Thursday 31 July 2014

Irish Tour 14


It’s almost two years since I was last in Ireland; an unimaginably long period of time to be away from the place on earth where I feel more at ease than anywhere else I’ve yet come across. Apologies for any sentimentality, but it’s my spiritual and emotional home. Since my trip to Cork, Kildare and Croke Park in August 2012 (detailed at http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/de-banks.html); I’ve only spent 2 nights out of Newcastle, on account of family responsibilities as my mother’s main carer. In addition, as 2013 was deemed to be “The Homecoming” by Fáilte Ireland, it was clear I’d have to give anything as conformist as that squalid publicity campaign a wide berth. Hence, 2014 it was. 40 years on from Rory Gallagher’s Irish Tour ’74 it was time for me to do the same thing. Even then, trying to fix a date for a visit, bearing in mind my sporting requirements (see later in article), was fraught with difficulties. The end of May / start of June window I’ve used in the past to great effect was discounted because of my candidacy in the local elections for TUSC and Hibernian’s ability to snatch relegation from the jaws of safety in the SPL play-off, while the summer had to take into account my various obligations to attend gigs and games in July and August, not to mention the wedding of a long-time pal and the occasion of my 50th birthday. Thanks; nice of you to say so.


Consequently, the weekend identified was, by necessity, Friday 25th to Sunday 27th July, as it would provide plenty of fresh sporting experiences, both in terms of garrison and indigenous games. I must take time to add that I did embrace elements of what many would consider a proper holiday during my stay, bookending the trip with visits to the James Joyce Museum in the Martello Tower at Sandycove as part of a pleasant wander, on a beautiful day, from Dalkey to Dun Laoghaire, ideological stronghold of the heroic People Before Profit Alliance element of the brave and noble United Left group in Dáil Éireann, and back, not to mention a considerably more strenuous trip to Wicklow, where an amble along the seafront was taken to another level entirely by scaling Bray Head on a baking afternoon. Needless to say, the degree of difficulty was magnified and multiplied when I lost the easy path and had to scrabble up the side of the mountain. I thought I was on my way to a grave stone, never mind Greystones. However, a few great pints of craft ale in The Magpie in Dalkey, as well as a Druid carry-out, helped to restore my equilibrium. Then, to end my stay, I took an afternoon’s stroll all along the banks of the Royal Canal from Maynooth Harbour to the edge of Kilcock, filling my lungs with pure Kildare air and sensing the ripe disappointment occasioned by the removal of the Irish Open Canoe Polo Championships to Longford.

Where I didn’t go this time at all was central Dublin, skirting through it via The Point Depot and Ringsend on the Aircoach to Killiney Castle, as well as finding €5 under my seat. Sure there’s some great pubs either side of the river, but once you’ve mentioned the DNS is rough and ready, while the South is full of bouffant hairdos in YSL shirts, what else is there to say? I’ve done all the museums and with the temperature pushing 30 degrees, did I really want to melt on a DART for the chance to waste an hour wandering up Grafton Street?  So where did I go this time? Well in chronological order, I was in the following counties: Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, Carlow, Laois, Offaly, Kildare, Meath and Louth, which comprise 75% of the province of Leinster. This means I’ve now set foot in 27 of 32 Irish counties: Cavan, Fermanagh, Kerry, Monaghan and Waterford being the only ones I’ve yet to be acquainted with. Interestingly, an article on staycations in The Irish Times on Thursday 24th showed that a grand total of 0% of those who had indicated they’d be holidaying in Ireland in 2014 stated they’d be visiting Offaly, so it was important to be swimming against the tourist tide. Who needs Kinsale when you’ve got Tullamore eh?

I’m not sure if it is because the Irish economy has recovered from the state of abject penury to which the population had been reduced by failed machinations of the bankers, developers and corrupt Gombeen men who engineered the property bubble and spectacular crash of 2008, or whether it was because my travels kept me away from largely depopulated midlands and western counties that are garishly criss-crossed by a thousand unnecessary ghost estates that despoil the countryside in counties Longford, Roscommon and Leitrim, plus many other points, standing as shameful reminders of the most unacceptable aspects of rapacious greed and the senseless squandering of both money and hope that lie at the heart of Irish capitalism, but I sensed that Ireland is no longer in despair and that a corner, while not being turned, is in sight. Hopefully this won’t translate itself at the next election into any forgiveness for Fianna Fáil, as nothing will be surer to set the country further back than that shower assuming power again. Then again, the market will always be there for strawberries and spuds, so residents of Wexford and Carlow have no need to put scores of unfinished, unsaleable, unwanted and unnecessary bungalows across their fertile fields.

Interestingly, it happened that politics and sport were intertwined inextricably during my visit, as we shall see. After I’d identified the central weekend to my visit, I immediately turned to both http://www.sseairtricityleague.ie/ and http://www.gaa.ie/ to see what entertainment was available to me. With the GAA, things were simple; having only been to Croke Park, to twice sit in the Cusack Stand in 2012, I was amenable to anything that was on offer outside the capital. The choice rapidly became clear; either it was Semple Stadium in Thurles on Sunday for the hurling quarter final double header between Limerick and Wexford, then home boys Tipperary versus Dublin, or O’Connor Park in Tullamore for the 4A football qualifiers involving my beloved Cork against Sligo, followed by Galway taking on Tipperary. I much prefer hurling as a game; it is breathtakingly fast, seemingly unspeakably dangerous and just about the greatest manifestation of Irish sporting culture one could imagine. Thurles, the place where one Michael Cusack codified the rules of the GAA in 1884, would provide both an atmospheric location and the necessary constituent parts of a real event. Unfortunately, many others thought that way as well; every stand ticket was sold before we could make a decision on how and whether to get there. In fact, Wexford fans unsuccessfully agitated for the games to be switched to Croker to enable more of the Model County’s support to see the game, as headquarters was now idle following the Garth Brooks fiasco. Consequently, my friend John, whose support for Roscommon meant we had to wait until the outcome of their game the week before against Armagh (they lost) before we could make a decision, purchased tickets for O’Connor Park in Tullamore, from SuperValu in Maynooth. It may not have been hurling, but at least I was going to see Cork.


That would be on the Saturday of course, as the League of Ireland tends to be the Friday night sporting feature. Looking at the fixtures for the weekend, the prime driving force was the need to see a new ground. If I’m pressed to name my League of Ireland team, it would be ex Big Club, Bohemian, who were hosting Cork City. The Bohs won 2-0, live on Setanta Ireland, which was a great result, but I’ve been to Dalier twice before so that was out. Similarly, Athlone, Galway, Longford, Shamrock Rovers, Shelbourne, Sligo and UCD were non-starters, despite being at home, as they had been previously visited by yours truly, as well as trips to Bray Wanderers, Derry City, Finn Harps and Saint Patrick’s Athletic. I’ve not set foot in the grounds of Cobh Ramblers, Cork City, Drogheda, Limerick or Waterford United, but they were all away. Consequently, the choice came down to League of Ireland Premier Division leaders Dundalk against Bray Wanderers (Irish sporting wisdom always holds that Bray is “a soccer town”) or First Division minnows Wexford Youths against the singularly uninspiring also-rans Shamrock Rovers B (does it sound better than Reserves? Moot point…).

