Requiem for a Dream

If I'm honest, I was pleased for Hartlepool that they knocked Salford City out of the FA Cup last night. I mean, I'm a non-league obsessive, but I simply don't get what's happening in Manchester these days, as this article in the imminently published STAND #16 tries to explain -:

Despite my team Newcastle Benfield going out of the FA Cup at the end of August (4-2 away to Guisborough Town in the Preliminary Round since you asked), I’ve been impressed by the BBC’s coverage of the tournament thus far. The live Friday night games on free to air TV are a great way to increase the profile of the early stages of the competition proper and the innovation of having cameras at each one of the Sunday games, cutting across to each one at moments of high tension or drama, doesn’t feel clumsy. If anything, speaking as a neutral of course, it adds to the sense of occasion and makes for an exciting afternoon’s viewing. Of course, now we’ve got the “big boys” in from round 3, the media will no doubt revert to type and start salivating at the prospect of Arsenal’s youth team against Sunderland reserves. However, in some ways, this might be preferable to the current obsession of the corporation’s pundits with Salford City, as the quality of analysis has been far less impressive than the visual images of football itself.

As a child, I first became aware of the phenomenon of giant killing when Ronnie Radford wrote his name in the eternal pantheon of FA Cup legends, breaking a 7 year old’s heart. To be fair, it’s not a goal I enjoy watching, which is a bit of a shame as it is shown about 500 times a season; the minute I hear Motson utter those fateful words and Tudor’s gone down for Newcastle, the nightmares of a 44 years ago come flooding back. However Blyth Spartans, who can justifiably claim to be the most famous non-league club in the country, provide happier memories of David slaying Goliath; Stoke in 77/78, Bournemouth in 08/09 and last season Hartlepool , then being 2-0 up at the break against Birmingham City in round 3. Admittedly they lost that one, but they’d had a hell of a run for their money. The frosty Friday night victory away Hartlepool in round 2 was compelling television; though my regional bias made me more than a little sorry for that great club from Victoria Park.

This season, the creditable exploits of Home Counties parvenus Eastleigh and Whitehawk notwithstanding, the seemingly compulsory patronising hyperbole for the diddy men of the competition has had a pronounced Mancunian flavour to it. For many years I’ve been a devoted reader of United We Stand, whose cynical, sardonic view of football is imbued with some of the bleakest, most cruel humour imaginable. But it also contains some damn fine writing; I remember a piece years back, talking about the simple pleasures of watching Trafford Borough or Abbey Hey, in fact anyone other than Maine Road (for obvious reasons), when the Reds didn’t have a Saturday game. I’ve written many such pieces myself in The Popular Side and other publications, extolling the virtues of Benfield, Whitley Bay and dear old Percy Main Amateurs. However, similar to how the emergence of both North  Shields  and South Shields, on opposite sides of the Tyne, has changed the demographic and atmosphere in the Northern League, by providing refuges for those sickened by events at both Newcastle United and Sunderland (though it must be recognised followers of the two Shields clubs have wildly divergent interpretations of what it means to be “against modern football”), UWS would have a very different story to tell if one factors the existence of both FC United of Manchester and the reconfigured Salford City into the equation. Suffice to say, I was mightily relieved that Hartlepool rescued a draw from their game away to Salford and then beat them in the replay.

Before I go any further, I have to reiterate that I am an outsider here and that my opinions of the current poster children of Mancunian football have been formed at a geographical and emotional distance, though my profound love of and involvement with non-league football for a quarter of a century means that I am very sympathetic to both clubs. The events surrounding the formation of FCUM and their subsequent journey through the leagues and the opening of their stunning Broadhurst Park ground have been well documented. I don’t think it would be unfair to say that their progress has been nothing short of miraculous, for a club founded entirely on fan ownership and, prior to the current season perhaps, a democratic organisation with a seemingly unbreakable moral code, enshrined in the 7 guiding, core principles -:

1. The Board will be democratically elected by its members
2. Decisions taken by the membership will be decided on a one member, one vote basis
3. The club will develop strong links with the local community and strive to be accessible to all, discriminating against none
4. The club will endeavour to make admission prices as affordable as possible, to as wide a constituency as possible
5. The club will encourage young, local participation—playing and supporting—whenever possible
6. The Board will strive wherever possible to avoid outright commercialism
7. The club will remain a non-profit organisation

As someone who is a firm believer in fan ownership of football clubs, I salute their progress, though the cynic (or perhaps realist) in me instinctively feels that they have progressed as far up the pyramid as is possible for a club founded on such an idealistic basis. Being brutally frank, the amount of money required by a professional club in the modern game is probably beyond the reach of one that raises all its funds by ethical means. Sure Blue Monday was the best-selling 12 inch of all time, but Factory Records still went bust.

Regardless of whether future promotion would be a reality, FCUM started 2015/2016, to all intents and purposes, on a high, as their first season in their proper home would be marked by their debut campaign in the Conference North, or whatever it’s calling itself these days. The club had already left its stamp on the FA Cup, with a notable win over Rochdale in the 2010/2011 competition, before gaining headlines for slightly less positive reasons this time around.  In the final qualifying round, a 3-1 victory away to Sporting Khalsa (a fascinating club and one who deserve to have their story more widely told) was marred by a pre-game bout of fisticuffs, with giddy locals no doubt expecting the grandchildren of Doc’s Red Army to have descended en masse.  However, the real problems occurred when the euphoria of a home draw against Chesterfield in Round 1 proper slowly dispersed when the ugly reality of having to cede control over both admission prices and kick off time dawned on FCUM’s support.

The FA Cup competition rules stipulate the minimum entry fee for First Round ties is a tenner; FCUM charge £9 for home games and once they found they couldn’t do that, they decided to give everyone attending a £1 voucher, redeemable against the entry price to another home game, or in the catering outlets. To me, this seemed a totally reasonable, pragmatic response, though some FCUM zealots see compromise as collaboration. When BT Sport announced they wanted to move the tie to a Monday night for live transmission, FCUM furiously resisted, but those self-same competition rules that stipulate entrance prices also dictate when games can be played. In short, if FCUM didn’t agree, they would have to forfeit the tie. Around the same time Morpeth Town of the Northern League drew 1874 Northwich at home in the FA Vase. The game was rained off on the Saturday and, because the clubs had failed to negotiate what would happen in this eventuality, the rescheduled game was slated by the FA for the Wednesday following. Northwich claimed they couldn’t raise a team to travel so far midweek and conceded, making valid points about the idiocy of having midweek rearranged games and replays. I agree with them 100%; these games should always be Saturdays, but the cup they signed up for had a set of rules their participation gave tacit approval to. The same is true of FCUM and the FA Cup.

