‘how can I know what I think till I see what I say?’ (e.m. forster) - semi socratic dialogues and diatribes on the subjects of cricket, football, music, ireland, culture and politics by ian cusack
Last Saturday morning, we laid my Uncle Harry to rest. He was 84 and had lived a good life, but a still sad occasion was made so memorable to wonderful eulogies delivered by my uncle and Harry's two kids, my cousins Grahame and Karen. Harry's favourite music was the sound of a brass band, which was why the music at this uplifting, humanist celebration of his life was provided by the Westoe Colliery Band. Naturally enough, his favourite football team was Newcastle United and my Uncle Brian talked warmly of Harry taking him to his first game, a 4-3 win over Preston in September 1952. Perhaps understandably the first piece of music the Westoe band played was "The Blaydon Races," but what made it even more special was the fact we were in sunderland crematorium. When Newcastle were relegated in 2009, Harry still went out for a pint that night to endure the mickey taking of his mackem mates down the club. Well, as Harry pointed out, he'd gone out every time they went down, so why not deny them a single moment of pleasure. While there's many many reasons why I feel Saturday's Tyne Wear derby is a game I have no real interest in, I would like Newcastle to win this just for Harry and for everyone to go home without smashing the city up. After all, there's far more that binds us together as fans than tears us apart. Here's a piece I've had published in the new fanzine form The Shite Seats blog, "Kinnear's On The Moon," proving yet again that the best writing about NUFC has nothing to do with Baltic Publications, which I hope makes that point about the need for unity.....
I didn’t get to the Man City game; I made a tweet first
thing Sunday morning to the effect that if anyone had a freebie knocking about,
I’d be prepared to take it off their hands, but I made it abundantly clear,
however many the box office still had to shift, I wouldn’t be putting my hand
in my pocket for the benefit of Mike Ashley any time soon. In the end, Steve
Wraith texted me about 1.15 to say he had a spare going for a fiver; I was
tempted, but by that time I was doing my mam’s shopping in Sainsbury’s West
Monkseaton so getting to town before kick-off just wasn’t practical. Not to mention the fact I knew Taylor was in
the starting XI…
Actually, I wish I’d either tried to get there or not
received the text, as it made me remember just how hard it is not to go to the
game at times, even if the game is tripe and the day is only saved by the
post-match craic; seeing if the Danny Dyer tribute flashmob turn up in The
Bodega, looking bald and moody, for instance. Not taking that seat in
the Gallowgate meant that my whole afternoon was spent ignoring the family, in
paroxysms of solitary agony, wondering how things were going at SJP. Having
sacked Sky years ago, I didn’t see any of the game, other than quick
on-line links and, stupid though it sounds, I’m sort of glad City got a second
to minimise the importance of the disallowed Tiote goal, even if the referee’s
appalling decision kept me awake at night, grinding my teeth. Difficult though
it is, the most important thing to me is being gracious in victory and
dignified in defeat.
Let’s be clear about this; I’m not completely boycotting the
club, I’m just refusing to the current “owners” any of my money. It’s tough to
maintain such principles, but I’m certain of the correctness of my stance. So far this season I’ve managed two games; the
City League Cup tie, when a mate over from Ireland who was staying at mine got
me a ticket as a thank you (nice of him, but I’d rather have been at West Allotment
Celtic v Northallerton Town the same night) and the Stoke City Christmas
pantomime, which I adored, because a mate decided that Tenerife for the
festivities had more of a ring to it than Blyth. Who can blame him?
Another pal is away skiing in mid Feb, so I’ll be at Villa.
Look me up for a pint post-match; I’ll buy you a beer and repeat, ad infinitum,
my mantra. While Mike Ashley is in charge of Newcastle United, it doesn’t
matter who plays for the team, who manages the club or where we finish in the
table at the end of the season. All that matters is that we need Ashley OUT and
100% Fan Ownership IN, though I’ll take 51% Fan Ownership as a transitional
demand. We need all fans, whether Wonga clad shirters, opportunistic
Derek Llambias loyalists in cashmere sweaters or conformist bona drag popinjay
casuals, to leave their egos, agenda and cynicism at the door and join
together, whether under the umbrella of NUFC Fans United, unless NUST
get their act together quickly, and keep the pressure on Ashley. It’s time for
change, time for him to go and time for all of us in the NUFC family to learn,
once and for all, that together we are strong.
United we must stand, passionately and resolutely, to get
Ashley OUT.
