Read it in Books....

Those regular readers of my blog will no doubt remember my birthday post of my 50 favourite songs of the past 50 years, which ended up being a list of 100 songs as I couldn’t narrow them down enough. Well, in a similar vein, a request from my mate Paddy Robinson to list my 10 favourite books provoked a lengthy period of furrowed brows and intense contemplation. Unlike last time, I’ve decided to stick with 10 books, but with certain provisos; all of them are novels, 1 per author and they are listed in alphabetical author order. I’ve sought to contextualise each one, but not provide any kind of literary analysis.

Albert Camus – L’Etranger: not the first Camus book I read; that distinction goes to La Peste, but this tale of an individual who struggles to fit in with the world around him, captivated me immediately I read the first page. It was in late 1978 and I’d been made aware of The Cure’s Killing An Arab, but I read this before I heard the song. To this day I love the style of Mersault’s asides and his philosophical musings on an absurd word.

Roddy Doyle – The Van: All my life I’ve been a lover of books driven by characters rather than plots. I prefer people to stories and this superbly written account of two middle-aged, working class Dubs from da Nortsoide running a mobile chipper van during the 1990 World Cup is an absolute classic. In all seriousness, it has so much to say about the nature of friendship and masculinity as well.

James Ellroy – The Cold Six Thousand: I was first introduced to Ellroy in 1998, when I saw L.A. Confidential, which I found to be brilliantly plotted, if labyrinthine and peopled by incredible, amoral characters. Delving into Ellroy’s oeuvre, I found that the film was a simplified version and the massive books a fascinating, addictive insight into the seediest parts of American life. Of more importance than his gore fest police procedurals were the Underworld USA Trilogy that told of incredible malfeasance and astonishing conspiracies in the heart of the American state. The Cold Six Thousand, starting minutes after “Dallas” or “the hit,” as it’s known, is the most brutal, hard boiled and addictive of all Ellroy’s novel. An absolute masterpiece of crime faction.

Franz Kafka – The Trial: Moving on from Camus to Sartre, by way of Hesse, I came across Kafka in the early days of the hot summer of 1979. In my airless bedroom, I read with terror the story of Gregor Samsa in Metamorphosis, with utter incomprehension the events of The Castle and eventually found myself addicted to the gripping story of Josef K’s investigation and execution in The Trial, which remains my favourite Kafka book.

Cormac McCarthy – Suttree: I’d never read a word of McCarthy until 2007, when The Road became the novel everyone was talking about. I read it in a sitting and No Country For Old Men, both a brilliant book and a magnificent film, in the next few days. After that, I began to work my way through McCarthy’s collected works and in summer 2012, I read what I consider his finest work, the semi-autobiographical Suttree. In terms of character, place and time, it is unsurpassable in contemporary literature; perhaps one of the few books I’ve thought, around the halfway mark, that I simply didn’t want it to end. A glorious read and highly recommended.

David Peace – GB84: The greatest book of all time, in my opinion. An absolutely heart-breaking account of the doomed Miners’ Strike of 1984/1985 from an unapologetically left wing perspective, which avoids the sermonic, censorious pitfalls of the Liverpudlian Leninist tendency. Peace tells the story of the men involved, their families and communities and contrasts the noble struggle in which they are engaged with the evil machinations of the murderous state apparatus. It is an astonishing read and the book that has made me the angriest in my entire life. Utter genius.

Jean Paul Sartre – Nausea: I’d never understood what it meant to be bored, alienated or isolated, until I read this fascinating account of existential crisis, in the summer of 1980, only weeks after Sartre had died. A book that made me realise that not fitting in with the real world was a pretty good thing.

Eamonn Sweeney – Waiting for the Healer: I read this in the summer of 1998 when staying in an isolated cottage in Bonniconlon, County Mayo, musing over my own writing career. It is ostensibly a murder investigation meets buddy book set in the Irish midlands, but Sweeney’s excellent ear for dialogue and flair for description make it a stunning read. His later book The Photograph is also a brilliant read, but since then he has abandoned fiction for sports journalism and hurling in particular. A shame, as he displayed a rare and precocious talent. He also liked my work as well.

Alan Warner – Morvern Callar:  I read this in 1997, around the time I began to try and write fiction, finding it incredibly instructive. A male narrator writes in the first person as a female character, in a weird, dream like narrative based on the drug and drink sub culture of the isolated Scottish Highlands and the Balearic Islands. A fascinating bildungsroman that convinces and enthrals; unlike the dreadful follow-up These Demented Lands. I also adored The Sopranos, Warner’s tale of a teenage choir down from Oban for a competition in Edinburgh, which flopped because of an injudiciously chosen title.

Irvine Welsh – Glue: He has to be in here somewhere. It was a toss-up which of the novels got in, but in the end I plumped for the least famous of his Edinburgh male bonding books. It has the fewest comedic touches and an almost total absence of trademark grossness, but is all the better for it. A convincing and affectionate portrayal of the nature of Welsh’s major preoccupation; male concepts of friendship.

Of course, having completed this list, which doesn’t contain a single book I studied at university for either my BA or MA, another list jumped out at me of books I simply had to include. So here goes -:

Kingsley Amis – Lucky Jim: Hilarious from start to finish.

Iain Banks – The Wasp Factory: Bought it because of an interview in the NME in 1986 and loved it and every other one of his I’ve read.

Samuel Beckett – Murphy: Finally; a book I studied at university! A simply crazy and hilarious account of some of the most oddball characters ever created, with some truly memorable, side-splitting lines.

Charles Bukowski – Ham on Rye: While I much prefer his short stories, this fictionalised account of his early life with his psychopathic father (a cruel, shiny-faced bastard with bad breath) is, in my eyes, far preferable to the episodic Post Office and the misogynistic Women. Bukowski is, of course, more important for what he allowed writers to say than for the way he himself said those things.

James Kelman – A Disaffection: The novel begins Patrick Doyle was a teacher. Gradually he became sickened by it. That, and the fact he takes in Yoker Athletic v Glasgow Perthshire during the game, is more than enough to make it one of my favourite contemporary Scottish novels.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude: I read this over a scorching Easter weekend in Bratislava in 2000 and was captivated by the incredible flights of narrative fancy Marquez concocts in this most magical of magical realist novels. The events relating to the history of Macondo touched a part of me that few books manage to do at such an elemental level. A joy to read.

Magnus Mills – The Restraint of Beasts: The only one on this list I don’t own. Loaned to me by my mate Paul Webb in Bratislava, this is the greatest example of the Marxist concept of a worker’s alienation from the means of production I could imagine. It is also incredibly funny and ridiculous in an absurd way. I love all his books. I wish he’d write another one.

Flann O’Brien – At Swim-Two Birds:  Another book from my university era and a glorious, uproarious read. Perhaps the best book about drinking I’ve ever read. Hilarious from start to finish and superbly intertwined with legends from Irish mythology. I love everything O’Nolan wrote, in all his guises.

Jeff Torrington – Swing Hammer Swing!: Another magnificent Scottish novel. The Gorbals is being pulled down for slum clearance and a whole litany of oddballs, drunks and eccentrics are going to be made homeless. What can they do to save their local area? I adored this novel when first coming across it in 1995.

Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse 5:  All of Vonnegut’s novels are a joy to read, but the madness of the imagination, and the real life tragedy behind this one, make it a simply stunning read. Deeply affecting.

Eyes & Ears III

Here we are again with another of my infrequent cultural round-ups, relating to what I’ve been reading, hearing and very occasionally, watching during the last while. As this bulletin includes the time I’ve been off work, I have understandably read more than in previous blogs, though one surprising innovation for this summer is that live music really took centre stage (pardon the pun), not particularly in a Festival setting either, with some superbly important gigs in the last few weeks. However, purchases of recorded music are at a very low level; indeed I think I’ve only availed myself of 6 new albums in 2014, though the new Shellac release is on the horizon.