When the game took place, aside from Chesterfield easing to a 4-1 win, the big story was to do with fan boycotts and banner protests in the ground. I don’t know the ins and outs of FCUM’s supporter politics though it seems, to this veteran of UK ultra-left politics from the late 70s to the present day at any rate, that debate is founded on the same kind of internecine, captious ideological nit-picking that Maoist groups engaged when debating whether Albania under Enver Hoxha was more of a Socialist paradise than the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. To me, it seems clear; either live in the real world or stagnate and ultimately die. The founding principles of FCUM’s constitution are utterly irreproachable, but they lack the pragmatism required to utilise the energy and momentum the club has sparked. Perhaps this minor civil war, that played out so viciously on-line, has hampered the club’s progress, as they lie just outside of the relegation zone after a run of 6 games without a win following the Chesterfield exit. However, things may be looking up again, following a 2-1 win away to Stockport County. At Edgerley Park. The same Stockport County who beat Man City at Maine Road in 1998. The same Stockport County, formed in 1883, who went bust.

In defence of FCUM though; at least the club listens to its support and considers their views. The benign despotism of the Class of 92’s ownership of Salford City and their plans for the future seem somewhat less of a matter for negotiation, or so it appears.  I would welcome with open arms anyone who sought to exchange the professional game for the amateur one, as more and more are doing. However, I would counsel the non-league neophyte to understand that you are not just exchanging one club for another, but one version of the game as a whole for a far more rewarding model. Unfortunately, some people just don’t seem to get that point and, similar to texting in church or breaking wind in front of the in-laws, show themselves up. The less said about chair Karen Baird’s twitter meltdown the better I feel. Personally, I wouldn’t for one second decry Butt, Giggs, Scholes or the Neville Siblings for seeking to put something back into the game that has made them unimaginably rich (comparatively) young men. I would say I have less faith in the co-owner Peter Lim, now effectively also the Nevilles’ employer at Valencia, sharing such lofty ideals. Where I am at variance with the Class of 92 is with their stated ambition of turning Salford City into a league club in 15 years. Is that really a sensible ambition? Is it acceptable that 75 years of history can be swept away because of this “project?”

Did all those who supported, nurtured, maintained and developed Salford City from their foundation in 1940 until the takeover in 2014 really do so in the hope of a local derby with Bury? Of course not; they chose to follow a community, grassroots club where they were on speaking terms with the players and the committee. Of course they could have gone to City, United, Bury, Stockport, Stalybridge, Altrincham or whoever if they’d wanted to see the professional game, but they didn’t. They stayed watching their club; Salford City. Of course, as was shown by the BBC documentary about the club, not to mention the gushing, uncritical praise that flowed like an unguent tide during the cup games against Notts County and Hartlepool, there is no room for an interpretation seeking to challenge the accepted narrative that every club wants to be in the big time. Salford’s fanbase may have exploded exponentially, but that is no guarantee of success. What if the current owners get bored or seek to extricate themselves from their investment, in either a financial or emotional sense? Recent history is littered with the husks of dead clubs, from Colne Dynamos to Celtic Nation, which were once seemingly bound for a double quick leap up the non-league pyramid, but foundered after their moneyed owners lost faith.

Clint Eastwood was right; a man’s got to know his limitations. Perhaps that’s something for South Shields fans to ponder as they queue for entry to their Boxing Day home clash against Hebburn Town; the first ever all-ticket game in the Northern League Second Division.

This Year's Models

So, Euros Childs at the Mining Institute was the last gig of 2015; mighty fine he was too. Well, now it's time to give a rundown of my purchases and attendances of  2015. You'll not be surprised by album of the year....

2015 Albums of the Year:

1.    Trembling Bells – The Sovereign Self; amazing Scottish proggy, folky, late 60s/early 70s hippy, trippy genius.

2.    Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress; astonishing, orchestral avant garde post rock from the Quebecois octet.

3.    Band of Holy Joy – The Land of Holy Joy; they’ve been going over 30 years, but this is their finest Brechtian. Klezmer waltz through the capital’s ripped backside in over 25 years.

4.    The Pop Group – Citizen Zombie; venerable, reformed post punk iconoclasts rage and howl at the evils of the modern world. Essential.

5.    Wire – Wire; nearly 40 years in and the very definition of angular, awkward belligerence on one of their most compelling releases in 30 years

6.    Penetration – Resolution; Ferryhill’s finest’s first album since 79 and it contains 5 solid gold classics. Buy this.

7.    British Sea Power – Sea of Brass; the world’s cleverest indie band reimagine 14 classics with full orchestral backing. Simply adorable.

8.    Euros Childs – Sweetheart; the annual slice of sweet, beautiful pop by the world’s most modest man.

9.    Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There; quiet, homely acoustic re-treads of some favourites and parts of their back catalogue. Warm.

10. Gang of Four – What Happens Next; Andy Gill is the Gang of One these days, but it’s a fiery soup of righteous anguish and anger he produces.

11. Fairport Convention – Myths & Heroes; a lovely collection of down-to-earth proper folk roots by the incomparable masters of their craft.

12. Jad Fair & Norman Blake – Yes; community service C86 by numbers while we anxiously await the new TFC album.

13. The Fall – Sub Lingual Tablet; elderly drunk rants incoherently over the top of uninspired Killing Joke style sludge.

2015 Gigs of the Year

1.    Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Sage 24/10 – a breath-taking evening of cultural import; legendary.

2.    Wire – Sage 22/2 – these old fellas won the BBC6 weekend with this sonic assault.

3.    Trembling Bells – Cumberland 13/8 – a sold-out gig at last for them and one of the best performances I’ve seen from them; love this band.

