Champagne Cork

And so, after 4 successive Saturdays of mesmerising club football, the Championship judders to a depressing halt for one of the all-too frequent international autumnal interregnums; un autre quinzième sans le jeu joli, malheureusement… Though at least once the latest FIFA farce and poppycock is out the way, it’s back to domestic football bliss from 19^th November onwards in this country; weather permitting of course. Sadly in Ireland they’ve put away the strips, the nets, the corner flags and the dubbin until next March, so I thought it best to update you all on how the 2016 Irish season panned out in the end.

However firstly, we’d better have a look at a couple of the other Irish sporting competitions that I’ve written about before. This, of course, won’t include rugby union and Ireland’s victory over New Zealand in Chicago (apparently); some garrison games are still a little too garrison and Limerick even for me.

In the GAA, the main focus is now on club games. Each county runs its own championship; the winners of those then participate in a provincial championship and eventually the All Ireland club finals at Croker around St. Patrick’s Day. Of course, there are plenty of checks, balances, caveats and exceptions in the three grades of senior, intermediate and junior competition, based on ability not age. I’m hoping to get my head round the complexities in the near future. For instance, the various English champions (London, Warwickshire and Lancashire mainly) are exempt until the quarter final stage.  As far as the inter-county game is concerned, hurling stopped on 4^th September, when Tipperary edged out favourites Kilkenny 2-29 (35) to 2-20 (26) to lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup. In football, it wasn’t until 1^st October when Dublin eventually got the better of Mayo to win the Sam Maguire Cup after a replay. The first game was drawn 2-9 to 0-15, with an equally close replay ending 1-15 to 1-14 in the Jackeens’ favour, much to the chagrin of the Rhubarbarians.

Meanwhile, in the rarefied climes of the Leinster Cricket Union, the overall champions were Clontarf, mainly on account of Alex Cusack’s sparkling batting, while the side I’ve developed affection for, YMCA, came 5^th, as well as winning the Leinster Senior Cup. The side they defeated in the final, Leinster (the club), gained promotion as runners-up to the slightly out of Leinster Cork Constitution.  In the interprovincial tournament, Leinster Lightning proved there is nothing to fear from beyond The Pale, by claiming the 20/20, 50 over and 3 day competitions. On the other side of the coin, spare a thought for poor old Greystones 4^th team, who finished rock bottom of basement division 16, with a record of 1 win, 1 abandonment and 12 losses; even their solitary victory was only because of a walkover.  I’m looking forward to visiting Claremont Road in Sandymount next summer, as part of my annual undiplomatic mission.

Now; football. The Irish domestic season ended on 6^th November, with Cork City avenging their defeat in last year’s final, by overcoming Dundalk 1-0 with a goal in the last minute of extra time, in front of an encouraging 26,400 crowd. Dundalk would have celebrated the triple double if they’d won the FAI Cup, but can still console themselves by the fact they’re still in with a shout of progressing from the group stages of the Europa League. Such unprecedented European success in the modern era by an Irish club side has seen them draw with AZ Alkmaar and beat Maccabi Tel Aviv, meaning they are still in 2^nd place in Group C with a couple of games to go. Even if they bow out soon, it’ll be a tremendous achievement and one that will almost certainly ensure their continued dominance of the League of Ireland for the foreseeable future.

Elsewhere, Longford Town finished bottom of the Premier Division and swapped places with a resurgent Limerick side, whose only disappointment of the season just ending was in losing the EA League Cup final 4-1 to St Patrick’s Athletic. Having already seen off an obdurate and revitalised Cobh Ramblers in the first play-off round, Drogheda United sealed a fabulous comeback against Wexford Youths in the promotion v relegation tussle. Putting aside the misfortune of having lost 2-0 to Mick Wallace’s pink-shirted vanity projects at Ferrycarrig Park,  Drogs triumphed 3-0 at home, with ex-Mackem Sean Thornton’s penalty making it all Hunky Dory in Louth again.

Considering Wexford’s supposed advisor Lee Chin didn’t even bother attending the second leg, as it clashed with the GAA awards dinner, having excused himself by claiming the tie was as good as won, there will be little sympathy for boys from the pleasant Slaney in the wider League of Ireland community.  Similarly, Roddy Collins getting the boot at Waterford or the fate of the scoundrels running wooden-spoonists Athlone will provoke few tears. However, a far more vexed question is the potential ground share agreement between Bohemian and Shelbourne at a redeveloped Dalymount Park.

Bohs were formed in 1890; after a decade of gentle wandering through the less than leafy lanes of north inner Dublin, they opened Dalymount Park in 1901, on land that had charmingly been known as Pisser Dignam's Field. In 2006 they decide to sell the ground to developers, in return for a 10,000 seat stadium out by the airport until in 2008 the deal was dashed by the Irish Property Crash.  In 2015, after years of hand-wringing, Dublin City Council bought the ground in Phibsborough for €4m and promised to demolish and rebuild Dalier at a cost of €20m. Fair play to the Corpo, if you’re a follower of Big Club, which I am.

Shels were formed in 1895; their origins are in Ringsend, on the south side.  Their current ground is Tolka Park, less than 2 miles from Dalymount, in the adjoining suburb of Drumcondra.  Shels moved into Tolka in 1989, but had previously played there in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as other venues across the south side of the city, such as Harold’s Cross, Irishtown and Shelbourne Stadium. Rather ironically, Bohs are known as the Gypsies, not Shels.  Over the years, seven different League of Ireland clubs have used Tolka Park for home league matches on a regular basis: Drumcondra, Shelbourne, Dolphin, Home Farm, Dublin City, Shamrock Rovers and St James Gate F.C.

The main problem is both Dalier and Tolka are falling to bits and need serious attention. Predictably, Bohs are jubilant that their ground issues have seemingly been solved, securing their future. The ones unhappy with this deal are Shels, whose board announced last month that they will move into Dalymount Park next year, as Tolka has been sold for redevelopment. Obviously, the two clubs, Bohs and Shels, will need to find a temporary home while Dalier is being rebuilt in the future, but where remains unclear.

As ever, the only ones left disgruntled by boardroom machinations are the ones who nobody bothered to consult with in the first place; the fans of Shelbourne, who fear not only a dilution of their identity, but even the potential death of their club. Now I’m not a Shels fan, so I don’t fully understand the fury with which they’ve greeted this news, though the ghosts of Drumcondra, Home Farm, St James Gate, Sporting Fingal, Monaghan United loom large on the horizon. We’ve been here before in the League of Ireland and, undoubtedly, we’ll be here again.  If I can’t find anyone better qualified to tell you the story, I’ll do so myself.

Moyes Annoys

There’s a bizarre belief among football fans that passing informed comment on the fortunes of a rival team doesn’t demonstrate intelligence or perception on the part of the observer, but instead shows them to be obsessed; an insult almost as serious as being deemed a glory hunter, part-timer or Sky Boy. Such an attitude is baffling to the point of incomprehensibility; can you imagine a situation whereby a Labour politician was denied the opportunity to give an opinion on the latest Tory crime against humanity, on account of the fact it had “nothing to do with you?” Or Wordsworth’s biographer refused access to a conference on William Blake because “romantics aren’t welcome here pal?” Unfortunately this is exactly the kind of reaction touchy types from Wearside have as their default response when anyone dares pass comment about the fortunes of their team. If George Caulkin, Martin Hardy and Simon Bird are called out over the legitimacy of their opinions, then I realise I’m in for a rough ride once I share my thoughts, but here goes…

Quite frankly, Sunderland are in a worse situation than they were when they accumulated 19 points in their 2002/2003 relegation season; they’re now performing at about the same level as the famed 15 point fiasco of 2005/2006, with every chance of replicating the McMenemy era if things continue the way they are. What’s more, there is no realistic prospect of recovery in the medium or short term. Whether David Moyes stays or goes is really of no particular relevance; unless a billionaire takes over between now and the start of the transfer window, providing untold riches for a whole squad of signings, they are going down. Even with a fairy godfather on board, the current rate of progress means they could be needing snookers by Christmas.  I mean, I could be wrong and Moyes may oversee a May 2015 Leicester style revival, but it isn’t looking very likely is it?

The problem, as ever with top level football clubs, is that supposedly altruistic patrician lords of the manor are actually greedy, rapacious venture capitalists whose first and only loyalty is to their wealth. Like the Glazers, Hinks and Gillette, Randy Lerner and the whole sordid rogues’ gallery from the Halls to Ashley via Freddy Shepherd, these owners are motivated by profit margins and personal avarice; once it becomes clear that their prized cash cow is refusing to calve, interest soon dwindles and purse strings are tied tight with a double bow.  This is precisely where Sunderland are now; but how exactly did they get here?

