Pink Flag

On Saturday 21^st September, I took my usual place between the sticks for Wallsend Winstons in Division 4 of the North East over 40s League. Towards the end of our 5-2 victory away to Hartlepool Owton Manor, one of their players responded to the award of a foul against him for a trip on our captain by shouting “get up, you puff.” Nobody other than me complained about this phrase. From Hartlepool I caught the train to Northallerton, where my team Heaton Stannington won a close contest in the Northern League Division 2, by a margin of 2-1; a home supporter called the linesman a “faggot” for flagging a Northallerton player offside as they desperately pressed for an equaliser. Again, I was the only person in the crowd who demurred at the speaker’s choice of language. Later that night, an acquaintance commented on Facebook that Tim Krul was “a big, soft queer” for allowing Robert Brady to score Hull’s first equaliser at St. James’ Park. I was a lone voice on the thread, complaining about the words uttered. Why is this? Sadly, it is because I must admit to finding the North East to still be largely a rancorous, seething pit of vile homophobia, which is condoned, legitimised and tacitly approved in football and in many areas of everyday life.

In the current social and sporting climate, racism is seen as utterly socially unacceptable, with the idiots responsible for much of the most reprehensible outbursts of linguistic barbarism on social media and life in general being brought to book for their criminal behaviour. This is exactly how it should be. Equally, one of the most gladdening sights I’ve ever seen was the other summer; on a warm July, Sunday afternoon, cycling back over the Redheugh Bridge from Gateshead, I passed several gay pubs near the Centre For Life; many of them had customers outside, several relaxing over a few drinks in their Newcastle shirts. In general, I hate the idea of people wearing replica kits, but the incontrovertible evidence of football fans being welcomed into the LGBT community was heartening; oh how I wish such tolerance  was reciprocated.

The question I want to ask is this; why is casual homophobia and heterosexism not only tolerated but seemingly promoted as an acceptable ideology in football, perhaps not by the game’s authorities, but by players and fans alike in our region? Saturday 21^st September was the centrepiece of the Stonewall inspired Right Behind Gay Footballers campaign, whereby the campaigning organisation that was formed in 1989 as a reaction to the loathsome Section 28 of the Local Government Act, which expressly prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality, distributed rainbow-coloured laces to all professional clubs; the idea being that players would wear the laces to show their opposition to homophobia. However, even if you watched wall-to-wall Sky Sports and every edition of Match of the Day over the weekend you would be forgiven if this event passed under your radar. It simply isn’t in the interests of football authorities and their legion of economic camp followers and itinerant symbiotic media proselytisers to either admit there is something decidedly heterosexist if not phallocentric at the core of the game; much less to draw attention to this fact.

Of course, if you had heard about the campaign and weekend of action and wanted to show your support, pairs of laces could have been sourced from Stonewall’s partner organisation, Paddy Power bookies. The joint press release explained the campaign in the following terms -:

Stonewall has teamed up with leading bookmaker Paddy Power to challenge players to show their support for gay footballers by wearing rainbow coloured boot laces. The laces have been distributed to every footballer across all 134 professional clubs in the UK. Each player is asked to wear the special laces in their club fixtures on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 September. The campaign’s simple message of Right Behind Gay Footballers is designed to kick start a change in attitudes and make our national game more gay-friendly. Paddy Power and Stonewall are asking fans and the public to back the campaign by taking to social media and using the hashtag #RBGF, Right Behind Gay Footballers, during the week and in the build-up to the weekend fixtures.

Kicking off on Monday 16 September there will be a week of activity shining the spotlight on homophobia in football. The campaign will see daily advertising and editorials across traditional media, billboard sites, and through social media with the aim of getting support from footballers, celebrities, fans and the public. Stonewall Deputy Chief Executive Laura Doughty said: ‘It’s time for football clubs and players to step up and make a visible stand against homophobia in our national game. That’s why we’re working with Paddy Power on this fun and simple campaign. By wearing rainbow laces players will send a message of support to gay players and can begin to drag football in to the 21st century.’

 Paddy Power, the bookmaker’s spokesman, said; ‘We love football but it needs a kick up the arse. In most other areas of life people can be open about their sexuality and it’s time for football to take a stand and show players it doesn’t matter what team they play for. Fans can show they are right behind this by simply tweeting using the #RBGF hashtag whilst all players have to do is lace up this weekend to help set an example in world sport.’

As someone who is vehemently opposed to gambling in all its manifestations, as much as I am opposed to homophobia, I was therefore left in a quandary; would wearing these laces compromise my principles by forcing me to enter a betting shop? In the end, I was able to resolve this complex moral issue and decline to wear the laces with a completely clear conscience, mainly on account of the highly persuasive arguments put forward by the Football v Homophobia campaign in their press release on the subject, which may also be found on their website www.footballvhomophobia.com -:

In response to requests from the press and from football clubs for our opinion on Stonewall and Paddy Power’s current ‘Rainbow Laces’ campaign, Football v Homophobia would like to offer the following comment.

Football v Homophobia was invited by Paddy Power to be a part of the campaign in its early stages. Whilst supporting the overall aims of the initiative, we did not feel comfortable with some aspects of the language and tone, and so felt that we did not wish to take our involvement any further. However, we welcome the opportunity for further discussion and debate around some of the issues of language raised by the campaign.

Football v Homophobia works to address homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in football, in conjunction with all stakeholders in the game – the players, the fans, and the organizing bodies. We welcome any attempt to tackle homophobia in football around the world, and any attempt to take this message beyond the LGBT community. We therefore applaud the sentiments behind the laces idea central to the ‘Rainbow Laces’ campaign, namely solidarity with gay players.

Our discomfort is with the reliance on sexualised innuendo and stereotypes about gay men and anal sex, as exemplified by the tag line ‘Right Behind Gay Players’. As an initiative with a strong focus on education, we feel it is incongruous to run a campaign aiming to change football culture whilst using language which reinforces the very stereotypes and caricatures that, in the long term, ensure that homophobia persists. There is a long history, perhaps best captured by the infamous Robbie Fowler incident, whereby anal sex has been the focus of homophobic abuse in the sport.

A number of organisations, like ours, have been campaigning for years for a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to discrimination, and we are disappointed to see that the wording of this tag line gives license for a blurring of the already difficult territory between implicitly and explicitly homophobic and transphobic language, and football ‘banter’. For example, the following comments have been posted on Paddy Power’s own Facebook page, under the “Right Behind Gay Footballers” banner:

“I wouldn’t want TO BE IN FRONT…”

“Playing on a muddy pitch haha.”

“Tight at the back, pushing on with a hard man up front…”

“Stand up if you can’t sit down.”

“Kick gays out of football,”

“Sponsorship deal with Brighton imminent.”

The final comment, referring to Brighton, is of particular interest. It was only four months ago, in the wake of a report that showed overwhelming (72% of matches) homophobic abuse, that the Brighton & Hove Albion Supporters’ Club (BHASC) called on the football authorities for help to tackle abuse aimed at fans, often couched as ‘banter’.

Whilst Paddy Power are not responsible for the general level of homophobia and transphobia we witness in football, and indeed are trying to counter this with ‘Rainbow Laces’, aspects of the campaign have acted as a catalyst for the kind of attitudes and language that BHASC and Football v Homophobia have been working hard to challenge. ‘Rainbow Laces’ may have an important short-term advantage of drawing attention to the issue of homophobia in football, but this needs to be followed in the long-term with an informed and sensitive discussion around the contested nature of what constitutes discriminatory, offensive language as opposed to acceptable ‘banter.’

We would therefore invite people to applaud the positive aspects of ‘ Rainbow Laces’ and at the same time reflect on the language used, in particular how appropriate the tag line “Right Behind Gay Players’ is as a means to tackle homophobia in football. The Football v Homophobia campaign runs throughout the year. If you would like to join us in tackling homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in football, there are three simple things you can do:

Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page

Become a ‘Football Fan v Homophobia’: sign up to our fanzine that goes out 4 times a year

Encourage your club to get involved with FvH 2014 by dedicating a home match to the month of action in February 

Immediately, I must state that as regards the last point raised by Football v Homophobia’s press release that I have personally undertaken to sponsor Heaton Stannington’s home game versus North Shields on 8^th February 2014, to publicise this campaign.