Firstly though; television. Now as I’m fond of saying, other than news, football and the occasional police procedural I’m not a great watcher of the idiot box. An exception I made was Utopia in 2013; a taut, dystopian fantasy that combined excellent characterisation, superb dialogue and innovative filming. Just when I’d forgotten about it, series 2 came on our screens in July. I saw episode 1 and 2 on consecutive nights, and then promptly went on holiday and forgot about the remainder. Luckily Laura recorded them for me and I watched the last 4 together, including the closing episode in real time. The superb script continued, with historic conspiracy theories about Airey Neave, interwoven with unvarnished gore and a real sense of character development. The final episode that saw Wilson accepting the role of Mr Rabbit and the others seeing their fate resting on his subsequent actions was genuinely shocking and paves the way for a third series that I’m anticipating already. The sheer ordinariness of the characters’ previous lives and the humdrum reality of the settings are what make Utopia both creepy and memorable.

Books:

Years ago, I used to buy books on spec, regardless of my reading habits and stockpile them, reading them when I had the time, or inclination. Eventually, after finally clearing my bedside table of the to-do pile, five years after I moved into my house, I decided I would only buy or accept books when there was a reasonable prospect of reading them in the next few months. I’ve pretty much stuck to that, though Neil Young’s autobiography Waging Heavy Peace has sat on the night stand since Ben bought me it last Christmas. It’ll be tackled soon, I promise. To be fair, I didn’t buy the crime thriller Melting by Anna Davis, I simply picked it up from the IT suite at work on the last day of term, as it had lain there, presumably abandoned, for about 2 months. I can understand why.

It’s the story of professional con artists Jason and Fran, who induct Eileen to their clan and move from London to Manchester to Cardiff, running high end scams that always succeed. The risible plot premise becomes a minor detail as they move to Cardiff and Eileen becomes embroiled in a love affair with the trustafarian restaurateur they are trying to bleed dry. For a while you actually feel for Eileen as she wrestles with her conscience but, long before she escapes unscathed with a huge bag of foreign currency and a false passport, the mundane dialogue, implausible events, poorly drawn characters and leaden descriptions squeeze the life out the book. Ironically Anna Davis has packed in fiction to become a literary agent. I hope she can spot talent better than she could ever construct books.

Another person who abandoned fiction is the Irish writer Eamonn Sweeney, whose debut novel Waiting for the Healer caused me to write him a fan letter in 1998. I told him that never before had Longford, Edgeworthstown and Athlone been so memorably depicted in a tremendous account of family ties and mental disintegration in the drink-sodden Irish midlands.  He responded with gratitude and we exchanged correspondence and several of my stories, which he was most complimentary about. A couple of years later, I read his fictionalised account of post Treaty Irish politics, The Photograph, which I felt to be a more ambitious and less successful work, then he dropped under the publishing radar. Until I discovered he had reinvented himself as a GAA journalist, specialising in hurling. As he comes from Sligo any GAA devotee will find this amusing, but as his dad was from Kilkenny and Sweeney now resides in Cork, things do make sense.

Having seen the GAA round 4A football qualifiers in Tullamore in July and still holding fervent hope that my beloved Cork hurlers would win the Liam McCarthy this year, I began Sweeney’s The Road to Croker just in time for Tipp to smash the Rebels out of sight in the semi-final. I still read the book though and loved every page of his account of the 2003 season. His father dies, but Kilkenny win the hurling just days before his death and Tyrone beat Armagh in the first all Ulster (9 counties!!) final, making it both tragic and uplifting as Eamonn boozes and muses his way from Dungarvan to Newry and west Cork to Donegal, watching games and meeting the people who make the GAA what it is; the social and sporting glue that holds the country together in good times and in bad. This was a tremendous read and I’d recommend it without hesitation.

If you’ve got £2, Up Craig Dobson’s exhaustive account of West Allotment Celtic’s promotion to Northern League Division 1 in 2013/2014 is well worth a read. Written with both flair and balance, it is lavishly illustrated and innovatively designed, though I’d imagine the subject matter makes it a niche read. However Craig is now editing a football magazine about all NE teams, Northern Promise, that I’m writing for, which will hopefully bring his enthusiastic work to a wider audience.

Another niche read for me was Comrades; Inside the War of Independence by Annie Ryan, that I picked up from a newsagents for a couple of quid in Dalkey on a blisteringly hot afternoon when I’d only gone in for a Cornetto. Comrades is a series of first-hand accounts of the War of Independence told by the protagonists, often many years after the events. Ryan’s book draws on official witness statements taken in the late 1940s and only released to the public by the Irish Government in 2002, so divisive and contentious were many of the oral accounts. The events are described in a series of geographically distinct chapters and include a section on the significant role played by women throughout the conflict. The flying columns, the ambushes, the activities of the Black and Tans and the reprisals are all vividly outlined through the voices of the protagonists, who recollect their roles, great and small, in the struggle that ultimately led to the Treaty negotiations and the establishment of the Irish Free State. 95 years on from the Soloheadbeg Ambush, the legacy of the bitter struggle to establish the state is evocatively brought to life by the actual words those long dead men and women who were brave enough to take part.

Bravery and the importance of standing up for what one believes in are the absolute cornerstones of Mohsin Hamid’s wonderful novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The book, which reminded me so much of La Chute by Albert Camus, is the story of a young Muslim man's loves and losses, daubed against the backdrop of September 11^th. The narrator Changez is a young Pakistani graduate of Princeton who secures a top job on Wall Street and falls in love with a beautiful American woman. Events following the attack on the Twin Towers send Changez spiralling to the depths of a paranoid crisis of identity.

During the course of the novel, set during a return visit to Lahore, Changez tells this story to a mysterious American. He explains how he has struggled against the suspicions cast on him where, despite his achievements and ostensible 'Americanness', the colour of his skin is a veil implying 'terrorist.' As afternoon turns to evening on a busy Lahore street, Hamid cleverly brews an air of simmering distrust between Changez and his listener, subtly juxtaposing light and dark. The novel succeeds in wrapping an exploration of the straining relationship between East and West in a story which remains taut until the final pages. The roles of speaker and listener remain unnervingly elusive as the narrative ends with a strident note of unease.

There’s a similarly unhappy ending in The Big Midweek: Life Inside The Fallby Steve Hanley, which catalogues his 16 year career in my once favourite band with meticulous, chronological detail. Hanley, the reserved family man who always demurred to Mark E Smith’s violent, arrogant posturing tells the story of the band and not just of the frontman. It is a great read, by turns fascinating, amusing, uplifting and eventually, thoroughly depressing. Fall fans know the band were never the same after signing to Beggars Banquet after 1983’s Perverted By Language bar the occasional spike above the mediocre in Extricate, Infotainment Scan or Shiftwork. However, if the band creatively began to decline, as an entity The Fall ought to have died when Hanley followed enigmatic Craig Scanlon, irrepressible Marc Riley, the irascible Karl Burns and his studious younger brother Paul Hanley out the band. That said, the book did make me nostalgic and I had a great evening rediscovering such classics as Iceland, Garden and Paintwork. Whisper it quietly, I’m off visiting Ben in Leeds at the end of November at The Fall are playing Brudenell Social Club that night.

Music:

Obviously I’ve already blogged about Teenage Fanclub in Glasgow, so staying with the theme of outdoor music, the place to start is the north east summer festival season. Well, there’s not a lot for me to say; I didn’t get to the Ouseburn weekend as I’d not heard of any of the bands, then the Mouth of Tyne Festival was headed by Paul Weller so I wasn’t going anywhere near that, which only left the Americana weekend at The Sage. That clashed with Northumberland v Sussex on the Sunday and Benfield v Darlington on the Saturday, so I was only able to make it there for the opening afternoon, as I wasn’t prepared to lash out £30 to see the scarcely credible Steven Siegal Blues Band. First up were Shipcote & Friends who did their usual down home, folksy kitsch thing with washboards and banjos. Pleasant and diverting as ever, if not exactly creative. However, the great thing about Americana, or Summertyne Home Fries Stage, to use the proper name, is the chance to catch up with people, whether that’s John and the lasses over from Euskal Herria, Raga popping in on an extended lunch break or Ray from Lindisfarne wandering past, it doesn’t really matter. This year I had a really good chat with Alan the photographer, who I’ve known for almost 25 years but rarely get to see.