Current owner Ellis Short, described repeatedly as an Irish American billionaire hedge fund speculator, has absolutely no links with Wearside, other than the football club he bought from Niall Quinn’s Drumaville Consortium. Back in 2006, with Kevin Ball as caretaker boss when the team went down with 15 points, a then record low, long-time owner Bob Murray, whose 20 seasons in charge had begun with the sacking of Lawrie McMenemy, signalled it was time to chuck the towel in. The rumour being he was suffering from stress-related depression; understandable after 2 decades of bankrolling that shower. Murray, despite the fact he endured hatred from the terraces (he was once glassed in Vujon curry restaurant on Newcastle Quayside, when enjoying a relaxing Balti with Mick McCarthy), was a real fan of his home town club, though similar to Gordon McKeague at NUFC, he just wasn’t very good at running it. Ironically though, he’d been seen as a trade up from his predecessor Tom Cowie, who’d fallen foul of the great unwashed by telling the truth when he announced Newcastle had better fans than Sunderland. The cavalry arrived in the shape of the Drumaville Consortium. The loathsome, oleaginous Niall Quinn assembled a predictable, pre-recession Irish squad of dodgy builders, chain licensees and horse owners, prepared to gamble a few quid on rescuing the football club I’ll concede he had a genuine affection for.  These shadowy operators shelled out £20m, which was chump change in the world of Irish credit back then, to buy the club outright. At first it was hilarious; they couldn’t find a manager, so Quinn took over for 6 successive defeats, then Roy Keane came in, acted all professional for a while and won promotion. Things carried on swimmingly until the Lads needed their readies sharpish and passed the club on to Short for the thick end of £50m, at which point Keane went mad, quit and the regular pattern of annual battles against relegation, unlikely escapes after beating Newcastle and sacking the manager began. So why should this season be any different to previous ones, apart from the removal of the annual NUFC points donation?

Firstly, the players; Jermaine Defoe is a class act, so is the injured Jan Kirchoff, while Borini (also injured), Van Aanholt and Pickford the keeper aren’t bad and I suppose O’Shea, Pienaar and Larsson have been decent players in the past. Sadly the rest are dross; absolute garbage who are lacking ability, motivation and any desire to fight and save their side. Take it from me; I remember the two dozen crash test dummies Rafa moved on from NUFC post demotion, so I know a load of lazy, lousy mercenaries when I see them. Other than Defoe they won’t score goals and even with him, they’ll never keep them out. If your main hope for a revival rests with the return of Lee Cattermole as a midfield playmaker, then you may as well hand in your Premier League resignation now.

Secondly, the manager; David Moyes looks like a bloke on the very edge of a nervous breakdown and has done since the season started. Now, I go back a long time with Sunderland managers; I remember Alan Brown getting the bullet in autumn 72 and Bob “well you know George” Stokoe, the man who finished off McMenemy’s handiwork by relegating them to Division 3, coming in. He was replaced in turn by Jimmy Adamson, on a gap year between his Burnley and Leeds gigs; the anonymous Billy Elliott and Ken Knighton did their bit, before Alan Durban arrived. Durban is chiefly remembered for telling supporters that if they wanted entertainment they should “go to the circus.” Once he got his P45, Len Ashurst pitched up; the man with the worst fringe in history got them to the League Cup final and relegated, before the legendary McMenemy arrived.

In 1987, the loathsome Dennis Smith, with his husky, high pitched paranoid media visions, came in for 4 years. He got the bullet on New Year’s Eve, at which point Malcolm “Willie Wonka” Crosby  stepped up from running a bed and breakfast hostel to managing a professional football club, losing his job after the Pools Panel opined that Tranmere would beat Sunderland. Next up was the comic era of Terry Butcher; a man so unhinged he’s beyond hilarious (though his stint at my beloved Hibs was far from a laughing matter).  Following a trouncing by Southend, the charismatic Mick Buxton and his compulsory flat cap came on the scene, for the standard 18 months of stagnant regression. With relegation to the third tier a knocking bet, Peter Reid was the final roll of the dice.

I have to say, unlike Sunderland fans, I liked and admired Reid; he had a good sense of humour and did his best to deflate the hysteria around Tyne-Wear derbies, unlike Smith and Butcher whose conduct was shameful. If Mackems look back on Reid’s time with rational eyes, they’ll be sad for what they lost when they drove him out for the Wilkinson and Cotterill dream team. After those crazy fools, Mick McCarthy was normality itself; a plain, blunt football man who I respect as well. Witness the job he has done at Wolves and now Ipswich with no money and little publicity. He also spoke well of Newcastle after our recent battering of Ipswich the other week.

So now we’re back to Keane, who did a sterling job and reveals in his autobiography that it was Ellis Short’s interference that drove him away. Next up was Ricky Sbragia and his Easter Island head, before the equally pulchritudinous Steve Brewse endured 3 years of abuse for being a Mag, especially after a certain 5-1 on Halloween 2010. He was always up against it, trying to win the fans over, with his background; mind his successor Martin O’Neill fared no better. Despite the merchandising slogan “party with Marty,” O’Neill actually took the team backwards and after 15 months was replaced by the loathsome Di Canio. The self-confessed fascist was bizarrely popular with South Tyneside’s most theatrically flamboyant NUFC super fan, but he was regarded with contempt by everyone else, including the Mackems once it became clear Di Canio had no clue how to manage a football team. His replacement was the shifty corprophiliac Poyet; he won 3 games against NUFC, but fell out with Short and the crowd.

The brief Advocaat interregnum saw them stay up in 2015, before he suddenly realised he wanted to retire after all, leaving the field clear for the biggest head of them all, Sam Allardyce; the man who made Sbragia and Brewse look like congenital microcephalus sufferers. Allardyce was the perfect fit for Sunderland; loud, demotic, ignorant and blessed with messianic arrogance. Naturally he kept them up, at our expense, before following the money to England and the Torygraph sting that hoist him with his own petard.

With Big Sam out the door, the choice of Moyes seemed to be a no-brainer, as he was the highest profile, most experienced seemingly safe pair of hands around. Yet it has all turned to dust, as his side currently boast 2 points from 10 games, which is not an unfair reflection of their labours thus far. Frankly Moyes himself set the tone, with his gloomy pronouncements after their home defeat to Middlesbrough. An opening day loss to Man City was, effectively, a free pass, but the Boro defeat, especially the manner of it, resulted in uproar. One tetchy fan approached the dugout, ranting and raving, while Moyes solemnly predicted a season of struggle against relegation. Three months on it seems like a struggle Sunderland will lose, but where could they turn to if Moyes walks or is pushed? Who would seriously take on a job like this? The one club that seems to thrive on constant turmoil and uproar is faced with the prospect of not only relegation, but a full-on meltdown with an owner who wants out, players who are not good enough and a manager who seems utterly unable to motivate his charges, limited though they may be.

There is one ray of hope; Moyes is banned from the dugout for their game away to Bournemouth on Saturday. I predict they’ll win 2-1, but it won’t make much difference in the long run I’m afraid…

https://youtu.be/aTVspy43xxI

Playing With Fireworks

I don’t recall when exactly Halloween became de rigeur as the autumn celebration of choice for people of all ages. I do realise that the ancient Irish festival of Samhain has been celebrated from pre-history and is now inextricably associated with October 31^st, but the trite, Americanised custom of trick or treat was unknown until the late 70s in the North East.  When we were bairns, we had Guy Fawkes’s conflagration to celebrate every November 5^th. You simply don’t see kids asking for “penny for the guy” anymore do you? It was a great source of extra pocket money, especially when we pitched up outside of Felling Club on a Saturday night with a few raggy old clothes stuffed full of newspaper and a penny floater with a face scrawled on it, and then started pan-handling half plastered punters. Sadly Bonna Neet, along with turnip rather than pumpkin lanterns, is dying; a barely breathing anachronism. That said, I’m still hoping to see the firework display at Tynemouth Cricket Club on the first Saturday in November.

