Fables of the Reconstruction

On Tuesday 23^rd February, I finished work a bit early, raced home for a quick coffee and  sandwich, then headed out the door by 5.20. I caught a Metro for 12 stops, changed, caught another for a further 14 stops, alighted, waited around for a bit, then caught a bus, arriving at Ryhope CA’s lovely Meadow Park at about 7.10 where, with around 50 others, I watched a blinding game of football, which ended with my team Newcastle Benfield grabbing a deserved equaliser deep into injury time to secure a 2-2 draw. As soon as Josh Scott rescued a point, the three RCA supporters near us in the stand all agreed it was well deserved and meant it was a fair result. No horses got punched, no CS gas was discharged and there wasn’t even a pub smashed up in the local environs. We shook hands, wished each other all the best and moved on to the next game.

Thankfully, I managed a lift home and was back in front of my fireside by 10.00. The only thing better than the ground and the game, was the wonderful hospitality afforded to us by the home club’s committee. The steaming mugs of coffee and homemade plate pie at half time were gratefully received on a night when falling temperatures nipped your feet, even with 2 pairs of socks on.

Let’s be crystal clear about this; such a pleasant evening is par for the course in the glorious jewel of local football that is the Northern League. From Alnwick to Northallerton, across to Penrith and all points in between, 44 amateur clubs, almost exclusively run by unpaid volunteers, not to mention a devoted management committee overseeing things, run the grassroots game in our area like clockwork. Who needs the Champions’ League when there’s the Northern League to luxuriate in? More pertinently, who needs a new Step 4 Midland League and the concomitant shuffling of boundaries that would result in the expansion of the Evostik League, at the expense of a contracted Northern League? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Whichever way you look at it (and here’s wishing Morpeth Town all the best in their quarter final against Bristol Manor Farm on Saturday), the Northern League has been fantastically successful at a national cup level; the FA Vase has almost become the league’s property, courtesy of Whitley Bay’s hat trick of triumphs and subsequent wins by Dunston UTS, Spennymoor Town and North Shields, not to mention West Auckland’s brave defeat at Wembley. Presumably, such repeated success has put the noses of the brass hats at certain other leagues at our level slightly out of joint, causing them to pass comment on the perceived lack of progression up the pyramid of Northern League clubs. Almost exclusively for reasons of geographical isolation and the future costs involved in travelling expenses and ground improvements, relatively few ex-Northern League sides have successfully made their way up through the national league structure. Obviously Blyth Spartans and Darlington are battling it out to get up into the Conference North, while Spennymoor and Whitby are doing well a division below.

Others have not fared so encouragingly; Whitley Bay were glad to return to the fold after a grim final few years at a higher level, Bishop Auckland and Durham City (the latter having all funding pulled when the FA ruled their 4G surface at New Ferens Park unsuitable for cup competitions) plummeted back whence they came and Blue Star ceased to exist, as did Spennymoor and North Shields in their original incarnations. Not a great track record and probably a reason why many clubs fear to tread where others have rushed in.

Of course such logic and reasoned thought butters no parsnips with the great and the good of our national game. Greg Dyke no less has contemplated long and hard just how the bottom steps of the pyramid should operate. Consequently, as part of the committee at Benfield, I found myself invited to a meeting with representatives of the FA, who wished to run a “consciousness raising” session at the palatial Ramside Hall on Sunday 21^st February, which I attended with our secretary Gary Thompson. At this point I need to state I am speaking entirely personally and that my views do not represent the official position of Newcastle Benfield FC or The Northern League.  Basically the afternoon was a monumental waste of time, leaving most of us none the wiser as to the likelihood and scope of any potential structural changes that will be in place for the 2017/2018 season.

The session began, after coffee and expenses forms natch, with a series of slides that showed what the FA hand in mind. Basically there was widespread, indeed almost universal, recognition that 22 team divisions at Step 5 (Northern League Division 1) and Step 6 (Northern League Division 2) were too big; the proposal that seemed to be accepted without dissent was that 20 division leagues are the way forward. As almost every club loses money hand over fist with every game we play, two less away trips and two less sets of referee’s fees has got to be a bonus. Also, with the winter we’ve just had, or may still be having, a less crowded league programme, considering all Northern League clubs play in a minimum of 4, and possibly 6, cup competitions, would relieve some of the pressure to get games played. Hopefully this would rule out the end of season farce of teams playing 3 times a week. Obviously this would still result in 10% of the league leaving, which is where things should have got potentially interesting, but actually became ridiculously vague.

At present, Northern League teams have to register an interest in promotion by December 31^st previously. Any club can express interest, as Bishop Auckland always do, but unless they finish top 3, as Bishop Auckland never do, they can’t be promoted. Consequently, the Northern League either maintains its strength or stagnates, according to your viewpoint. The suggestion being clubs don’t strive to improve facilities or squads, happy to be large fish in a small pool. Balderbash; most clubs accept that fiscal prudence dictates upward promotion would be suicidal in most instances.

Now personally speaking, if I find it a push to get to Ryhope on a Tuesday evening after graft, so I’m not likely to be able to make it as far as Droylesden, Glossop North End or Heanor Town midweek, for instance. I wonder whether players would fancy such midweek travel, especially those with bairns and jobs to think about.  However, the FA’s contention was this new Midlands Step 4 league would push the boundary of the Evostik League further north, with some mention of East and West divisions, meaning it would be straight up and down the A1 rather than across country for most longer journeys.