4.    Vic Godard – Cumberland 27/11 – the old campaigner slayed us with a superb set on a magical night.

5.    Christy Moore – Sage 26/10 – right on form as ever; he also dedicated “Spancilhill” to me, which was grand.

6.    Penetration – Playhouse 16/10 – a superbly judged set of old and modern; they really are getting better with age.

7.    Band of Holy Joy – Cluny 8/5 – the perfect antidote to post General Election malaise; they are so important.

8.    Euros Childs – Mining Institute 10/12 – impossible not to smile during the Welsh wizard’s gigs.

9.    JAMC – Leeds 17/2 – feedback, strobes and ear-splitting volume; wonderful nostalgia.

10. Wedding Present – Riverside 7/11 – a great set of career highlights; a must-attend annual event.

11. British Sea Power – Sage 22/2 – short set at Radio 6 festival; no brass band, but plenty of bears and greenery.

12. Fairport Convention– Sage 18/2 - a jolly and fulfilling evening; how said 2016’s tour won’t feature Newcastle.

13. Lindisfarne Story – Playhouse 11/10 – nostalgic, honest and deeply compelling; a fitting tribute to Si Cowe (RIP).

14. Ride – Barrowlands 23/5 – the first 4 EPs have lasted better than Mark Gardener’s hair; the trilby fools no-one.

15. Andy Irvine – Irish Centre 16/4 – nice to see the legend up close and personal, but he’s a minor talent in the story of 60s Irish Folk.

16. Lee “Scratch” Perry – Riverside 10/4 – glad I saw him, but at nearly 80, he’s struggling to keep the audience entertained.

2015 Old Albums of the Year:

1.    Gang of Four – Entertainment; accidentally posted along with their new album. One of the best of all time.

2.    Peter Bellamy – Both Sides Then; superb trad bellowing from a tragic loss to the English folk scene

3.    Joe Heaney – The Road from Connemara; Sean nos is an acquired taste. Joe Heaney did it better than most.

4.    The Copper Family – Come Write Me Down; if the peasants of William Blake’s imagination had sung, they would have been the Copper family.

5.    Anne Briggs – Collection; A killer voice from a crazy woman.

6.    The Young Tradition – Oberlin 1968; bellowing traddies live on stage. A fascinating document.

7.    Jack the Lad – Plymouth Bootleg; a happy-go-lucky live album fun of wisecracks, mirth and 70s folk.

8.    Pete Seeger & Almanac Chorus – Union Songs; the Socialist ABC for folk singers. Important.

9.    Shirley Collins – Collection; too mannered for my tastes.

10. Bob Dylan – Oh Mercy; got my mam’s copy when she went into care. It’s ok, but everything after Desire expendable.

11. Bob Davenport – The Common Stone; arrogant, smug and boring.

12. Louis Killen & Johnny Handle – Along the Coaly Tyne; so theatrical it could have been an Am Dram soundtrack.

Older Guys

Well, here it is; the final cultural comment blog of the year. With only Euros Childs live at The Mining Institute on December 10^th to go, it’s more than unlikely I’ll have any other reason to delineate my consumption of artefacts, other than the usual best of year tables, due late December. Since I last spoke with you, there have only been 2 gigs for me to visit and 1 album to buy, as well as a trip to an art gallery in Leeds and one solitary book.

If we deal with that sole tangible musical item first of all, you’ll not be surprised to learn it is the latest wholesome, understated pop gem from that man Euros Childs. After last year’s solo and mainly instrumental Eilaaig, he has returned to the tried and trusted Roogie Boogie Band line up of Stu Kidd, Marco Rea and Laura J Martin that served him so well(greens?) on 2012’s Summer Special and the year after’s Situation Comedy, though it’s the more serious elements of the latter than the knockabout fun of the former that sets the prevalent mood here. The particularly poignant interplay between Euros’s piano, Julia’s flute and the sweet Scotch harmonies of Stu and Marco gives the album a pure and pastoral quality, on such numbers as Christmas in Love and Lady Caroline. However there are a couple of bona fide good time mid 70s rockers , in the shape of notional single Fruit and Veg and what is fast becoming my favourite album track, Julia Sky. I really can’t wait to see the fella and his pals next week.

The annual Euros album is not the only thing to set your watch by, as autumn fades to winter; there are the compulsory live appearances by The Wedding Present and Vic Godard to look forward to. This year, The Wedding Present broke from recent custom and practice, by not doing an album in its entirety, but rather by playing a set containing several new cuts from 2016’s impending release and a rake of old classics, in an 80 minute set that was presumably an extended warm-up for their performance at some Butlins indie weekender in Minehead the day after. Next year, they’re doing a short tour of Saturnalia, which we hope to see at Brudenell Social Club (Ben’s exams notwithstanding), which explained the presence of the gorgeously sordid Skin Diving in the set. There were plenty of other classics too; Dalliance, Kennedy and My Favourite Dress when the band were on superb form. Rather unexpectedly, there’s another chance to see them in Newcastle next spring, as they’ve accepted the support slot for The Wonderstuff. I’ll be there for them, but out the door long before Miles Hunt takes the stage. Really looking forward to the album and hoping Gedge has got the less than inspiring Cinerama project out of his system again.

Vic Godard; what can you say? Well, the annual Newcastle show came round again. Last year was possibly the worst time I’d seen him, not that the gig was bad, just that the endless problems with technological malfunctions, late running sets and an element of drunken bores in the audience who seemed to think we’d all turned out to see them dance left a sour taste, especially as it was Ben’s first time of seeing him since he was 9 (Ben, not Vic). We left early last year; not this time though. It was the best I’ve seen Vic and a brilliant night in the ever adorable Cumberland Arms. First support were El Cid; youngsters who would love to be Buffalo Springfield; Martin Stephenson’s daughter on bass and Taffy Hughes’ lad on guitar, vocals, fringed suede jacket and winklepickers. Nature versus nurture? You decide, but I loved them and can’t wait to see them again.

Next up, about half an hour late, were Post; featuring a lad from The Sexual Objects and someone who appeared to be David Luiz on guitar. They started off in a kind of Krautrock meets Fire Engines groove and then switched, seamlessly, to 3 set closers that were almost undiscovered demos from Howdy era TFC. I enjoyed them enormously, but not as much as I loved Vic. A superb band that reads him telepathically (and can tune his guitar for him between numbers) and a brilliant set that ranged across the 40 years of his career kept the whole audience enthusiastically on message. No Chain Smoking or Different Story tonight, but Nobody’s Scared, Best Album in the World and Ambition all deserved Oscars. The whole evening helped along by a superb DJ set by Johny Brown. Who’d have thought we’d all have ended up on the dancefloor cutting a rug to L’il Louis’s French Kiss at the end of the night? A wonderful night with wonderful people.