Football-wise, the only fireworks I hope to see that day are metaphorical ones, hopefully launched by my beloved Benfield at home to Consett.  Of course, there is one particular fixture in the Northern League on November 5th which has the potential for off-pitch fireworks, when two very different cultures, ideologies and modes of conduct come face to face. Suffice to say I hope the all-ticket, top of the table clash between Graham Fenton’s South Shields and visiting North Shields passes off without incident. Certainly having been to Mariners’ Park this season, one can’t help but marvel at the superb, inclusive, celebratory atmosphere about the place; let’s hope the ambience is infectious and pacifying, meaning the only threats of violence in the Northern League come from imbarrathin Twitter DMs from the friendliest assistant manager around…

Also on November 5^th , Newcastle United host Cardiff  City; the last time the Bluebirds were up here for a Championship game was in February 2010, when the less salubrious bars of Whitley Bay were teeming with half-cut, well-dressed, posturing Welshmen long before the sun was over the yardarm. The Mags massacred them 5-1 that Friday night, while the supposed Soul Crew didn’t get within half a mile of the ground, preferring tp create mayhem in the dear old Bridge Hotel. However fast forward to May 2014 and there wasn’t a scrap of mither on the sunny afternoon Newcastle effectively relegated Cardiff with a 3-0 win, on a day best remembered for NUST’s hideous PR disaster of a 69^th minute walkout, that was ignored by 99% of the crowd. Being honest, I can’t imagine any way in which the latest encounter with the Valley Boyos will provide instances of widespread disorder or even small scale bother. Of course, the trip to Leeds on November 20^th is looming large on the horizon and I’m not just talking about Teenage Fanclub playing Leeds University that night either. There is the almost tangible odour of pathetic casuals becoming aroused on social media by hysterical predictions of a return to 70s/80s style terrace warfare.

In all my years of watching football, I’ve only ever been chinned once; February 1985, away to Everton, in The Stanley Park pub half an hour before kick-off.  It wasn’t an opposition fan who started on me of course; it was a copper, no doubt less than impressed by my Coal Not Dole badges. At that instant, the Merseyside Police were intent on emptying the pub and marching us all up to the ground. Looking back from over 30 years distant, I realise this wasn’t a targeted attack; I was just another unlucky, random victim of state-approved violence against working class men. For the non-existent crime of failing to finish my pint quickly enough, I was truncheoned across the lower back, causing me to double up in pain; at which point I was kneed in the groin by a particularly irate bizzie. I said nowt, as to complain would have meant instant arrest and hobbled up to the ground, watching a dismal 4-0 trouncing in absolute agony. Nobody was outraged at my treatment; in fact nobody really sympathised with me. Such behaviour was seen as par for the course. If you didn’t want trouble, you didn’t go to away games.

Is it like that now? I’ve absolutely no idea, not having been to an away game since 2009, when a 0-0 at Hull in the cup was my last hurrah. I know that Newcastle have sold out every away allocation, taking thousands to Barnsley and Preston without incident. However this is not the case among the highest echelons of the domestic game, as can be evidenced by the nonsensical vandalism of Old Trafford’s bogs by Citeh fans in their EFL Cup defeat by their nearest rivals. The stupid actions of a few mindless meatheads aren’t evidence of any “return to the dark ages,” but it seems entirely proportionate to shame and humiliate Citeh’s support by making images of the wanton destruction public knowledge. Rather like the Mackems’ conduct at SJP in March 2012, sharing images of the devastation will result in the vast majority of decent fans making it crystal clear to the idiotic element that such behaviour will not be tolerated among civilised company.

The incident at Old Trafford is hopefully an isolated one, but regretfully it seems that elsewhere in the Premier League repeated trouble is to be found, with the common element in all the outbreaks of unpleasant behaviour being the fans of West Ham United.  Every game at their new London home has seen some kind of disturbance or other; from fighting among themselves in the opening games, to ambushing Middlesbrough (no strangers to mindless thuggery themselves) and the Mackems at full time, to confrontations with Chelsea during their EFL Cup match. Some breathless accounts talked of “pitched battles,” though from the footage I saw, it seemed to consist of outbreaks of intense gesticulation from 50 yards distant by 20-something testosterone-fuelled fools in expensive knitwear, rather than Millwall away to Luton.  Whatever it was, the fact some 8 year old got hit with a coin is not good; trying to defend those involved or hysterically calling for life bans, imprisonment or points deductions doesn’t help either.

Sociologists may speculate that a club so deeply intertwined with white, male, working class identity is acting as a template for post-Brexit masculine intolerance, though a simple explanation for the repeated incidents of bother could be the presence of an extra 20,000 Hammers; some of whom may be radgies or just giddy with the whole experience. Whatever the cause, the undeniable truth is that such behaviour is as disappointing as it is unacceptable.  Undoubtedly the preferred state of affairs would be for football fans to police themselves because all norms of expected behaviour were clearly understood and observed by those in attendance.  Sadly this doesn’t currently appear to be the case with West Ham and so, reluctantly and only because of the need to maintain safety and decorum to allow the overwhelming majority of orderly and composed fans to feel safe in the ground, there has to be some version of visible, imposed control. Ideally, this would be fans acting as volunteer (elected?) stewards, but if such a course of action is impractical, whether for reasons of available numbers or the need to have something in place as a matter of urgency, it will probably be the equivalent of yellow jacketed door staff. This isn’t ideal as many of them are on lousy wages and have only rudimentary training, with the emphasis on containment not communication. Coppers, who thankfully have evolved since my experience in 1985, would be very expensive, but they’d be better trained to assess the level and form of any intervention needed. They aren’t just about order; they’re about law enforcement and some laws just happen to get broken with impunity.

You see what I found far more sinister about the West Ham v Chelsea game than the Green Street balletics was the mass distribution of flyers, exhorting home fans to sing a grossly offensive and illegal homophobic song to and about John Terry. Now there are many, many reasons to despise John Terry (and as a Newcastle fan, I still thought the ideal way for him to end his Chelsea career would have been with a red card in their loss to the Mackems last season), but ascribing homosexual practises to him certainly isn’t one of them. In a week where 8% of fans have claimed they’d stop watching their team if they signed openly gay players, it is clear we have much work to do to educate football fans why such attitudes are as unacceptable as racist chanting or Islamophobic comments. 

Certainly I don’t think West Ham are any worse in terms of their social attitudes than other clubs, but education needs to come, relentlessly, from the authorities in the game to eradicate the climate whereby such attitudes are deemed acceptable. Some clubs do have progressive attitudes; obviously Clapton, Dulwich Hamlet and Benfield are the sort of clubs where inclusivity is the key to the whole philosophy. Then again, perhaps there are grounds for optimism; for instance, I was dreading Brighton’s visit to SJP back in August, but the game passed off without any homophobic chanting or abuse. Let’s build on this eh? Concentrate on celebrating and encouraging diversity, not responding immoderately to isolated pockets of stupidity.

13 Wasted Years

I didn’t read Martin Hardy’s first book, Touching Distance; I mean I wanted to, having known Martin (as an acquaintance and not a friend I would have to admit) since we both contributed to The Mag in the early 90s, long before he went to university, never mind became a journalist. The thing was; I just couldn’t. The subject matter, Newcastle United’s glorious failure to win the Premier League title in 1995/1996, still hurts more than two decades later. Actually hurt is an inadequate description; it remains a gaping, open wound and running sore that may never heal. Whenever I think back to that campaign, it’s not the wonderful, attacking football that I recall; it’s the feeling of numb desolation that overpowered my every waking moment from the Blackburn Rovers loss on Easter Monday onwards. The paralysing realisation that I was utterly powerless in the face of impending, inevitable doom that arrived, not when Ian Woan equalised for Forest in the penultimate game, but on the final Sunday as a spent, noble side laboured vainly for a draw at home to Spurs at the same time as Manchester United breasted the tape at little more than a jog with a 3-0 cuffing of a supine Middlesbrough. May 5^th 1996; I think that’s the day, aged almost 32, when I stopped believing in fairy tales and happy endings. It’s probably also the time I knew I’d already stopped actively loving professional football.

However Martin’s second book (is it too dreadful to refer to it as a Hardy annual?), Tunnel of Love, which chronicles the misadventures of Newcastle United from the day we signed Shearer until the day he relegated us thirteen years later, is right up my street.  It encompasses a period of time when frustration with my club was replaced with contempt, hatred and the first steps on the road to the state of blessed indifference I’ve finally found for myself these past half dozen years or so. That said; it’s always great to wallow in nostalgia, even if the primary emotions to be rediscovered are scorn, anger and rage.