It seemed a no-brainer, but having been caught out by Irish clubs playing in Europa League qualifiers in 2012, when Cork’s game against St Patrick’s Athletic was postponed and we had to go on a Leeside pub crawl instead, it was no surprise when Dundalk were required to go to Hadjuk Split on the Thursday. They acquitted themselves well with 2-1 victory to go out 3-2 to the Croatians, while Sligo lost 4-3 to Rosenberg and St Patrick’s Athletic were crushed 5-0 at a sold out Tallaght Stadium, tenanted normally by Shamrock Rovers, to bow out 6-1 on aggregate. This meant firstly that all Irish interest in UEFA competitions was at an end, secondly, Dundalk would now host Bray on Sunday night at the seemingly unreal time of 7pm, thirdly I’d get to see 3 sporting fixtures during my visit and fourthly, we (John my Maynooth host, Declan who put me up in Dalkey and I) needed a hotel in Wexford for the Friday night. Again John came up trumps, by sorting out a room at the Maldron in Wexford, as my audacious bid to get us somewhere to stay courtesy of the man behind Wexford Youths had seemingly failed.

Having booked to go with Aer Lingus, I was delighted by their seemingly helpful flight times, but irritated by an unexplained 2 hour delay on the outward leg, which a compensatory voucher for 63% of the value of a Whopper didn’t really make up for, but at least I got on board a plane. On Tuesday 22nd July, 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.

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 are both Teachta Dála. Clare Daly, represents Dublin North as part of the United Left, a broad campaign mainly centred around the rapidly expanding People Before Profit Alliance, 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 Boolavogue and the affecting Seamus Heaney poem Requiem for the Croppies, Mick Wallace is a local hero. Despite his tax affairs, complex personal life and litigious nature, he is incredibly popular in Ireland’s south east strawberry growing region, where even his atrocious fashion sense is accepted with an indulgent smile. Wallace 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, the club he founded, adopted their club colours. When Dundalk’s European adventures meant a trip to Wexford was on the cards, I sent Deputy Wallace the following email -:
Hi Mick,

I know you're busy with the affairs of state and, speaking as a UL and PBP supporter, more power to you, but I've a couple of questions about the Wexford Youths v Shamrock Rovers B game on 25/7.

Basically, I'm coming over from England for my annual holiday from Newcastle. Each year I try to take in a different League of Ireland venue. This year I've persuaded my 2 Irish Newcastle United supporting mates, one from Roscommon based in Kildare and one from Galway living in Dublin who accompany me to these games, that Wexford rather than Dundalk v Bray is the place to be. Obviously, we're intending on staying over; do you have any recommendations for reasonable accommodation, hotel or whatever, in Wexford? We're only looking for that 1 night stay. If you can suggest anywhere, to show gratitude I'd like to sponsor the match ball for the game or something along those lines to help the club.

Sorry if you're too busy to answer, but I thought I'd drop you a line.

ian cusack

A week or so later, I got this response -:
Ciao Ian,

Hope all is well. I'm away at the moment but will check out accommodation for you when I get back. You'll be very welcome to the Wexford Youths. Talk soon.

Mick
Sadly, the affairs of state intervened and I had no further contact from him, so the Maldron it was, after a slow drive down congested roads in Wicklow, across the Pleasant Slaney, through Enniscorthy and into the hotel for a shower, a few quick pints and the house special seafood chowder, before heading up to Ferrycarrig Park for the big game. By kick off, 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 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.

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 uninterested big city hopefuls  by a less-than-flattering 2-0 score, while at the same time Shamrock Rovers first team were losing 1-0 at home to struggling Drogheda United.

Ostensibly, the game we watched on a glorious summer evening 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, it’s important to remember the disappearance of Salthill Devon and Mervue United from the First division at the end of the 2013 allowed not only 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 bailout that kept Ireland afloat in 2010, but has reduced the status of the people to economic servitude for generations to come. In almost every instance, attempting to view Irish affairs through an English lens leads to a blurred picture; to fully 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.

While the presence of reserve teams in the league is not to be applauded, it remains a necessity in terms of filling the gaps. From what I saw, Shamrock Rovers B are 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 297, 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, though he’ll miss the Finn Harps game on August 1st  as he’s getting married; I know Donegal’s a long way, but that’s taking things too far. Most importantly though, Wexford Youths offer a solid, community-based playing structure for the game 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. His red wine isn’t bad either…



And neither were the rake of pints we had, firstly in the appropriately named for us grieving Newcastle fans, Undertakers (RIP John Alder and Liam Sweeney) and then in the craft ale paradise that is Simon Lambert’s on South Main Street, where we met quite a few blokes who’d been to Ferrycarrig that night and were at pains to state that WYFC are a proper club, rooted in their community. In a pub that good, I wasn’t about to disagree with anyone. Previously I’ve always drank black porter on my trips back, but two years away has seen my palate change and the embracing of craft ales, still a poor second to real ale but a step in the right direction, afforded a fantastic opportunity to get hammered in a town I’d never visited before. John opted for the Corkonian Rebel Red (4%), while I adored the Waterford-produced Dungarvan Blonde (4.3%) and Declan made inroads with the frightening 6.9% Bo Brizzle. It was some state we were in that night and the next morning, where a complimentary cooked breakfast gave us the power to head up country, all of us heartily agreeing with Pecker Dunne’s statement that Wexford is a town to like and that one day we will go back, presumably when our travelling days are done.



With John at the wheel and the other two of us rehydrating with 2 litre bottles of water, we drove through Carlow and Laois, taking a brief stop in Portlaoise, without seeing the famous jail, before arriving in Tullamore around 3.30, as the atmosphere of expectation surrounding that afternoon’s game began to grow. Attending GAA games is a very different experience to any game over here. For a start while there is partisanship; there is also great camaraderie and absolutely no air of menace. People support their own county and understand their limitations. Perhaps this explains the presence of Uachtarán na hÉireann Michael D Higgins, like me in O’Connor Park for the first time, supporting his native Galway. A thoughtful, compassionate, intelligent man, he is ideal in this largely ceremonial role and the spontaneous standing ovation that greeted his walk to his seat was spontaneous, genuine, unpretentious and essentially Irish. It also doubled the Galway support at that point in proceedings. While we were there to watch both games as we were entitled to having paid the €20 entry (Wexford was €10 and Dundalk would be €15, while the elusive hurling quarter final tickets were €30), there were essentially two crowds around us, as most people who watched the first left after that, which is when the Galway and Tipp support arrived. Consequently the gate of 7,837, plus U16s who went free, was never an accurate reflection of the total number in the 20,000 capacity ground at any one time.