I’ve been missing
out on a lot of things of late. Firstly, the drink, as I’m on my usual dry
January; it was very hard last Friday night, but I think I’m over the worst of
the pangs now. Secondly; a whole load of gigs. As I type this on Wednesday 22nd
January, it is with a heavy heart as work commitments mean I am unable to
attend Mogwai at the Tyne Theatre tonight. Because I don’t finish until 9, I’d
be arriving post gig for some post rock, so there’s no point in even thinking
about it. Sadly, I’ve never seen Mogwai, nor have I ever had the privilege of
seeing The Pop Group live, though I should have ticked them off my list at the
Glasgow ABC, as well as enjoying Queens Park 2 Elgin City 0 in the afternoon,
in the company of Professor of Renaissance Literature at Stratchclyde
University and former Ward 34 bassist Jonathan Hope, on Saturday 18th
January. Sadly, this wasn’t to be as my Uncle Harry, a great old fella, passed
away last week and I’ve been struggling to fit everything I need to remember in
my head, never mind everything I need to do in my life since then. Tough, tough
times at the minute…
As a result, I
cried off and spent my Friday night exchanging emails with Roddy Doyle for a
proposed interview in PUSH #10 and my Saturday, post
Winstons Over 40s (we won 2-1 away to Horden Tin Pot Veterans and I set foot in
a Conservative Club for the first time in my life; one that had a framed photo
of the Durham NUM banner on the wall in the lounge as well) and in place of the
Stan’s postponed game at Tow Law (rain, of course), at Benfield 3 Congleton
Town 1 in the FA Vase, in the company of someone I knew who’d been a friend of
Gordon Burn and someone else who’d been on Mastermind the night before
specialising in the novels of David Peace. It’s a small world and getting
smaller all the time.
Apparently The Pop
Group were as dynamic as their last epoch defining gig in Glasgow in 1980. It
is a loss I shall just have to bear with fortitude, as many of the choices I
have made of late have been done with full awareness of their consequences.
Take Monday 20th January as an instance; news that ESG, the reformed
American all-female version of A Certain Ratio, were playing their first ever
Newcastle gig after a near 25 year musical hiatus at Think Tank had intrigued
me, but the proposed Glasgow weekend achieved primacy. When that went by the
wayside, I thought again about ESG; those distant, guttural shards of brutal
post No Wave funk, such as Moody really appealed, even if the
£20 entry was something to be balked at. However, with The Pop Group gone and
Mogwai an impossibility, this was my only chance at a gig this month. I didn’t
take that chance.
Also, Newcastle
United versus sunderland in the FA Youth Cup was moved from Tuesday afternoon
at Blue Flames to 7pm on Monday night at SJP, which appealed as well. However,
the news that NUFC Fans United were holding our first meeting of 2014 at the
Irish Club meant that all bets were off. While the only, solid gold, immovable
event that takes place each Monday is my 6 a side up the West Road between 6
and 7, I realised that of all these events, the one that I had to be at was
NUFC Fans United, with the awareness also needed I had to drop off a couple of
books and programmes at the David Peace scholar’s gaffe on my way home. The NUFC
Fans United meeting finished around 8.35, but we didn’t make it in to
SJP, which is a shame as Newcastle won 4-0 in front of a mightily impressive
3,501. Happily I did get to see some glum Mackems sulking their way back down
the hill from the ground.
So, why did NUFC
Fans United claim my attendance ahead of the other intriguing events
the same night? ESG are brilliant and had taken 33 years to make it to
Tyneside, while a Monday night game at SJP is generally a rare and mainly
enjoyable treat. The fact is, my conscience told me that the long term future
of Newcastle United, rather than the short term one as presented by the Juniors
(let’s face it; however good these young’uns look, they all end up on free
transfer once they’re 18 because of the utter inability of NUFC’s coaching
staff to turn teenage prospects into professional footballers) or a trip
through my musical past, however diverting that might be, was where my
responsibility lay. This point was especially brought home to me by the
knowledge that at 6pm on Wednesday 223nd January, Newcastle United Supporters’
Trust (NUST) are holding their AGM, which I’m also being forced to
miss because of work commitments.
NUST have a current membership, or so I’ve been
told by one of the officials of NUST in response to my direct
question, that numbers 771. While that figure is considerably less than it was
around 4 or 5 years ago, it is higher than it has been in the intervening
period. I have no precise way of knowing exactly how this number compares to
this time last year, though I suspect it has shown an appreciable rise, mainly
on account of events from June to November 2013. From the reappointment of Joe
Kinnear (or the departure of Chief Executive and corporate mine host Derek Llambias,
if you are that way inclined) to the Time For Changemarch, superbly organised by Graeme Cansdale of the Mike
Ashley Out Campaign, to the risible banning of NCJ Media from accessing
Newcastle United press conferences, to the wholly understandable if unnecessary
exclusion of NUST from the Fans’ Forum, for conduct that resulted in them
being rightly excoriated by the Football Supporters’ Federation representative
at their AGM, events have provided NUST with an opportunity to
reanimate their reputation among the support and to lose the tag of anodyne,
anonymous, ineffectual, indolence that
has been the touchstone of their non-performance over these past 4 years.
As a member of NUST,
I am wholly sick of their utterly ineffectual inactivity and non-existent
profile among the support. This is why I am going to stand for election to the NUST
board and this is why I attended NUFC Fans United’s meeting on Monday
evening, because the latter organisation offer, at this moment in time, the
only realistic prospect of fans being listened to by other fans.