Martin is a decent writer; perhaps he doesn’t have the natural flair of George Caulkin, who honed and polished his craft with indulgent employers at The Times, but in comparison to the dreary doggerel of Alan Oliver and Ian Murtagh, or the illiterate babbling of Lee Ryder, it is fair to say Martin is the second best NUFC supporting football writer out there. Straightaway, I have to say that I did find a few niggles with the book; ones so minor that the casual, non-obsessive reader wouldn’t give them a second thought. This book is a solid, non-statistical guide and comprehensive if not encyclopaedic account of the personalities involved. However, as one with an obsessive recollection of the minutiae of NUFC’s performance over the years, the occasional inaccuracy does grind, but not as much as the proof-reading errors put this particular English teacher’s back up. I’m being captious of course. That said, at least Martin was down at Oakwell supporting Rafa’s boys when I was in the house writing this!

Of course one of the most obvious things to say about Martin’s book is that none of the events are a surprise; the chronology isn’t just in the public domain, many (most?) of the readers will have lived, not just lived through, the events mentioned. Martin’s skill is in guiding the reader back to the time, to the instant, when you remember the sights, the sounds and even the smells of the game or off the pitch milestone in question.  As well as the events being familiar, most (all?) of us in the primary target demographic have a clear sense of who are the heroes and who are the villains in this Tyneside Passion Play. Again, it will be no surprise to learn that Hardy’s account reinforces rather than challenges the assumptions we have about our club.

The Halls and Freddy Shepherd come out of this book badly; very badly indeed. Avaricious, petty, greedy, small town conmen turned mega rich multi-millionaire global players. Treating the club as their personal fiefdom and the money the club acquired as chump change to be squandered as they saw fit. Don’t worry though, the circus that followed don’t escape withering contempt either; everything the previous owners were guilty of is repeated, but without the veneer of regional populism.  As ever with Newcastle United, it isn’t simply a story of 11 blokes kicking a ball around with varying degrees of competence, it is the back story of vicious machinations that wouldn’t be out of place in a Jacobean revenge tragedy that command the most inches of print. That said revelations such as John Hall giving Bobby Robson dog’s abuse in the airport after we lost the 2004 UEFA semi-final to Marseilles can still serve to disgust and appal in equal measures. What right did the sordid megalomaniac have in speaking like that? Mind, the level of contempt is cranked up to 11 or more when it comes to the way Llambias and his cronies talked to Keegan, but we all knew that anyway.

When it comes to matters on the pitch, at least there are some heroes among the scoundrels, layabouts and fools who drank deeply from the seemingly bottomless well of liquid gold on Barrack Road. The Entertainers and Robson’s sides of 01-04, including Bellamy astonishingly enough, come out of it well, but we knew they would. Given, Lee, Shearer, Speed and Harper; great players and even greater men, deserving the epithet club legends. I’d advise Michael Owen fans to avoid this book; likewise those with a soft spot for Alain Goma, Jean-Alain Boumsong or Laurent Robert.

Perhaps the only grey areas explored in the book are in the depictions of the varying fortunes of those who occupied the manager’s chair at SJP. There is initially absolute outrage at the vile manoeuvrings of the Hall Shepherd alliance, with help of their corporate hitman Mark Corbidge, in squeezing Kevin Keegan out of the club during 1996/1997 to ease the share flotation and, perhaps not coincidentally, make them rich as Croesus. With Kenny Dalglish there is a sense he was allowed to get on with it, but then sacked on a whim. Gullit is Gullit; vain, arrogant, incompetent and utterly lacking self-awareness of his failings.  Allardyce is a fatter version of Gullit and Souness a Scotch one. The three of them would make great basket cases in a Magpies’ managerial balloon debate. Glen Roeder, in contrast, is a highly personable bloke, still displaying gratitude for a job he was never suited for, almost a decade later.

The strange one is Kevin Keegan.  I don’t think many (any?) of us were expecting his return in January 2008. Let’s be honest about this, it wasn’t a great idea; sure he could have come back as Director of Football, Global Ambassador, Director of Player Recruitment, but not with any responsibility for the team. That said, his tactical masterstroke of playing Owen behind Viduka and Martins meant the season ended on a real high. At that point, the undermining of his role began in earnest and, as I alluded to at the start, reading the detail at almost a decade distant still makes the blood boil. Unfortunately, what we are missing is the seemingly reclusive Keegan’s take on things. Unlike his first reign where his infectious personality enveloped the whole region, he is a two-dimensional, peripheral figure; glimpsed in monochrome not the technicolour of his previous tenure. That’s sad, but probably understandable.

The difficult one is Bobby Robson; it is almost as if his death has erased any notion of errors he made. Not only signing Carl Cort or Lee Bowyer, but in selling Nobby Solano and Gary Speed far too soon. Indeed Robson’s biggest error was in not accepting the reality of time’s winged chariot; there was no succession planning. If only he’d agreed to go upstairs in summer 2004, with Shearer or even Steve Clarke (in his pre-jakey incarnation) groomed to take over, things would have been very different. Instead, Shearer came in far too late, utterly unprepared and seemed to believe banning mobile phones and flip flops, as well as shouting, would keep us up. It didn’t and the book ends, post Shearer, on a July afternoon in east London, where Newcastle have just lost 6-1 to Orient. As good a point as any to leave things until the next volume I’d wager.

 That right Martin?

The Quiet Men

64 years ago today, filming wrapped on John Wayne's classic The Quiet Man. His character's name is shared by Drogheda United's captain; this weekend, the League of Ireland First Division wraps for the winter: Limerick are Champions, Drogheda, Cobh and UCD are each separated by a point in the play-off positions, Shels and Waterford face each other for 5th and 6th, while Cabo hold a 2 point lead over Athlone for penultimate place. Here's an article I wrote in early August about my summer trip to Ireland, which is in issue #2 of the glorious North Ferriby United fanzine View From The Allotment End -:

The European Championships was a complete non-event wasn’t it? Other than Wales and Iceland, few teams made you take proper of the tournament. In fact, probably the main facts to be gleaned were in regards to the support each nation brought with them. While Hungary and Croatia did their level best to advance the cause of boneheadism in the country that gave us Bonaparte, the bar was raised impossibly high by Russia and, predictably enough, England. When I’m getting ready for football, I often take a pair of gloves; though they tend to be Thinsulate ones to keep my hands warm on the bitter terraces of the Northern League, rather than MMA combat issue ones. However, I’m not Russian and what the pugnacious Putinistas demonstrated in Marseilles is that, for all their designer trainers and £500 Italian knitwear, the posturing Brexit louts who follow England away are not just a national embarrassment, but an international one. Also, they’re soft as clarts and need to shed a bit of timber if they want to properly utilise those Hamburgs and Gazelles to run away from the tough guys, gesticulating wildly as they retreat. My prediction is that this tournament marked the end of The Firm as a credible unit of English masculinity.

However, it seemed as if Irish fans were cut from a very different cloth to their English counterparts. Of course, unlike the EDL and UKIP wannabes singing about German bombers, Irish fans are proud Europeans. Their tolerant, inclusive, peaceful demeanour charmed and beguiled host nation and opposing fans equally. While their team put in a decent showing,  the support was top notch. It was no wonder that Ireland’s followers were named by UEFA as the tournament’s best. However, the sad reality is that the 20,000 plus who travelled to France are more than likely uninterested in or even antagonistic towards their domestic game. Depressingly, the week before the Euros kicked off, the League of Ireland announced the lowest set of weekly crowd figures for the 2016 season. Not only do crowds for the GAA sports of football and hurling dwarf the attendances at League of Ireland games, the domestic game remains a poor relation to English and Scottish (specifically Celtic) soccer. The departure lounges of Dublin Airport are thronged each Friday with weekending Premier League fans, while the sheer volume of supporters’ clubs that meet up to watch games in dedicated fan pubs, pejoratively nicknamed Barstoolers by L of I enthusiasts, means that Irish football struggles to find a niche.

To put this into some sort of context, Celtic played Barcelona at the AVIVA Stadium (aka Lansdowne Road) on Saturday 30^th July and over 40,000 spectators saw Efe Ambrose score for Barca. That wasn’t the ultimate Barstooler experience though; 4 years previous Man United beat a League of Ireland select 7-0 in front of 50k, almost all of whom took the piss out of their own domestic players’ performances. Sickening. Just sickening. Personally I was at Clontarf Cricket club for the Leinster Senior Cup final versus YMCA, but if I’d been going to a game Longford Town v Galway United, played at the same time as the AVIVA love-in, and fair play to them for that, would have been my preference.