While my sexuality is my own business, I must say that while I have friends from the LBGT community who are fanatical football fans, I don’t believe I’ve ever played on the same team as an openly gay player; considering the percentage of friends I’ve got from the LBGT community, I find that saddening if not depressing. What is it about football in our region in particular, but also throughout the country as a whole, that suppresses the right of gay people to be themselves in all aspects of their life?

Perhaps the answer can be demonstrated by how Match of the Day, with crass insensitivity, used Robbie Fowler, whose provocative homophobic conduct towards Graeme Le Saux marked a low-water mark in Neanderthal macho attitudes in professional football, as a pundit on Saturday 21^st September. The truly tragic thing is that it isn’t just the football authorities and the broadcasters who ignore homophobia, heterosexism and phallocentrism in football, but the hegemonic prevalence of a false consciousness among fans themselves. The argument that is tacitly propounded is that football is a working class, macho sport; consequently any behaviour that is tough, bloke-orientated and by extension and definition, homophobic must not only be tolerated but venerated as part of a fetishisation of soi-disant working class attitudes, regardless  of how  reactionary such beliefs and practises may be.

Therefore, the logical conclusion of such attitudes is this; as Robbie Fowler is a footballer from Liverpool, his conduct towards Graeme Le Saux wasn’t crass, boorish, unpleasant and misplaced (Le Saux is actually straight), it was actually acceptable as coming from a working class part of Liverpool and previously having worn a t-shirt to demonstrate his for support striking dock workers makes Fowler a figure who is beyond criticism. Anyone seeking to say otherwise is denounced as demonstrating bourgeois values. It is as if their sexuality is a petit bourgeois lifestyle option, ripe for castigation.

It has to be said that granting legitimacy to the conduct of Paul Gascoigne is an act forged from the same heterosexist, phallocentric base metal. Then again, Saturday 21^st September also marked a glitzy Tyneside formal dinner, marking the 30^th anniversary of the programme Auf Wiedersehen Pet, an endless fountain of macho Geordie rhetoric.

Personally, I would rather celebrate the existence of an open member of the LBGT community in north east sport than the antics of Dennis or Neville; it is 2013, not 1983 and as football fans, we need to accept this. Unfortunately, Saturday 21^st September saw Tim Healey and Kevin Whatley as half time guests of honour at St. James’ Park, rather than an unequivocal club statement denouncing all manifestations of homophobia among our support. How the hell can Newcastle United pretend to be a club for the whole region if we don’t actively seek to build bridges with the LGBT community, who are every bit as important to our support as every other section is.

Brazilian Bland

My good friend Michael Hudson put me in touch with the website The False Nine  (http://www.thefalsenine.co.uk/) for whom he'd written a piece about Fumaca, the worst Brazilian footballer in history, for their Samba Series. I was only too happy to write them something about another low quality Brazilian import who turned out for Newcastle United, namely Cláudio Roberto da Silva aka Caçapa; here it is -:

While it is notoriously difficult to define or even divine the ultimate historical importance of on-going situations, the summer of 2007 must be regarded as pivotal in the chronology of Newcastle United. Following the resignation of Glenn Roeder towards the end of the previous campaign, outgoing chairman Freddy Shepherd’s last significant act before selling the club to Mike Ashley, wherein lies a whole different narrative that we simply don’t have time to touch on here, was to appoint Sam Allardyce as manager. If the arrival of the infamous long-ball merchant and his litany of snake oil selling, blue-toothed, laptop-wielding, technocratic, camp following boffins was met with a severely underwhelming welcome, several of his signings were afforded a fair hearing, on account of the fact nobody had never heard of them before.

Alongside the perennially loathsome Joey Barton, back in the days when he cultivated an image of being the Gallagher Brothers’ Scouse cousin rather than an amalgam of Malcolm Muggeridge and Rosa Parkes, who promptly broke his foot in a pre-season game at Carlisle and disappeared until Christmas, Allardyce brought in the porcine, indolent Mark Viduka on a free from Burragh, the woeful, pedestrian Alan Smith, who’d never be a top flight player again following his broken leg at Old Trafford, the glacially-paced Geremi from Chelsea as well as unknown quantities David Rozenhal, a scrawny, incompetent centre back from Paris St. Germain who disappeared to Lazio on New Year’s Day, Jose Enrique, who turned into a superb left back after a wobbly first season and Caçapa, about who this piece is dedicated.

Having begun his career with 5 seasons at Atletico Mineiro, Caçapa left Brazil to spend 6 years with Lyon, between 2001 and 2007, where he was captain of the title winning side for 5 successive campaigns. Somewhat surprisingly, having been granted French citizenship in 2006, he opted to leave at the end of his contract the following summer; consequently, Newcastle United found themselves in receipt of a 31 year old Brazilian international for no transfer outlay. What could go wrong? At first, nothing; he made his debut as a 90^th minute substitute in a 0-0 with Villa, becoming our 1,000^th player used in the Premier League in the process and his full debut on September 1^st as we beat Wigan 1-0. Until this point, all well and good; Newcastle were unbeaten, if a bit dull to watch and Caçapa seemed a steady, unspectacular stopper, with a large physical presence.

Newcastle’s season began to unravel with a 1-0 loss to Derby County (their only league victory all season) in the next game, that marked the end of Allardyce’s “honeymoon,” such as it was; actually it was more like a passionless union based on mutual distaste verging on loathing, with the partners staying together for the sake of the children. Following the Derby defeat, Caçapa played 4 of the next 5 games, which saw 3 convincing home wins (he even scored a header in a 3-1 victory over Spurs) and 2 atrocious away losses, until his career on Tyneside spontaneously combusted in the most spectacular fashion imaginable.

On November 3^rd, Newcastle lost 4-1 at home to Portsmouth with a woeful, bedraggled showing that would not have been out of place in the North East Sunday League F Division; within 11 minutes the hosts were 3-0 and all of the goals were in some way Caçapa’s fault as the burly stopped appeared slow to the point of immobility, cumbersome in the challenge and utterly bereft of any sense of position; Allardyce hauled him off after 18 minutes and bizarrely claimed the player “shouldn’t have started because of a hamstring injury.” Go figure…

After 6 weeks on the naughty step (1 draw, 2 draws, 2 losses), Caçapa returned to the side for the frankly unwatchable 1-0 away win to Fulham, achieved by a 95^th minute Barton penalty, and was improbably named Man of the Match.  While the NUFC support had lost all confidence in Caçapa as a player after the Portsmouth debacle, he slotted anonymously back in the side and was not responsible for any major disasters as the hated Allardyce administration gave way to the populist fiasco of Keegan’s second coming. Indeed Caçapa scored in Keegan’s return game, a 4-1 battering of Stoke City in an FA Cup replay.

With Rozenhal gone, NUFC were short on defenders; consequently Caçapa got his game almost by default, though his limitations were obvious in results such as 0-6 and 1-5 versus Manchester United, 0-3 against Arsenal and Liverpool and 1-4 at Villa Park. He was too slow, unable to turn, poor in the tackle and positionally atrocious. Dropping out of the side in mid-March, ostensibly because of a groin injury, coincided with NUFC going on a 7 game unbeaten run that saw us finish 11^th. Caçapa returned as a substitute for the second half of a meaningless 3-1 loss to Everton on the final day, in what ought to have been his farewell appearance. Surely now, with Keegan back in charge and Ashley’s billions to bankroll the club, Newcastle United would be on an upward trajectory from the summer of 2008 onwards?