Friendly chat was a good diversion when former Hurrah frontman Paul Handyside took the stage; a Lyle Lovatt thin singer songwriter with dreams of being John Hiatt on Tyne, his serious tone was almost too sombre for the occasion. A small indoor venue in winter would suit his furrowed brow better than the wide open spaces of the lee of the Sage. Rosie & the Hips were a blessed relief, playing some obvious covers and derivative originals that gave the event a village fete in Georgia type feel. Tony Bengtsson was altogether more original, in terms of the composition of the songs played, and with his band they finally took the music played beyond the level of incidental music with a strong set of Irish influenced folk rock that I’d be happy to hear again, as I would Lesley Roley. A talented and engaging singer songwriter, she went up in my estimation by including 2 Joni Mitchell covers and was the only artist I took the time to congratulate when she’d finished her set. In fact, hers was the last set I saw in its entirety. I knew I’d be heading off before Archie Brown’s dated blues rock bluster ended proceedings, but the bluegrass by numbers of the curiously passionless Kentucky Cow Tippers had me heading home just after 5pm.  Despite the damp squib of an ending, it was an enjoyable day and I’m glad this free festival still takes place, but I can’t say I heard much, bar Lesley Roley, that really moved me.

So far 2014 has not been a vintage one in terms of collecting huge amounts of new releases. Thus far I’ve now got 6 new albums and 3 singles to speak of. I’ve also got 1 brilliant old single. As a secondary birthday present, Ben got me the Jamaican 7” of War in a Babylon by Max Romeo and the Upsetters, a song I’ve loved since I first heard it in 1977. The absolute lack of reggae on my 100 songs for my 50^th birthday would have been resolved if I’d had this slice of genius a couple of weeks earlier.  Next stop must be to finally plug that gap in my collection by getting King Tubby meets The Rockers Uptown.

The only new release I’ve purchased since I last blogged has been Crabs by Death Shanties, the “balls to the wall” free jazz combo lead by Alex Neilson of Trembling Bells on drums, aided by Sybren Renema on baritone saxophone and Lucy Stein on visuals. Admittedly this latter third of the outfit doesn’t come across as much on record as it does live, which I found out for myself during a tremendous show at The Bridge Hotel on August 5^th. Live Neilson and Renema combine to produce a dense, throbbing soup of wailing, primal aggression, while Stein utilises an OHP to display visceral slabs of colour that illustrate the sound for all synesthetics present. In the most part, the tracks are short, punching and utterly uncompromising. Live there are a few seconds rest between each piece, but on vinyl it all combines in one throbbing, breathless complaint of sheer brutal anger, which for some unaccountable reason I find both heartening and hilarious. One track they didn’t do live is the astonishing take on the old English folk song, O Where is St George, which includes Trembling Bells guitarist Mike Hastings, as well as Lucy Stein reading from D M Thomas’s chilling novel The White hotel. This is really special experimental stuff and evidence of the importance of the eclectic Mr Neilson in so much of what is good in contemporary music. Roll on 2015 and the promised Trembling Bells album.

This takes us to a trio of absolutely superb gigs over the summer; Midlake in Whitley Bay on July 10^th, British Sea Power with the NASUWT Brass Band in Durham on July 17^th and The Mekons at Cluny 2 on August 7^th. I first came across Midlake in 2007 at the time of Van Occupanther which I still love. Laura and I were lucky enough to see them at The Sage 2 back then, but missed out on The Courage of Others tour in 2010, when they played the smaller Cluny as the 250 tickets went in a day or so. This latter album was hailed as a masterpiece and I assented to this view at the time, but in retrospect I don’t feel it has lasted as well as Van Occupanther, sounding a little worthy and precious in comparison. Line-up changes meant their latest Antiphon hints at a slight change of direction, but only slight. Midlake remain the most skilled and authentic contemporary exponents of the varying sounds of 1968 to 1974, covering folk rock, country rock and now psychedelic prog rock with great gusto and guile.

Having only previously been to Whitley Bay Playhouse to see Charlie Chuck (it was empty) or for work events (always dull), I wasn’t sure how the place would play out as a rock venue. Well, I’m glad we took some surreptitious cans of ready mixed G&T as the bar shut at 8.30, at the very moment when the band took the stage, on account of the staff there looking as terrified as previous generations of suburban venue staff had when Rock Around the Clock in 1954 or the 1976 Anarchy in the UK tour hit town. Needless to say, Midlake drew an audience far removed from the slavering hell hounds North Tyneside Council had feared. Thankfully there was a crowd as I had worried, on account of the minimal publicity, that there wouldn’t be much of a turn out, but the place was 90% full and it was a superb show.

Drawing mainly on Antiphon and Van Occupanther the band gave an intense and accomplished account of themselves, barring an anti-climactic Young Bride. The highlights came towards the end when Roscoe gained a massive response, before the pretend encore (they seem at one with David Gedge on this) consisted, obviously, of an anthemic Head Home, but was prefaced by a version of I Shall Be Released that was better than the one from The Last Waltz. Midlake set the bar gloriously high in terms of summer gigs and I’m delighted that each successive band raised it.

The week after, British Sea Power’s gig at Durham Gala Theatre for the start of the International Brass Festival was an immediate sell out. Thankfully, I managed to secure a pair of tickets for Ben and I through Bill at work. A pleasant afternoon wander through the land of the Prince Bishops via a few beers and a meal in the Head of Steam saw us arriving at the venue in good time, as we’d been warned it would be a prompt start. That is putting it mildly as BSP, with no support, took the stage at 7.35 and the whole event was over by 9.10, with Ben and I catching the slightly delayed 9.22 train back to the Central. This made Whitley Bay Playhouse seem like a Haight Astbury happening in terms of event management, but the gig was even better.

I’ve never seen BSP in the same venue twice; Middlesbrough Empire, Newcastle University, The Tyne Theatre, Northumbria University and now here, the last 3 times with Ben. Every show has been different and every one a triumph. This run through their back catalogue with the NASUWT Brass Band was another classic evening, despite the band’s unaccountable and perverse need to end some gigs with When a Warm Wind Blows through the Grass immediately after Waving Flags had got energy levels up to the stratosphere. To be fair, this is only a minor quibble as the 15 songs benefitted from the beefing up provided by the authentic Durham pit band. Quite what the fellas in their neat uniforms thought of the usual 15 minute orgy of sound that was Lately, which is always my BSP highlight, though Lights out for Darker Skies and The Great Skua came close, was not reported. I’m really looking forward to seeing this lot again at The Sage on October 25^th, to discover if the brass section is even more vital after a few months gigging experience. It did make me wonder why rock bands don’t adopt a conductor, waving a baton and coaxing out ever greater performances from the musicians. Perhaps one day we’ll see that and I’d imagine BSP are one of the bands most likely to incorporate such a potential innovation.  Also, the Durham stage was too small for the bears and I want to see Ursos Actos treading the boards during Lately again before I die.

If British Sea Power had gone for extra recruits for their band, The Mekons had gone the opposite way and pared the whole thing down to essentials. In the absence of the unwilling Tom Greenhalgh, the most enduring band to come out of Headingley (are the Gang of Four the greatest? Possibly; certainly the most important) stripped themselves down to an acoustic outfit and brought along Chicago pal Robbie Fulks to play in front of a healthy gathering at The Cluny 2 on August 7^th. This was to have been my 50^th birthday lads night out celebration, but with Raga opting to see Penetration at the Three Tuns and Ben off to Boomtown Festival, the theme for the evening was I’ll have to Dance Then on my Own, which they didn’t play of course, but we did get a storming set drawn from the entire history of the band.

There was an understandable emphasis on much of the post reformation era C&W tinged material,  on account of their acoustic  set-up, but that was fine as it is some of their strongest material, with Ghosts of American Astronauts, (Sometimes I Feel Like) Fletcher Christian and Big Zombie being particular highlights. That said, the old timer in me was elated to hear The Building, which Jon did while Robbie Fulks changed a string for him, and a final encore of Where Were You? No Corporal Chalkie alas, but a hug from Jon Langford at the end made the whole evening, which was really well attended, a total triumph. Thanks to the Jumpin’ Hot Club for putting it on. I really hope Tom’s absence from the band isn’t the sign of a final fissure and that The Mekons get back together recording soon.