I appreciate that the FA couldn’t be precise about the geographical boundary for the potential Step 4 division that NL clubs, who would of course now play in the Trophy and not the Vase, would feed into, but it was the nub of all inquiries from clubs. In a sense, it was like being at the annual conference of the Democratic Unionist Party, listening to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste expounding the benefits of a 32 county United Ireland, such was the vehemence of the nay-saying from most clubs. Until this sticking point is unequivocally addressed, I can’t see any Northern League clubs, save Bishop Auckland, who have the ground grading, and possibly South Shields, who have the money to put everything in place, wanting to take a leap into the unknown. As for the rest; well, North Shields may have the support, but they don’t have the ground and Whitley Bay have the ground, but no longer the support.

Obviously, all of us there gathered on Sunday are loyal to our clubs, but the vast majority of us are loyal to the Northern League as well and so we sought the opinions of the League Management Committee. Clearly they had no objections to clubs voluntarily taking promotion, but the spectre of enforced promotion was a something they, rightly, found abhorrent. Forced promotion, quite probably involving blind eye ground inspections, will significantly weaken and ultimately destabilise the Northern League. To me, it is no coincidence that the FA has waited until league chairman Mike Amos has decided to retire before starting this process.

With discontent becoming more audible, the meeting degenerated into a farce, with a geriatric blue blazer delivering a near 30 minute, semi-inaudible monologue which was utterly irrelevant to the scope of our meeting. At this point, it seemed to me that these droning old buffers at the top table are more concerned with maintaining their own little empires and ensuring they get corporate freebies for the Cup final and England internationals than the dear old Northern League. It wasn’t about football; it was about power and making allegiances and truces with various regions. The Northern League is a geographically extreme irritant that needs, or so it appears, taking down a peg. Pressganging half a dozen of our best clubs, and Bishop Auckland, is one way of doing this.

Frankly all I’m interested in is watching my team Newcastle Benfield play games against clubs I can recognise and feel a degree of empathy with. Nothing against Spartans, but did they really have any strong opinion about Rushall Olympic before they went there the other week? I don’t even know where Rushall is. No, give me the home for tea on Saturday and home for News at Ten midweek league every time. As Andy and Michael Hudson said five years ago; Viva Northern League.

Norway the Lads!!

Since we started The Popular Side almost 2 years ago, it's fair to say our postbag / inbox hasn't exactly bulged with correspondence, but I did sit up and take notice, as well as compose the response that makes up this week's blog, when the following email arrived this week -:

Dear editor,

My name is Lars Backe Madsen, staff reporter at Dagens Næringsliv (DN), a leading Scandinavian newspaper equivalent to Financial Times in the UK. Based in Oslo, I mainly write broader documentaries and features for our Saturday magazine.

Currently, I am working on an article about the money madness in international football in general, and English football in particular – and I want to ask editors and other people at the best English football fanzines about the situation for fans in general in 2016

More money than ever in history is poured into the Premier League clubs, more money than ever is spent on transfers, salaries and VIPs – and at the same time ticket prices are rising, as we have seen this winter. I sincerely hope you have time to answer the few questions I have included. My report will be published in our Saturday magazine March 5th.

Best regards,

Lars Backe Madsen

Do you think more supporter ownership would be for the good of English football?

Yes I do. I believe that football clubs morally belong to their supporters. To strike a theological comparison, I felt like a priest, sure in his knowledge and understanding of both doctrine and scriptures, yet unable to delineate a cogent and credible explanation of what life after death would actually involve. Politically, it’s rather like the Socialst Party of Great Britain’s absolutist position as regards Socialism; we know the radiant future under workers’ control won’t be like capitalism, but we can’t quite describe how things will pan out, other than mentioning the abolition of money. Sadly, there is one reality we do know about attempting to transform Newcastle United into a fan owned entity; it will take a lot of money. My mantra regarding Newcastle United has always been that we need Mike Ashley OUT and 100% Fan Ownership IN, though I’m prepared to take 51% as a transitional demand.  I’m not, and I freely admit this, particularly conversant on the finer points of detail regarding fan involvement and ownership models in La Liga, the Bundesliga, FC United of Manchester or the proposals for Bath City.

In 2007, almost 27,000 of us, many after reading an article in When Saturday Comes, paid £35 each to create a fund to buy a club. The one that was chosen was Gravesend & Northfleet of the Conference South, whose name was changed to Ebbsfleet United after the takeover. As the club didn’t have two pennies to rub together, the takeover was broadly welcomed by the fans as a means of securing the club’s future. Each stakeholder received one vote, which could be exercised in all major decisions, but no dividends. Unnecessarily and unhelpfully, in my opinion, stakeholders also could vote in team selection and transfer dealings. To me, this caused a major problem; the stakeholders are not as knowledgeable about the technical intricacies of the game as the football people. When, not if, we take over Newcastle United, I am convinced we must appoint a robust, effective management structure, that encompasses every aspect of the club from the first team to the catering operation, that has the best people possible, remunerated accordingly and competitively though without any incentivised element, working autonomously in their role that they were appointed to after a rigorous selection processes in which all full club members (a definition of who they will be is to follow) are involved at each step. Obviously, all those in managerial roles will be fully accountable and subject to immediate recall, whereby they would be required to explain their actions at an EGM.