I love Joan Cornella’s cartoons; they’re sick, disturbing and utterly hilarious in the way they endlessly break the barriers of taste, decency and social etiquette. On a day trip down to Leeds to take Ben to Bradford City v Crewe Alexandra and to eat curry, we started our day with a visit to the Cornella exhibition at the Leeds City Gallery. In point of fact, I’d seen every one of the cartoons on display before, but did not expect the intense effect of seeing them full size and up close. Dazzling colours, the depth of the painting and the sheer expanse of his vision in one place, made for a wonderful, disorientating, slightly queasy experiment. The eyes of that chicken will haunt me forever….

In contrast to the quality and quantity of music I’ve been exposed to, I’ve only read one book since last time, Aidan Williams’ Worst in the World about countries that have languished at the bottom of FIFA’s international rankings since the system was devised. It’s fair to say this is an American Samoa of a book.  One of the main problems with any factual work, other than academic texts of course, is that the facts are already in the public domain, however obscure the subject. As regards football writing under such circumstances, authors are generally faced with an insurmountable problem when attempting to find new angles on a particular subject; the famous ones have been done to death and the hitherto unknown ones, probably justifiably, don’t present enough information for evaluation, analysis and interpretation beyond the superficial level. Consequently, the best football writing seeks to get under the skin of the subject and present it with unflagging, brutal honesty, such as Eamon Dunphy’s account of his time with Milwall, Only A Game?, or Roddy Doyle’s masterfully ghostwritten book on Roy Keane, that put the sound of Mayfield’s most notorious son, right in your head from the opening sentence.

Alternatively, great football writers may seek to find a way of putting themselves into the work, almost like an amalgam of the naïve, self-reflexive, narrator as facilitator, persona used to such effect by Louis Theroux and Nick Broomfield. This is certainly true of some of my favourite football books; Harry Pearson’s The Far Corner, Tim Parks’ A Season with Verona, the late and much-missed Joe McGinniss’s superb The Miracle of Castel di Sangro and, most presciently, Charlie Connelly’s I Just Can’t Help Believing, a study of relegation and its effects on supporters, and Stamping Grounds, a history of football in Liechtenstein.

What makes Connelly’s two book so successful is the personal touch evident; he attended games and met people, talked to them, introduced the reader to them. As a reader, you could picture the sounds, the smells and the sights of games he depicted, from Vaduz to Brunton Park and back again. In many ways, these books became quasi-autobiographical as Connelly’s enthusiasm and compassion for his subjects, changed and improved him as a person. His conclusions were as much for himself as the clubs and countries he visited.

Sadly Aidan Williams has utterly failed to engage with his subjects. While the idea of following the fortunes and travails of the various countries that ended at the very bottom of FIFA’s international standings: American Samoa, San Marino, Bhutan, Monserrat, is both laudable and intriguing, the actual end product is an unengaging trawl through games and statistics, augmented by some Wikipedia level historical and cultural contextualisation. What becomes blatantly obvious, without even consulting the 160 references that add flesh to the paltry 140 pages of text, is that Williams neither attended any of the games he describes, nor did he talk directly to any of those he quotes.

Worst in the World is not plagiarism, but it is synoptic precis masquerading as research. On finishing the book, my instinct was to seek out the films The Other Final (Bhutan versus Monserrat on the same day as the 2002 World Cup final) and Next Goal Wins, the story of American Samoa’s attempts to recover from their infamous 31-0 battering by Australia. I feel it must be on celluloid rather than the pages of this book, where the true account of life at the bottom of FIFA’s rankings is to be found.   

Pretentious Drivel

Back in May, I published a piece about my memories of the first north east punk band I ever saw; Speed, to coincide with that group's singer, my good friend Johny Brown, appearing with Band of Holy Joy at The Cluny. This Friday Johny is DJing at The Cumberland with Vic Godard, so I thought I'd revisit the project I wrote the piece for. Gob on the Tyne is an oral history of NE punk; this is my autobiographical piece in it.....

Originally I am from Gateshead. Felling to be precise, born in ’64. I come from a folk music family; my dad was a singer who actually sang with Liam Kelly from The Dubliners, while my mam saw Bob Dylan at The City Hall in 65 or 66. I was hearing folk music from 4 or 5 years onwards and by age 8 or 9 I was into Bob Dylan and Lindisfarne, stuff like that. I had a couple of older cousins; John Hird around 3 years older and formed The Prigs, and Grahame who is 8 or 9 years older. He is the real musical success in the family, Grahame Cusack, he had 2 sessions in 80 and 81 on John Peel and released a single with his band The Monoconics.  John and Grahame started to play the music they were into to me, originally John liked Richie Blackmores’ Rainbow which I couldn’t abide; Graham  was into more experimental stuff like Tangerine Dream, Krautrock stuff. When I was 11, I got an acoustic guitar, but all I did was learn a few chords. About a year later John got an electric. In early 77 he and a few mates decided that they wanted to start playing music. They had been influenced by The Damned, I was just turning 12 to 13 in August 77, so the music that appealed to me was not the straight punk. I never liked The Stranglers, the only Pistols song I liked was Submission, and I never liked The Damned. To me it didn’t sound much different from a speeded up Slade or Sweet. I liked the slightly more experimental stuff; I was really keen on Oh Bondage Up Yours! by XRS, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I would say Christmas Eve 1976 listening to John Peel, which was the start of the first Festive 50, was a life changing event for me. He played ‘Anarchy in The UK’ for the first time on British radio. It didn’t particularly do anything for me but what really did was Richard Hell and The Voidoids ‘I belong to the Blank Generation’. I thought that was one of the most amazing things I had ever heard. In ’77 when New Wave album came out, the ones that got me were the American ones rather than the British. Patti Smith is still someone I adore ‘Piss Factory’ was on there, ‘Shake Some Action’ by The Flamin’ Groovies and then Marquee Moon I got, everybody bought it because the 12” single, never had one before.