Since 1985, when I lived in County Derry, I’ve been slowly collecting my League of Ireland set; firstly Finn Harps from Donegal and then Derry City, until last summer’s trip to Waterford United left me within touching distance of completing the lot. In the last 30 years, I’ve seen the League of Ireland go from Sunday afternoon blood and thunder scraps on mudheaps in the middle of winter, played in front of packed, roaring crowds to Friday evening stalemates in July on immaculate pitches with only the dedicated hardcore watching, often in silence. Sky television paid for floodlights at Irish grounds, as a sop to moving the games from the traditional Sunday afternoon slot in the early 90s. This innovation didn’t halt the rot in terms of attendances and an April – October season was introduced in 2003, to negligible positive effect. In 1986, there were 20 teams in 2 divisions, with the vast majority coming from in and around Dublin; the same situation remains, though the club names, identities and fates have changed.

The biggest crowds are to be found at the current top 2 clubs and best European campaigners, Champions Dundalk and Cork City, who both pull in more than 4,000 on average for league games. Indeed, Cork City bravely bowed out of the Europa League against Genk in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,645 at their immaculate Turners’ Cross ground.  Dundalk’s incredible trouncing of BATE Borisov, despite being forced to play at Tallaght Stadium, the home of Shamrock Rovers, means they are in a play-off for the group stages of the Champions’ League against Legia Warsaw, with the home game slated for the AVIVA. Even if they lose that one, they’re in the group stages of the Europa League, with 6 guaranteed games until Christmas. It will do wonders for their finances and Ireland’s club co-efficient. Frankly, despite the notorious history of fiscal impropriety among Irish football clubs, it’s impossible to look anywhere other than those two for domestic dominance in the next few seasons.

Meanwhile, the historically successful Dublin powerhouses of Shamrock Rovers, Bohemian and St. Patrick’s Athletic are treading water. The former have dispensed with ex-Hibs boss Pat Fenlon after an indifferent campaign, while the latter pair struggle by in aged grounds at Dalymount and Richmond Parks respectively. That said, St Pat’s had 2,800 for a Europa League tie against Dynamo Minsk (when I landed at Dublin Airport, the next departure was for Minsk) and Bohs sold out Dalier, with 5,400 present for a 0-6 loss to Newcastle, the week before I arrived, typically enough. Soberingly, Da Boez’s next game saw 1,175 in attendance for the visit of Derry City; perhaps the most depressing Irish sports development since the announcement of a new Sports Direct store on Talbot Street.

Other top flight teams tend to be regional hubs; Sligo Rovers, Galway United, Wexford Youths, Longford Town and Bray Wanderers, not to mention Derry City and Finn Harps, are basically county clubs. They boast strong traditions, fervent (if modest) local support and community links. The real problem lies in the lower division, where the unending struggles to remain in existence are real and everyday problems, suggesting that 1 senior division of 16 teams is the only logical way forward. Remember Setanta TV? It struggled on in Ireland until this year, before rebranding as Eir TV, who show a live top flight game every Friday night. State broadcaster RTE cover cup games and have a weekly highlights programme on a Monday, Soccer Republic, that brings in good viewing figures and boasts the intelligent commentary of former national boss Brian Kerr, which begs the question why the FAI haven’t found a role for him in their structure.

While Soccer Republic showcases the indigenous Premier Division, there’s no money and no publicity below that level, meaning the 8 team First Division is a sporting elephants’ graveyard. Limerick City may be top by 20 points, but they’re funded personally by JP McManus, the horse racing billionaire.  Athlone Town are Ireland’s oldest club; they’re bottom of the table, skint and ready to go bust. Waterford United used to be one of the country’s foremost clubs, though they’re on the bones of their arse. UCD (University College Dublin) survive on zero crowds and the benevolence of their institution.  Cobh Ramblers were Roy Keane’s first team, but they’re definitely Cork’s minor club.  Drogheda United won the title a decade ago, then suffered relegation and have financial problems. Shelbourne used to be successful, but they’re skint and their Tolka Park home is in a desperate state. This is made all the worse by neighbouring Bohemian having sold their Dalymount Park ground to Dublin Corporation, with a full refurbishment promised. Shels are faced with a choice of share, merge or die with their closest rivals.

The identity of the final club in Division 1 was up for grabs in 2014; following the disappearances of Kilkenny City, Kildare County, Mervue United, Monaghan United, Salthill Devon, Sporting Fingal and latterly Shamrock Rovers B in successive seasons, finding the correct team to make up the full complement was tough. There weren’t many applications, so the FAI turned to Cabinteely, from the affluent south Dublin suburbs to make up the numbers. The main problem was they played at Kilbogget Park, a public amenity shared with Seapoint RFC, where the only seats are the ones in the bar. I saw Dundalk lose 1-0 away to BATE in the first leg, over a couple of fine pints of black porter there, incidentally. A deal was struck with Blackrock RFC for a groundshare at Stradbrook, as the differing seasons for the two codes barely overlap, so Cabo joined the senior ranks in 2015. They promptly finished in last place, but unlike many other clubs, Cabinteely may just be here to stay.

A glorious Friday evening in July saw me take a scenic ramble from Dalkey to Blackrock, for Cabinteely’s home game against Waterford United, with Dublin Bay on one side and elegant seafront Georgian mansions on the other. Certainly, it was scenery dissimilar to many of my normal matchday vistas. The crowds of Premier Division games are announced, but not in Division 1. A rough estimate suggested to me that around 400, paying €10 a head, were gathered in the 3 sided ground. There was no cover; on the top side railway sleepers provided seating; or standing when it’s wet. The bottom side, fringed by trees that screened rugby training pitches, saw the 50 or so travelling supporters congregating by manager, and ex Carlisle boss, Roddy Collins and his team in the dug-out. The far goal immediately gave way to untilled soil, while the near goal boasted a changing room and bar complex, with tarmacked standing in front. Neat enough, but only Northern Alliance standards over here, even with the floodlights.

I watched with interest the pre-match rituals of the two sides; Cabinteely, managed by L of I legend Eddie Gormley were organised, business-like and enthusiastic in their drills and warm-ups. Waterford came out without the manager and had a game of five-a-side, amid much merriment. One team seemed professional and the other a pub team. The game was the first I’d ever seen officiated by a female referee in Ireland. Basically, she had little or nothing to do as the game followed a pattern I’ve become familiar with at First Division games; lovely control, quick feet, incisive passing, minimal tackling, endless offsides and abject shooting.  Pretty play with no end product; pleasing, but a slightly dull opening period.

During the second half, I took a wander round, noticing a complete gear change from Cabo, who won the game 2-0; the first an impressive free kick from distance and the second a powerful header from a pinpoint cross. Basically, Cabinteely are a very well run youth club team; almost like the Wallsend Boys Club of south Dublin, with dozens of teams at all ages, paying subs and volunteering to keep the project on track. Stewards, bar staff, club shop and catering operatives are all volunteers; relatives of players in all probability. On the pitch they are disciplined and organised, with a clear pattern of play I’m sure is replicated in their underage teams. Dissent simply is not tolerated; they never question any decisions. Waterford United had no answer to such organisation; they capitulated or tried to win it by shooting from impossible angles, while Collins raged on the touchline. Their support had hit the clubhouse by 80 minutes, muttering darkly about the death agonies of their club. Cabo’s fans applauded politely at full time; after all it’s only a game.

The following week, I had intended to watch Shelbourne away to Limerick, but the game was put back 24 hours because Limerick’s impending League Cup semi-final trip to Derry. Instead, I plucked my last low-hanging fruit, with a trip north to Drogheda United in County Louth, against Cabinteely. Limerick, along with Cobh, must wait until another year.  The first ground I saw that day was Gortakeegan, the currently disused home of the former Monaghan United; it looked in far better shape than the charmingly ramshackle United Park, which until recently had been called Hunky Dory’s Park, that Drogs call home. In the year of his death, this had nothing to do with David Bowie, but was the result of a sponsorship deal between the Diamond Drogs and County Louth’s very own Tayto Crisps.