At the end of Ebbsfleet United’s first season, the team won the FA Trophy, as well as the Kent Senior Cup. All well and good it seemed, except that over 50% of stakeholders failed to renew for the 2008/2009 season. By the third anniversary in 2010, which coincided with relegation from the Conference, membership was down to 3,500. You do the maths; the club income from the stakeholders was now negligible. Despite this, promotion back to the Conference was achieved in summer 2011 but before the fourth anniversary of the takeover came round, the club announced it needed an immediate cash injection of £50,000 to simply survive. Begging letters were sent out. At this point, I decided not to throw good money after bad and checked out of the project. The valiant few remaining stakeholders voted to hand the club over to Fleet Trust, a group of concerned supporters, who eventually brokered a deal whereby KEH Sports Limited, a Kuwaiti registered firm, took control of the club for a nominal amount and settled the debts. From democracy to dictatorship in ten short weeks; the experiment in fan ownership was over. At the end of 2014/2015, Ebbsfleet United finished 8^th in the Conference South. Despite this bizarre story, they remain solvent and stable, which is no bad thing. Interestingly, FC United of Manchester have reached the Conference North; I wish them well, but my instinct tells me (though I hope I’m wrong) that this level, the one below full time professionalism, is perhaps the glass ceiling for 100% fan owned clubs. Time will tell and I hope to be disabused of my reservations by the course of events.

Obviously the main problem for those investing in the www.myfootballclub.co.uk experiment was that people were becoming involved in a club they had no connection with. The lack of emotional ties meant walking away when the annual renewal notice turned up wasn’t a hard decision for many. Unlike certain rapacious venture capitalists we could name, it’s almost certain people didn’t sign up to try and make money from this scheme, but out of curiosity and possibly a naïve hope to effect change. With Newcastle United it will be very different; the loyalty, passion and affection for the club, the city and the region will draw in, potentially, hundreds of thousands of members. Yes, I know the ground only holds 52,000, but there’s far more to Newcastle United than just the match day experience.

I think that there needs to be two levels of membership at Newcastle United. For the sake of argument, we can call these ordinary members and full members. Ordinary members pay a nominal sum each year; say £60, or a fiver a month, which is what Labour Party membership costs. For this they get a vote in all structural and philosophical questions and resolutions about the club mission statement, the ethics of any sponsors, future plans for the ground and with the community. In short, they will help shape the vision and policy for the new Newcastle United, by being involved in the writing and adoption of the club’s constitution. I envisage that ordinary members will encompass everyone from lapsed attenders, exiled Geordies and members of the local community (by that I mean everywhere from Darlington to Berwick) who cares about Newcastle United. Any and every local sports team, union branch, social club, residents association, pub, small business or other properly constituted organisation, could buy themselves an ordinary membership. It would be the choice of the individual organisation how they ascertained a democratic mandate for all voting matters. For instance, if we bought ordinary membership for The Popular Side, we would consult with all contributors as to their opinions, before voting. Of course, I could also purchase my own membership, as well as persuading my union branch, employer, constituency Labour Party and every other club and organisation I’m a member of, to take out membership. We are talking at a potential membership of at least 1 million people, though 10% of that would be nice.

Then, there is the idea of the full member; these would be season ticket holders. Whether that’s in Level 7 or a private box, it doesn’t matter; one season ticket, one vote, but on every single aspect of club policy, other than team affairs beyond the hiring and firing of the head coach, who would have sole, ultimate responsibility for performances on the pitch. The head coach, like all senior managers, but not all employees, would be subject to immediate recall by full members. The question of the internal structures and committees that would show fan ownership in practice would need to be established around the time of our new club constitution and mission statement post takeover. I’m open to persuasion whether full members should pay the £60 per annum ordinary membership fee as well as their season ticket money.

Hand on heart; I know the money raised from fans wouldn’t be enough to buy the club. My fervent hope would be that fan investment could constitute 51% of the capital involved in the club; the rest could come from larger investors. I would be particularly happy if local councils (Newcastle, North Tyneside, Gateshead, South Tyneside, Castle Morpeth, Wansbeck and Derwentside at least) were able to use finance from any future plans for devolved government to become the kind of ethical investors we would hope for.

Am I naïve? Am I hopelessly romantic? You tell me…

Supporters have started to protest against the rising ticket prices in Premier League and other leagues in England. Do you support the protests – and why?

Of course. Ticket prices have risen at three times the rate of inflation since the advent of the Premier League. With the unimaginable wealth guaranteed by the latest broadcasting deal, the money raised by ticket sales is almost irrelevant to the biggest clubs. As the Football Supporters’ Federation states, twenty's plenty. That seems a reasonable price for all fans. Witness Liverpool’s humiliating climb-down regarding next season’s proposed ticket price; it was fan opinion that made the board act. It is lesson supporters of every club should learn.

Do you think club owners in general are working towards the interest of broad and local supporter groups?

Club owners are venture capitalists; their loyalty is to the profit system. Any miniscule sop to fans is done to minimize the risk of protest, rather than for altruistic reasons.