As for making music, I still had this acoustic guitar, I could play Bob Dylan, ‘Fog on The Tyne’. I couldn’t do anything experimental or challenging, but a couple of mates I knocked about with we decided we wanted to form a band in 78, after I’d bought myself a cheap telecaster copy for £20 second hand. We eventually called ourselves Pretentious Drivel. What had really started influencing me through ’78 was The Gang of Four, The Mekons, Essential Logic, Wire; post punk. Subway Sect’s Ambition. Stuff on Rough Trade and the more experimental labels. Stuff I love to this day.  Me, a friend called Chris and a friend called Rob, all couldn’t play so we were trying to be as experimental as possible; this involved tape loops, recording telephones, stuff off the telly, wacky almost atonal noise and drone stuff. We originally called ourselves The Modernists. It was the name of a book I’d seen in a second hand bookshop at the bottom of Westgate Road, bright yellow hardback book with The Modernists in blood red. The book was about painters, but we didn’t know anything about that. We just liked the name. It sounded awkward.

My mam could get us photocopies of stuff from the school where she worked. In those days it was important to get your name known. There was band graffiti all over the town. ! When Eldon Square was being done up, painted in massive green letters was The Chris Grey Band. Totally obscure. My mates saw them once  and they were fabulously terrible. They had someone playing the saxophone, somebody else had a guitar but couldn’t really play it, a drummer and the singer stood there with his duffle coat fastened right up as people were throwing pints at him the whole time. Probably because of this, we thought that what was important was to get lots of publicity, get your name known. My mam photocopied lots of flyers with ‘The Modernists are coming’ on and we stuck them up with sellotape in bus stops and the record shops round town. We weren’t playing gigs as we couldn’t really say we had enough songs. We had weekly practises on a Sunday, where we just made horrible, wailing feedback noise with 2 guitars, a bass and lots of tapes. Then what happened in early ’79 you started to get this ‘mod revival’. When Chris saw Secret Affair, Purple Hearts, The Modernists written upstairs on the number 1 bus, we swiftly changed the name to Pretentious Drivel.

Because of how young we were, we couldn’t go to gigs at the Poly, the University or the Mayfair. We would see bands at the City Hall, but that was commercial stuff, not what we were into, but being aged 14, we couldn’t get in to licensed premises. One place we used to go was Spectro Arts by Worsick St Bus Station going down to Pilgrim St; it’s pulled down now. It was so totally Arts Council seventies; it would have performance artists, photo exhibitions, sculpting, painting and they had a performance space there. They would let anybody in for about 30p. Once there was a bloke on stage with hot water bottle on each foot and every time he moved his foot it made this ridiculous quacking sound. He was in a white boiler suit with a violin and he was running around playing this and making this squawking sound. A lad who used to hang around with us from Sunderland, Pete Sumby had a pencil in his pocket and wrote on this brown paper carrier bag ‘Pretentious Drivel’ regarding the performance. We thought that is the name of our band.

We used knock around together on Saturdays; we’d to buy our records from Listen Ear but we were not trendy enough to hang around outside. We’d hang around Days of Hope, the socialist bookshop that now is between the Bodega and The Tyne Theatre, as we were all lefties and anarchists. We were supporters of an organisation called International Marxist Grouping, who had sponsored a Rock Against Racism single with The Proles and The Condemned on it. We never changed the world but we all found we had a mutual affection for quite obscure noisy post punk music.

One time we bought a drum kit from a second hand shop in Gosforth. We didn’t have a drummer, but we bought the drum kit just in case. We’d set it up and occasionally have people come and play with us. That lad Pete Sumby came and played with us for a while, as he was a big Scritti Polliti fan I’d never heard ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’ until I met him and I thought it was fantastic.  Pete was also into improvised music and he didn’t agree with playing in bands that did rehearsed to try and be proficient, so he left. We were completely musically inept; we didn’t do verse chorus, verse solo. We had 2 chords and would play the same thing with lyrics over the top. If you’ve ever listened to The Swell Maps bedroom tapes, Whatever Happens Next,  it was a bit like that you know. There were three of us in the band at the time; me, a lad called Chris Dixon, and a lad called Rob Gosden. Sadly I haven’t seen either of them in over 25 years.

As well as Swell Maps, I loved The Raincoats first album and The Mekons . We used to write to them, 36 Richmond Mount, Headingley, Leeds and they’d write back. These days I’m friends with John Langford now 35 years on. That’s one of the wonderful things about social media, you can get in touch people you used to idolise as a teenager and rediscover they’re just normal blokes.

I work with Rob Blamire and Paul Harvey from Penetration. They’re mates.  Rob and Pauline are lovely people. Same as Johnny Brown from The Band of Holy Joy who, as Johny Fusion in Speed, was the best punk singer I ever saw. 

Pretentious Drivel managed to get a singer, Carol Rushbrooe, who was a friend of a friend; a really good singer. She played saxophone properly in a youth orchestra, so we thought ‘oh its kind of Poly Styrene and Laura Logic combined, that’s great!’ We were supposed to make our live debut in July 1979 upstairs from The Garage with The Prigs and Hepatitis (who were kind of like a Talking Heads type art rock band; quite a bit older, a bit of a draw). We were organising it as a fundraiser for this organisation we were in Revolution Youth, which was an IMG front. We just thought it would give us a chance to go on strike and skive off school and that. We had this gig organised and then Chris discovered that that was when his parents had booked their bloody holiday! Friday the 13^th of July or something! They booked because it was cheaper than going in the school holidays so we didn’t get to play!

We ended up playing our first gig on October 3^rd 1979 at a community centre in Whickham. We were invited by friends of friends  not because of our talents or reputation, but because of what we could bring to the table; we all had amplifiers and a drum kit. For transport we relied on our dads and mine worked for the council so he had a van so that was fantastic. We played this gig, the four of us, noise and drone, we went down like death at a birthday party, awful. So we decided that what we were more interested in wasn’t playing live! Being creative, what we called ‘practicing’. It wasn’t really practicing it was extended jamming. We had two places; my garage or a Chris mam’s work. She was a nurse and she worked at Newbiggin Hall health centre, probably been pulled down. Upstairs there was a flat for nurses or whatever but there was nobody living there and she got the key and said ‘why don’t you practice there?’ We would make a point of doing it on a Thursday night when Top Of The Pops was on, showing that we didn’t want to be commercial! We used to do it on a Sunday afternoons as well. The good citizens of Westerhope and Newbiggin Hall noticed there was noise coming from upstairs at the doctors on Sunday afternoons. Can you remember what it was like on a Sunday then? You used to walk down Northumberland Street the only thing that was open was RS McColl’s Newsagent. Unless you were going to the chemist to fill a prescription, you couldn’t buy anything else in the town!