For Sligo, this stage of the competition was as far as they could realistically go, so a large travelling support, the biggest of the 4 competing counties, regarded this as a festive occasion, as above all else, a GAA game is a family day out, with all generations present and valued. While I hope I’m not making this sound like something out of The Quiet Man or a De Valera out-take, I defy anyone to attend any GAA contest and not feel culturally improved by the experience. That said, the Sligo lad behind was having a major nervous breakdown as the Rebels eased past the Yeats County 0-21 to 1-11, setting them up for a quarter final against Mayo on August 3rd that they’ll almost certainly lose. However, hurling is the real game on the banks of the Lee, so the Munster championship and an All Ireland semi-final on August 17th will do for now. Forza Corcaigh!! Rebels Abu!!

While I was rooting for Cork and bothered only about the result, I did recognise, ignorant about the GAA as I am, that it was a poor, poor game, disfigured by “an orgy of hand passing” as the report in the next day’s Cork-based Irish Examiner (aka De Payper) put it. However Galway against Tipperary was mental. Tipp don’t really do football as hurling is their thing, with the Dublin quarter final the next day, but they brought a small knot of teenage ultras who actually sang at the game. This is incredibly rare in GAA circles. Dublin fans do Molly Malone and the Rebel Army belt out De Banks, but only when they’ve won. Hearing soccer songs from Tipp teenagers made most of the crowd smile at the incongruity, but they soon shut up when the Tribesmen got going.

After going behind 0-06 to 0-04, Galway unleashed 3 unanswered goals either side of the break, before Tipp pulled one back. A further Galway goal made it 4-14 to 1-09 and the Tipperary choir were on their way home. Suddenly an incredible late renaissance brought them back inside O’Connor Park, as events on the pitch reduced Declan to a quivering wreck, before Galway finally won out 4-17 to 4-12. It may not have been the highest standard, but it was damn exciting. Kerry won’t have too many sleepless nights about a game against the Tribesmen in Croker though.

Back in the car, we headed north to Kildare, passing Dowling’s in Prosperous where Christy Moore first sang with Planxty and a huge Come On You Hammers sign in Allenwood, showing Premier League sofa and barstool fans are still a terrible blight on Irish sport. We dropped Declan in Maynooth station, headed to the house and remained sober that night, as the Wexford hangover was still in full effect.

Next day John and I saw the hurling, where Limerick, who’ll play Kilkenny, humiliated Wexford 4-26 to 1-11. If they’d played that at Croker, many more Slaneysiders could have shared the embarrassment. Then we caught Tipperary, Cork’s next opponents, seeing off Dublin 2-23 to 0-16, before heading up through Meath and Louth to Oriel Park in Dundalk. Our arrival in light drizzle was heralded by the geographically incongruous Three Pubs in Bohola by the atrocious Kevin Prendergast at deafening volume over the tannoy, as the rain grew steadier, necessitating the switching on of the three towering floodlights that show the location of the ground from miles away. There was no danger of the pitch cutting up as it’s the only 4G surface in the League of Ireland and it suits Dundalk’s fluent passing style.



This game was a qualitative leap from Friday’s fixture, as Dundalk moved 3 points clear of Cork with a thumping 5-1 win over a Bray side who weren’t terrible by any means, though that will be of no consequence to their glum, saturated band of 20 travellers from Wicklow. The skills on the ball, passing and tactics of both sides were more than adequate, but Dundalk really knew how to finish. The result didn’t flatter them at all and their fans kept up an incessant barrage of noise as the rain became torrential. Casual culture does not exist in Ireland; the economic situation means that spending fortunes on clothing for football is not a realistic option, though a version of Ultra culture, with flags, fireworks and drummers (some talented like at Wexford and some atrocious as in Oriel) exists to create an atmosphere and mark a clear difference from the sedate GAA experience. However, the clearest difference would be the numbers watching; while 2,243 at Dundalk was described on RTE radio as “a packed Oriel Park,” there had been a small matter of 43,088 at Semple Stadium for the hurling. That, essentially, is the difference between the two sports…

So, back home with a terrible hangover, a suitcase full of dirty clothes and a million happy memories, I ponder what’s next for my relationship with Ireland and Irish sport. The fewer venues I have left to choose from, the harder my choices are. Ideally the 2015 fixture list will have Drogheda at home on a Friday night and some GAA pickings on Saturday or Sunday in late May. For the summer visit, a trip down to Munster would be in order; Cork on the Friday, Cobh on the Saturday and hurling on the Sunday is the ideal combination, but a night in Waterford or, as a last resort, Limerick (avoiding Moyross and Rathkeale) would do just as well.









Tuesday 22 July 2014

Lions & Unicorns

This article must be prefaced by a dedication to the memories of John “The Undertaker” Alder and Liam Sweeney, two Newcastle United fans who tragically lost their lives in the Malaysian Airlines plane shot down over Ukraine. While I couldn’t call John a friend, I had known him to talk to for many years and although I didn’t know Liam, I know of his father Barry, a Northern Alliance referee. It goes without saying such a tragedy merits more than a paragraph like this and I will return to their deaths at a later date. Suffice to say, two unassuming NUFC fanatics making the trip of a lifetime to New Zealand ought not to have died so tragically and should be remembered.

This piece also will not talk about the gigs I attended by British Sea Power and Midlake in the past week or the Summertyne Americana Festival at the Sage, or the trip I made to see Whitley Bay v Musselburgh Athletic friendly in a pre-season friendly played in monsoon conditions. Neither will it refer to next week’s piece about my trip to Ireland and proposed visits to Wexford Youths v Shamrock Rovers B in the company of Mick Wallace TD, or the 4A qualifiers in Tullamore or the hurling quarter finals in Thurles. Instead, this week’s piece will concentrate on the sound of leather on willow, or has been the case for much of this summer, rain on the outfield, as 2014 has been my debut season as a member of Northumberland County Cricket Club.


It wasn’t quite a JFK moment, but the question of where I was when Andy Murray won the Wimbledon men’s singles title on 7th July 2013 is easy to answer; I was bathed in sunshine at what I still call County Club on Osborne Avenue in Jesmond, watching Northumberland amass 461/9 versus Bedfordshire. Prompted by my mate and co-attendee Harry Pearson, a cricket author of some repute, it was the first time I’d watched live cricket there since the 1980s. I can dimly recall attending the Callers Pegasus one-day challenge games in 1985, where the first was rained off and the second became a contrived, truncated slog and the year before seeing Mike Gatting carting the Northumberland bowling all round the ground in a Nat West Trophy game.