Well, that’s it for now. The autumn offers the prospect of gigs by Vic Godard (Star & Shadow final event on September 19th, as well as Ben and I’s last dad and lad gig before he heads off to Leeds Met to study History), British Sea Power at The Sage on October 26^th, The Wedding Present doing Watusi and Mini at The Cluny on November 10^th and Ray Jackson’s Lindisfarne at the City Hall on December 23^rd. In terms of recorded music, there’s the new Shellac album at last, as well as a special Velvet Underground Live 68 semi-official bootleg that I’ve got on order from Volcanic Tongue, which I’ve discovered is now mail order only (wish I’d learned that before my 4 mile hungover hike in Glasgow the other week). In terms of books, I’ve just banged in orders for  Roddy Doyle’s latest collection of his Two Pints duologes and Eamonn Sweeney’s book about Sligo Rovers. Then I’ll get round to Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace. Is it any wonder I don’t have time to watch television?

Strawberry Fields Forever

At the end of July, I uploaded my Irish tour blog. This is related to it; an article that appears in Stand #9 about Wexford Youths FC & Mick Wallace TD. Any Leninists in the audience are advised to look away now....

On Tuesday 22^nd July 2014, 58 year old father of four Mick Wallace was arrested with his partner Clare Daly, formerly of Newbridge, County Kildare, on the runway at Shannon Airport. After being brought to Limerick Garda Station, the two of them explained their presence on the tarmac was part of a plan to inspect US Military Aircraft who land there to refuel and ensure the planes were not transporting any armaments, as such an act would, in the opinion of Wallace and Daly, compromise Ireland’s neutrality. A file on the afternoon’s events was prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions and the two were let go without charge.

By the evening of Friday 25^th July 2014, Wallace  had brushed off the residual effects of his afternoon in custody, spent two further days in the witness box of the Central Court in Dublin  while pursuing a private prosecution against former Justice Minister Alan Shatter for revealing details on an RTE chat show of a fixed penalty Wallace had accrued for using his mobile phone while driving, and was secure on his home patch of Ferrycarrig Park in Crossabeg; doling out complimentary glasses of red wine at half time, complaining about the first period performance and generally working the room in his role as founder and ex officio owner of Wexford Youths FC in their League of Ireland fixture against Shamrock Rovers B. Mick’s rhetorical imprecations to the assembled guests and friends who hung on his every word, must have had some effect on the home side, or manager Shane Keegan’s half time tactical advice may have borne fruition, as the pink shirted Boys of Wexford, whose motto of 'Life's short, work hard, play hard' is the same as the slogan of Mick’s firm Wallace Construction, comfortably took apart the big city visitors by a less-than-flattering 2-0 score, while at the same time as Shamrock Rovers first team were losing 1-0 at home to struggling Drogheda United at Tallaght Stadium in a League of Ireland Premier Division game.

One important detail that should be pointed out is that Daly, a former employee in the catering department of Aer Lingus who presumably knew her way around a plane and Wallace, a philosophy graduate of University College Dublin, who made and lost a fortune in the Irish property bubble that brought the country almost to its knees in 2008, are both Teachta Dála. In other words, they are sitting, independent members of the Irish parliament. Clare Daly, representing Dublin North, is part of the United Left Alliance, a broad campaign mainly centred around the rapidly expanding People Before Profit party, having resigned from the increasingly marginalized and discredited Socialist Party, while Wallace, who was forced  in 2013 to pay the Irish revenue a sum of €2,133,708 in respect of unpaid VAT (presumably as a trained accountant Ms Daly may have helped Mick work out his complex financial affairs), represents his home town of Wexford in Dáil Éireann. In the county most famous for the heroic struggles of the United Irishmen in the 1798 Rebellion against the British occupying forces, commemorated beautifully in the folk song “Boolavogue” and the affecting Seamus Heaney poem “Requiem for the Croppies,” Mick Wallace is a local hero. Despite his tax affairs, complex personal life, litigious nature, he is incredibly popular in Ireland’s south east strawberry growing region, where even his atrocious fashion sense (he still boasts a shaggy mane of loosely permed peroxided hair that would not have looked out of place in a soft metal band circa 1983 and insists on open necked pink shirts, from whence Wexford Youths adopted their club colours) is accepted with an indulgent smile.

As far as I’m aware, the main focus of Stand is not Irish politics, but football; however, in the case of Wexford Youths versus Shamrock Rovers B, the two themes are intertwined and the existence of such a game is instructive in the light of Greg Dyke’s discredited League 3 proposals. Ostensibly, the game I watched on a glorious summer evening in the south east corner of Ireland, was between a vanity project and a glorified reserve team; neither the kind of team one would ever wish to see in the English pyramid on either sporting or moral grounds. However, look closer; as in almost every instance, attempting to view Irish affairs through an English lens leads to a blurred picture. To understand the need for both Wexford Youths and Shamrock Rovers B in the League of Ireland, you have to grasp the nature of Irish sporting culture.

The biggest stadium in Ireland and the largest in Europe not used for football is the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), Croke Park in north inner city Dublin; on consecutive September Sundays it will always be filled to its 82,300 capacity for the All Ireland hurling and football finals. At the time of writing my beloved Cork are in the last 8 of the football and the semi finals of the hurling, having already won the Munster title. While 18 of the 32 counties play senior hurling, the most successful of whom Kilkenny are the only county not to play football, showing it is undoubtedly the case that sports under the auspices of the GAA have the highest level of interest in terms of both playing and spectating across the entire  island of Ireland, as well as cultural importance and reach. De Valera may be long gone and the idea of football as a “garrison game” of the Saxon invader an anachronistic view held only by the most diehard Republican, but it is a fact that geographically and demographically speaking, what we call football is nowhere near as common a spectator sport in Ireland as one might expect.

While there are sofa and bar stool fans of the Premier League in every Irish town and village (witness an enormous “Come On You Hammers” sign in claret and blue outside a house in Allenwood, County Kildare), the sheer blanket coverage of the game only became popular throughout the county after the exploits of Jack Charlton’s side in the Euros of 1988 (beating England always helps) and especially the World Cup of 1990, which coincidentally made Ireland a prime target for the Premier League publicity machine. Prior to the seismic sporting shift of 1992, the game hardly featured outside of its Dublin stronghold in large parts of the country. Even now, the 18 senior Irish sides (10 in the Premier and 8 in the First Division) are from only 13 counties; furthermore, 6 teams are from Dublin with Bray Wanderers only just over the county line into Wicklow, and Dundalk and Drogheda from Louth, the next one north of Dublin. Consequently 50% of the clubs are situated within an hour of the River Liffey, showing a geographical imbalance that indicates the varying levels of interest in the game throughout the country.

Of course comparatively isolated towns and cities, in terms of  their proximity to League of Ireland opposition, such as Derry (in the league for political reasons), Limerick (the home of Irish rugby), Cork (City are the fifth side from the banks of my own lovely Lee to appear in the League of Ireland) and Waterford are actually relative strongholds of the game. Sadly though, recent Irish footballing history is littered with the names of clubs who went out of business because there simply wasn’t the local interest or money to keep them going; Kildare County, Kilkenny City, Sporting Fingal, Dublin City, Monaghan United and the intractable problem with football on the Corrib that has seen Galway United, Mervue and Salthill Devon merge, swap names, change grounds and eventually go back to being Galway United, in an attempt to keep the game alive in the City of the Tribes. The disappearance of Salthill and Mervue in Summer 2013 allowed Galway to return, but created the vacancy that Shamrock Rovers B accepted, simply because they were the only side willing and able to meet the annual €20,000 League of Ireland membership fee. That may be depressing, but frankly, Angela Merkel and the European Central Bank didn’t put the continued existence of football teams high on the agenda when working out the  €64 billion bail out that kept Ireland afloat in 2010 that has reduced the status of the people to economic penury for generations to come.

One positive effect of the arrival of the Premier League was the funding by Sky Sports for floodlights at all League of Ireland grounds. Historically, games had been played on Sunday afternoons, but with the advent of player cams and Andy Gray, attendances almost disappeared, so to keep the game going, Murdoch’s minions paid for ground improvements, with teams generally switching to Friday nights. The crowds had gone though, even at such great old clubs as Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic, so the decision was taken to adopt summer football from 2013 onwards. Sadly, this had made little real difference, despite a few encouraging showings in Europa League games, such as Shamrock Rovers advancing to the ground stage in 2010/2011. Interest in the English game remains at a very high level, with thousands of fans boarding Ryan Air flights each weekend to attend all manner of games, while the domestic game atrophies and remains a very poor second in terms of interest to GAA games.