We managed to get a little better. For instance we managed to master barre chords! Chris was doing A levels at Newcastle College, there was a kid in his history class who had moved up from Cambridge. A lad called Andrew who was really interested in music but not just that he was a drummer. We invited him along and lo and behold he was absolutely brilliant. Just playing with him meant we turned from being this Rough Trade noise band we became like the Bunnymen, Velvets, Au Pairs even Postcard Records kind of thing. We became much more tuneful, more melodic.

Andrew was a brilliant musician but he’d just moved here from down south and he didn’t know anyone, he could have had the pick of any musicians in town but we were the first ones to ask. We continued with him for two years and did about 20 gigs. Balmbras, Newton Park in High Heaton, The Lonsdale, The Gosforth Hotel.  Some of the gigs were successful, some less so. Carol was sometimes in the band and sometimes had other things in her life. It came to a point where we were going to be leaving to go to university in ’82 and the last gig that we did, at Balmbras, we got 2 encores! End of March ’82 It was great. We had the choice of saying ‘bugger it, we’re not going to go and be students we’re going to concentrate on music, we’re going to try’ we talked about recording a demo but when it came down to it me and Rob were more keen on getting away from home than we were staying in a band. Rob went off to Manchester, Chris went off to Sheffield, I went off to Ireland, while Andrew stayed in Newcastle and Carol, well I don’t know what happened, I’ve never seen her. I believe she trained to be a nurse. We’d had 3 to 4 years of going from unlistenable atonal droning to being a not bad but not particularly inspired or original indie band. If I am honest the stuff I liked best was all the crazy wacky noisy stuff which I would have liked to have continued with; improvised noise, feedback, found sounds and all that. If your musical talent is so minimal as to be negligible, when you are trying to do regulation type rock or indie, the results are so uninspired and limp, because you have nothing new to add.

When the American author William S Burroughs used to teach creative writing, he tried to persuade all his students to stop writing because in his words “there’s more than enough books in the world anyway”. I thought ‘there’s more than enough bands in the world’ anyway. When groups who do something interesting and challenging like The Comsat Angels never got anywhere what chance did we have? I enjoyed making improvised noise more than I enjoyed playing ‘real’ music. I would never say I was in a punk band, it was more post punk.

To this day I never go and see tribute acts and I don’t tend to go and see bands who have just reformed to go and re do some album. Take the likes of Wire and Gang of Four who have had hiatuses in their career but have never actually split up. Wire refuse to perform anything more than five years old. I like bands that continue to push the boundaries and stuff and if I had continued doing that I might have got somewhere, ha! I went to university and went into another band there with a lad that ended up playing bass for The Petrol Emotion and when they split up, not one of the O’Neill  brothers a lad called John Marchini who was only with them for one album. We had a good time at university being Velvet Underground copyists, it was good, I enjoyed it like you know but I found the limits of my talent were such I couldn’t write anything that didn’t sound derivative. When I finished university I got rid of my gut air and amps and kept my semi acoustic and every now and again I take it down but I haven’t written anything I could call a new piece in about 20 odd years. I had a finite amount of talent and don’t have any more.

My mate Dave says ‘football let’s you down but music never does’. I couldn’t imagine a time between now and the end of my life when I wouldn’t be looking forward to new releases or going to gigs. I went to see Lee Scratch Perry with my son. Perry is ’79. He’s older than me mam! My son said he’s kind of like a Rastafarian Mark E Smith, the shambolic figure that is saying stuff that no one can understand ‘you are in the presence of genius like’ 

We were very democratic in our song writing. We’d try and get everybody to write the same number of songs and also when we played live have the same number of compositions played. My all time favourite band are Teenage Fan Club and on every album there are 4 songs by Norman 4 by Gerry and 4 by Raymond they really are democratic.When it came to our actual songs; at first it used to be any stream of consciousness nonsense that was scribbled down. We had a song called ‘Where is the ceiling?g’ which used to go on for like 12 minutes. It had quite a complex bass line but just a two note guitar over and over again. The words just fit in a sense around them because it didn’t have an actual structure. You didn’t have to have syllables, rhymes etc it was just about anything. I listened to Human Leagues Being Boiled and on the b side which is supposed to be an instrumental Phil Oakey talks over the start and I thought it was a brilliant idea so we’d be talking or read something out. Cut ups, you know the way Bowie borrowed the Gysin and Burroughs way of doings; he’d get a page from a newspaper and cut it up to find interesting phrases. We’d do stuff like that, very pretentious and arty and all that.

We were having a laugh. Once you start to do more ‘chorded’ type songs we had to try and write songs and then they would just be very anti establishment type things influenced by like how say The Fall were maybe not put out as being intellectual as theirs! The things we avoided were  love songs about lasses who wouldn’t go out with us or we hate Margret Thatcher songs. That always seemed too obvious to us. If we ever wrote about relationships it wasn’t ‘why doesn’t Mary Smith go out with me’ it was more like ‘Why is society so oppressive towards women that they feel they have to have relationships with men. ‘ Of course we were just a bunch of middle class wankers you know. When I did my A levels at Gateshead College the place was completely full of big hard lads who were in The Sham Army who were on day release there. They would just go and persecute us, pseudo intellectuals ha, ha. It’s just the way it was. I always looked for obscurity; I always thought obscurity was a good idea like, probably because I couldn’t play very well.

All I ever wanted, all I ever wanted was to release one seven inch single.  What I did instead I went into writing. Both fiction and I write journalism. I’ve had a book published so that’s alright for me; I’ve made some kind of mark. There will be something in the British Library that has got my name on. Village Voice and it’s about Percy Main Amateurs football club. I edit a Newcastle fanzine as well called The Popular Side, so I am creative and I know that I am better at writing than I am at playing. It was always sad though, my fingertips were always used to feel rock hard from holding down the strings and that’s gone. When you don’t pick your guitar up every day and when you do it starts to get painful in the way it did when you first tried to teach yourself and of course when you are not in a band you don’t have the motivation.  Perhaps it’s a sign that I’m better as a consumer than a creator of music.

Keep the Sabbath

A fortnight ago I published my article from Stand #15; this week, it's the turn of my scribblings from The Football Pink #10. I strongly urge you to buy both publications.