These weren’t the only cricket games I attended though; coincidentally I saw Middlesex again in the early 1990s. Once Durham had become a first class county but before the Riverside was open, they toured the region for home games. I saw the opening day of a rain ravaged fixture at Gateshead Fell in 1993, where Botham was out first ball. As regards the Riverside, I’ve been once; 19th May 1996, a fortnight after Newcastle United lost the title to Manchester United in such heart-breaking terms, saw the arrival of Yorkshire for a Sunday league game. I went along with my ex-wife, a Yorkshire native, and the day was ruined by beered up Mackems in replica football shirts singing anti NUFC and anti Keegan in particular songs, which just made me feel so ulwelcome and jarred so badly with everything cricket should be about. Even though I still call Durham my first class county, I’ve not been back. For a start £15 for 20/20 game is half the price of my annual Northumberland membership…

You see my trip to Jesmond for the Bedfordshire game was a real epiphany; returning for the final day on the Tuesday, I saw Northumberland fall agonisingly short of a win in more glorious sunshine (Northumberland 461/9 dec and 325/6 dec; Bedfordshire 317 and 283/9) and knew from then on that my real county was the one I lived in, despite what the 1974 Local Government Act says. However, things moved slowly on the supporting front, as Minor Counties East cricket is a fairly complex nut to crack. It wasn’t until April 2014 that I made the decisive step of taking out membership. A freepost flyer came through the front door advertising Newcastle Cricket Club, as County Club are now known. To be honest, I’ve always regretted not continuing my cricket career as a dismal off-spinner and cowardly lower order batsmen after University, but football and music took up so much of my free time that it was impossible to actually have any other hobbies. Perhaps because of this 28 year hiatus, I didn’t feel inclined towards following club cricket, mainly because arriving to the party so late in life (50 on 11th August remember), I would be faced with the prospect of a steep learning curve in terms of leagues, competitions and rivalries, not to mention players, before I could adequately understand the nature of the local game. Consequently, I decided to stay at a county level and purchased Northumberland membership for 2014; price £30.

It rained a lot early in the season; the MCCA Trophy games at Jesmond against Cheshire on 27th April and Shropshire on 11th May were both abandoned without a ball being bowled. I didn’t even bother going to the first one, but the second saw a few infrequent breaks in the drizzle, so I headed down to collect my membership from Dave Cartwright, the cheery and personable Northumberland secretary, and then watched the Shropshire players pile into the bookies on the corner of Shortridge Terrace when play was called off around 1.30. That was the only entertainment available that day; auspicious eh?

Despite this false start, things got a little better for the opening home fixture of the Minor Counties Eastern Division. The Unicorns Championship, as it is now known, has a charmingly eccentric constitution that sees 10 teams in this league, with the occasional geographical anomaly (Cumberland are in there and play a game at Barrow-in-Furness for instance), but only 6 games are played by each county. For 2014 Northumberland chose to play their three games at Tynemouth, South Northumberland in Gosforth and Jesmond, begging the question whether any other side plays all their home games away, unless we agree to ignore that pesky 1974 Local Government Act again.

The opening fixture was at Preston Road, Tynemouth against Norfolk. After a lengthy dry spell leading up to the game, rain fell torrentially and predictably from Saturday tea-time, meaning the start on Sunday was delayed until 3pm. Cycling up to the ground, I was unsure what to expect, but I was afforded a reassuringly warm welcome, as I knew several of the smattering of spectators from the non-league football circuit and could make idle conversation on what turned out to be a pleasant Summer evening, as Northumberland made up for lost time, closing on 242/6. The batting was led by Jacques Du Toit, a South African batsmen of superb elegance and power. Formerly of Leicestershire, Jacques not only follows me on Twitter and sends score updates, but along with opener Karl Turner he makes watching Northumberland bat a truly enjoyable experience. Sadly further cloudbursts on Sunday night restricted play with Suffolk teetering on 67/5 in reply to 326 (Du Toit 118), before Monday night’s downpour was so severe that play was abandoned entirely on the final day, leaving Northumberland to collect 10 points when they ought to have won the game.


Never mind, a fortnight later we moved on to the fabulously appointed South Northumberland (South North to true aficionados) ground in Gosforth for the visit of Lincolnshire, with no rain to interrupt this one. A fabulously tight first innings saw Northumberland make 337 (Turner 175, Du Toit 84) in reply to Lincolnshire’s 325. My friend Gary, a resident of leafy NE3, had accompanied me on the Sunday, which also marked the end of South North’s inaugural beer festival; an occasion so munificent and so charitable that by 5.30 in the late afternoon, all drinks were free to enable them to close up. Perhaps it was the complimentary gallon of various real ales that did it, but Gary was back on his day off on the Monday to see Lincolnshire declare on 351/4. I turned up on the Tuesday to see Northumberland capitulate to 167 all out. It was disappointing but not a tragedy; what I love about cricket is the sporting nature and the lack of hysteria over defeat. I often think the media frenzy over Test Matches is an overspill from Sky era Premiership football and nothing to do with the game per se. Mind when I finally got to find out the result of the Staffordshire game that was played at West Bromwich between 6th and 8th July, I was more than a little disappointed to say the least; Northumberland 245 and 160, Staffordshire 364/8 dec and 47/0.

So we came to the final home game of the season against Suffolk, back at Jesmond. A biblical thunderstorm on the Saturday seemed likely to wash play out and so I arranged to do my mam’s shopping and washing on the Sunday morning, intending to have a cursory look in at Jesmond, before heading down to the final day of the Americana Festival. Who the hell was bothered about Rory McIlroy and the bloody open golf? However, the NE2 micro climate came into play and Suffolk, having been reduced to 52/6, ended up on 221 all out as I celebrated with 3 very palatable pints of Banks’ New World bitter; a lovely, fresh, hoppy number. Every time I watch the cricket, I delay my drinking until at least the tea interval as on hot afternoons, the temptation would be to down too many in trying to keep cool. A large bottle of fizzy water does me until 5pm; otherwise I’d be stretched out asleep on the boundary.

Returning on the Monday, I saw Northumberland struggle to 203 (Du Toit 50), before a fabulously exciting opening saw Suffolk in all kinds of bother at 3-3, but they recovered and as I left at 5.30 to play 6 a side, they were 234-6. Later in the evening, unable to find the score anywhere on the net (am I looking in the right places?), I tweeted Jacques Du Toit to ask the score and learned Suffolk had advanced to 384/9, with Michael Comber making 194, including about a dozen 6s into the graveyard. Without being too gloomy, it looks like this one has got away from the home side and that their only chances for a win this summer are at March versus Cambridgeshire and then Sedbergh School for Cumberland in August; sadly I won’t make those games. Equally sadly, I won’t make the final day against suffolk at Jesmond as I’m getting ready to fly off to Ireland this evening.