Drogheda harbour promotion play-off ambitions and are well-placed to achieve this. Their star player and captain is former Sean Thornton, a former international with Premier League experience at sunderland in both their 19 point and 15 point relegation seasons. It didn’t come off for him this game though; Cabo were as disciplined and organised as they were the week before and a frustrated Thornton was replaced on the hour. The game saw both teams employ a short, neat passing game, utterly without a cutting edge. Just as it seemed the only risk to a blank scoreline would be a moment of inspiration or insanity, Aaron Ashe swooped on a loose ball and drove it into the bottom corner. One goal was enough and the 500 Drogs fans, complete with obligatory drummer, went wild at full time. The 11 Cabo stalwarts shrugged their shoulders and made for the car park; it is only a game after all.

If the League of Ireland does go to a single division of 16 clubs, let’s hope it’s passion and achievements on the pitch that count. However, if it’s financial stability and a solid structure that guarantee a seat at the top table, Cabinteely are waiting quietly in the wings.

Imbarrathin Bodies

Newcastle United have won their last two league games in contrasting ways; however, unlike the team, certain fans really need this international break we have coming up...

How about this as Newcastle United’s starting XI against Brentford next time out: Anita, Atsu, Clark, Colback, Darlow, Diame, Dummett, Gayle, Gouffran, Hanley and Hayden? Or perhaps: Mitrovic, Murphy, Atsu, Sels, Gamez, Tiote, Yedlin, Gouffran, Mbemba and Perez. Neither of them have much to recommend them in terms of balance, positional logic or even probability I’ll admit, which is mainly because the first has been selected purely on alphabetical order and the latter consists of reverse numerical shirt numbers. However, in my defence, I would suggest that my proposals have as much credence and validity as the endless screed of teams chosen by those on social media whose comments and activities suggest they feel they are more suited to the role of manager of Newcastle United than Rafa Benitez.

In the period since the last international break, Newcastle United have played 7 times, including a successful cup tie against a Wolves side who’d done a number on us 4 days prior in the home league game. Of the 18 league points available, the players have accrued 13 by way of a comfortable victory at an impotent Derby County, an absolute thrashing of QPR that was our most emphatic away league win in half a century, a crazy, breathless topsy-turvy comeback triumph against Norwich that will be remembered for decades and a hard-fought three points against Rotherham, not to mention a handy draw at Villa. Or at least that’s my interpretation of events; received ignorance has it that NUFC “played shit” in the Derby and Rotherham wins, “got lucky” against Norwich and were “embarrassing” against Villa. For the purposes of reality, the word should be pronounced “imbarrathin” and spat out of the corner of the gob like a volley of hockle. The main reason for this widespread, nonsensical ire is because several decent chances were missed in B6 that would have put the game to bed, before the home team came back into it during the last half hour. It happens. Shit happens. Gayle is a great Championship striker, but he’s not Diego Costa; sometimes he’ll miss. Sometimes our keeper will miss a cross and the opposition will score, but it’s no need to wish a career-ending injury on him.  

Confession time; I’ll hold my hands up and admit there are a couple of members of the squad I’m not entirely convinced by.  Firstly, Lazaar against Wolves in the League Cup, where I thought his first half performance was up there in lights alongside the finest moments of John Ryan, Celestine Babayaro and Brian Tinnion at left back. It’s the only time we’ve seen him this season; intriguingly, the only time Jesus Gamez has been spotted in public was the round before. A possible explanation for this, as well as the limited number of outings for Mbemba thus far, is Rafa’s stated disinclination to use those whose English skills are wanting on a regular basis. Our manager places enormous emphasis on the importance of on-field communication and I can totally see where he’s coming from as regards the high standards he sets for the team being potentially compromised because of language difficulties.

The other player with whom I have an issue is Mitrovic. For a start I thought Daryl Murphy gave an excellent performance as a target man; happy to play with his back to goal, winning it in the air, holding the ball up and neatly laying it off against Wolves. Secondly, I find it utterly distasteful to see Mitrovic staggering around trying to fight everyone like a pissed grandad on a Magaluf stag weekend. Personally I’ve never been a fan of the Serbian Whitehurst, who has become something of a folk hero to those nascent toughies from Year 8 and Year 9 at Burnside, Churchill and Norham attempting to flex their meagre stores of testosterone to the pocket of Wolves fan in the East Stand / Gallowgate corner at the cup game.  

The youth’s glorification of Mitrovic’s unacceptable braggadocio is the unfortunate and unavoidable product of unchecked, prehistoric attitudes, encapsulated by the older generation’s deification of Paul Gascoigne’s repulsive antics. His latest conviction for racist hate speak has seen an Orwellian interpretation of events, whereby sympathy is not to be given to the humiliated victim of Gascoigne’s crass, offensive utterances, but to the has-been, alcoholic, misogynist on the basis that “he’s one of our own.” Well, he’s not one of mine and I’m disappointed he didn’t get jail time, as it may have shocked him into maturity. Instead, the last we heard of him, he failed to appear at a speaking engagement the other Thursday, preferring to wallow in a lake of booze atop a mountain of self-pity.

Suffice to say while I may groan inwardly and mutter incoherently about Mitrovic’s conduct and remain unconvinced by Lazaar, there is absolutely no way I will resort to screaming tantrums in the ground, or on-line. The abuse Matz Sels encountered after the Villa performance was nothing short of shameful, but predictable among the element of our support that possess an uncontrollable urge to vent immoderate anger in the direction of any player who has the temerity to make a mistake. Behaviour like that is a stain on our club. Somewhat tellingly, those who’ve leaped onto the end of this on-line ire include Rob Elliott and Karl Darlow; both keepers who both rehabilitated themselves with stunning displays after being written off by the soi disant savants wielding bile-dripping smartphones.

There is a fine line between debate and discord; a line that may be less than discernible to the permanently hard of thinking, Carling soaked cretins whose social media presence appears to consist entirely of whining and sniping about the rebuilding job that Rafa has undertaken at Newcastle United. Some people are simply never happy and find complaining meets an elemental need within their psyche. I find debate at any level with such dullards a tiresome, fruitless pursuit, often because those adopting such negative attitudes do so to create a more interesting on-line persona for themselves than the weak, shallow and inadequate excuse for a human being they are in reality.

Recently, I have discerned a dogmatic, inflexible first response to angry posturing that seems to be characterised by a zero tolerance policy to any criticism of NUFC, whether it be shallow bellyaching or more nuanced expressions of doubt. Players, the manager, tactics, performances and the wider cultural life of the club are all beyond discussion, never mind criticism. For instance, I remain to be convinced of the value of the Gallowgate Flags project. To me it seems to be a pale imitation of a tradition among Merseyside football followers, unconvincingly welded to a vague approximation of the continental Ultra culture. I suppose the logic being that Rafa is a Spaniard who managed Liverpool, so he’ll like it. If that’s the case, it seems little different to the baffling Mackem kickstarter project last year to buy Advocaat’s wife bouquets of flowers.

Now while I’m agnostic as to the benefits of this flags carry on, it seems that voicing such an opinion in public (or on social media) is to risk being denounced for treachery and invite a tirade of insults for things you’ve not even thought, never mind said. Several dozen twitterati got on their high horses to give me abuse, presuming I’d said they were lining their own pockets, setting themselves up as super fans, as well as causing us to lose to Huddersfield and Wolves. Best, or worst of all, was my innocent remark that I didn’t realise they’d had a display at the Reading game. Talk about lighting the blue touch paper; the volume of immoderate obloquy surprised even me. Sensitivity seems to be the preserve of the insecure; inventing criticism where none has been made is as ridiculous as the negative posturing of the angry brigade.

Let’s try and learn from the local game. Club N’s supporters are in open revolt; their manager walked out for a job at the ambitious and cash rich Club S. In response Club N’s chairman, who had already driven away some of his closest volunteer acolytes in the summer, gave the job to an unknown from Club W, meaning Club N’s beloved and loyal assistant boss had no choice but to tender his resignation, to the utter fury of Club N’s dwindling bunch of fans, who are already unhappy at the length of time it has taken to build a club house. Meanwhile Club S’s support continues to grow exponentially as their ground and squad are improved in advance of almost certain promotion. However, Club N lead the division by 5 points from Club S. All this shows, life is far more enjoyable with a glass half full view of life.

I think it’s time for everyone who follows NUFC to use this international break for some proper reflection; take a deep breath and look back to where we’ve come from and where we hope to be going. Personally, I believe that is back to the Premier League, but I hope we can all enjoy the journey, whatever our eventual destination.

Full Time

At the age of 52, I've just retired from 11-a-side football; here's why.....