Consequently, while the existence of reserve teams in the league is not be applauded, it remains a necessity in terms of filling the gaps. From what I saw, Shamrock Rovers B is basically an under 21 team, with young lads going through the motions in the hope of a call-up to the senior side and very little team ethos in their play. Meanwhile, a crowd of about 300, many of whom wearing Mick inspired pink scarves and shirts, with a band of about two dozen Wexford Ultras, complete with flags, drums and a half decent songbook (“Wallace for Taoiseach” being my favourite) may not represent a club on the verge of a major breakthrough, but they are in the semi finals of the EA Sports League Cup, having reached the final in 2008 only to lose 6-1 to Derry City, and they’re going well in the league, as demonstrated by Aidan “Roxy” Keenan’s match-winning double over Shamrock Rovers B. Most importantly though, Wexford Youths offer a structure in the south east, with over a dozen junior sides, both boys and girls, as well as a Women’s team, all bankrolled to an extent by Mick Wallace. Avoiding paying VAT may be seen as a criminal offence in the UK, perhaps punishable by a custodial sentence, but in Wexford it is seen as a necessary course of action, because on the banks of the pleasant Slaney and in the eyes of the FAI, Mick Wallace can do no wrong.

Bandstandesque

Next week, I will be writing about my cultural meanderings during my summer break from work, as part of my occasional Eyes & Ears series of pieces. In there, will be a mention of the last gig I attended in my 40s; The Mekons at The Cluny 2 in Newcastle, while this piece you’re reading now is dedicated to attending the first gig of my 50s, when I saw the Best Fucking Band in the World, Teenage Fanclub, for the 28^th time, at the Kelvingrove Park Bandstand in Glasgow.

In my younger days, I was always very much in awe of musicians. Other than That Petrol Emotion, who were in effect mates on account of Raymond and John having been at University with me, I didn’t really communicate directly or keep in touch with people from bands, despite doing interviews with hundreds of indie and alternative groups during my music journalist incarnation in the first half of the 1990s. One prior historical exception to this were The Mekons. When I was in a terrible proto Rough Trade band called Pretentious Drivel, from late 78 to early 81, we adored The Mekons and used to write to them at their Richmond Mount student squat in Headingley and they used to write back, offering advice, suggestions and enclosing loads of badges and leaflets for a myriad of left wing causes. Those were the days. Mind The Mekons haven’t changed all that much, as Jon Langford gave me a big bear hug at the end of the night at The Cluny. However, it’s not because he remembered me from 1978, but because a few years ago, I got back in touch with him via Facebook and we met up when he played a solo gig at Americana last year. Since then, we have started to communicate semi-regularly on Facebook.

Re-establishing contact with Jon is a good example of the way I feel that social media has helped to break down the barriers between fans and musicians. As I pride myself on generally only liking bands who are also nice people, as far as I’m aware (let’s leave Mark E Smith out of this for a while eh?), I find it remarkably easy and generally incredibly rewarding to talk to these people whose music has meant so much to me over the years, either in real life, or via social media. Without trying to sound poncey, I had exactly the same conversation with Stephen from The Pastels in Mono last Saturday and he agreed with me. However, barely a decade ago, such the idea of direct communication with people I admired and, in some instances, was in awe of, seemed not just fanciful but ludicrously far-fetched.

Because of a plethora of life events (parenthood, divorce, moving to Slovakia and so on), I almost found myself completely detached from music for about 7 years, until the advent of reliable, affordable broadband internet allowed me to vicarious reconnect with the unreal world. Football had always been a passion, with on-line message boards aplenty for all different clubs and the game in general, but music came back into focus as the internet introduced me to ways of accessing new and old prpduct as well as, in many instances, the musicians themselves. Some of the football message boards I frequented, involving the non-league game mostly, were pleasant in a trainspotterish type of way, while others were seething bear pits of hatred, where golf, motor cars and immigration were the main topics of politically incorrect conversation. In contrast, band-based message boards were far more pleasant places, almost entirely denuded of aggressive alpha males, with the exception of The Fall, predictably enough, where being arch, confrontational and abusive were de rigeur. Most of the time, I found supportive, open, honest and friendly communities of like-minded people, where were from a broad range of ages, locations and life experiences. And I really liked that fact.

The subsequent advent of social media, in particular Facebook and Twitter, seems to have rendered on line communities, with fictional noms des plumes or de guerre depending on the prevailing cyber mood, almost anachronistic, which in some ways is a shame as my proper on-line home was the Teenage Fanclub forum, although before that, I sourced tickets for the 2003 Barrowlands gig via a lad I met from Middlesbrough who loved TFC and had read stuff I’d written in football fanzines.

As regards the Teenage Fanclub message board, I’ll be eternally grateful to the wonderful people I’ve met from that forum who have become friends (though some of them were friends to start with; Mick and Shaun in particular) and especially because of how it was the best place for me to turn for sympathy and support when I lost my dad in the summer of 2009. I’m not ashamed to say I was in conversation on the TFC board with a friend called Barry when the Freeman Hospital called to tell me Eddy Cusack had gone. The meet up in Motherwell for a TFC gig 3 weeks later was one of my happiest memories of that time and something that truly helped me get through my process of grieving.

That message board was a real community; I’d been part of an initial meet-up in London in July 2006 for the Bandwagonesque gig and the Barrowlands one in September that year. In 2010, one of the leading lights, Tom O’Grady, died of cancer and it was a very hard blow for many of us who regarded Tom as a friend and not just a cyber-buddy. However, from this adversity came strength; a charity gig was organised in Glasgow in December 2010, the night before a Teenage Fanclub gig at the ABC and many boarders attended and provided financial and logistical support, with all monies going to charity. Barry really played a blinder on this one, as he did with the 2014 post gig show at the Poetry Club, of which more later…

When the gig was announced back in May, the first thing Laura and I did was to abandon plans to visit Fairport Convention’s Cropredy Festival the week before, which was just as well as I ended up going to see my mate David Peace in Barnsley on Saturday 9^th. Anyway, Friday 15^th August was firmly pencilled in; gig and train tickets were purchased and 2 nights in a hotel off Great Western Road were booked. Only then did the realisation of it not just being my birthday celebration, but the day after Ben’s A Level results, start to take hold. Frankly, since last September, Ben’s A Level results have constantly occupied a portion of my mind with equal parts nagging worries and positive thoughts. In the end, we needn’t have worried; he’s into Leeds Met to do History and the world is a wonderful place.

Being honest, the whole world has been a wonderful place since I turned 50; on the Monday itself, I kept a clean sheet in 6 a side, saw Team Northumbria beat Heaton Stan 4-0 and had a few pints in the Benton Ale House with an old pal from sixth form who was in town with her kids for the night. The coincidental and unrelated tumble off my bike on Coach Lane that evening should not be given any major cognisance. On the Wednesday I saw Benfield thump Celtic Nation 5-0 and on the Thursday, Ben got his results, so it was with joy in our hearts that Laura and I boarded the train for an effortless journey to Glasgow, followed by a quick hop on the subway to Kelvinbridge to our easy to locate hotel. Shower, snooze and coffee later and we were in The Three Judges on Dumbarton Road at Kelvinhall.

The pub was selected by my dear friend for longer than 20 years now and fellow contributor to NUFC fanzine The Popular Side, Mick Hydes. Originally from Ashington, he’s been in Scotland since 1997 and Paisley since 2001 (I think). He loves football, proper beer and Teenage Fanclub. It all came together as other boarders Celeste, Julie, Mark, Peter and Ruthie met us there for a few pints of quality traditional ale and a swift dander up the road to the venue; a converted bandstand in a park. I have to say, other than the farcical lack of toilets, which caused me to miss Don’t Look Back of all songs, the night was magical. The sponsorship by Magners didn’t grate too much; it just meant we had horrible, expensive cider to drink, rather than fizzy, overpriced lager.  We met a dozen or so other boarders (Barry, Del, Duglas, Ian, Neil and a load others I’m sorry I’ve forgotten in the drunken haze and gig euphoria) and enjoyed one of the most magical of Teenage Fanclub nights I think I’ve ever had.