The slow-motion car crash that was 2008/2009, ending with relegation and recriminations at Villa Park, saw Caçapa appear 6 times for Newcastle United; a terrible 3-1 loss to West Ham, an even worse 2-1 reverse at home to Blackburn, a lucky point at Everton, an out of character comfortable 2-0 win home to Villa, an infuriating 2-2 at home to Stoke when we’d turned round 2-0 up and finally, his swan song at Fulham. To simply state we lost 2-1 does not do Caçapa’s complicity in this spirit-crushing reverse any justice. Having clawed our way back into the game courtesy of a Shola Ameobi goal, it looked likely that Newcastle would return from the capital with a draw. Bearing in mind we were relegated by a single point, the events of the 77^th minute still has a degree of resonance to this day.

A Fulham cross from the left was too strong for any attackers; Caçapa at the back post six yards out ought to have allowed the waist high ball to drift harmlessly away. Instead he swung an unnecessary boot at it, misconnected and cannoned a sliced clearance off captain Coloccini’s back; we conceded, as Danny Murphy seized on a flick courtesy of the quick thinking of Andy Johnson to win the points for the Cottagers. Baldy bastards.

Throughout the rest of that pitiful pantomime of a season, whether (mis)managed by Kinnear, Hughton or Shearer, no Newcastle United team featured the ageing limbs and dim-witted thought patterns of Cláudio Roberto da Silva aka Caçapa, as Newcastle United slid out of the top division after 16 years. On July 1^st 2009, Caçapa slunk unmourned out of SJP forever when his contract expired, the club failing to take up their option on a third year.

Caçapa wasn’t the worst player in Newcastle United’s history; he wasn’t even the worst Brazilian  we’ve had (hello Fumaca), but he was painfully below Premiership standard and typical of both Allardyce’s inability to spot a decent player and Ashley’s refusal to spend the money we fans stump up on season tickets on players fit to wear the shirt.

Stockholm Syndrome

You may have noticed that since June 19^th, the small matter of 11 weeks ago, I’ve only made 3 blog posts about Newcastle United, with two of those Straky Do Toho (http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/straky-do-toho.html) and False Memory Syndrome (http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/false-memory-syndrome.html) being nostalgic pieces about the Inter Toto Cup in 2005 and the Portsmouth home game in October 1990 respectively. The only one to deal with the recent goings-on at St. James’ Park, Herding Cats (http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/herding-cats.html), was actually penned for #9 fanzine, which I hope you’ve all signed up for, meaning this is the first post about the farcical institution on Barrack Road since June 19^th, when Jesus Fucking Krist (http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/jesus-fucking-krist.html), written in response to an appointment that is beyond parody and beneath contempt, achieved the distinction of being my second most read blog  post ever, since I established the site in July 2010. To fight against charges of inattention or indeed dereliction of duty occasioned by my lack of direct comment over the summer, I feel I must explain the reasons for such relative inactivity on my part. It isn’t because of the supposed absence of football action to pass judgement or, more likely, pour scorn on, as the off pitch events relating to Newcastle United are of far greater interest and importance than the frankly banal attempts of 10 men in black and white shirts to do anything creative or even useful with an inflated pig’s bladder.

Certainly my dog days media silence has nothing to do with any possible personal diminution of interest in the affairs of the club, which is a common theme I am hearing, with deepening anguish on my part, from increasing numbers of long term fans; why else would a sizeable percentage of season ticket holders of my acquaintance sack off the home game with Fulham to go and watch the England versus Australia 20/20 cricket at the Riverside? A test match I could understand, but to choose pyjama party cricket over an NUFC home game shows a few lines have been crossed, which doesn’t bode well for the future. Indeed, I’m beginning to detect among certain of my acquaintances a feeling of self-satisfaction (perhaps it’s relief?) when they can find a plausible reason not to attend a home game; Mike Ashley has caused that you know.

From my arms-length perspective, it seems that home games have now become relatively unsuccessful social events, whereby middle aged men in leather jackets, replica shirts, crimpelene Primark slacks and slip-on, tasselled loafers meet similarly attired middle men they’ve befriend on the internet and drink pasteurised beer, while making vague promises of organising games of golf, while their younger Hollister-clad descendants guzzle Blue WKD in Shark Bar and sing “witty” songs about Shola Ameobi. Eventually, they troop up to SJP and sit in mute boredom as badly coached and poorly motivated players go through the motions in order to pick up enormous sums of money. Mind, the NUFC squad are a study in motivation compared to Fulham’s front pairing of Bent and Berbatov; however no longer can we use the term “mercenary” as pejorative term for footballers. These days it is simplay a factual description of them all.

This sorry state of affairs manifests itself on average once a fortnight, as the club sinks deeper in to the mire; obviously if anyone points this depressing fact out or tries to fight back against the regime, socially inadequate keyboard warriors gleefully seize on the personal lives of those brave enough to stand up and be counted, regarding them as legitimate targets for abusive, on-line invective that cannot be answered as the perpetrators remain hidden behind a cyber-cloak of anonymity. The on-line response to the replacement of the Leazes Gates was particularly foul, though I have to say, the club played  NUFC Fans United as patsies in this instance; affixing the gates to the wall like a kind of high-specification, wrought-iron climbing frame was a non-too-subtle 2 fingered gesture in the face of those who had tried to maintain a dignified channel of communication with the club; exactly how Lee Marshall, the club’s Fans’ Liaison officer views this is probably a matter for conjecture.

The fact is, I won’t be at SJP in the near future, barring the totally unlikely situation of a home tie in the 4^th round of the League Cup during October half term, because the rearrangement of fixtures for television purposes has resulted in the bizarre scenario of zero Sunday home games during the remainder of 2013, meaning my non-league commitments with Heaton Stannington will preclude me from setting foot inside St. James’ Park until Boxing Day when Stoke City arrive in town. However, please do not ever dare to assume that my proposed non-attendance, as well as lack of blog posts over the summer, can be explained away by a lack of passion for the team.

It would have been all too easy to post up a weekly tirade against Ashley, Kinnear and Pardew, for that is my analysis of the order of culpability when it comes to apportioning blame for the shambles that Newcastle United currently resembles, all of which would have scarcely altered from mid-June until late August: we haven’t signed anyone, the club ownership refuses to comment about anything while the director of football and manager seem to be engaged in a contest to see who can spout the most inane,  revisionist bollocks about the recent history of Newcastle United would have been my stock-in-trade items for discussion. All of the previous points have the utmost validity and indeed veracity, but as the pre-season tortuously dragged on I found I was partly insanely busy helping my mother move house (with the valued practical help of the Mike Ashley Out Campaign, who are dab hands at reassembling dining tables I have to say; cheers Graeme!!), which cut down the hours available to me to think, plan, write  and revise articles about NUFC, though mainly I found I was not inclined to speculate or second guess on the motives and intentions of the club in the short, medium or long term, in the continued absence of any meaningful communication from the soi-disant hierarchy  to outline this, until we had reached a point whereby it seemed natural, timely and necessary to respond to the situation. This decision did not necessarily mean I was in a rush to express myself after a ball was competitively kicked or even uncompetitively, as in the case of the opening day capitulation at CoMS.

I have to say that I’ve not seen a single second of live Newcastle United action this season. I took no pleasure in accurately calling the 4-0 defeat on the opening day at Manchester City, though I did enjoy the cycle from High Heaton to Tynemouth that I opted for instead of an evening in the company of griping dullards in the pub, as the journey engaged me from the moment the first goal went in until the score had reached its final tally, by which time frustration had given way to acceptance tinged with gallows humour. Though reflecting on that opening obliteration, I realise that at this point I could, and perhaps should, engage in a 4,000 word tirade against the oafish conduct of the most embarrassing player on the club’s books, Steven Taylor, but what would be the point? Anyone among the support with a scintilla of self-awareness knows that Taylor’s lack of dignity and repeated immature confusion of passion with petulance makes him an object of scorn in the eyes of all clued-in supporters.