On Sunday 10th June 2001, aged almost 37 and having spent two academic years working in Slovakia, as well as, more importantly, keeping goal for the expatriate Bratislava Academicals club, I flew home from Vienna via Brussels. The day before I’d scored a penalty in our last game of the season, an 8-2 victory over the Slovak Railway Police, which seemed as good a point to bow out as any. You see at that time, I believed I’d completed my last ever season of 11-a-side football, just shy of 27 years after making my competitive debut for Falla Park Juniors against High Felling, in a thoroughly convincing 7-1 win. I scored two goals on that September afternoon in 1974 and can still visualise them; both left footed, both from distance, the second in off the post.  I played up front in those days; did so until 1996 when I chucked in Sunday mornings after getting 2 red cards by the end of September. As a side-line, I had my interest in the small sided game, having taken up 5-a-side keeping in 1990 and loving it; I still do.

Memories don’t pay the bills though. Back on Tyneside, I was unemployed, vulnerably housed, recently divorced and the father of a 6 year old son, so securing paid employment and a permanent roof over my head were of more immediate concern than finding a team to play for. That said, I did pick up a couple of regular 5-a-side kickabouts each week, topped up with infrequent challenge matches at work. 

Consequently it was still something of a bolt from the blue when my workmate Hezza asked if I fancied a game in the North East Over 40s League in late summer 2005, as his team’s regular keeper was on holiday. Formed in 1979, the league consists of 5 divisions of 16 teams, extending from Richmond in North Yorkshire to Ashington in Northumberland, giving well over 1,000 blokes in their 40s, 50s, sometimes 60s and very occasionally 70s, the chance to play competitive football at 10.30 every Saturday morning for 8 months of the year, with the only concessions to age being 5 roll-on / roll-off substitutes and a truncation of the game to 80 minutes. This isn’t walking football; it’s a deadly serious business, where you have to provide proof of age before you can be registered.  Ringers and wrong’uns, as well as culpable secretaries, get sine die bans if caught. I’d been required to show both my passport and driving licence to prove my bona fides in advance of my debut.

So it was on Saturday 20^th August 2005, over 4 years since I’d last stood in front of a full sized set of goals in a properly competitive context, I made my debut for Heaton Winstons in Division 4 of the Steels Over 40s League, away to The Welcome Inn at Blue House Fields in Hendon, Sunderland (the original home of SAFC in 1879 no less) and conceded half a dozen unanswered goals. We changed by the side of the pitch. New players were introduced to old campaigners in the warm up. The only person I knew was Hezza.  I was a bag of nerves, but couldn’t be blamed for any of the goals as the opposition, a right bunch of hairy arsed Mackem radgies, steamrollered us. At full time, everyone paid £4 subs and went to the pub. I loved every second of it, despite the result and had a considerably better time than I did at SJP later that afternoon, watching a stale 0-0 draw with West Ham.

The following week, with John the regular keeper still away, I kept my place as we went to top flight Cramlington Burton House in the whole league Villa Real Cup first round. This time I felt a little less terrified about playing, partly because we took the lead after about 15 seconds; I can still see skinny Robbie Morrow, a whippet of a winger, scampering down the touch line, then slinging in a cross for Brian Jones, a secondary school deputy head rather than his more exotic, iconic 60s namesake, to power a header home from the penalty spot. I made a couple of  smart stops, but their class told and we eventually lost 3-1, which was no disgrace.

Week 3; we are away again, this time in the League to Hartlepool Navy Club on a pitch absolutely decimated by mole activity. John the regular keeper is back, but it’s agreed we’ll play a half each. Tim, our bouffant-haired professional trombonist left back, takes a free kick on the halfway line. It sails into the box, lands on a molehill and proceeds to die, scuttling along the floor, before apologetically dribbling into the net. We’re still giggling about it at half time when we change round a goal up. Having had little or nothing to do, I go off for John, who I’m expecting to be some kind of latter day Sepp Maier considering the hushed tones in which he’s spoken of. He proceeds to concede 3 absolute jokes in 10 minutes, before we get a late consolation. The full time inquest concludes that, as we’ll be back to full strength next week once the holiday season is over, there’s no need for panic; especially as our manager Danny, an absolutely lovely bloke whose death in January 2011 is the one tragic event I’ve known with Winstons, is off on holiday for a month. This means our secretary steps in as boss; he’s called Dave and is a solicitor. John the keeper is a solicitor as well. Perhaps that’s why he shrugs off his howlers. Perhaps that’s why I get an email on the Friday evening saying thanks for my efforts, but that my services were no longer required. An offer was extended for me to meet up with everyone for a post-match drink on Saturday lunchtimes, ending with the caveat “but I suspect you have other things to do with your time.”

To say I was devastated by this brush-off was an understatement. The sense of rejection and crushing blow to my self-esteem was almost incalculable. I felt worthless and stupid for daring to assume I could actually dream of playing regular football again aged 41.  I went out and got absolutely plastered alone and cried myself to sleep, then tried to forget about it. Winstons lost 8-0 to Pennywell Comrades the next morning, but the result was immaterial.  About three weeks later, everything turned out nice again though; Danny was back from his holidays, heard about Dave’s dealings with me, then picked up the phone to extend a personal invite to rejoin the fold. He couldn’t promise me a game, but he said I deserved a place in the squad on merit. Of course I accepted his offer. Danny, that phone call is something I’ll be eternally grateful to you for my friend.

I immediately got into the routine of away games that autumn. For some bizarre reason, our pitch at Benfield School was unavailable until the New Year. Therefore my travelling companions became Rod the full back and Robbie the winger; a pair of displaced Mancunian reds. We’d set off from Robbie’s in Jesmond at 9, always listening to Sounds of the Sixties with Brian Matthew,  regularly getting lost and being hopelessly late in those pre Sat Nav days. The entire squad used to meet up at Washington Services  (A1) or the Echo building in Pennywell (A19) for our forays into deepest darkest Durham, Wearside or Teesside.  Memorably, we went to West Cornforth and got so hopelessly lost, we stopped at the first football field we could find, and then attempted to get changed in a Scout Hut at Ferryhill where the South West Durham Under 9s tournament was taking place. We avoided being placed on the Sex Offenders register, before finally arriving at the pitch in Mainsforth at about 11.15, to see their players lounging around on the floor and the ref practising his golf swing with a metal wood in the centre circle. I’m almost ashamed to say we won 2-0; mind I didn’t play. In fact got 2 more games in goal that whole season when John was on his February skiing break, though I found myself playing in a variety of outfield roles as an emergency substitute when we were severely depleted, on about a dozen occasions. That became my signature role; unused spare keeper, flag waving assistant ref and bit part sub. Meanwhile m’learned friend in nets conceded an average of 3 goals a game, at least one being a lob and another at his near post.

We finished 4^th bottom that year and in a desire to improve out lot, Danny and Dave stepped aside from selection matters, in favour of Ash, who had been a player before my time. He’s a bit of a tactician Ash and he certainly had an effect on our league position. It got worse as in 2006/2007 when we secured the antepenultimate berth, though I did score my first and only competitive goal for Winstons and second one this millennium. Away to Peterlee Hearts of Oak, I was told to “make a nuisance of yourself up front.” Their full back was trying to run the clock down by knocking the ball back to his keeper when I intervened.  

Remembering the poor touches he’s displayed when fielding backpasses previously, anticipating the ball bouncing slightly higher than normal because of the hard pitch, feeling it hit the top of my right thigh and rolling free as the keeper fails to get it under control, taking a steadying touch with my right foot to take it away from him, then rolling it in to an empty net with my left instep from the angle of the six yard box, before running off behind the goal and punching the air with my left hand. Going in to injury time, we were now losing only 5-2.  It was one of the highlights of my life.

That summer, we went on a recruitment drive and signed some less than terrible players, such as Jules, Scoot and George, to finish 6^th in 2007/2008. The tough thing about the bottom division is that each season a couple of new clubs, often from sizeable communities, such as Easington or Shildon, generally consisting of Sunday morning teams who have grown old together, join and more often than not, run away with the league, while teams higher up find they’re just too old to carry on and pack in. As a result occasionally more than 3 teams are promoted to fill up the gaps; in 07/08 the top 5 went up. We missed out by a point and it looked like our ship had sailed, as in the following years we finished 8^th, 9^th, 11^th, 12^th and 9^th again. In all those seasons, bar an extended run in 08/09 when John was out injured from January onwards, I played a maximum of 6 games a season, but remained involved as webmaster, treasurer and linesman. I was the archetypal clubman; the spare keeper at one of the worst sides in the region. Dozens of players came and went; they retired or transferred, or just stopped coming without saying why, including Hezza who’d recruited me in the first place. The hardcore 15 were always there; if there were only a dozen of us, I’d still be the one on the touchline, but I didn’t care.