Have you ever pondered just how our society has evolved to the extent that Sunday has been transformed from a day of inertia, when all forms of recreation were stifled by the state-endorsed intolerance enshrined in anachronistic, extremist Christian legislation, into the weekly festival of hedonistic, epicurean excess it has become? Pubs across the land are as busy on Sunday afternoons for food and football as they are on Friday nights it seems, not that I spend much time carousing at my age.

Certainly some of the credit for Britain throwing off the straitjacket of imposed Reformation morality, to dance topless in bacchanalian  liberation, must go to the 1988 Licensing Act, which modified Sunday opening hours to the extent they changed from 12-2 and 7-10.30 to 12-3 and 7-10.30.  An extra hour of bevvying may not have been the revolutionary event that altered the fabric of the English Sabbath forever, but it did serve as a kind of foot in the door, that made change inevitable once another enormous cultural shift established itself on the nation’s collective consciousness half a decade later.  Casting one’s mind back to 1992, it seems that the unequivocal narrative that repeatedly extols the greatness and perfection of the Premier League was not accepted by all sections of the media. While the Murdoch Empire crowed in hubristic glee at the fait accompli of the establishment of the Greed is Good League, as Brian Glanville so memorably described it, others were more agnostic in their response. However, in the spirit of sporting Social Darwinism,  the eventual decisive victory of satellite television in creating and, more importantly, establishing the hitherto unimaginably financially  successful Premier League could only be toasted during Monday Night Football. Seeing off your pint and heading home for a 4pm kick off on Sunday was seen as a vile restraint of trade by licensed victuallers and Sky subscription dealers across the nation.

The curious anomaly of the dry Sunday afternoon was a relic of a bygone era of Christian observance utterly out of step with the reality of late 20th century life, which persisted until The Sunday Hours Licencing Act permitted all day opening 7 days a week from 1995 onwards. Look at the timeline; 7 years since the previous act, but only 3 since the Premier League was formed. Coincidence? Not at all. This modification of the 1988 Act came as a result of pressure, aided by sweetheart stories in News International’s publications, from both those in the pub trade, who identified a potentially lucrative market in family Sunday lunches and the retail sector, who had gained the legal right for shops to open every day of the week via the 1994 Sunday Trading Act and saw a clear potential link between the two areas of consumer consumption. The internet may have hit city centre outlets hard, but twenty years ago, the social aspect of shopping maintained a curious and influential hold over much of the populace. As is ever the case when rapacious capitalists see an opportunity to earn a quick buck, those who suffered were the workers. Employees in retail and attendant industries, long before the iniquitous zero hours contracts became a distressing, depressing reality, have long had conditions of employment imposed on them that see no difference between, say, a Tuesday and a Sunday; no time and a half or double time for weekend graft for the undervalued and often non-unionised workers in the service sector. Remember that next time you feel compelled to kick off with the person who forgets the Horseradish to go with your roast beef.

In our current era, where the mammoth Friday evening check-out queues at supermarkets of the 1980s have largely been replaced by a Sunday snarl up in the dairy products aisle, it seems difficult to recollect an earlier time when the Day of Rest was precisely that. Prior to the famed game on ITV that ended Spurs 2 Nottingham Forest 1 in October 1983, which ushered in the concept of live domestic league and cup games on British television, the only football you’d see on a Sunday would be international tournaments every couple of years. I’m too young to remember the 1970 World Cup, though I distinctly remember Holland’s losses in 74 and 78, as well as Panenka’s iconic penalty that won Czechoslovakia a victory over West Germany in the 1976 European Championships, all taking place on Sundays.

During the 1974 Miners’ Strike, the crumbling Heath Government introduced a rolling programme of power cuts across the country. As a result, a few clubs played games on Sunday to circumvent the potential problems of either needing a generator or kicking off early, by exploiting a kind of administrative sleight of hand that meant spectators were not paying for entry, but for a programme, to circumvent licensing restrictions. Despite encouraging crowds, these games were seen as bizarre curiosities and, rather like the talkies in 1928 or guitar groups in 1962 according to Decca Records, there was no future in them. It didn’t appear that way in Ireland, where since independence; games had always been played on Sundays. Looking at the results in the paper on a Monday was a weekly highlight in the mid-70s for a certain 10 year old supporter of Cork who lived in Gateshead. 

While football declined the opportunity of investigating the possible benefits of the great experiment further, other sports actively embraced the Sabbath as an integral part of their calendar. Horse racing and greyhounds were prohibited, on account of a blanket ban on gambling on Sundays, but motor racing only ever took place on the Day of Rest. Rugby League, unlike the more Calvinistic 15 man code, saw its entire fixture programme take place on a Sunday, bar the one game each week which was moved back to the Saturday for live TV coverage. I’m sure there’s a level of irony in that fact. Long before Sunday Grandstand became a regular feature, BBC2 would show an entire John Player League 40 overs cricket game; a much loved competition that began in 1969 and lasted in one form or another until 2009. Indeed, the concept of a “rest day” in test matches was abandoned also, as test venues put up the HOUSE FULL signs for the first 4 days of all matches, as crowds flocked to the novel surroundings of a sporting event on a Sunday.

Spare a thought for the amateur sportsman back then. Sunday league football and Sunday league cricket were an integral part of the sporting life of many in the North East, and they remain so to this day. Football games kicked off at 10.00 so you could get to the bar for opening time and many cricket clubs managed to secure exceptional licences that allowed drink to be served all afternoon. I recall halcyon afternoons, attired in sweat soaked football gear, stretched out near the boundary at Felling Cricket Club, supping pints of Exhibition and watching Madan Lal win games single-handedly. It’s the nearest I’ve got to a Brideshead Revisited moment.

To the average adult citizen in the 1980s, the very idea of not only pubs being open, but domestic football games regularly taking place on Sunday afternoons, seemed an unrealistic fantasy. Nostalgia often adds an air of innocence to our recollections, but I can recall walking through the almost entirely deserted centre of Newcastle on any Sunday afternoon in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a potential customer would be restricted to spending their hard earned on either the range of wares on offer at Boots the Chemist by Grey’s Monument or RS McColl’s newsagent’s at the top of Pilgrim Street. That was it, other than a few dismal cafes near the Central Station, populated by the lonely, the marginalised, the transient and the haunted. The city was predominantly silent and virtually deserted.