At least in the aftermath, the only buffoon blaming the loss on Cabaye’s non-appearance was the joker in the dug-out. The farcical events relating to the eventual failure to sell Cabaye by the end of the transfer window, when by all reliable accounts, only a disinclination on the part of Arsenal to pay the required £20m fee for a player they saw as a squad member and not the fulcrum of their side the player in question no doubt believes himself to be, resulted in the continuation of a loveless, doomed marriage between club and Cabaye, and turned the West Ham game almost into a sideshow, as news of a fresh bid from the Emirates was awaited. Certainly Gouffran’s miss seemed more akin to the kind of slapstick, knockabout farce one sees in a clown show than at a football match, though without the tragicomic undertones relating to the appalling state of affairs that means Shola Ameobi continues to command a starting place for a side in the Premier League, 4 months after Pardew announced it was time for him to find a new club. I do concede that even Shola would have scored the one Gouffran missed, which I hope isn’t used as a stick to beat the talented and diligent ex Bourdeaux man (who isn’t a central striker, Pardew) with by the already radged-up Francophobes in les maillots jaunes down le couloir de la haine. There is certainly a case for suggesting we should keep all our players (bar the woeful Shane Ferguson who has thankfully departed to Birmingham City, hopefully never to return,) and get shot of a load of our most idiotic fans, whether they set off flares at away games, drink in The Forth or both.

Doing a spot of early season groundhopping (Gateshead Redheugh 4 Bedlington Terriers 0 in the Northern Alliance Division 1 at the vastly improved Eslington Park, which reminds me very much of Monkchester Green, the home of Walker Central), I missed the Morecambe game, though travelling westwards on the 49C for my last ever night on Western Way at full time, I caught up with the Twitterati’s posturing anguish as Marveaux failed again in his occasional walk-on role as Lionel Messi’s Tyneside-based dauphin. I’d imagined a 3-1 win in advance of the game, so the eventual margin of victory was the same, even if the sub-standard performance caused a few raised eyebrows. Leeds at home in the next round eh? I’m at work that night, but I still wouldn’t be going, because there comes a point when you simply have to stand up and be counted, by saying no to any further personal complicity in the disgraceful charade that the current regime is responsible for. As I pointed out at the start of False Memory Syndrome, I had no intention of using the tickets I won for the Fulham game, the fourth consecutive season I’d acquired freebies for that fixture, though typically enough Ben and his mate had a better time watching 30 minutes of fluent football at the end than I did as The Stan lost 1-0 at home to Stokesley, though that is coincidental.

My mantra is unchanging; it is irrelevant who plays for Newcastle United, who is sold, who is bought or even who manages the club. Indeed the eventual finishing place for the club in 2013/2014 and the performance in the cups are also irrelevant. The only thing that matters is getting rid of Ashley; by that I don’t mean replace him with another alleged benevolent despot venture capitalist billionaire; I mean urge Ashley to abandon the club and to give it to the fans. If this means he takes out his £130m loan and we end up in League 2, so be it; if Newcastle United become 100% fan owned, as we must surely be, it does not matter to me whether we then call FCUM or Barcelona as our closest rivals, because we will be a club reborn. Yes Pardew is a shifty, smarmy, weasel-worded, tactically-incompetent invertebrate; yes Kinnear is a loudmouthed, deceitful, bellicose bullshitter, but they don’t matter in the wider context of things,  though I would never call for Pardew’s dismissal as the identity of his successor is as obvious as it is appalling. It’s important not to despair about our current situation (if Gouffran had scored we’d be top 4 incidentally) and keep our eyes on the eventual long-term target; we have to get rid of Ashley. Once that has been achieved, we can address the question of the Vichy Magpie regime, in the full knowledge that incompetent functionaries and minions can be replaced and forgotten about

I spent the evening of September 2^nd at Team Northumbria 0 Marske United 2, concentrating fully on the game, while many of those surrounding me engaged in endless smartphone interaction and idle conversation with other spectators about the looming transfer deadline. Obviously,  my philosophical standpoint made it an irrelevance; the comings and goings of players didn’t advance the date of Ashley’s departure one iota, so I didn’t allow myself to become irate. I was more annoyed with myself for assuming the Team North game kicked off at 7.45; it didn’t and by the time I got there, Marske had scored both goals. However, Alan Pardew’s statement in relation to Newcastle United’s utter lack of permanent player acquisition in the period July 1^st – September 2^nd 2013 did raise my hackles slightly. This is what he said, via the club’s official website -:

“We are delighted to have brought Loïc Rémy to the club in this window and we believe he will form an exciting and effective partnership with Papiss Cissé. Joe has worked hard on numerous targets, particularly an additional offensive player. However, some of the options that were available within our financial means were not as good as the players we already had and there is no point bringing in new players unless they can improve us and take us forward. We did the majority of our business in the January window, signing five excellent first-team players. With the strong squad we have we should all approach the season in a positive, optimistic frame of mind.”

It would be frankly ludicrous to dignify this abject tissue of horseshit by seeking to claim that while we may disagree with it, at least Pardew has communicated with the fans and explained his philosophy, because unless he’s Saul on the road to Damascus, his tune has changed so much in 10 days as to be unrecognizable. One wonders just how this official statement squares with his utterance of August 23^rd; “We have to make sure we get one or two transfers over the line before deadline." Or, perhaps even more telling, his detailed response to last season’s shortcomings, issued in his post-match press conference after the final game at home to Arsenal on May 20^th -:

"We're very, very lucky to have the support that we got and therefore we owe them a debt next year to make sure that we serve up a better standard of football and better quality of results. We know, in that (dressing) room, we’ve got 80 per cent of the team. We still need to make sure we get two or three recruits in there which take us forward. If we can do that, they’ll grow as well, and we’ll be much, much better next year.You hear managers taking about needing three players to make the perfect side but we genuinely, genuinely need a couple in that first team that complement the others."

As I pointed out back in June, the contempt in which Pardew was held by many of our fans was replaced by a sense of pity following Kinnear’s appointment. If Pardew had either resigned, on account of the fact he is obviously undermined and utterly without authority in the club, or just stood up and told the truth, the support would have respect for him. Such mealy-mouthed twaddle does him no favours whatsoever and I’d venture he is viewed with even greater scorn than he was at the end of last season. Though his words seem positively bombastic when compared to the simpering, hand-wringing otiose oratory from the discredited, ideologically bankrupt NUST who issued this grovelling, small minded press release, to universal contempt -:

Newcastle fans have reacted in disbelief to the events of this summer. To say the return of Joe Kinnear was 'surprising' would be the understatement of the millennium. At a time when every other Premier League club is strengthening their squad, it defies belief that Newcastle United's is numerically weaker than the one that finished last season. To not make one player purchase this summer is astounding and calls into question the ambition of Mike Ashley and those tasked to run Newcastle United on his behalf. A squad that narrowly avoided relegation is now once again left right on the edge with no margin for error, only two or three injuries in key positions would lead to potential disaster. NUST hope that one day we will see a management structure worthy of the name at St.James' Park and the club run with the ambition to match that of the fans, the same fans who make Newcastle United the tenth best supported club in Europe. While in addition the money the supporters plough into the club has helped push NUFC back into the top twenty football club turnovers in the world.

Returning to Pardew, the only two explanations I can see for his lickspittle volte face are that he really has so little self-respect and dignity as a human being that he will do whatever he is told to by Kinnear and Ashley, simply to keep his job, or that he has somehow developed Stockholm Syndrome, which is a psychological phenomenon where hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.

 

Stockholm Syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, Sweden, in which several bank employees were held hostage in a bank vault from August 23 to August 28, 1973, while their captors negotiated with police. During this standoff, the victims became emotionally attached to their captors, rejected assistance from government officials at one point, and even defended their captors after they were freed from their six-day ordeal. In Pardew’s case, he’s had the 11 week ordeal of working with Kinnear and the 2 month one of the transfer window, but not to worry Alan; the window is shut and you don’t have to pretend you’ve got the cojones to ask Ashley for the cash to buy a player until January. Until then, let’s see if Shola, Sammi, Gosling and Williamson can show us exactly the sort of flair and panache a Premier league side needs.  Frankly, Pardew has gone from being a potential Jan Palach, who would have professionally self-immolated for the sake of the club’s future, to football’s version of Patti Hearst, helping the Sports Direct Symbionese Liberation Army to steal from the poor and give to the rich.