Why did I put up with this this? Because I loved it; I loved the sense of camaraderie and belonging it gave me. For the first time in my life, I felt fully secure and accepted in male company, despite having played for hopeless football teams all my life. Basically, while growing up I didn’t have a proper family experience, which is partly why I struggle with rejection, as I spent so many years being repeatedly told I was worthless by the monsters who were my parents. My dysfunctional childhood lead me towards searching out surrogate units with which to bond and Winstons, like the post punk music scene of the late 70s and early 80s, ultra-left wing political groupings and various writers co-operatives I’ve been involved with over the years, provided me with a safe haven. I was able to be myself and, in the main, to be accepted for who I was.  Of course, Winstons wasn’t a cult or a commune, it was a sports team and obviously I’m well aware of my limitations as a keeper. I’ve always prided myself on good reactions, safe handling and decent kicking, but I’m lousy in the air when it comes to crosses, susceptible to getting lobbed and ponderously slow, though I never considered myself the inferior of John in any way; however these limitations were outweighed by my willingness to help the club out, in whatever role, for as long as I was needed.

Summer 2013 saw a revolution at Winstons. We’d moved pitches firstly from the prohibitively expensive Benfield School, firstly to the sometimes swamplands, often dustbowl Paddy Freeman’s Fields in High Heaton and finally to the Bigges Main home of the legendary Wallsend Boys’ Club. A subtle change of name from Heaton to Wallsend Winstons enabled us to recruit half a dozen top quality, youngish players; blokes I’d paid money to watch in the Northern Alliance and Northern League. Fellas who’d turned out for my club Newcastle Benfield in the past, like Tom Rantoul who got 46 goals that season, the same as his strike partner Chris Arnott.  Wallsend lads, who looked upon it as an honour to represent their home town. One of the new arrivals was former Percy Main keeper Ian Hall; I couldn’t hold a candle to him. Sometimes you just know when it is time to go and I prepared for my imminent retirement with good grace. Suddenly John the keeper announced he “wasn’t standing on the touchline for anyone” and transferred to Mill View WMC, meaning I was able to resume my place as back-up keeper. Except Hally then broke his foot in our season-opening cup tie win over South Shields Catholic Club. This mishap meant was I was back between the posts for the next 8 games. Despite a catastrophic false start away to Hartlepool where we got blitzed 4-0, we won every subsequent game, scored loads and I had virtually nothing to do while deputising for The Halls.

That season, we roared to a league and cup double, winning the division by 27 points. The trophy was presented live on Football Focus, in a special edition from Wallsend Boys’ Club. To paraphrase Larkin, I’d never known success so whole and unexpected. Hally knew the score and would voluntarily go off to allow me some game time whenever the points were safe; I really appreciated the way he thought about me. It hadn’t been like that before.  Being on the field at the final whistle when we won the cup 4-1 over Horden Veterans was one of the most special sporting moments I’ve ever known.

In 2014/2015, we missed a second successive promotion by 2 points, but won the higher divisional cup. I played a few games, including conceding 7 at home to Horden, when Hally was stricken with flu and I’d spent the entire night previous in North Tyneside General Hospital A&E department with my mother after she’d fallen. I felt like retiring, but in retrospect I simply shouldn’t have played.

In 2015/2016, the cup remained in our possession and we eased to promotion as runners-up. Hally had a few injury niggles and I had about half a dozen games in total, which was great. In the season closer, for the first time ever, I was named Man of the Match. To me, it was an honour I could never have dreamed of being awarded. During the summer, I celebrated my 52^nd birthday and the club changed its name to Wallsend Boys Club Over 40s. With Hally on his jollies, I joined the hallowed ranks of Alan Shearer, Michael Carrick, Steve Bruce, Lee Clark and Alan Thompson, debuting for “the Boyza” in a 2-1 loss to Newton Aycliffe Cobblers’ Hall in the Villa Real Cup. Neither goal was my fault. The next week, a league game at Durham Stonebridge, some of them were; lobbed for the first, beaten in the air at a corner for the second and left flatfooted by a curling free kick for the last. I simply wasn’t good enough any longer. The combination of a higher division and the passage of time had checkmated me.

August 20^th 2016 marked the 11^th anniversary of my first appearance; things had changed a bit in the interim period in terms of playing strength. We went in 8-0 up against Gateshead Teams Club and I came after the break on for Hally as part of wholesale changes to give everyone a run out. The final score was 10-0 and, in all honesty, I didn’t even touch the ball. I remained sub not used in subsequent weeks as we defeated Pelton Crown 4-2 away and Hartlepool Catholic Club 4-1 at home on the first Saturday in September, but didn’t worry about not playing as I knew Hally was away for the following Saturday when we were due to play North Shields Pineapple.

I’d not been well in the week leading up to the Hartlepool fixture; the tail end of a summer cold had given way to a chest infection which, allied to my constant intimations of mortality, in the shape of clicking, arthritic knees and incessant lower back pain from a dodgy SI joint, had me beat. I’d come in from work on the Friday, worn out and struggling for breath as I sat down to take my shoes off. There was no other explanation for my decrepitude; I was actually feeling properly old for the first time in my life. Allied to that, I somehow managed to forget my boots that morning and had been forced to root through the bag of abandoned kit for a pair that were almost the right fit. Half a size too large, they chafed my heel, leaving a blood blister that lasted the whole of the following week.

Limping back to the changers, Ash took me to one side and informed me he’d not be playing me the week after when Hally was away. Instead, Davey Mauchline one of our younger players, a very versatile one too, was going to play in nets as he had experience of doing to.  Three years on from my previously presumed retirement, this time I knew the game really was up. Clubs at our level don’t have third choice keepers, so I shook hands and wished him all the best, before announcing my immediate retirement, except in dire emergencies.

I let everyone know by a mass email and was incredibly touched by both the kindness of those who sought to dissuade me and the support of those who backed my decision. We had a team night out that Saturday and it is one of the best we’ve ever had. I didn’t know it was physically possible to drink so many G&Ts. Throughout the night, I explained my reasons to a whole load of the lads.

In the end they all understood that this decision wasn’t a strop or a sulk; it was made in the best interests of the team, as had been Davy’s selection as deputy for Hally. In point of fact, Hally had been sent off in the cup final at the end of the previous season and Davy put the gloves on as we won 4-2, keeping a clean sheet in the process.  Secure in this knowledge, I knew my retirement was also a decision made for my best interests, as I realised the process of ageing catches up on us all. In my 11 years with Winstons, I must have played with the thick end of 100 players; only 4 of us who played against The Welcome Inn still show up now. Aidan, still getting his game in centre midfield, is 56; Rod is 67 in November and will always make himself available when we’re short, while Trev is 61 and made 2 appearances last year and still comes along to watch. Like the latter pair, I’m determined to remain involved, however tangentially, by following the lads and cheering them on from the sidelines, as they are representing the club I’ve been proud to call my own for more than a decade.

In contrast to my first appearance, Davy saved a penalty as we won 4-2 against North Shields Pineapple. Halls was back in goal the week after when we went joint top after beating Darsley Park 3-1. I saw both games, held the flag, kicked every ball and punched the air when we scored. It’s in the blood you see.

I haven’t retired from playing completely; 6-a-sides on Monday and Thursday will continue until I physically can’t play any longer. There are still 2 pairs of £50 keeper gloves and a brace of proper keeper tops and bottoms I intend to get full use from. However, I have rationalised and thinned out the amount of kit in the bottom of the wardrobe. Rolls of tape, spare laces, boot spanners and a plethora of half empty tubes of tiger balm; all gone to charity, recycling or land fill. In some ways it reminded me of emptying my dad’s wardrobe after his passing.  The essential difference between death and retirement, is that my departure from the 11-a-side game is both voluntary and without regrets.

Over 40s football gave me not only 3 winners’ medals (my only previous one was from the D&P Garages Trophy from Sunday football in 1993), but endless glorious memories of minor triumphs (penalty saves against Willow Pond in 2008 and Darsley Park in 2013), close friendships, savage but gentle mickey taking, lots of serious drinking and an unbreakable bond of belonging that I’ll take to my grave.

Winstons, I gave you everything for 11 years, but I gained an infinite amount more in return and for that I’m eternally grateful.