Despite the huge gaps in-between TFC records, interest in the band is kept high by their side projects: Jonny, Lightships, The New Mendicants and Snowgoose for instance. However, Teenage Fanclub are THE band and, for the first time since December 2010, they were playing Glasgow; on a Friday night. You wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. From the moment we got inside the renovated natural amphitheatre, the atmosphere started to build; classic warm up songs including Blue Boy, What Do I Get? and Another Girl Another Planet got everyone right in the mood. What we had to enjoy was a 6 piece band, with Finlay back again, and 18 glorious songs in a fabulous 100 minute set. Of course there weren’t any new numbers; this was not the place for them, because this was a gathering of like-minded souls, of good people, of kind people and some supremely talented people, in the audience as well as on the stage.

From the opening seconds of It’s All In My Mind  (the finest song never to be written about Kieron Dyer), I wanted to be up pressed against the barrier, singing tunelessly along with the band I rate above all others in the history of human culture, but there was a timid tone to the crowd. Perhaps it was the failing wan light, or perhaps it was diffidence, who knows, though the shouts for Gene Clark and Best Fucking Band in the World were there, but it took until I Need Direction, the eleventh number of the set, before the audience were properly up on their feet. I’m delighted to say it wasn’t just a dad pit, because two women were the ones who led the polite charge to the front and I’m very glad they did. Darkness fell and we became one…

Highlights? Numerous; The Concept, My Uptight Life, Baby Lee, Ain’t That Enough and Please Stay in particular but, let’s be honest about this, the telepathic emotional contact between band and audience in the four-guitar assault of Everything Flows should be experienced by all those who know and love music. Just take time during any version of that number to look around a natural bowl of swaying, adoring fans singing along to every syllable. I defy anyone not to feel some primal urge to wipe away a tear at the sight. And what I love about this band is that they appreciate it; they respect us, they like us and they are glad to see us there.

Afterwards, after an interminable toilet stop and a wander down some unpromising but ultimately correct back alleys, while taking instructions from a smart phone GPS under a street light, we found The Poetry Club. That post gig euphoria where you see your pals and swap notes on the events as you drink beer gives way to exhaustion. Some of us took cabs earlier than others; some even missed the fabulous sight of Stuart from the Wellgreen in a hilarious tumbling embrace with Neil that I’ll cherish for the rest of my days. Laura and I left about 1, I think, in a random cab, clutching pair of posters that Barry had thoughtfully provided, and stopped for a kebab, showing we really must have been loaded.

Saturday brought autumn in; gusting winds, rain from slate skies and a rancid hangover. Laura decided to do the tourist thing, while I followed my heart and struck out North West to see Clydebank versus Yoker Athletic in a Group 6 Sectional League Cup tie, in the company of lifelong Bankies fan Neil, who was now thankfully restored to the vertical. I had thought of calling this piece My Upright Life you know…

The story of Clydebank’s demotion from the Scottish Senior ranks is an appalling tale of corruption and mismanagement at boardroom level. Suffice to say, the name Steedman shouldn’t be uttered in the earshot of any Bankies fan. Following the sale of Kilbowie Park and a highly dubious relocation to Airdrie in 2002, following the equally squalid and suspicious disappearance of the Diamonds, the United Clydebank Supporters reformed the club in 2003 in the Juniors. Originally playing at Drumchapel, the Bankies gained promotions through the Central Divisions to the West Premier and swapped grounds to their current home; Holm Park, which is the home ground of Yoker Athletic, which is in Clydebank. Confused? Well try getting your head round the fact that the tenants are at home to the landlords after a dozen beers the night before.

In the Scottish Juniors West Region, there are 63 clubs; the 24 from Ayrshire play in 4 groups of 6 in the season opening Ardagh Glass League Cup. Meanwhile the 39 clubs in the Central Region play in 8 groups in the Sectional League Cup, with the winners making the quarter finals. I’m not sure about this, but I believe each club plays each other once and that the groups are the same every season. In group 6, Clydebank had already beaten Maryhill and Ashfield away before this game, with Glasgow Perthshire at home to come.

After a wasted trip the length of Argyle Street to Volcanic Tongue Records (shut), I took the train from Central to Yoker ready for the 2pm kick off. I had thought of attending Hamilton Accies v St Johnstone, but at £23 entry on the back of £24 to get into Barnsley the week before, I decided to go for the community option. Arriving at Holm Park, I paid my fiver, bought a programme and located Neil, who was nursing a medicinal Guinness in the club house bar, where we were soon joined by his brother in law Alan.

With a healthy attendance, compared to comparable standards of play, if not facilities (on account of the FA’s insane ground grading requirements), in English non-league, of about 350, Clydebank started off well and took an early lead through Campbell after 7 minutes, with a lovely goal after a smart passing move, but they failed to build on it. In the second half Yoker Athletic grabbed a point with a penalty, given away for a needless hand ball. Despite being the higher ranked side, having far more of the opportunities and striking the bar twice, The Bankies were unable to get a winner and will need to beat Glasgow Perthshire to ensure they progress in a cup they won at Pollok FC last June. The highlights of the game are here; play it on mute if you don’t like swearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFeUei9hlmc

Instead of getting the train back, Alan gave me a lift into town, which was very much appreciated, dropping me right outside Mono where I bought Ben a well done present for passing his exams and had a good chat with Stephen, who correctly identified my company at the Bankies’ game. This is exactly what I mean about the community between bands and fans; it’s wonderful.

Also wonderful was the night out Laura and I had later on; a glorious seafood restaurant called Two Fat Ladies and memorable pubs including Gallus next door at Kelvinhall and the craft ale paradise Inn Deep at Kelvinbridge. At the end of the evening, we ran into Derek and Jo, friends from Newcastle from way back, who were at the gig the night before and were living for the summer on the same street as us. Small world, but a great world.

All in all, a marvellous weekend that was worth the appalling 2 day hangover I was forced to endure, which has made me forswear the drink until October 18^th,  and wasn’t spoiled at all by the perfect storm of Hibs, Cork and Newcastle United all combining to make it a truly super Sunday. Ignore that; it means nothing.

I love Glasgow. I love Scottish Juniors Football. I love Teenage Fanclub. And I love the friends I’ve made through that band.

Keeping Promises

The weekend of 16th and 17th August 2014 was a momentous one for north east football magazines; the début issue of Newcastle United fanzine "The Popular Side," an A5, old school, sold on the street and in bars, not for profit venture with no adverts, no merchandise and no website, costing only £1, sold out. Meanwhile, Craig Dobson's more general publication "Northern Promise" also hit the streets; I wrote a couple of bits in it about The Northern League and The Northern Alliance, which are below -:

While there can be no disputing the fact that Gateshead, so unlucky not to book a place in the Football League Division 2 after the Conference play-offs at the end of last season, are head and shoulders above every other non-league side in the area, the question as to which team north of the Tyne are favourites to claim the honour of being regional top dogs in the Northern League is a moot point.

Clearly there are 4 sides in Northumberland who fit the bill in terms of being north of the Tyne, but Ashington, who appear to have stabilised as a solid first division outfit following their 2008 move from Portland Park to Woodhorn Lane which denuded them of a large portion of their more raucous support, Bedlington Terriers, who seem to have assumed the mantle of perennial strugglers and are subject to relentless tsunamis of gossip related to their American owner’s financial input, Morpeth Town, who had a solid first season back in the top flight and a good run in the FA Vase and the delightful Alnwick Town, who provide the warmest of welcomes at the scenic “other” St. James’ Park, aren’t the focus of this piece, which seeks to assess the chances of teams in the Newcastle and North Tyneside areas.

During recent history, there has been absolutely no doubt that Whitley Bay have been the flagship club north of the Tyne. Four FA Vase wins, including 3 in a row from 2009 to 2011 and crowds that dwarfed all near and reasonably near neighbours, meant they could claim with full justification to be the giants of the local game, even attempting to steal Newcastle Benfield’s double winning thunder in 2009 by triumphing over Glossop North End at Wembley. Certainly, with a ground as impressive as Hillheads and a loyal and enthusiastic fanbase, it seems strange that the Seahorses did not seek to move up the pyramid during their glory years, though their less than satisfactory experiences in the Northern Premier League may have left them feeling once bitten, twice shy. However, that potential ship has sailed and the last couple of seasons have seen a diminution in their standing. A mid-table finish and a late defeat to Marske United in the League Cup at St. James’ Park don’t tell the full tale of a season that saw the departure of Ian Chandler from the Hillheads dug-out after more than a decade. With Chan now in charge at the ever perplexing conundrum that is Durham City, Leon Ryan is player manager and in charge of reanimating a potential giant of a club with questions over the long term future of their ground. The signing of free scoring Peter Watling from Team Northumbria to partner the talismanic Paul Chow will go a long way to giving him an even chance of achieving that feat.