Despite Neil Cameron’s 10 questions for Ashley in Wednesday 4^th September’s Evening Chronicle weren’t the Thompson House equivalent of Martin Luther’s Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum, but they did show signs the paper has the potential pluck to stand up and ask the club the kind of hard questions Mark Brophy so astutely pointed out that they had singularly failed to do (http://markbrophy.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/chronicle-capitulation-to-wonga/), that evening’s  NUFC Fans United meeting almost made me question my faith in the organisation. Zero publicity on supposedly sympathetic websites or in the papers, meant a significantly lower turn-out than the previous 2 meetings; only 46 people showed up in The Irish Club to hear Lee Marshall alternatively presenting on-the-hoof response to Cameron’s questions and then attempting to present the club’s sponsors as the nearest we’d had to wealth distribution in this country since the 1945 Labour Government, while a couple of loudmouths in the audience asked irrelevant questions to the wrong people and some smarmy blow-ins tried to hijack the meeting for their own ends. That said, Robbo from The Shite Seats was utterly brilliant in his analysis of where NUFC Fans United needs to go next. Thus, it occurred to me that I was in danger of failing in to cynicism and despair in the way that so many others have. We need to keep the faith; I need to keep the faith. This club is 121 years old in December; we’ll be here a lot longer than Mike Ashley will be. We all need to remember that fact on a daily basis.

My passionate hope and my sincere belief is that the club will be better run and have its future properly safeguarded if we can get Ashley OUT and 100% Fan ownership IN. Therefore, after my personal summer of political inactivity that was almost as indefensible as the club’s lack of signings, the closing of the transfer window, during which time Newcastle United brought in one player who: turned us down in January to play for a club that were relegated, had no pre-season training, arrived injured, is on Police bail following an allegation of rape, is on a season long loan, seems to be a fairly sensible point at which to make my feelings known. I’ve written over 3,500 words in this blog, but they can be summed up in one sentence -:

Ashley OUT; 100% Fan Ownership IN

 

 

Ciervos Blancos / Calor Blanco

Hola!! As I type this, the editor of "Push" magazine is en route for Barcelona. In his possession is the following document, which will gladden the heart of every Catalan, telling as it does, the secret shame of Madrid's latest acquisition. You can read it in English by buying the superb new "Push" magazine,  issue #6, by £2.50 via PayPal from joe.england64@gmail.com which is a Football special including brilliant work from Raymond Gorman, Michael Keenaghan, Ian Scanlon, Kevin Williamson & yours truly....

Gareth se dirigía a un partido en casa entre el Real Madrid y el Getafe en una húmeda tarde de verano tarde. Santiago Bernabéu no es un terreno particularmente fácil de encontrar, y la parte trasera de cola en la autopista no estaba ayudando . Gareth se recostó en su gris metálico Ferrari y puso sus escarpadas y ampollas en las manos por la parte superior camisa y empezó a masajear suavemente sus pezones planos y poco inspirador. Aceleró el ritmo de las caricias , pero fracasó en sus esfuerzos para conseguir sus pezones erectos. Con habilidad , decidió utilizar otro tipo de estimulantes. Gareth lánguidamente abrió el hielo dispensador y sacó un puñado de cubitos de hielo , entonces agresivamente manchados los cubos por todo su escuálido pecho decrépito. Dentro de un instante de hacerlo, sus pezones sobresalían 25 milímetros de diámetro y que se sentía lasciva .

Sin pensarlo dos veces que instantáneamente se tambaleó a su enorme auto -windows para asegurarse inocentes ojos no estaban viendo este momento de indulgencia privada. Comenzó a desabrochar los botones de su pantalón de pana , que fueron muy bien replegada alrededor de su región abdominal. Gareth pelado por sus frentes y- en el muslo inferior y luego lanzó su pene palpitante , que ya estaba en el disco . Entonces optó por llegar a una tina de helado , que fue sin querer al acecho en el asiento trasero . él volteado la parte superior fuera , con las manos temblando de emoción. Huelga decir que este acto de vergüenza viene con un elemento de peligro que se vio rodeado por los coches llenos de aficionados al fútbol , un resbalón y su moral y social de estado serían marcados de por vida.

Él comenzó a manchar la ondulación frambuesa gruesa de hielo crema sobre el pene seca y el eje anal enorme , la sustancia de color blanco cremoso llenando cada grieta y grieta debajo de su prepucio y el anillo . Se frotó y acarició sus órganos externos al punto del orgasmo , pero sabía que tenía que salvar el momento, por un par de minutos por lo menos y dejar que prospere. Gareth se decidió eliminar el encendedor de cigarrillos del debajo del tablero , dejando una huella hueca , lo que obviamente fue pre- planificado , porque sin vacilar, inserta su pene en esta pequeña área oscura del coche.

“Como un guante ! " -gritó , tanto eufórico y sorprendido fue capaz de adaptarse a su pene erecto en un agujero tan exigente como el que ofrece el encendedor de cigarrillos . Luego dejó lentamente su pene para frotar arriba y abajo del agujero, masturbándose con alegría enigmática , a la vez que preguntaba cuánto iba a arrojar . En cuestión de segundos se había dado de alta a sí mismo y su pene estaba rodeado de un líquido caliente y espumosa . Gareth cerró los ojos con deleite mientras se ponía en el disco -hombro más cercano, donde se quedó dormido en el esplendor post- coital, esperando a que su pene erecto para aflojar , por lo que podría hacer su camino hasta el suelo .

Sound & Vision IVb........

'Summer's End' 

is a hill 

bleared by rain 

a first trembling  

wind 

the memory 

that into autumn's room 

winter will dip a glass 

hold up darkness  

to a chittering lantern 

moon. 

(Gerry McGrath)

And so, with September amongst us, here is the codicil to my cultural meanderings. August is the month of my birthday and my presents this year included the very wonderful painting of Gram Parsons by Jon Langford that introduces this article. I particularly love Gram’s work and I think Jon, whose music I have similarly adored for the thick end of 35 years, has produced a quite superb visual tribute to that awful trustafarian arsehole as my dear Laura insists on calling the Grievous Angel.

Also for my birthday, Ben was kind and considerate enough to allow me to take him and Laura to Barca in Tynemouth for fine food and the finest wines known to humanity as a warm up for his Amsterdam sojourn. However, I have nothing but praise for the lad after a fine set of AS results and a wonderful birthday present in the shape of a vinyl bootleg of Jimi Hendrix recorded live in Stockholm on May 24^th 1967. This was the night before Celtic’s Lisbon Lions won the European Cup, but I’d rather have been in the audience in Sweden, as Jimi puts down some of his finest tracks; the version of The Burning of the Midnight Lamp is wonderful enough, but this take on The Wind Cries Mary is without doubt the finest thing that Jimi ever recorded. The whole set is astonishing, with Hendrix clearly starting to outgrow the Experience and starting the improvisation that would lead on to The Band of Gypsies. Ironically, there are still are few nods to his earlier show band days, in the shape of cover versions of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and a very fine instrumental Sunshine of Your Love; a wonderful present from a very fine young man. I’m obliged son.

I’m similarly obliged to Trembling Bells and especially Lavinia who designed it, for the superb poster for The Circle is Unbroken tour with Mike Heron, which is now framed and hanging at home as well.  Next year, Laura is treating me to a ticket to Cropredy Festival, for my 50^th; don’t worry, we’re not camping as I’ve booked us into The Brasenose for the duration. Hopefully, Fairport will invite Trembling Bells to play, which would be my version of heaven I must admit. Trembling Bells are, unfeasibly, supporting Paul Weller in October, but not in Newcastle, which is a double edged sword; Alex offered Laura and I guest list spots, which is lovely (even though we can’t make the Carlisle gig), but the thought of being in a room with 2,000 Paul Weller fans makes me queasy.

