music (indeed, in matching Arran sweaters knitted by my mam’s late sister Maureen, we attended my first live gig at the City Hall in 1968, when we went to see The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, on the second anniversary of whose death my dad passed away).

A few days before my dad died, we shared a final musical moment. I took my ipod in with me when I visited him in the Freeman Hospital and, placing an earphone in his good right lug and the other one in my left ear, I played The Clancy’s song “The Parting Glass,” as he loved the song. If I may I’d like to quote from “The Parting Glass.” Perhaps its most famous lines are contained within the second verse -:

Of all the comrades that ere I had, they're sorry for my going away,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should rise while you should not,
I will gently rise and I'll softly call, "Goodnight and joy be with you all!"


While such sentiments are admirable and sum up a great deal of my dad’s love of life and his delight in the company and affection of his family, his friends and his acquaintances, I feel the final verse of “The Parting Glass” describes perfectly the essential selflessness and humility of the man I was proud to call my father, the man who was devoted to my mother and as much in love with her on the day he left this life as on the day almost 52 years previously when they’d married -:


Oh, if I had leisure time to sit awhile
There is a fair maid in this town that surely has my heart beguiled
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips, she alone has my heart in thrall.
So fill me to the parting glass. Goodnight and joy be with you all.


Goodnight Eddy: I’ll miss you. We’ll all miss you, but we’ll all be forever in your debt for having known you.