Back in year 2000, the British author Simon Freeman wrote a book called “Own Goal: How Corruption, Egotism and Greed is destroying Football”. Do you think the situation is better or worse than in 2000?

Considerably worse and deteriorating by the year.  The obscene amounts of money at the top end of the game that make players millionaires by the time they are 20, and bankrupt by 35 in many instances, should have improved the amateur and junior ranks of the game beyond imagining. Instead, the amateur game loses clubs year after year and junior teams are forced to play knee deep in mud because of a lack of 4G pitches. There is an easy solution to the problems of Britain’s ever wetter winters; install 2 full sized, floodlit 4G pitches at every High School in the country and 2 small sized, floodlit 4G pitches at every Primary.

I’m not saying 4G is a panacea for all the ills of the game or better than grass, but it is a practical, reliable alternative when inclement conditions prevail. Also, if floodlights were part of the package, youth and Sunday leagues could avail themselves of the facility, meaning that games could take place from Friday evening to Sunday evening, with the rest of the week available for training. There is a market out there for teams wanting midweek facilities outdoors and regular practises would keep wavering kids and shadow squad players involved.

I’m also not saying 4G is the solution for all grassroots (should that be astroturf roots?) clubs, mainly because it costs a hell of a lot to install.  So, how do we pay for it? The simple answer is cancelling Trident and chasing the tax-avoiding multi-nationals for what they owe. If that’s not imminently feasible, then get the FA to place a 5% levy on all transfer fees and deduct 1% of all salaries and bonuses in the Premier League. Surely any sane person would see the moral imperative in that. However, I won’t hold my breath, either for decent weather or, more poignantly, universal decent facilities.

Breaches of Trust

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic; Joseph Stalin

Unsurprisingly the above quotation, like much else of Comrade Jughashvili’s other work, is something I disagree with profoundly. However it’s a good place to start, as this week I’d like to discuss how personal and corporate morality underpins the concept of individual and collective responsibility.  In sport. In medicine. In life.

If one wished to illustrate the actual existence of the theory of false consciousness, the perfect example would be the seemingly infinite number of tweets ignorantly castigating or blindly defending the criminal conduct of recently unemployed former sunderland player Adam Johnson, while at the same time remaining blithely oblivious to both the impact on the child victim of Johnson’s criminal behaviour and, of greater significance on a societal scale, the most outrageous medical fiasco since Leslie Ash had her collagen implants. In the latter instance I’m not talking about the seedy, devious, amoral conduct of disgraced psychiatrist and textbook sociopath Adam Osborne, brother of vile Nietzschean narcissist George, but about the contemptible, loathsome Jeremy Hunt’s decision to impose a contract on junior doctors that will see them earn less per hour than shelf stackers in supermarkets. The very fact that thousands of supporters of Newcastle United and sunderland seemed so utterly disengaged by this shameful act of brutal, Tory treachery towards some of the best qualified and most committed NHS employees, while instead expending their boundless energy and miniscule wit on an endless tirade of accusation and counter accusation, under the pretence of adopting the moral high ground, has the effect of sickening me yet further from all aspects of the professional game.

What are these people trying to achieve? Do they not know how unacceptable it is to use Johnson’s guilty plea, on the back of prior repeated claims of innocence, as a way of casting doubt on his denial that his goal celebration in last October’s derby was intended to mock the deaths of John Alder and Liam Sweeney? The zeal with which they seek to retrospectively ascribe motives to Johnson’s conduct on the field of play, on the basis of his response to criminal charges, is at best fanciful nonsense and at worst duplicitous belligerence. However, it seems that the first casualty of law is always the truth.

The vast majority of the general public’s ignorance of the English legal system is neither surprising, nor accidental. Capitalism operates in such a way that ordinary people are denied access to adequate information as to how the state apparatus operates, while at the same time the hegemony of the ruling elite ensures the working class are conditioned to feel that the intricate methodologies and myriad techniques of social control are beyond their ken and consequently nothing to do with “the likes of us.” Witness the fact that when actor William Roache was found not guilty of a series of historic sexual abuse allegations, the preferred phraseology in newspapers and among the populace was that he had “got off” with it, hinting at a cloud of suspicion that due legal process had done nothing to dissipate, despite the fact he left the court an entirely innocent man. Therefore it is of no surprise to me that a staggering amount of ill-informed, mendacious and dangerously prejudicial hot air has been exhaled as regards Adam Johnson’s situation. The facts are these; Johnson has pleaded guilty to two charges: grooming and sexual activity with a minor. He is pleading not guilty to two further charges of sexual activity with a minor. That is truth. That is reality.

It appears to me that such a transparent state of affairs simply cannot or will not be grasped by those who seek to make their mouths go about the case. Another fact is that many people just don’t understand how the law works; Johnson hasn’t been “done by the coppers.” He was simply arrested and questioned by them. The Crown Prosecution Service received a file from Durham Constabulary and it was they who framed the actual charges brought against him. The way trials operate is that the prosecution outlines their case first, which is where the prurient, headline-grabbing, sensational tabloid content tends to come from. After this the defence either seeks to rebut the prosecution case, when a defendant pleads not guilty, or mitigates the offence(s) admitted, in the case of a guilty plea. The Judge summarises both cases, then the jury retire to decide whether the defendant’s guilt has been proved “beyond reasonable doubt.” If a guilty verdict is reached, the Judge will pass sentence based on a number of factors, including minimum or maximum tariff for the offences, previous character and mitigating or incriminating factors.