Without doubt, the team that appear to have the wind in their sails as regards the future are North Shields who stormed to the Division 2 title last season, courtesy of the scoring exploits of Gareth Bainbridge and the astute management of Graham Fenton. While many may struggle to ever forget Fenton’s exploits at Ewood Park on Easter Monday 1996, he is really making a name for himself as an assured tactician and master motivator. There is also the added factor of a large and passionate following (1,312 versus West Allotment Celtic on Good Friday is a scarcely credible figure at this level), comprised of Shields traditionalists, immaculately attired Casual clothing connoisseurs and several somewhat eccentric characters, all of whom seem to carry giant flags, that will intimidate many soft hearted opponents. In some ways it could easily be argued that the Robins start each home game a goal ahead because of the crowd. It really is amazing to hear singing and chanting at a Northern League game. Do not be surprised if North Shields take Division 1 by the throat in 2014/2015.

Newcastle Benfield had grounds to look back on 2013/2014 with a sense of satisfaction. Following a disappointing campaign in 2012/2013, where player manager Steve Bowey was the third incumbent in the Sam Smiths hot seat in a calendar year and relegation was only avoided after a last day win at Consett, last season brought stability. A fourteenth place finish, 20 points above the drop zone and a place in the last 8 of the FA Vase represented progress. However, Bowey left the club at the end of the season, resulting in Paddy Atkinson and Neil Saxton assuming control. This will be an interesting season for the Walkergate Brazilians who will be seeking to establish themselves as the top club in the region again.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing factors for Benfield is the chance to reacquaint themselves with near neighbours West Allotment Celtic in what has come to be known as the Coach Lane Classico. Allotment, courtesy of a well-honed 4-5-1 system and a series of immaculate performances by goalscoring midfielder Sean Reid, put together a stirring set of results at precisely the right time in the spring and finished (distant) runners-up to North Shields, in order to reclaim a place in the top flight. A popular, traditional club with a great committee and a tradition of playing excellent football, Paul Stoneman’s side will be looking to cement their place in Division 1 and they should have enough quality to manage this feat without difficulty.

In Division 2, newly relegated Team Northumbria will need to regroup quickly, if they are to provide a realistic challenge for promotion. It was something of a shock that a side renowned for excellent passing football on their billiard table pitch at Coach Lane could end up apologetically falling out of the top flight. Now, having seen chief striker Peter Watling and midfield artiste Ben Sayers leave the club, it may be difficult for them to challenge the pre-season favourites Seaham Red Star, Washington and Ryhope CW at the business end of the table.

The same will probably be true for Heaton Stannington, who will do tremendously well to replicate last season’s 5^th place finish. Having adjusted well to life in the Northern League, after finally complying with ground grading requirements related to floodlights and seating, it will be interesting to see if their previously one dimensional approach, that saw all play channelled through departed goal machine Jonathan Wright, will prove as effective as last year without the contribution of Wright, or whether sides will be wise to The Stan’s style of play. All in all, it promises to be yet another fascinating season in the Northern League. Why on earth would you choose to watch any other kind of football? Unless it’s the Northern Alliance of course.

During 2013/2014, three clubs dropped out of the Northern Alliance; Wallsend Town were expelled from the Premier Division for a series of serious disciplinary transgressions that left the management committee with no option other than to call an EGM to vote on the side’s continued presence in the league. Expulsion was confirmed and Wallsend Town will be competing in the Durham Alliance, a notional feeder for the Wearside League, in 2014/2015. Also leaving the Alliance in 2013/2014 were Chopwell who, having thrown in the towel in 2011, regrouped in the Tyneside Amateur League, one of the Alliance’s 3 notional feeders (the others being the geographically disparate North Northumberland League and vaguely alma mater-ish Newcastle University graduate influenced Corinthian League)before being accepted back in the Alliance in 2013. Sadly they lasted barely half a season before resigning again. The other side to resign were First Division Forest Hall, citing a lack of players and committee members. 

Happily, in preparation for the big kick off on August 9^th, the Alliance is back up to its full complement of 48 clubs for 2014/2015. This follows the admission of Lindisfarne Custom Planet, based around the Wallsend Workingmen’s club of that name and playing at the Rising Sun Sports Ground rather than on Holy Island, Shilbottle from the North Northumberland League and the renaissance of Forest Hall.

To accommodate such changes, only Percy Main Amateurs have been relegated from the top division, being replaced by North Shields Athletic, who will be playing on the astroturf 4G pitch at John Spence High School as it has the requisite permanent rail round the pitch needed for Alliance Premier Division and Gateshead Redheugh 1957, or Whickham Sports Club as they are now known, whose home is the impressive and continually improving Eslington Park. The favourites for the title must be champions Blyth Town, whose stated aim is to upgrade their South Newsham base, the only ground I’ve not visited in the top flight, to Northern League standards. However, Killingworth Station, based at West Moor, who give you a free programme and hot drink at half time in return for your £1.50 entry fee, will also be fancied to do well. Whitley Bay A, who play at Hillheads, Red House Farm from Gosforth and the Cumbrian challenge from Carlisle City and Northbank will also be dark horses. That said, it is worth visiting any Alliance ground for the sheer honest of endeavour to be seen on the park; certainly Rutherford, formed in 1878, who play at Lobley Hill and Wallington, in existence since 1877, at the impossibly scenic Oakford Park in Scots Gap, should be on any serious football enthusiast’s must-see list, as will Wheatfield Park, home to Seaton Delaval Amateurs.

In Division 1, things are less clear cut. Percy Main will fancy a quick return to the top flight, but newly promoted Wallsend Boys Club, Blyth Isabella, another ground I’ve not been to, and Northumberland Minor Cup winners AFC Newbiggin will aim to hit the ground running. Both Cramlington Town and Newcastle Chemfica looked set to win promotion last season, before running out of steam with the pressure of 2 or more games a week when the light nights came (no floodlights and no midweek winter games in the Alliance) and will aim to improve this time around, as will the impressively organised Birtley St. Joseph’s, now calling Wrekenton Blue Star their home ground. Grounds well worth a visit in this division include Benson Park in leafy NE3, home to Gosforth Bohemians, Newcastle University’s charming Cochrane Park and the maritime splendour of Links Avenue, Cullercoats. My aim is to get up to see Wooler play and complete my set for Division 1.

In Division 2, relegated Willington Quay Saints will play on the adjoining pitch at the Rising Sun to Lindisfarne Custom Planet. Favourites for the division must be Longbenton, playing at the Oxford Centre, who only lost out on promotion in their final game. I’m intending to spend a bit of time watching Alliance Division 2 games, as I need to visit Leam Rangers, who also have a side in the Wearside League at the same step in the pyramid, Whitburn Athletic, Grainger Park and Shilbottle (without a marker pen I hasten to add) to complete my set. One place worth visiting is High Howdon’s home at Walker School, where the 4G pitch is the best synthetic surface I’ve ever seen; keep this in mind for wintry weather when parks pitches are closed by the council.

If the Northern League is too glamorous for your tastes, dip your toe into the Northern Alliance pool; you’ll not regret it. 

In addition to "Northern Promise," I penned an article about Whitley Bay for the Bridlington Town programme for the FA Cup game on Saturday 16th. I wasn't there, being up in Glasgow, where the appropriately named restaurant above is located. I will be blogging about Clydebank v Yoker Athletic soon, but before then, here's my bit on the Seahorses -:

I’d like to think I got ahead of the game in terms of being sickened by the Premier League and the malign influence of Sky as I started watching non-league football in the north east well over 20 years ago now. Since 2009 I’ve actively been involved and attached with a few different clubs after taking my enjoyment of the grassroots game to a higher level; between 2009 and 2013 I was Assistant Secretary at Percy Main Amateurs in the Northern Alliance, two steps below where Whitley Bay are, then last season I edited the programme and acted as press officer for Heaton Stannington in their debut season in the Northern League second division, before moving on for this campaign to the same role at Newcastle Benfield, who have been Whitley Bay’s main rivals for the distinction of being the top Northern League Division 1 side north of the Tyne.