Sunday professional football was, of course, in its infancy back then as well. The rarity of such an occurrence as a fixture change means it is easy to recall the infrequent instances of games not taking place at 3pm on a Saturday. A brace of losses to Liverpool (0-2 in November 84 and 1-4 in September 87), two games against Manchester United, a goalless league fixture in November 88 and a 2-3 loss in the FA Cup fifth round in February 90, as well as a spectacular 4-0 hammering of West Ham in November 86 were the only televised Sunday games played at SJP before the advent of Sky TV’s takeover of the national game via the Premier League. In addition, there were two derbies against sunderland that were subject to noon kick-offs on Police advice; 1-1 in February 1990 and 1-0 in March 1992. Neither game was shown live.

Keen students of chronology will note Newcastle United were not in the top flight in the Premier League’s debut season, hence they missed out on such delights as hosting The Shamen miming to Ebeneezer Goode, as they did at Highbury during the interval of Arsenal v Man City.  Not to be outdone by the new kids on the block, ITV got in on the live football broadcasting act, by showing as many Sunday afternoon games from League Division 1 as it was then called, as they could feasibly manage. Obviously back then ITV was a selection of autonomous companies, each one broadcasting to a defined audience; the homogenized centralisation of the entire network these days would make such bold scheduling impossible.

For Newcastle United, who stormed to the title with Kevin Keegan at the helm in 1992/1993, this meant local broadcasters Tyne Tees moving home ties with Swindon, Millwall, Derby, Birmingham, sunderland and Leicester for live transmission. Strangely, the first 4 fixtures were all drawn, while the last 2 saw Magpie wins. Leicester resulted in a 7-1 victory on the day the league trophy was presented; a magnificently joyous occasion. From 20 years distant, the recollection I have is that the only grumbles about the intervention of television were related to the fact that it was impossible to get a drink after the game. Perhaps the feelgood factor and relative infrequence of fixture changes minimised dissent.

As regards the away fixtures, various ITV companies shifted games at Brentford, sunderland, Barnsley, West Ham and Tranmere, for live transmission, resulting in 3 wins, a draw and a defeat at Oakwell. Only that game and the one at Roker Park were all ticket. For the others, it was pay on the gate. These live broadcasts were a welcome novelty if you couldn’t afford or didn’t have the inclination to travel. From a personal point of view, ever since then I’ve not been able to listen to a game on the radio. The not knowing exactly how play is developing, regardless of the competence or otherwise of the commentator, is simply too frustrating and nerve wracking. The world changes I suppose, which is why I “follow” the action on line or on Twitter if I can’t see live pictures these days.

Looking back from more than two decades distant, it seems incredible that nearly a dozen Newcastle games were broadcast on Sunday afternoon, all free to air; could you imagine that now? Frankly, I can’t remember the last time the Magpies appeared on terrestrial television. The FA Cup 6^th round away to Chelsea in 2006 perhaps?  During the season following NUFC’s promotion, the anachronism encapsulated by Sunday pub closing could clearly be seen after home games against Blackburn and Liverpool by the presence of gangs of blokes hanging around in city centre pub doorways, waiting for opening time and Sky’s second showing of that afternoon’s game. For the away games, it was a case of being locked in, if you know where to go, or being locked out if you didn’t. I distinctly remember queues similar to those seen at the Gallowgate turnstiles outside every pub on the Haymarket, waiting for access to the re-run of Andy Cole’s famed hat trick in the 3-0 demolition of Liverpool in November 1993. As I said earlier, bearing in mind such enthusiasm from potential punters and the chance for turning a dollar by packing the pubs for the live showing of games, it would be foolish to discount to influence of Rupert Murdoch on the British political establishment in terms of providing a vastly increased market for his product, in the days before domestic satellite and cable television was the norm, if not compulsory. Nowadays, everyone has access to Sky Sports; hell I’ve got it for free on my phone. However, what has been introduced into the British weekend experience, from the 1995 relaxation of licensing hours, is the concept of going to the pub on a Sunday afternoon to watch the Sky game, whoever may be playing.  Mates of mine, who sacked off SJP years ago, even before Ashley assumed ownership in some instances, never miss a Super Sunday afternoon swallow down the local.

As far as I’m concerned, this is clearest indication I can think of which demonstrates the process of transformation of large numbers of those interested in football from being dedicated fans to interested observers. Consumption has checkmated passion and the ubiquity of the televised product must be one of the main causes. If you’re so inclined, there are at least 3 and sometimes 4 live games, domestic and European, broadcast every Sunday. In one baffling (to me at least) development, my student son and his housemates, from a variety of locations, supporting a range of teams, have a regular Sunday evening get together over a takeaway to watch La Liga. The blokes in their late teens and early 20s may not be in Sid Lowe or Guillem Balague’s league, but they know more about Spanish football than I would have thought possible for any undergraduate resident of Headingley. While family connections in Euskal Herria mean that my lad is a passionate supporter of Athletic Club, his pals have looser bonds with their teams of choice. Barca. Real. Atleti even. There is an oft stated, but vague and nebulous promise that they’ll all take in a game at Camp Nou or Santiago Bernebeu at some point in the future. For now, their Sunday gatherings are primarily social rather than sporting events. A time to observe rather than actively support.

Contrast the frat boy pizza party with the first Sunday I spent at a game this season. August 9th 2015.  First game of the season at St James Park; that palpable sense of anticipation and optimism, mixed in with an element of apprehension and an unhealthy dollop of cynicism that hung like a cloud over the city centre on the walk up to the ground.  The quickening of the pulse as the teams emerged. Sounds of the crowd. Louder than the home team deserves. A rip-roaring 2-2 against Southampton, with 50,000 plus in attendance. The vast majority passionate in their support. Running the gamut of emotions as the game swung from one side to the other, before ending even. Outside the ground, the pattern of ordinary city life may have continued unabated, Shops, restaurants and bars all doing a roaring trade. Chinese buffets on Stowell Street, thronged to the doors by fashionably attired families, seeking exotic comestibles after a gruelling morning’s retail therapy, but Newcastle is a football city.

Full time, I walk away from the ground and towards The Bodega for a pint. I see a middle aged Southampton fan in their away shirt striding down Westgate Road, presumably on the way to the station. I offer my hand and he shakes it.

“Blinding game fella. All the best for the rest of the season.”

“You too pal. Safe journey.”

Regardless of the commercialisation and commodification of a sport that dominates most news sources all day, every day, there are still moments of joy and beauty to be found in the simple pleasure of supporting your team, whatever day of the week it may be.