Commenting on a live case, such as the Johnson one, is fraught with danger. Any reference to something that could prejudice the case, or is sub judice, may result in the miscreant being prosecuted for contempt of court. Therefore, I intend to say little or nothing about the details of the case, especially as the trial is on-going. What I will say is that the facts that were revealed on the first day of proceedings show Johnson in the worst light possible. Undoubtedly his behaviour has been sordid, predatory, vile, loathsome, criminal and utterly unacceptable in any level of society. His lack of insight into the probable results of his conduct, for all parties directly or indirectly involved, shows either breath taking arrogance or crass stupidity. As he is a footballer, preserved in a state of permanent adolescence: cosseted, pampered and indulged from the moment his natural talent was rewarded with a professional contract, I am prepared to give credence to such an explanation, though it is neither a defence nor a reason for mitigation.

Johnson’s victim, aged 15 years and 2 months when the incidents happened, and his partner, pregnant with their child, who Johnson artlessly described as “class” after seeing a photo of his new born, have both been badly wronged by him. The abused child is the greater victim for innumerable reasons, legal and emotional, while his partner was traduced by the base, amoral conduct of a sexual predator, albeit a particularly stupid one who needed Google to discover what the age of consent in this country actually is.

With his lack of judgement, inability to accept his wrongdoing and defensive response to allegations, investigations and proceedings, Johnson appears cast from the same base metal as the kind of weak and inadequate men outwitted by the likes of Dark Justice in Channel 5 fly on the wall documentaries about internet groomers. The difference being Johnson was not a vulnerably housed career criminal with a borderline sub normal IQ and a history of substance abuse, but an international footballer earning a reputed £60,000 per week. Hopefully his sporting achievements and wealth will not insulate him from justice.

This week has also seen the professional disintegration and personal disgrace of another Adam; the brother of the inexpressibly loathsome George Osborne. Dr Osborne, whose title is now a historical relic rather than a signifier of his employment status has been struck off by the GMC after being found unfit to practise. The case against him was that he embarked in a relationship with a patient from his private psychiatric practice; a vulnerable, mentally ill woman under Osborne’s care, was groomed, seduced, indulged, discarded, emotionally blackmailed and eventually physically threatened by a man who is as much a disgrace to his profession as Adam Johnson. Osborne’s conduct caused this poor, troubled, abused, vulnerable woman to attempt suicide in the wake of a barrage of abusive, oppressive emails. It is a moot point whether Johnson’s crime is of greater magnitude, because of the age of his victim, rather than Osborne’s; what is undeniable is the repugnance of both their conduct. Selfish, self-gratifying, self-justifying, arrogant narcissists, who feel their power, status and wealth puts them above both criminal and moral law; one essential difference being that Johnson may lose his liberty, while Osborne will only lose his job. Certainly George’s brother hasn’t got the family’s good name to worry about anyway.

It is to be hoped that in the furore over Johnson, Osborne’s grotesquely amoral conduct has not slipped under the radar. Perhaps the most repugnant detail in this case is that it isn’t the first time he’s been caught. In 2010, while still training as a doctor, Osborne stole and forged prescriptions for “an escort,” who was a cocaine addict. This woman was involved in a lengthy sexual relationship with the good doctor, which had a financial basis.  It seems an act of unimaginable naiveté for the GMC to allow Osborne to return to medicine after the 2010 incident. However, they have seen the error of their ways and decided to act decisively at last.  Of course, their initial error was not visible to the public; in contrast, the conduct of sunderland FC in the Johnson case was explicit from the get go and the club must come under scrutiny as regards the probity of their handling of the whole situation.

The allegations against Johnson concern the period December 2015 to February 2015; the police investigation against him began in February 2015, at which point he was suspended by the club. In every job in the public sector, or where a person would have any access to or contact with children or vulnerable adults, it is almost certain the person under investigation would be suspended from work on full pay “without prejudice.”  It seemed this would also be the case when sunderland acted. However, with investigations still continuing, Johnson’s suspension was revoked and he started to play for the club, despite subsequently being charged with 4 offences in March 2015. It has therefore taken 10 months to come to court and sunderland’s response, the day after Johnson’s guilty plea and 5 days after he scored for the club away to Liverpool, was to sack him. Having got the better of the pub side currently masquerading as Manchester United, perhaps the club wish they had active decisively a while back. The terse statement issued by sunderland on Thursday stated that they would be making “no further comment” on the case. This simply isn’t good enough.

As far as I see it, the crux of the matter is this; did Johnson adopt a Machiavellian persona and deny the allegations point blank to club officials? If so, he successfully stonewalled any suspicions they may have had for almost a year, before pulling the rug from under their feet by pleading guilty, to his employer’s utter disbelief, at which point the club responded with admirable alacrity and sacked Johnson.  Well, it’s possible I suppose. If that is the case, the blame falls solely on the shoulders of Johnson, which means the club, who supported him through this whole ordeal, have been betrayed.