In the meantime, with 49 weeks until Cropredy, I kept in the spirit of things by treating myself to the vinyl release of Maidstone 1970, a kind of documentary soundtrack to Fairport convention and Matthews Southern Comfort playing a free festival in Kent. Matthews Southern Comfort do a wonderful version of My Front Pages to close the disc, but the real highlights are the Full House line-up Fairports doing an all-too-brief Now Be Thankful and Sir Patrick Spens. Ah man, Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick on stage at the same time; what a fantastic show that must have been. I can only hope for something similar next summer in Cropredy.

One person who would despise English folk music is Jimmy Rabbitte, once the manager of The Commitments and second eldest son of the Rabbitte clan who Roddy Doyle has so memorably kept us apace with through the 5 novels (count them) that have told the saga of the Barrytown family. In the latest edition, The Guts, Jimmy is 48 and still grimly hanging on to the frayed coat-tails of the Celtic Tiger by selling downloads of obscure 70s Irish punk bands to nostalgic 40 somethings; more importantly Jimmy has bowel cancer. Luckily, he survives it and meets up with former Commitment, the terminally ill Outspan, heads down to the Electric Picnic in Stradbally, County Laois, gets totally wasted and sees his eldest son’s band steal the show ahead of all other bands. Perhaps his biggest epiphany is that he actually likes Christy Moore, but that’s what being face to face with death can do for a man.

Like every Doyle novel, the dialogue is a joy and a pleasure; pages fly by without you realising or even imagining this is fiction and not the lives of people you know and love. Roddy Doyle is perhaps the finest living exponent of the spoken word and character exposition; the genuinely touching scenes between Jimmy and his dad Jimmy Sr will strike chords with every middle aged male who picks up this book. What is even better is the hint that because there is so little about the rest of the clan, then Doyle must return to them again soon. A simply wonderful novel, by a simply wonderful writer; and he liked it when I told him that on Facebook as well!! Although, that contact was almost dwarfed by an email from David Peace.....

False Memory Syndrome

Recycling is something I'm very keen on; not just bottles, jars and milk containers, but words as well. I saw a competition to win 2 tickets for Newcastle United v Fulham on www.nufc.com asking for memories of supporting The Magpies; rather than writing something new, I simply copied and pasted something I wrote for a book Kriss Knights (Billy Furious) was editing back in 2003, which never saw the light of day, sadly. Instead this piece was featured in the Percy Main v Westerhope programme from September 1st 2007 (lost 6-3); I arrogantly believed it deserved a wider audience and so it's now at http://football.sportingmemories.org/memory/2268-ian-cusack/ but I noticed a couple of small but significant errors that I've corrected for this version. Incidentally I won the tickets, but I'm not going as Heaton Stannington are at home to Stokesley; my son Ben is taking his mate Webby with him. I hope we all see home wins -:

Newcastle 2 Portsmouth 1

6^th October 1990

Team: Burridge, Anderson, Sweeney, Scott, Ranson,  Aitken, O’Brien, Dillon, Brock, Quinn, McGhee

Crowd 17,682

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”(Bertrand Russell)

I used to get up very late on Saturdays. The cumulative effects of the working week, gallons of imported lager and three or four nights a week standing around in chilly, half-full pub back rooms and cellars took their toll. Especially during the 1990/1991 season; there wasn’t much about Newcastle United that stirred you from sleep, to feverishly anticipate the coming match. . We’d lost the unmentionable play-off game three months previous and seen our squad supposedly strengthened by the arrivals of Scott Sloan and Neil Simpson. Admittedly the season started satisfactorily with wins over Plymouth and Blackburn, at an eerily deserted Ewood Park, but things went downhill with losses to Millwall and Bristol City and wins thrown away against West Ham and Sheff Wed with ludicrous and late equalisers. Three days before Portsmouth rolled up; we’d drawn 0-0 against the Smogs and were marooned in mid table. Crowds had just dipped under twenty thousand and wouldn’t recover, apart from the cup games that season against Derby and Forest, until KK arrived eighteen months later, but that’s another story.

Around this time, though I wasn’t to know it, my life was about to change dramatically; the day after the Boro game, I trudged to work in a foul mood and immediately met the woman I would later marry. This woman, who I quickly learned was called Sara, had been sent by Newcastle University on her postgraduate teacher training to the school in South Shields (long since pulled down) where I spent a decade alternately staring out of the windows and watching the second hand of my watch crawl towards 3.45. Idly chatting in the staff room, we discovered a mutual interest in music. In those days, being single, employed and reasonably affluent, I would regularly see a couple of gigs a week on average; regardless of merit, I’d be there if they were loud and indie. A Peel play or a halfway positive review in the NME was reason enough for me to be there. Riverside, The Broken Doll, The Cumberland Arms and medium sized venues like The University, The Poly and, to a lesser extent, The Mayfair.

The first weekend of October 1990 was perhaps the nearest we’d ever get in Newcastle to musical perfection, with a home game against Portsmouth somewhere in the middle. On the Friday, That Petrol Emotion were playing Riverside, on the Saturday The Pogues were headlining at The Poly and the real biggie was Sunday, when The Pixies would face a sell-out Mayfair. As well as writing for The Mag, I would also scribble a few lines for a now defunct music magazine called Paint It Red, as I thought being able to say “Hi! I’m a music journalist” would get me more than a flat refusal when attempting to impress nubile undergraduates from the Shire counties. It didn’t. Of course you didn’t get paid for those opinionated doodles; that wasn’t the point, because we were all doing it for the love. That said freebies, promos and most important, guest list places made it all worthwhile. I managed to impress Sara by casually offering her a free ticket for The Pixies, which she readily accepted, though it was the chance to see a big name rather than a night out with a pretentious gobshite teacher that impressed her I’d imagine. However, there was a long weekend ahead of me before Sunday evening.

Friday night was about to kickstart the weekend, with That Petrol Emotion headlining at The Riverside. While I curse the fact I didn’t get to see The Undertones in their original incantation, I’d seen That Petrol Emotion, a spikier, less poppy version of the original band, dozens of times in Leeds, London, Belfast and Derry during my student and post student wanderings, but this was their first time in Newcastle since I’d moved back in the summer of 1988 (Typical me, I leave when Keegan signs and return in readiness for our relegation campaign).

The gig was great, I’ve still got the 7” flexi given out to all punters, and naturally, the backstage party I’d invited myself to was extended to the hotel. Over 3 a.m. champagne and cognacs, courtesy of the record company, the rest band expressed a deep disappointment that they had to be away off to Glasgow by Saturday lunchtime and so couldn’t come to St. James Park, as they had wanted to hear “the famous Geordie roar” first hand. The fact that four Irish rock stars (the American singer wasn’t that keen to be fair) who were, unsurprisingly, uniformly Celtic and Man United fans and had, more importantly, released four albums on Virgin wanted to come and watch our shower of shite stunned me. Why would anyone want to watch Newcastle when you didn’t have to? I mean, I loved the team and reckoned we were about to launch our promotion push at any second, but I couldn’t in all honesty have made any sort of sales pitch to the unconverted about the merits of our wonderful stadium and its atmosphere and or the languid ball skills of our team. Especially against non-entities like Portsmouth. As I staggered out on to Osborne Road at first light, I promised them a programme each and struck out for the first Metro home.

When I woke up at noon, my first thought was not the imminent match; it was the raging hangover that was poisoning me. These days the thought of drinking alcohol on successive days sends me lurching towards the Seven Step Recovery programme, but as a callow mid-twenties social gadfly, I knew a hair of the dog was a top priority. A quick visit to Greggs’ later and then I was ready for a substantial liquid lunch. Nowadays 52,000 punters in town on a match day means that all the pubs are heaving before Football Focus has even started, but that wasn’t the case in 1990. You could go on a pub-crawl and we did; The Star, Bourgoynes, The Newcastle Arms and Rosies was an absolute minimum. You could leave at 2.55, pay in to the Gallowgate and still see kick off. For us, negotiating the stairs up to the Milburn Stand was a bigger test of balance and bladder control than stamina. To be frank, the football was so lousy, uninspiring and downright dull that the best part of the day was the pre match boozing. So it was; I took my place among a crowd of 17,682 for this all-to-unimportant mid-table clash.