During that time, I’ve found that while Northern Alliance games are regularly accompanied by oath-edged imprecations of violence, swivel-eyed death threats and the kind of physical intimidation more suited to a taxi rank at closing time on Christmas Eve, though the full time whistle sees a defined end to hostilities amid handshakes, smiles and the promise of pints in the bar afterwards, it is undeniable that the Northern League is a far more insidious environment. Whispers, innuendo, on-line bitching and behind closed doors politicking is the way of this particular world, occasioning bizarre and unlikely truces, pacts, alliances and blocs, with pronounced differences between the actual and cyber conduct and comments of fools with nothing better to do than invent conspiracy theories. 

One club, other than Benfield of course, stands well above this snide milieu; Whitley Bay are uniformly admired, respected and liked by followers of the local non-league game in the Tyneside area, which is truly astonishing considering they have the biggest crowds, best ground and have had unrivalled recent national success. You don’t win 4 FA Vases without picking up a few admirers on the way. What Bay offered was stability (manager Ian Chandler was in charge for a decade until leaving for Durham last season) and a great ground, with terracing on all sides, including cover on two in impressive stands. There’s also the small matter of goal machine Paul Chow, who scored the quickest ever goal at Wembley in the 2011 Vase final. Truly, Whitley Bay, despite being formed as recently as 1966, are the closest to a dynastic, establishment club north of the Tyne; second only to the venerable Blyth Spartans in terms of tradition and atmosphere. 

While it must be admitted that a proportion of the increased Bay support has come directly from the ranks of disgusted and disenfranchised Newcastle United supporters (Bay’s 2009 FA Vase win coincided with Newcastle’s relegation from the Premier League for instance) and that Bay are clearly the club of choice for non-natives who’ve settled in the region and have picked up on the importance of local football, despite Heaton Stan’s bizarre ability to attract over a dozen die-hard Scottish ex-pat followers, Whitley Bay are the highest profile non-league club in the Newcastle area with a solid, loyal and unwavering local support. Not that it is anything to encourage, but they have a gang of replica shirted zealots who stand behind the goal and sing at games. They are unstinting in their devotion to manager Leon Ryan and his players, including impressive new striking option Peter Watling from relegated Team Northumbria.

The only cloud on Bay’s horizon is the renaissance of local rivals North Shields, managed by former Blackburn, Villa and West Brom striker Graham Fenton, who stormed to the Northern League Division 2 title last season, watched by average crowds almost the size of Bay’s. The impending power struggle between The Seahorses and The Robins promises to be a fascinating one; let’s hope the Benfield Lions are also have something to say as the season draws on.

Tyne Times

Last Saturday, I celebrated my birthday early by heading down to Barnsley for David Peace reading from GB84, followed by a few pints with him in Old No 7 and then a trip to Oakwell for Barnsley v Crawley Town. Coincidentally, I also met the lads from West Stand Bogs and agreed to write an article for issue 6 about my day, despite the fact they didn't use the following issue for issue 5......

Having written in previous issues of West Stand Bogs about trips to Oakwell with my team Newcastle United, of the times I was at Oakwell supporting Barnsley and away trips with South Yorkshire’s finest, for this edition, I’ve decided to look at games involving Newcastle and Barnsley at St. James’ Park. As I’m a mere slip of a lad of 49, you’ll forgive me for not mentioning such results as our brace of impressive home wins 4-1 and 3-0 in November 1934 and September 1935, or Barnsley’s consecutive brace of 1-0 away successes in season-opening games in August 1936 and 1937. The latter season saw Barnsley and Newcastle finish on 36 points, with Newcastle staying up only on goal average; however that arcane system worked… It may be of some consolation to know the situation would have been unchanged using goal difference. After the war, I don’t know anything about the 4-2 home win in February 1947 or the 1-0 on 6^th March 1948.

Strangely, 6^th March seems to have certain significance for the two teams, as that date in 2010 was Barnsley’s most recent visit to SJP. It ended up 6-1. The ex-wife was there, but I wasn’t, preferring instead to take in the delights of Benfield 2 Jarrow Roofing 0 in the Northern League Division 1. I can remember that particular day and game quite clearly but, and this is surprising considering how the elderly memory works, there is a hole in my recollections for 6^th March 1982 when Newcastle beat Barnsley 1-0 in the first league encounter in 34 years.

I remember your next visit well enough; 25^th September 1982. Ahead 1-0 at the break courtesy of an Imre Varadi goal, we eventually lost 2-1 in one of the early games of Kevin Keegan’s stint as a player on Tyneside. My mate Alan had missed the game, because of the lame excuse of getting married, but we still enjoyed ourselves at his reception in the evening, especially as sunderland lost 8-0 at Watford that day.  The next season saw Newcastle United win promotion, and a desperately dour 1-0 victory courtesy of a Chris Waddle curler at the Gallowgate on a bitterly cold 2^nd January was one of the results that showed we could tough it out on our way up, as well as playing pretty football.

There wasn’t any pretty football in our next encounter; a 0-0 second round first leg League Cup tie, in which Newcastle prevailed on away goals after a 1-1 at Oakwell. I missed both these games as I was away in Ireland at University then, however I was back home and in my seat in the shiny new Milburn Stand  for the 4-1 hammering we dished out in March 1990. Clad in your famous spangly yellow flashes shirt, Barnsley were blown away on a day when even Roy Aitken scored for us.

The next season, nobody scored at all in one of the worst games of football I’ve ever seen, although 17^th November 1990 is definitely mainly memorable for me as I took my ex-wife to this game for our first date. It’s amazing she ever spoke to me after this one. A year later, I almost didn’t talk to her as David Currie ruined my day with a bullet header equaliser in a 1-1 draw. That weekend we’d held a housewarming party and about a dozen friends and relatives from South Yorkshire had made the trip up and were at the game. The Friday night do had been fabulous, but Saturday wasn’t quite as good after this late dampener. I had cheered up the year after though, when Keegan’s championship winning side were absolutely irresistible on a magical night in early April 1993, winning 6-0, with former Barnsley player John Beresford opening the scoring from the spot. A bloke I know, Mick, was still furious at full time as he’d have won £2k, a lot of money in those days, if it had stayed 5-0. It explained why he was the only one still in his seat, head in hands, when Kevin Brock completed the scoring.

Following Newcastle’s promotion, the next game at SJP was another League Cup tie, when Neil Redfearn’s famous long range strike gave Barnsley the lead in September 1994, only for Ruel Fox and Peter Beardsley to turn the game around and a Beardsley goal to win the second leg 1-0 at Oakwell. By the time the teams met again, it was with both Newcastle and Barnsley in the top tier; a sixth round FA Cup at St. James Park in March 1998 was one of the best and most thrilling encounters I’ve seen between the two sides, with the game only finally settled in the last few minutes when David Batty, of all people, scored a glorious late shot from distance, in off the post. In contrast, the league game at SJP a few weeks later on Easter Monday was a desperately poor affair, won by Newcastle by a 2-1 margin. Barnsley could have had a point if Arjan de Zeeuw, denied a foul, had played on and marked Shearer as he scored the winner, instead of remonstrating with the officials. Barnsley went down that season and if Newcastle hadn’t won that game, I feel we could have joined you.

Things got a little quiet after 1998. Subsequent to that one, the only other league game up here was the 6-1 in March 2010 that I’ve already referred to, but there was one other tie; a mundane 2-0 win for Newcastle in the League Cup in August 2007. I still had a season ticket in those days, despite Allardyce’s appointment, but this didn’t cover me for cup tickets. I went along on the night to pay on the door, but the queues at those turnstiles were so vast, what with it being the last week of the school holidays, I tried to dodge in with my season ticket at another entry. The season tickets we were issued with had just been switched that season from tear out slips of paper, to credit card sized bits of plastic which you swiped in with; lo and behold, the technology was so poor I was able to wander in and take my normal seat unhindered. Needless to say, I used that method subsequently for all cup games until I chucked my season ticket in 2009; it’s the natural anarchist in me I guess.

With Barnsley in their current precarious position, it seems unlikely the two sides will play each other at SJP anytime soon, unless Pardew remains in charge and we start falling through the league. However, a cup draw would be nice; if that happens, rest assured that Mike Ashley’s master plan will see Newcastle snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in any manner possible, as the very last thing he wants is a repeat of the 1910 FA Cup Final any time soon.