I’m sure sunderland fans fervently hope this is the case, as the alterative interpretation is troublesome to contemplate.  I’m speculating now, but was this what actually happened? When carpeted by club officials last February, a shamefaced Johnson holds his hands up to the on-line and text grooming which led to the sordid tryst in his Range Rover, behind the Happy Valley Cantonese take away in Station Town, but claims that’s as far as any relationship went. The club respond appropriately by sending him home. However his suspension coincides with Poyet’s sacking and the annual Mackem Houdini act (first patented in 1981 by Colin West) under a new manager. In this case Dick Advocaat, who apparently prized Premiership largesse over moral conduct by bringing Johnson back into the first team, while the club cloak this decision under an amalgam of a vague “innocent until proven guilty” statement and hints that contractually they have to allow him to return to work. Regards of Johnson’s individual contract of employment, this is bollocks; as John Harvey Jones said a dozen or so years back, the great thing about British employment laws are that they make it the easiest place in the EU to sack workers.

If sunderland had sacked Johnson immediately the accusations had surfaced, it would have been premature. However, after he was charged, bearing in mind the legal checks and balances that take place before that point, it would have been both reasonable (in the legal sense) and understandable. Any appeal by Johnson to an employment tribunal, or civil action against sunderland, would obviously have been stayed until after the conclusion of criminal proceedings. Recent revelations should hint at what the outcome of any appeal by Johnson would have been. The club could have saved the thick end of £4 million quid in wages if they’d given him the boot in early 2015,  Therefore to me, it simply isn’t credible that the club were completely in the dark about Johnson’s understanding, awareness and acceptance of his offending or his intention to plead guilty. I think sunderland AFC need to recognise the validity of such an interpretation and make a considerably more detailed explanation, perhaps an auto da fe, once the trial is over. Though I certainly feel it wouldn’t be a matter for retrospective punishment, a la Juventus, if corporate malfeasance is unearthed.

To clarify, Newcastle United have no right to the moral high ground after the signings of Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer, both by Sir Bobby Robson let us not forget; however their offences were in the past and both of them had been dealt with by the courts before they arrived on Tyneside. If the worst case scenario plays out for sunderland, it will appear that they embarked on a Faustian pact with a self-confessed child sex offender, hoping to retain their Premier League status. They chose to pursue cash rather than do what is right. To me, that would be morally unforgivable, but something the club would have to address themselves. Of course neither explanation can be proven without further comment from the club, which seems to be a total non-starter.

In the Channel 4 adaptation of David Peace’s Red Riding, Sean Bean playing the corrupt property developer John Dawson alludes to his involvement in a series of abductions and murders of young schoolgirls being the result of “a private weakness.” The same explanation could be used for the abhorrent conduct of Adam Johnson and Adam Osborne. However, while recognising the appalling effects on the victims of their conduct, I would feel their actions were less destructive than Jeremy Hunt’s ideological war against the BMA or, if it is proven to be the case, the corporate shame that would be the responsibility of sunderland’s role in the Johnson case.

Out of respect for the victim and her family, I would fervently hope the matter is allowed to fade away as soon as Johnson receives his punishment. Sadly, this will not be the case with the hot heads and air heads of social media engaging in a grammatically suspect tedious argument of insidious intent.

At the end of the day, in terms of evil done and the pernicious effects of their actions on society as a whole, Boris Johnson is worse than Adam Johnson and George Osborne wipes the floor with his younger brother, while James Naughtie got it right when he mispronounced Jeremy Hunt’s name.

The Beautiful South

About a year ago, I wrote an article for The Football Pink about North Shields FC; a lot of people who read it liked it, a larger number who didn't got up on high horses. Standard. Anyway, issue 11 of The Football Pink is out now and I've penned this article about resurgent South Shields FC -:

It wouldn’t be strictly accurate to say that non-league football in the North East is undergoing something of a renaissance, as the profile of the grassroots game in this area has never been higher in recent memory. Admittedly if one were to go back to the immediate post-WWII period, crowds at amateur games, especially in the Northern League’s west Durham heartlands, were higher, but that had as much to do with the social fabric, work patterns and the scarcity of private vehicle ownership at the time, as it did with any presumed community spirit or devotion to the amateur game.

The facts are, since Whitley Bay claimed the FA Vase in 2009, their second triumph and the first of a glorious hat-trick of consecutive Wembley wins, there has been a compelling wave of positivity at a local level on both sides of the Tyne, that has given impetus to non-league clubs including Dunston UTS and North Shields, both of whom also won the Vase at Wembley, as well as Gateshead, who have secured a regular top-half berth in the Conference (despite the bizarre interregnum of the Malcolm Crosby administration at the start of 2015/2016). In addition, moving slightly away from the banks of the Tyne, the NE Evo Stik triumvirate of legendary cup fighters Blyth Spartans, and the reborn pairing of Spennymoor United and Darlington 1883 are doing the region proud. Spennymoor have adjusted well to life in the Evo Stik first division after their promotion from the Northern League, while in the division above Spartans, on the back of two recent trips to the FA Cup third round and Darlington 1883, still groundsharing at Bishop Auckland but looking to go home, are battling  it out at the summit. Indeed, on December 28^th, the Quakers took 3 points away from Croft Park after an impressive 1-0 win, in front of an eye-catching crowd of 1,862.