The game, as far as I remember it through a fug of 23 long years and senses dulled by several pints for breakfast, was as dire as anyone would have anticipated. Mickey Quinn scored both of our goals against the team he would break his kneecap scoring against a year to the day later. Both headers, from O’Brien crosses. Ugly goals. Unimaginative goals. Third rate goals. Jim Smith goals. Yet that is what we were at the time; while the rest of England basked in Gazzamania and the post World Cup feelgood factor and faceless financial whizzkids peered intently at balance sheets and worked out a way to put fewer snouts in a bigger trough, which would eventually become The Premiership, Newcastle continued to shamble aimlessly along. Twenty thousand at the game and two hundred thousand at home whinging about our performance.

One incident I remember clearly was Portsmouth’s goal, scored by one of the most honest players I’ve ever been privileged to watch. A Portsmouth throw-in, taken by John Beresford, from the East Stand side came in to the box at the Gallowgate end. One person rose tallest, prepared to do his duty; John Anderson appeared from nowhere to bullet a header past Burridge to give the dozen or so Pompey fans false hope of a point. Ando’s head in his hands, Burridge hand on hips, hundreds of indignant signs denoting sexual self-abuse appearing out of the Gallowgate and all of us pissed ones in the Milburn laughing. It was as good as Dabizas v Spurs or Scott v Brentford.

 Thankfully, Portsmouth were as dreadful as we were, if not worse, as they finished 17^th to our 15^th in the final table. They failed to produce another shot during the game as the clock aimlessly ticked away. We held out for our first win in five games and made it down to the traditional post match watering hole of The Three Bulls with a spring in our step. While poring over our copies of The Pink, it seemed clear a couple of good wins would have us putting pressure on pacesetters Oldham and Notts County (ahem). It’ll come as no surprise to most of you that we embarked upon a seven game winless run after the Portsmouth match. Now the gang of us who went to the match then, are pretty much the same gang as I go with now, on my infrequent visits. As ever, I was the odd one out; they were all either married with kids, shacked up or courting strong and their idea of music was Texas or Simple Minds. The fact that I was not only staying out, instead of going home to for a wash and a clean shirt was bad enough, but the fact I was about to spend my Saturday night with a thousand sweaty students at a Pogues gig was incomprehensible to them.

To this day, The Pogues are one of my all time favourites, but they were in a fallow period back then. Shane McGowan was in his last days of his first phase and their recently released album Hell’s Ditch had bombed. While the lyrics were still as good as ever, the voice had gone and the music was all mid tempo rock. Frankly, the gig was an absolute turkey; McGowan sang about five songs maximum and kept wandering off stage. It didn’t seem to bother the audience though, as they bobbed up and down and sang Celtic and Ireland songs in a Home Counties accent. Now I’m as guilty as anyone of being a Plastic Paddy, with my Irish passport and lifelong support for the Shamrock as opposed to the Three Lions, but this got on my nerves. We were in Newcastle and what is more, the lads had won. Much to the disgust of my mate Al, whose only experience of football was our 4-0 howking by Everton on Boxing Day 1986, I started to sing Newcastle football songs, in the hope of rallying the crowd. Not a chance; I was a voice crying in the wilderness. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I was drowning in beer. The louder I battled through I Love To Go A Wandering Along The Cliffs Of Dover or We’ve Been To Chelsea, We’ve Been To Stoke, the worse it got. Half-cut students slam danced in to me as a downbeat Pogues struggled through low quality karaoke versions of songs that should have made us all stand and cheer. Pissed and pissed off, I cut my losses with a carry out and a taxi home, in which I left the Newcastle v Portsmouth programmes I’d bought for the TPE lads. I tried to engage the driver in conversation about the match, but he wasn’t interested.

Next morning, my performance in the Tyneside Sunday League was a study in immobility.  I didn’t do it because I was any good at it, in fact my performances deteriorated on those rare occasions I played without a hangover, nor did I do it for social reasons, as I was always the most unpopular player among my peers, I did it to scourge myself for all the boozing I did. On this particular Sunday, the Khmer Rouge could have come up with a more cruel and unusual punishment than making me walk around for 90 minutes on a grassy corner of Gateshead. Suffice to say, I was ready for bed come full time. However, in the nearest approximation I had to being a dutiful son, I went to see the parents for Sunday dinner and to pick up my ironing. Over lunch my dad, whose last game had been against Sheff Wed in August 1984, gave me a blow-by-blow summary of the match, courtesy of what he’d picked up from the Sunday Sun and Radio Newcastle.

Come five o’clock, I was back home and relaxed; stretched out in front of the fire at home marking exercise books and listening to Swervedriver’s debut album. I was aching from the football, dehydrated from the beer, exhausted from the lack of sleep and looking forward to an early night. The phone rang; it was Sara, wondering where and at what time we were meeting for The Pixies. Quite frankly, the idea of another night on my feet if not the beer, when I had an early start and a full week ahead of me, was not an appealing one. However, I am nothing if not honourable and so found myself in The Trent House at seven thirty. For an hour and a bit Sara and I made stilted, self-conscious conversation about teaching, our background and music. The fact I was exhausted and not even drinking made me tense and her bored. Chemistry? We were two inert gases in a deep freeze. Going to the gig should have been a relief, but it wasn’t. The Pixies, after conquering the world with their previous album Doolittle had received lousy reviews for its follow-up Trompe Du Monde and tensions were growing in the band. None of us watching were to know it, but this would be their last tour before splitting. Their astonishing descent in to mediocrity and then oblivion was hinted in the show, whereby older material was fiercely played and ecstatically received, while the new material was perfunctorily dashed off to muted applause. Members of the band stormed off stage for no apparent reason and then came back again. There wasn’t a word addressed from the stage to the audience. Thankfully, the whole thing was over by nine thirty. A total let down. I didn’t bother even asking Sara if she fancied another drink, but she asked me.

We went to The Strawberry, which was still in its radfem Friday and radgey Saturday incarnation. Gesturing at the ground with my pint of blackcurrant and soda, I mentioned that I’d been there the day before to see a hopeless game. Imagine my surprise when Sara not only repeated the score, but announced she’d seen the goals on the telly and further volunteered the information she was a Barnsley fan, who had gone to games regularly all her life. To say I was impressed would be an understatement. From then on, we relaxed and had a laugh, talking about football of course. Three weeks later, I took her on our first proper date to see Newcastle draw 0-0 with Barnsley in a game that made the Portsmouth one seem like the 1970 World Cup final in comparison. On January 2^nd 1991, the day after Mark Stimson scored an injury time equaliser against Oldham on the Boundary Park plastic pitch to deny us victory, we moved in together and we married in the summer of 1992.

Looking back that weekend in October 1990, it tells me a lot of things about my life. Firstly, people move on. That Petrol Emotion split in 1994, only to reform last year as The Everlasting Yeah Shane McGowan is a hopeless alcoholic somewhere in County Tipperary. Both he and Frank Black, the leader of The Pixies, reformed their bands. I can’t understand why anyone wants to go and see them; October 7^th 1990 was enough to sour my attitude to them to the extent I have no interest whatsoever in their reformation shows this autumn. The only thing that lasts is love; I’m still hopelessly, head over heels and wide-eyed in love with the greatest, most positive, life-affirming aspect of that weekend.

While Sara and I divorced in 2001, home victories (for Heaton Stannington more than Newcastle United) are as treasured and doted upon as ever.