When I look back on my experiences of watching Northumberland in 2014, I can state without any hesitation that I will renew this membership of mine, intending it now to be a lifelong commitment to the county, so much have I enjoyed being in the loose amalgam of 50 or so hardly souls watching them play. I have no criticisms of my experiences watching Northumberland, but a few points have occurred to me as I do think though that cricket at this level can learn things from non-league football.

For a start, the internet and social media; Northumberland do not seem to have a fully up-to-date website, nor any Twitter presence, meaning it can be impossible to keep up to date with scores. It’s great Jacques Du Toit sends me the close of play, but if someone could take on the responsibility of posting scores after each session, that would be so helpful not just for me, but many other followers of the game in the region and elsewhere.

Secondly, maximising income; I’m not suggesting football style souvenir stuff, but the only place I’ve been asked to show my membership card was at County club. Ensuring that a gate is charged, where scorecards and raffle tickets can be sold at the same time, will help to bring in a few extra quid. Surely that would help? Obviously this and the point about the net and social media would require input from volunteers, but I’m sure there are those willing to help. I know I would.

Finally, and I say this from a position of ignorance, would crowds not be increased and interest generated by playing the 3 day games over a weekend on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, meaning those who work would be able to theoretically see two and a bit days of cricket? Perhaps this is impossible, but it would seem logical to a neophyte like me.


However, regardless of day, location or opposition, I will be back next year, watching Jacques Du Toit chain smoking each lunch interval and manager Stuart Tiffin making endless circles of the boundary, encouraging the team, because that team, Northumberland, are my team. Here’s hoping for a miracle against Suffolk.

Monday 14 July 2014

Safe keeping

The World Cup is over; the football season has begun!!




The football season is here again and, coincidentally, a gaping chasm has opened up in my life. For the past 31 days, I’ve dutifully recorded every one of the 171 goals scored in 64 matches by 32 teams on my World Cup wall chart. This morning, having completed it by inscribing the number 1 next to Germany and 0 next to Argentina, I’ve unpinned it from the noticeboard in the kitchen, folded the A2 sheet down to A4 and put it in the recycling ready for collection on Thursday, providing the Bolsheviks aren’t on strike again. I mean, what else can you do now the competition is over to satisfy the statistical urge? Well, I’ve started compiling a list of games I’ve attended so far in the 2014/2015 season. Currently the total stands at 2; Newcastle Benfield 2 Annan Athletic 2 on July 5th and Newcastle Benfield 2 Darlington 1 on July 12th, which must have been an important game as I missed carrying the UCU banner at Durham Big Meeting to go to it, with Whitley Bay v Musselburgh Athletic on the horizon for Saturday 19th. It feels good to be back among football at the truest level known to humanity; The Northern League. First division.

Let’s be honest though, I did thoroughly enjoy the World Cup, despite my natural cynicism and urge to sneer at the professional game. It was made easier to enjoy by England’s rapid, deserved departure, with only Strurridge in the opening two games displaying anything like top quality performances. The less said about Rooney, Hart, Gerard and Jagielka the better.  In the end I’m glad Germany won; they were the best team in a competition where many countries relied on the talents of one outstanding individual, though having said that, both Neuer and Schweinsteiger are the world’s best in their respective roles. The final itself was blessed by outstanding performances by Mascherano for Argentina and Boateng for Germany, even if the latter’s importance dwindled as Argentina’s intermittent threat as an attacking force waned, once fatigue saw the game recede almost imperceptibly from the intriguing to borderline sterile. Consequently, Götze’s goal was a blessed relief on many levels; a great finish, the right result and an avoidance of penalties. Messi had been quiet in the final, but his efforts had carried Argentina to the final, though I disagreed with his award of player of the tournament; surely James Rodríguez, scorer of the competition’s best goal against Uruguay, deserved that honour. I do wish Colombia had got further in the competition than they did; they were my second favourite team in the whole World Cup and the vagaries of the draw would probably have seen them finish third by beating Holland.

Elsewhere in the tournament, I enjoyed the team ethos of both USA and Chile, both of whom relied as much on esprit de corps as flashes of brilliance. The USA’s bravery in losing to Belgium should not be forgotten; it was akin to watching a Championship side losing at home to a middle ranking Premier league club in a televised cup tie and abandoning caution in the hope of glory.  I was pleased to see Holland recover from the appalling Bert van Marwijk era, characterised by his son-in-law Mark van Bommel’s horrid influence on the last World Cup, with the demented genius van Gaal steering them to a worthy third place, following Brazil’s disintegration after the Neymar injury. Louis van Gaal will be worth watching at Old Trafford next season; the intense self-belief he exudes will force Mourinho to up his press conference games for a start.

Finally, there must be recognition for the outstanding goalkeeping we’ve seen in this tournament. Neuer we’ve already talked about, but Ospina of Colombia was another who deserved the utmost of plaudits. His faultless handling in the Uruguay game was unfussy, unhurried and eye-catchingly economical. Keylor Navas of Costa Rica was another technically superb keeper, who came up against Tim Krul’s cameo for Holland. While Krul has stagnated at Newcastle over the past two seasons, his ability to keep the ball out the net when fired straight at him is not in doubt; hence while he does not command the box in the way he should and is poor with his distribution, shot stopping is his forte. I was not surprised with his 2 penalty saves, though the sub Steven Taylor histrionics I could have done without. Tim Howard performance versus Belgium was as memorable as any I’ve seen at a World Cup, though Mexico’s Memo Ochoa’s outstanding reflexes against Brazil earned his country a notable point. I would hesitate to call Ochoa a world class keeper, as his all round game is not as impressive as Ospina or Navas for instance, but he did show incredible reactions throughout the tournament. As a particularly hopeless keeper myself (I got lobbed from 35 yards out on the touchline in Winstons’ first preseason friendly; a 7-2 win over Blakelaw on Saturday morning), I am in awe to the finest exponents of the goalie’s art.

At Northern League level, the outstanding keeper for most of the past decade and beyond is Andrew Grainger of Newcastle Benfield. The Walkergate Brazilians came into the league in 2003 and Andy has been the regular keeper for all that time, winning 3 Northern League Cups and 1 Northern League title; the 2009 League Cup win over Penrith and the 2011 over Spennymoor were down to him. I missed the 2011 one, when Andy saved a penalty, as I was at work, but the 2009 double winning game at West Allotment saw the absolute best performance I’ve ever seen by a keeper at this level, beating the late Steve Tierney’s singlehanded rebuttal of Ashington for Horden in an FA Vase game in 2002.

Andrew Grainger is an interesting character; a former pupil of RGS, who was replaced as school keeper by Fraser Forster, he joined Darlington on a one year contract after his A Levels instead of opting for Higher Education. Sadly, he was released after a season, but he did then become England’s beach football keeper, earning 63 caps and saving a penalty from Eric Cantona no less. I found out all of these things when interviewing Andy for the programme I edited that was on sale at his testimonial against Darlington.  In the end, it was a great day; the sun shone, Benfield won 2-1 and my programme was complimented by everyone at the club, which augers well for my new role as Benfield’s programme editor.