The feelgood factor continues to get spread around. For 2015/2016, the club basking in the limelight is South Shields who won 20 successive games in cup and league, allowing them to sit 9 points clear at the top of NL Division 2. Ostensibly, this is not such an impressive achievement as those of the teams already mentioned, considering the fairly modest level they currently operate at. Well, think again; you need to consider their starting position. Chairman Geoff Thompson’s takeover of the club at the end of last season effectively ensured the short, medium and, hopefully, long-term future of South Tyneside’s senior football club, whose affairs had been in a parlous state. Two years before that, South Shields were made homeless when the owner of their Filtrona Park ground, local double glazing magnate and former publicity-hungry chairman John Rundle, who had once proclaimed his desire to see South Shields playing in the Conference, or even the Football League, terminated the club’s lease and put the place up for sale for a rumoured £350,000. With the chance of volunteers and supporters raising such an imposing figure being utterly unrealistic, The Mariners’ only hope for their continued existence was to strike a ground share agreement.  

A lack of viable temporary options on their doorstep meant South Shields were forced to move to Eden Lane, the former home of the sadly defunct NL side Peterlee Newtown. While Eden Lane is a lovely and sadly underused ground, with a great pitch and good facilities, the fact was South Shields were consequently forced into a round trip of over 50 miles for each home game. Unsurprisingly, the team bumped along in lower mid-table with crowds dwindling to a paltry average of 70, far below the break-even figure. By necessity, the focus of the committee had shifted away from the playing side to the pressing, vexed question of trying to find a sustainable option for a ground back in their home town. This was easier said than done; Harton and Westoe of the Wearside League have a lovely ground that is blessed with floodlights, but doesn’t have any seats or enough covered standing. The Gypsies’ Green athletic stadium, where the Great North Run ends each September, was investigated, but the sheer amount of work required to bring it up to the required standard in the time span available, made the project unfeasible. The truth was Filtrona, despite being just over the border into neighbouring Jarrow, was the only neighbourhood location fit for purpose. Having repeatedly drawn a blank, the future looked bleak until Thompson rode into town. With a minimum of publicity, the wealthy businessman purchased Filtrona from Rundle, changing its name to Mariners Park and brought the club back home.

In the heady days of summer 2015 after the homecoming was announced, Thompson made seemingly giddy public proclamations about wanting South Shields to rival Gateshead. While such hyperbole could have been adrenalin-suffused babbling from a man cut down from the scaffold, there is an element of truth to his aim.  South Shields have only been a Northern League club for 20 years; the labyrinthine history of predecessor clubs bearing the town’s name, tells of outfits that have operated at a considerably higher level than present outfit find themselves. The first club of that name, formed in 1889, were accepted into Football League Division 2 in 1919, before being relegated to the Third Division (North) in  1928. Sadly the club folded two years later, quitting their Horsley Hill ground and moving 8 miles west to Redheugh Park, where they reconvened as Gateshead FC, playing in the Football League until 1960 and the Northern Premier League until 1974, when they called it a day. Meanwhile, back in the land of the Sand Dancers, a new South Shields FC emerged in 1936, playing at the impressive Simonside Hall ground and plying their trade in the North Eastern League and its successor, the Northern Premier League. Unfortunately, Simonside Hall was sold for housing in 1974 and another move to Gateshead, this time to the International Stadium, as Redheugh Park had disappeared under the tarmac of the Gateshead Western By-pass, resulted in the destruction of the second South Shields FC in the mid-70s.

Those who declined to make the move inland constituted a third, and current, South Shields FC, who spent the first 17 years of their existence looking for a permanent home (sounds familiar eh?). In 1992, the Rundle family developed Filtrona (now Mariners) Park and the club shot up through the Wearside League and took the Northern League by storm. The sons and grandsons of those who had seen clubs twice decamp to Gateshead had a team to be proud of and, despite Rundle’s machinations (he threatened to liquidate the club in 2000 and again in 2006 on account relegation from Northern League divisions 1 to 2), South Shields survived. However, the schism between Rundle and the rest of the committee became unbridgeable in 2007, when he was removed from the board but kept ownership of the ground, sowing the seed for the eventual move to Peterlee. The remarkable thing is, the 2 year exile excepted, South Shields’ crowds have always been among the highest in the Northern League, regardless of the fortunes of the club on the field. The history may tend towards a fractured rather than dislocated narrative, but South Shields is a big town with a lot of football fans, split roughly 60:40 in favour of Newcastle rather than Sunderland, but professional affiliations have always meant nothing when support for The Mariners is required.

Whitley Bay’s temporary success (a tragic lost opportunity for The Seahorses, whose glamour ship has seemingly sailed) in attracting between 300 and 1,000 extra bodies during the good times, depending on the fixture, comprised mainly of pissed-off black and whiters, shows there is a ready-made audience out there of disenchanted football fans, nauseated by decades of paying through the nose to watch uninterested, millionaire mercenaries. These people are desperately looking for an excuse to nail their colours to a non-league mast. This is where South Shields (and to an extent their cross Tyne neighbours North Shields) have benefitted, simply by being in the right place at the right time as contempt for both Magpies and Black Cats has never been more entrenched.