Herding Cats

Have you signed up for your free copy of  #9 the new, on-line Newcastle united fanzine? If not, go to http://www.no9fanzine.co.uk/ immediately and register you interest, to receive a free copy tomorrow morning. Frankly, it's the only thing to get excited about at SJP at the minute. I pity those of you who are going; Grounsell Park is my preferred destination for Heaton Stannington v Tow Law Town. However, I do have an article in #9, which you'll find right here -:

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number -

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you -

Ye are many - they are few! (Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Masque of Anarchy)

On a gloriously hot Saturday in July 2013, I was proud to be one of the 150,000 individuals who converged on Durham for the 129^th Miners’ Gala. Some were there mainly out of respect for tradition; others came merely for an all-day session in the Swan & Three Cygnets. Personally I was there as I felt honoured at having been asked to carry my union’s banner during the procession through the city. In my judgement, it seemed that all those people gathered on the site of the former Durham Racecourse, who heard impassioned speeches from RTM leader Bob Crow and Independent columnist Owen Jones, had come together on that day and in that location as we held a common, shared belief in the fact that the current Government have proven themselves to be flint-faced, implacable enemies of the working class in thought, in word and in deed. Not only that, but I sensed that a growing realisation is developing in this country that the Labour Party are finished; viewed with scorn by those they should be standing up for, who see them as utterly discredited as a force for positive opposition and change. While there were zealous Marxist ideologues and charismatic Leninist Vanguardistas among those voicing such opinions, most were just ordinary working class folk, fed up to the back teeth of cuts and austerity measures being foisted on them while the ruling elite and their mates the bankers continued to bathe in money. When those you’ve placed your trust in throw it back in your face with their smug indifference and zest for self-aggrandizement, the time has come to strike out in a radical direction.

I’m a Socialist; I don’t hide the fact and I make no apologies for referring to politics in this piece, but I am also a Newcastle United supporter and I can see so many parallels between the indignation, anger and desire for change expressed at the Durham Miners’ Gala and what is happening at my football club. In 2008, capitalism’s version of progress ground to a halt. There hadn’t been a natural disaster or food shortage, but simply the capitalist elite’s way of moving abstract loans and debts around had failed. The ruling class told us the only way the world could avoid calamity was for us all to agree to work harder for less money and for our bairns and grandkids to do the same. At the same time, Mike Ashley appointed Dennis Wise as Director of Football at Newcastle United. You hear what I’m saying? 

Cards on the table time; I am a passionate believer in fan ownership and would regard Ashley selling the club to another mega-rich Capitalist businessman as no sort of progress whatsoever. In my lifetime Westwood, Seymour, McKeague, Hall, Shepherd and Ashley have offered us nothing other than vague, empty promises of jam tomorrow; in a sense, Ashley is the most honest of that bunch as he offers nothing and promises less.

My dream, idealistic though it may be, is of a sustained, mass, democratic, passionate, non-violent movement of Newcastle United supporters, with an agenda and an ideology decided democratically among us all, where our voices are of equal importance, bringing such pressure on Ashley that he cuts and runs, giving the club to the fans, washing his hands of the whole deal. At such a time, a properly constituted, democratic constitution, giving all members an equal say in the framework of the club, based not on our monetary interests but in the legitimacy of our involvement as supporters of the club, could be drafted, allowing for the provision of appointed, accountable, co-ordinating executives in a range of positions, both sporting and otherwise, to manage the club, but not for profit, ego or personal gain, simply for the good of the club, the city and the region. I’m talking Barca; I’m talking FC United of Manchester. Impossibly idealistic though this may seem; this is my fervently held hope. Remember, Newcastle United has existed since 1892 and the incredible pace and nature of the changes wrought on the game in that time may be dwarfed by what lies in the future. None of us know what that future may be, but we can all agree that, in the same way that Cameron and Clegg have managed to make the fiasco left behind by New Labour a whole lot worse, the 6 years of Ashley’s ownership have been even more disastrous than the Shepherd administration.

By any standards, the period following the end of the 2012/2013 has been even more farcical than usual at SJP. No new players and the appointment of a contemptible, discredited figure of scorn and abuse as Director of Football has had the effect of engendering a rekindling of the flame of sympathy for Pardew that was effectively snuffed out with his incompetent misuse of his 5 player get out of jail card from February onwards. However, tough as it may be to accept this is the case, it is my belief that whoever pulls on a black and white shirt, wherever we end up in the league and whatever happens in terms of back room staff appointments during 2013/2014, are all complete red herrings and as near as damn it utterly irrelevant to the ultimate future well-being of Newcastle United. Relegation has happened before and it doesn’t scare me; what scares me is the thought of Ashley remaining in charge of our club, which is why I urge us all to bury hatchets and accept olive branches, then get involved in a mass movement of fans to help topple this terrible regime, before we lose our club forever.

So, that is my position; what can be done to bring it about? Well, as I said before, this club is 131 years old; history tells us that we need to play the long game and we need to be organised. Perhaps the biggest criticism we have of ourselves as fans of Newcastle United has nothing to do with the insulting media stereotype of us as impatient cry-babies demanding immediate success or else (look at our history and laugh at that farcical opinion), but the fact that we have found it impossible over the years to work together. Ego, self-interest, back-biting and whispering campaigns have nullified all those supporters who’ve tried to work tirelessly for positive change in the past, but that was then and this is now. The time has passed when photographs of Steve Harmison joining NUST are enough to satisfy the desire for change among our support. To suggest such gestures, and I’m aware NUST do tremendous community work, are steps in the right direction or, worse, that our fans will forget all about this if we fluke a point at Man city on the opening day, is patronising, insulting and downright inaccurate. Ignore the smug Twitterati who claim this to be the case; as Secret Affair said, this is the time for action.

In the same way that Bob Crow at the Big Meeting called for the formation of a new party to represent the working classes now that Labour is finished, it seems to me as if the Newcastle United Supporters’ Trust have had their day; neither they nor The Mag appear to be interested in mobilising our support to campaign against Ashley, preferring mild hand-wringing in the case of the Trust and a head in the sand approach in the case of The Mag. Of course, they have time to learn the folly of their inaction and to get involved. I call on the Trust and those who relentlessly espouse its legitimacy as the sole elected voice of NUFC’s support, to do something other than repeat the mantra of the validity of elections; are NUST more like Kier Hardie or Milliband?

On June 24^th, the only credible organisation able to mobilise anything other than a tiny number of supporters, namely Newcastle Fans United held a sometimes rowdy, sometimes ill-disciplined, but always passionate, meeting in the Labour Club to try and make some sense of the Kinnear appointment and take the temperature among the support. In retrospect, perhaps those of us involved in Newcastle Fans United were naïve in our expectations of how the evening would unfold; certainly my heart went out to Bill Corcoran and Steve Wraith who did brilliantly to keep the lid on a seething vat of hatred in the room, especially with local and national media present. Fair play also to the likes of George Caulkin and Mark Douglas, who penned superbly articulate pieces about the legitimacy of the gathering in the days after; their opinions educated many message board observers who had previously sought to denigrate and blackguard those involved and, for once, it appears that there is an appreciable groundswell of fan opinion in favour of Newcastle Fans United. Don’t just take my word for it; check out the website http://www.nufcfansutd.com/ then come along to our next meeting and get involved. We are a democracy and your voice is as valid as mine and every other member’s.

Newcastle Fans United  is a loose amalgam of support that is evolving meeting by meeting; what we are and will always be, is a democracy, that is a growing organisation and one that will be de facto even more democratic the more voices are represented. For example, I would love to see those from NUFC.com and Black & White Daft in our ranks.

However, Newcastle Fans United is not simply a talking shop; it is a dynamic organisation that encompasses diplomatic, cordial relations with the football club, with more firebrand opinions; in that sense, to steal a phrase from Gerry Adams, we have both the Armalite and the ballot box. It would be unfair to describe the meeting following Kinnear’s appointment as a bear pit, but the anger was palpable and demonstrated in the adoption of an uncompromising resolution drafted by Graeme Cansdale, of the Mike Ashley Out Campaign; yet the more the movement grows, the more we will learn whether this opinion is a majority or a minority one. Newcastle Fans United is democratic; the policies, opinions and campaigns involved come not from any assumed leadership, but from the authentic voice of our members. Come along and join in; all we have to lose are our chains.