Heaton Stannington may not have gained promotion to Northern League Division 1, but I did. While at this point I’d prefer not to go into the minutiae of my switch from Grounsell to Sam Smith’s Park, I’d like to wish assistant manager Geoff Walker and all the players at Heaton Stannington the very best for the coming season. I’ll be keeping an eye on their results; in fact, they’re away to Team Northumbria in the big NE7 derby on my birthday, so I may well be there. I enjoyed my time with The Stan and feel I’ve learned many lessons from it, but Benfield were the team I watched almost exclusively from 2003 to 2009 when I joined Percy Main. Even then, I still saw as many Benfield games as I could.

This season, my intention is to watch every Benfield home game and as many of the away games as I can manage, as well as keeping my largely ceremonial role as chair of the Tyneside Amateur League and co-editing the new A5 old-school Newcastle United fanzine, “The Popular Side.” No adverts. No merchandise. No website. Just wall to wall brilliant writing. Out for Man City. Only £1.

Tuesday 8 July 2014

Mediocrity Kills....

This article is a little out of date. I wrote it for issue 4 of  #9 fanzine, the on-line only publication. Unfortunately it has failed to appear, so I'm putting this piece out there now as it'll be utterly irrelevant by the time NUFC's new print-only fanzine The Popular Side launches at the Manchester City game. The Popular Side will be an old school fanzine; A%, price £1, sold in bars and on the street rather than in shops. No website. No merchandise. No adverts. Instead, it will concentrate on excellent writing from cover to cover. More details from @PopularSideZine


Sunday 11th May and, as the curtain is rung down on the atrociously unsatisfactory second act that concluded the genre-busting tragifarce of Newcastle United’s 2013/2014 season, I found myself in a predictable, boiling impotent rage at the fortunes of my sporting heroes. However, the cause of my ire on this occasion was not, for a change, related to Newcastle United but the Northumberland County Cricket team. In an attempt to display two metaphorical fingers to the farce that will be Brazil 2014, other than hoping social unrest in that country will see mass working class action against the forces of repression and the imperialist juggernaut that is FIFA, causing the tournament to be abandoned, I’d bought membership for the Minor Counties East championship. Thirty quid gets you free entry to, theoretically at any rate, three home fixtures at Tynemouth, South North and County Club and a pair of preliminary one-dayers, also at Jesmond.

Unfortunately, torrential rain saw the cancellation of both limited overs contests, at the end of April against Cheshire and, on the day Newcastle closed their campaign, when Shropshire were the visitors. Thus, as the drains and gutters of Osborne Avenue struggled to cope with the torrential downpour that drove the opposition players into William Hill’s on the corner of Shortridge Terrace rather than into bat, I seethed underneath a tree opposite Rehill’s, gripping a take-out Latte rather too tightly, and allowed my thoughts to turn to events taking place at Anfield.

A few weeks previously, it had all the hallmarks of a tumultuous contest, with the prospect of Liverpool winning the title against us. In those circumstances it was hard to deny the logic of several of those amongst our support who’d contemplated selling their tickets to Liverpool fans for a massive profit. Unethical though that may have been, the chance to claw back some of the huge outlay spent on following NUFC on the road must have been appealing, especially if you got caught fleecing a gullible out-of-towner and suffered a banning order from SJP as a consequence. In the current climate, that’s a win-win situation I’d have thought. However events beforehand conspired against this, as Liverpool imploded and handed the title to Massive Club citeh, which I didn’t mind as I love Pellagra’s hair.

Despite denying Sky Sports the opportunity to refer to the game as Destiny Teatime or something equally nauseating, what this fixture did was hand Newcastle fans the opportunity to rub Liverpool’s face in it, as memories of 1974 never mind the consecutive 4-3s are still too raw to suggest there can ever be any realistic common ground between us and them. However when some of those on social media suggested a mass “Poznan” in the away end to try and wind the home fans up, I recoiled in horror. How appalling would that look; how doomed to failure would such a proposal be, similar to the stillborn Toon Poznan against Ashley that was promised, but failed to happen against Arsenal in August 2011. Even though someone set up a Twitter account and a Facebook page for that protest, the TPAA had about as much impact as NUST’s disastrous intervention into the Cardiff protest with their ill-judged hijack of a genuine, spontaneous, organic, grassroots campaign, in favour of their proto-Leninist, dirigistic 69 minute walkout, whose autodidactic provenance was ignored by the overwhelming majority of the crowd who either left earlier or stayed to the end. The only statistic that matters is that 46,000 matchgoing Mags stayed in their seats beyond 69 minutes; we need to remember that when discussions about fan unity are in the air.

In the event, no “Poznan” took place at Anfield and the game acted as a synecdoche of our season. At encouraging opening was supplanted by a pitiful collapse in the second period, though a measure of solace could be gained by frustration at an appalling refereeing performance by Phil Dowd. He may have given Titus Bramble first use of the Lynx Peace in the 5-1 on Halloween, but he made up for it by sending Shola off for insolence, in what has turned out to be his final appearance for us, and Dummett, who appears to have become as much of a hate figure as Ashley for the sort of late 30s supporter who says he takes “the Metty” home after the game, for nothing. Thankfully the latter card was rightly rescinded, meaning the overwhelming analytical mood surrounding this game, once the immediate sense of rage at the incompetence of both Pards and Dowd had died down, was one of profound dissatisfaction, with the grudging acceptance that catastrophe had somehow been avoided, with Stoke’s winner at West Brom dropping NUFC to tenth which was the bare minimum required for Pards to pocket his much derided bonus. Such an attitude must also be the judgement handed down to the club as a corporate entity and, in my opinion, NUST, with the unequivocal announcement that everyone must do better in the future if a complete meltdown is to be avoided.

I don’t believe for one moment that the Newcastle United Fans Forum will prove to be a revolutionary conduit leading to regime change at the club, especially as NUST’s avoidable breach of protocol resulted in their heavy-handed exclusion from the Forum. I do accept that my standpoint that we need Ashley OUT and 100% Fan Ownership IN, though I’m prepared to accept 51% Fan Ownership as a transitional demand, will not be brought to fruition at one of these talking shops. However, I’m as much of a pragmatist as I am an ideologue and I understand the need for the Fan Forum to continue and I place my unswerving loyalty and trust in NUFC Fans United and all of the other representatives who attend these meetings, undoubtedly displaying the very best of intentions.