The city of Sunderland boasts 3 Northern League clubs; Washington who play in front of 50 or so at the virtually inaccessible Nissan Sports Complex (going there makes you feel like the celebrity team in Porridge, especially if you used to read the weather on Anglia), while the Ryhope pair of CA and CW are well run and pull in over 100 each, but compete for crowds in grounds barely 200 yards apart. Not one of the 3 has sought to mine the seam of increasing supporter contempt with the professional game on their own doorstep. Alright so close on 100k deluded, north eastern souls continue to throw good money after bad down the sewer of Premier League fiscal excess each fortnight, but a higher than average proportion of them are evidently sickened by it and look upon themselves more as viewers, obliged by historical emotional ties to show up, rather than participants worshipping in their sporting cathedral. For Newcastle fans, Whitley Bay, North Shields and Heaton Stannington, in fact just about everyone other than my team Benfield (average crowd 90; the lowest in the NL top flight), have benefitted from an exponential rise in new followers, seeking to fall back in love with the game. Finally, it seems Sunderland supporters have a place they can now call home, among the ranks of the semi-professional game.

South Shields currently average 670 for home games, with a seasonal high of 1,412 for the 9-1 demolition of Tow Law Town. Hence, I think it is clear where disenchanted red and whiters are now going for their football fix, which has been further boosted by the signing of former Premier League star and Argentine international, Julio Arca. As Harry Pearson observed, “not many Under 20 World Cup captains have scored the winner away to Brandon.” In all seriousness, Arca is a tremendously popular figure in the area, having settled in the north east and even turned out for the Willow Pond in the Sunderland Sunday League after his distinguished professional career ended. However, be content, they’re not operating some kind of bargain basement FTM experience at the pitch by Bede Metro. For those of a Magpie persuasion, their needs were catered for with the reopening of the clubhouse being performed by Alan Shearer. Persistent rumours of the imminent signing of a former NUFC player for The Mariners are rife on the local football grapevine as well.

There is a joyous vibe about the place, which is far more Soccer AM than the apparently alternative AMF experience of being surrounded by shaven-headed, scowling Grandfathers in Stone Island, on a tumbledown terrace in a former pit village in the wilds of Wannee. South Shields is all about the fun of winning games after years of mediocrity. In many ways it reminds me, albeit at a modest level, of NUFC’s promotion under Keegan in 92-93, when the realisation hit the supporters just how good the team could be.  Things are definitely looking up for South Shields; indeed, the only cloud on their horizon is the great big, black cumulonimbus that has been disgorging countless oceans of rainwater for the past 3 months, resulting in the almost complete devastation of the Northern League fixture programme since the clocks went back.  However, that sense of excited awe is tangible in the South Tyneside air.

So great was the interest in South Shields’ Boxing Day derby with Hebburn Town that the game was made all-ticket; 1,400 advance sales showed the veracity of this decision, though a Christmas Eve deluge put paid to that game. Even more disappointing, four times their FA Vase tie with Morpeth Town was postponed. Despite the fact that the incessant rain showed no sign of abating, anticipation for this game stood at fever pitch as the winners were to host North Shields. In the end, it was not the time for South Shields to start counting their chickens. Morpeth Town are a fine side, near the top of NL Division 1 and have the best midfield pairing (Keith Graydon and Ben Sayers) in the league, not to mention the goalscoring feats of Michael Chilton and newly arrived centre back Chris Reid. They were no pushovers; the game with South Shields eventually took place on the 4G pitch at Consett’s Belle View Park. It was an astonishing game; 3-3 after 120 minutes, followed by a 10-9 shoot-out victory for Morpeth, who defeated North Shields 2-0 at Ralph Gardener Park, despite being reduced to 10 men early on. It is fair to say, The Highwaymen are now one of the 3 favourites for the Vase, alongside the renascent duo of Hereford and Salisbury.

However, the concept of a cross Tyne tie that gripped the imagination, despite the fact that the two clubs rarely, if ever, played each other in the past, having had different histories, constituencies and trajectories, will become a reality, as the slightly less prestigious Northern League Cup has thrown up a South v North quarter final. This will inevitably be a midweek game and it will be intriguing to see just what sort of crowd, in terms of numbers and demographic, are attracted to it.  After the Blyth v Darlington game, The Masons Arms down the road from Croft Park was attacked by some of the Quaker agro (do these clowns not do irony?), resulting in broken windows, one hospitalisation and six arrests of known “risk” followers of Darlo.

South Shields, like Blyth, is certainly not a genteel town, but among their football-supporting fraternity, there is absolutely no history or culture of violence. Rather like Whitley Bay, when their crowds exploded following Ashley’s last relegation campaign for Newcastle United, people came along for a good time, even if not for a long time. I suspect South Shields’ augmented following are hewn from the same stick of seaside rock; it’s all about fun not fighting, selfies not Stone Island and peeve not posturing. The Mariners are already enduring the weasel words of hard-hearted detractors, many from within the ranks of Sunderland’s support amazingly enough. Of course it is borne of the kind of jealousy that the uninformed do so well. From my perspective, as well as that of all those who love the grassroots game, the reaction to the rebirth of South Shields is considerably more positive; same as it was for Dunston UTS, West Auckland, Whitley Bay and North Shields, we all wish South Shields all the very best in their fascinating voyage of discovery. After all, it isn’t often you hear anything positive about football in this area…