That said; I do not accept the Fans Forum is the appropriate realm for the club’s chief executive to announce with bland finality that the cups will be treated with utter contempt in 2014/2015 and that Pards will remain in post, having achieved the bare minimum required to achieve his agreed bonus. Charnley blithely brushed off any criticism about any perceived lack of ambition among the club hierarchy regarding future plans and transfer targets, in much the same way as NUST ignored any criticism of their 69 minute walkout and the offence it caused so many fans.

Frankly, and I hold little hope of this happening, both NUFC and NUST’s board need to take time this summer to have a long, hard look at themselves. While Ashley, Charnley and Irving have a far longer to do list, from spending £40m on the team to merely stand still (Dan Gosling RIP) to having some vague awareness that their dismissive, smirking contempt for the fan base will eventually clear the stands of SJP, it is true that NUST need to meaningfully engage with their members and the wider support on a regular basis, as ignoring the need to grow the organisation will result in atrophy and death. Surely all involved must realise this and accept that positive change and activity is an absolute imperative.

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Eyes & Ears II




Here we are then; 2014 moves into its seventh month and it seems time for me to discuss this year’s cultural meanderings for the second time. This juncture seems particularly appropriate as we’re now at the start of football’s pre-season and the summer gigging frenzy (Ouseburn, Mouth of the Tyne and Americana outdoor festivals, not to mention performances by Midlake, British Sea Power, Death Shanties and The Mekons in the next few weeks). Not only that, I’ve got my annual leave to look forward to and the chance to catch up on some reading. I’ve still not seen any telly, bar the World Cup, so we’ll stick to sounds and the printed word…

Books:
 

Obviously the most important book to have been published so far this year for persons of my taste and demeanour is Irvine Welsh’s latest novel, The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins. It is his first since the magnificent Skag Boys in 2012 and frankly it wasn’t worth waiting for. Welsh doesn’t so much phone this one in as Instagram or, more damningly, Snapchat it in to his readers. This is Welsh by numbers. Multiple narrators? Check.  Vicious attacks on consumerism and consumption? Check. Grotesque vignettes? Check. Massive plot holes? Check. Lucy Brennan, the primary narrator, is a thoroughly detestable narcissistic fitness trainer in South Beach, Miami, who becomes a hero when she disarms a gunman. This makes her a star on local news and inspires pudgy loser Lena Sorensen to track Lucy down the following day.

When Lena turns out to be an artist who constructs distorted human figures from animal bones, it seems we have a stalking narrative on our hands, but it's personal trainer and all round body fascist Lucy who gradually becomes obsessed with Lena, and specifically with carving the fat off her. She drugs Lena and imprisons her in an empty apartment building, where Lena at last loses weight. This intriguing concept is spoiled by inappropriate narrative choices. For a start Lucy is boring as well as unsympathetic, though I suppose it's reasonable to suppose that a South Beach fitness trainer would tediously count calories, itemise her meals, and assess everyone by their physical appearance. For light relief, Welsh introduces the less loathsome and more convincing shy small town girl Lena as the secondary narrator. However her sheer ordinariness makes her less than believable as the world-class artist we're told she is, much less as the focus of a stranger's obsession.

Rather like the earlier Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, this novel is simply frustrating. It could have been a powerful and profound book, with just a bit more thought. One reads it wishing vainly for Welsh to humanise some of Lucy's reactions; to motivate some of Lena's decisions; to allow any character the range of expression of Welsh's best creations. Most of all, The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins would have been a great read if it were narrated not by Lucy and Lena but, as in the highly effective Florida based novel Crime, by Irvine Welsh himself.

On the day Hibernian were relegated from the Scottish Premier League I met Sandy McNair, the man who is Boswell to Welsh’s Doctor Johnson and wrote a kind of biography of their formative years in Edinburgh, entitled Carspotting. For the most part it is a readable and accessible contextualisation of Welsh’s formative years with a low-rent Gonzo feeling to it. However the endless accounts of bevvy sessions can get a little repetitive. There’s a whirlwind of weeks, months and years squandered away mindlessly in bars and clubs in the company of an assorted cast of geeks and weirdos, while people get chibbed, nicked or die. 

Carspotting could have been a true coming-of-age tale, but there is absolutely no moment of epiphany, perhaps because any biography of a famous author that’s written by a good friend will always be unreliable and hagiographic.  Welsh becomes famous and rich almost incidentally, leading one to wonder just when he sat down and wrote his books. Perhaps the mainly bolloxed Sandy just didn’t notice him putting in the graft and honing his craft, which is really rather sad. In the end, after the dizzying uppers and horrifying downers, the pervasive emotion of Carspotting is not of a life well spent in reckless hedonism, but of one wasted in all senses, leaving the reader and narrator with a sense of estranged loneliness.  

I came across Crap MPs by Bendor Grosvenor and Geoffrey Hicks in a 10p bargain book bin at North Tyneside General Hospital when I was in visiting my mam. This short, less-than-taxing little hard back kept me entertained for the 25 minute journey home on the 309 when we were kicked off the ward at 7pm. It is a book that ‘outs’ the forty worst Members of Parliament in British political history. This book is not about shaking the foundations of Parliament; instead it is a well-researched, intelligent and amusing little pamphlet.

The format sees a list of MPs, presented in descending order of crapness. Each MP gets a glossy photo, a brief textual explanation of why they are considered to be crap and visual icons indicating such things as ‘Dodgy Friends’, ‘Sex’, ‘Inappropriate Animal Behaviour’ and  ‘Nutter’. The raison d’etre of this small book comes from flitting through the entries and sardonically chuckling at the arrogance, deceit and / or incompetence that leads to each individual’s downfall. You get to read such gems as the MP who collected horses’ ears (cut from the still living horses), the politician who simply couldn’t resist the temptation of pick pocketing his fellow members and the cross eyed MP who had difficulty catching the eye of the Speaker. The entry for George Galloway reads ‘George Galloway is very litigious. But we still think he is a crap MP.’ Certainly this was a case of two bob well spent.

In one of those strange twists of fate, I’ve found myself playing Over 40s football for a team connected to the world famous Wallsend Boys’ Club. Not only that, we won the double last season and had the trophy presented to us by Alan Shearer on Football Focus; pretty good eh? This is why I was delighted to take possession of a copy of The History of Wallsend Boys’ Club by my former colleague Margaret Scott, ostensibly co-written with Vince Carrick (father of Michael) and Michael McGill. Several years in the making, the book is already out of date as it does not mention the demolition of the Boyza in 2013 after a storm took the roof clean off. The story as to why it wasn’t insured is another matter entirely…

Anyway, the book is told with the help of articles from the local press and the personal recollections from the public and founding members. It goes back to the original Swan Hunter apprentice club, on a site in Station Road, in 1904 and then on to the formation of Wallsend Boys’ Club on a different site in Station Road, in 1938. From the 1960s onwards football, rather than gymnastics or Am Dram, became a much bigger part of the Boys’ Club’s activities, producing a host of leading professional footballers such as Shearer, Beardsley, Carrick, Bruce, Steve Watson and Lee Clark, with more than 50 ex-members going on to play first team professional football in the English and Scottish football leagues. It’s an interesting slice of local history and, if the launch hadn’t been botched in such a ham-fisted way, it could have been a lucrative source of income for WBC, but typically the book dribbled out apologetically late with no real fanfare. This is a shame, especially for Margaret who did a great job making the text a lively, intriguing, chronological read.

Music:

I don’t allow myself to go on www.discogs.com too often, as I’d spend my life savings on cluttering the house up with 7” singles from the 77-81 period. However, I finally relented when I accepted that I was never going to see the copy of IRT by Snatch that I loaned to Don in September 1981 and so bought what my Ben had intended to make as my 50th birthday purchase.  I even managed to move it up a notch by replacing my 1978 UK Lightning re-release with a 1977 US original on Bomp. Judy Nylon and Patti Palladin’s languid delivery of this proto-lo fi tale of paranoid trips on the New York subway is as magnificent today as it was when I first heard it. File alongside Piss Factory, Roadrunner, Shake Some Action, Marquee Moon and Blank Generation in the annals of vital US punk. The attitude and insouciance still knocks spots of the cartoon UK version of 77, Wire and Spiral Scratch excepted…
 

The other 7” I bought was Trembling Bells with Bonnie “Prince” Billy doing bassist Simon Shaw’s keyboard-driven stomper New Trip on the Old Wine, which is both a radical departure and a thoroughly entertaining release. It came out on Record Store Day 2014 and was one of the few products associated with that debased feeding frenzy that didn’t seem to be a grotesque cash in. It’s great to see Trembling Bells recording again and I have strong hopes that they’ll produce a new album to tie in with their rake of live appearances across Europe and North America. Mind I’m also looking forward to seeing Alex’s free jazz project Death Shanties at the Bridge on 5th August for a slight change of mood.

Two nights after the Death Shanties gig, we’re down to The Cluny 2 to see The Mekons doing an acoustic night. This replaces the Three Johns tour that had to be cancelled which John Hiatt was diagnosed with throat cancer, from which he is making a good recovery. Last year Jon Langford came to The Sage for Americana, played a blinding set and sold Laura a painting for £200. This year, I dipped my toe into the pool of www.pledgemusic.com to sign up for an autographed copy of his vinyl release Here Be Monsters, which was a richly rewarding experience.

Since his earliest days in the Mekons, there's always been a compulsory aura of ragged amateurism in Jon Langford's music, as the rough textures and blunt corners reflected the hard lives and mean circumstances of the people he most often wrote about. Here Be Monsters is, like many of his albums before it, a snapshot of the world at the time it was made, and once again, Langford and his crew have offered us a handful of well-rendered sketches of young men waging war like it's a video game, older men making a fortune from life and death conflicts, regular folks struggling to get by as mere survival becomes a greater burden, and the despair or casual hopelessness that sinks so many.

The messages on Here Be Monsters are painful and timely; this is smart, dynamic indie rock, mature but passionate and unpretentious, with Langford and his partners bringing a tough but artful sound to the state of the world in 2014. Langford's ideological standpoint may not be optimistic, but Here Be Monsters never strives to be despairing, simply honest, and the music is rich and pleasurable while carrying messages more people need to hear.

Back to Record Store Day and, with the shocking news that they’ll be by-passing Newcastle on their autumn tour of Watusi and Mini, the only product that The Wedding Present will be releasing this year is the follow up to French and German language releases on RSD in 2012 and 2013 restectively, with the Welsh 4 Can EP. What does it sound like? Basically, a barrel being scraped. There’s Meet Cutie from the last album Valentina and 3 tracks that came as part of the supposed bonus package EP, released only for those that stumped up £100 to help the Weddoes record that album. The sad thing is that these 3 tracks are utterly unremarkable and frankly dull. It makes this concept truly seem to have run its course. Faithful rehashes of less than wonderful songs with different vocals isn’t the greatest of concepts and I’m wondering if I’ll ever get to listen to this limited to 1,000 copies 10” clear vinyl EP again. Certainly it seems to scream EBay at me every time I look at it…
 

However, there was one sublime jewel from Record Store Day; legendary laze rockers Bardo Pond’s 2 track album Looking for Another Place is my favourite release of the year. Side A is a cover of the minor Velvet’s classic Ride Into The Sun, while Side B features Brian Eno’s solid gold masterwork Here Come The Warm Jets in Bardo Pond’s inimitable feedback and shimmering guitar post-rock style. I adore it. This is an inspired release as the group produce brain-melting élan that builds to an apex of slow peaking ecstasy. A timely reminder that Bardo Pond remain the kings of contemporary fuzz.

When it comes to live music, I should be reviewing 2 gigs, but in the end I only made it to 1 of them. The local Election Day on 22nd May was both taxing and tiring. Alongside doing a normal day’s work, I was at the Polling Station from 7am and then again from 5pm until they closed. On the Friday, I did a half day at work, and then went to the Civic Centre for the count. All that out the way, Laura and I headed off to The Forth for pints and tapas. Senselessly, I didn’t have my ticket for The Swans with me so, refreshed and somnolent, I headed home for it. I was in the house for 7.30 and they were due on at 8.45. I shut my eyes for 5 minutes and woke on the sofa at 11.45, had a slash then went to bed and slept until 7.30, by which time it was almost departure time for Scotland. Hence I missed Michael Gira et al.

Having seen The Swans 4 times previously (deafened in successive nights at the Riverside and Leeds Poly on the Children of God tour in October 87, charmed on the Love will Tear Us Apart tour at the Riverside the next year and pompously lectured at in 92 when they played Middlesbrough), I wasn’t heartbroken about this, but it was irritating and a total waste of £20. Nice kip mind and I wouldn’t have missed the cider battered black pudding at The Forth for anything…
 

We had some lovely bait before our last gig as well; in Artisan at the Biscuit Factory, we celebrated Ben’s 19th with North Shields sourced fish soup and sea trout and fennel with the poshest cheesy chips in the world; French fries in Gruyere. Nice. Then indie mam and dad took the bairn to The Cluny to see The Pastels. Last June I’d seen them in Glasgow at the CCA on Sauciehall Street and they were awesome in the midst of a large and partisan hometown crowd. In front of a much smaller gathering on Tyneside, they were simply wonderful, but in a much more charming and traditionally foppish way. While the set was mainly reliant on the brilliant Slow Summits album, such unexpected joys as a tearjerking Different Drum and an endearingly shambolic Speeding Motorcycle made this a wholly glorious evening. Though the most memorable moment was Stephen dedicating Baby Honey to Ben, which seemed to truly make his night and that of his parents.

Music? It never lets you down… Roll on the summer gig season…