Yes, NUST
is the only democratically elected organisation representing fans, but other
than the crass, unprofessional and utterly unavoidable breach of protocol that
saw NUST
slung out of the Fans’ Forum, whatever some of the more excitable titles in the
Baltic Publications portfolio may claim, I can’t recall NUST doing anything to
engage with the support during the last year. Frankly, having an AGM as the sum
total of annual, face to face engagement with members, rather than any
meaningful dialogue with people who cough up an annual fee don’t forget, or
making any realistic attempt to recruit more members and actually represent
them, whether this be on a day to day basis by taking problems and concerns to
the Fans’ Forum or, as I had (perhaps naively) hoped, acting as a crusading,
democratic, accountable organisation that seeks to get Ashley OUT and 100% Fan
Ownership IN (or 51% Fan Ownership as a transitional demand), is completely and
utterly unacceptable.
Are the NUST board
so removed from the ordinary supporter base that their inactivity demonstrates,
in an unconscious impersonation of the Westwood and McKeague era that it has
not occurred to them that the ordinary support isn’t satisfied with a remote,
isolated, seemingly unaccountable and resolutely disengaged board of NUST
that sees no need to talk to members? Or are they more like the Halls;
messianic and dictatorial, completely opposed to any concept of two way
communication? Frankly, I do not know the answer, as NUST have, since 2010,
shown an utter disinclination to engage with NUST members and all
other NUFC fans as a whole in my opinion. Perhaps I’m wrong in my
analysis; if so, I apologise, but I’d like to see incontrovertible,
phenomenological proof that my instincts are incorrect.
NUST has a brilliant, copper-bottomed
constitution and a superb, defined structure, but it is moribund to the point
of irrelevance; the inability to respond to the events of the second half of
last year shows that, especially when one considers the circumstances provided
them with a golden opportunity to breathe life back into the organisation. So,
when the only supposedly democratically constituted fans’ organisation for
Newcastle United supporters shows absolutely no inclination to represent its
potential constituency in any meaningful way, the only thing to do is to find
other vehicles for this, which is where NUFC Fans United comes in to fill
the void.
NUFC Fans United has no membership; it has no constitution and,
in that sense, it has no defined manifesto or philosophical creed. All that NUFC
Fans United seeks to do is act as a conduit between supporters and the
club. The fact that the Fans’ forum exists at all is down almost exclusively to
the hard work of Steve Hastie from NUFC Fans United and Lee Marshall
from the club, despite the relentless blackguarding the two of them endure on
line and in social media from people who really ought to know better and from
others who don’t know what they are talking about.
As pointed out in
the last blog I wrote about Newcastle United, it was NUFC Fans United who
sought to broker a peace between the disproportionate response of the club to
the trust’s stupidity in breaching protocol after the initial meeting of the
Fans’ forum. No thanks was offered by either side and no compromise was
reached, but at least NUFC Fans United tried and that’s
something NUST can never be accused of in the past few years. However, the time has come for a change,
which is why I intend to stand in the NUST board elections. If the Trust
is to survive in any meaningful form, it needs to respond to events in a timely
fashion and talk to the support. I am heartened by Chair Norman Watson’s words
at the AGM, where he announced a desire to see NUST at the forefront of
fan led protests.
However, as yet,
they are only words and this is why I will be standing for election to the
Trust board. I am no soi disant crypto
Leninist messiah figure with a need for personal aggrandisement; I am an
ordinary fan and I will be standing as a democratic, accountable supporter of
the eventual aim of 100% Fan Ownership of Newcastle United and, if successful,
I will do everything to try and ensure the Trust will listen to fans and
respond democratically to the feelings of the support, whatever the democratic
will of the support shows itself to be. Again, I have no dialectical fists of
love to instil compliance and compel obedience; I recognise the validity of the
opinions of every single Newcastle United fan. I recognise also that 771
members may be more than NUFC Fans United has, but it is a
pitifully small number. We need to build a mass, accountable, democratic
movement of supporters, led by the democratic will of fans not by a small,
unrepresentative group of self-interested autodidacts, to shake off the chains
of cynicism and inertia and fight to take back our great club. I would hope we
can use NUST as the rallying point for our movement, but if future
events and tactics prove this to be an unreformable organisation, then it will
be time for NUFC Fans United to assume the legitimate role as the voice of
all Newcastle united supporters. Time will show us the path to go down.
By the time this
blog is on line, the NUST AGM will have been and gone.
All I can hope for, speaking as a card carrying, rank and file member of NUST,
is that the Trust will have made a firm commitment to shake off the robes of
inertia and self-interest that have swaddled the organisation since the 2010
election results were announced. Resignations and retirements, the latter a
constitutional necessity, must come and elections will surely follow; please
follow me on Twitter at
@PayasoDeMierda to learn of my election campaign and please join both NUFC
Fans United and NUST to help save our club.
Remember; where we
finish in the league and who manages or plays for us under the current regime
is utterly unimportant. We need Ashley OUT and 100% Fan Ownership IN, though I
will accept 51% Fan Ownership as a transitional demand. As The Pop Group said, Where
There’s A Will There Has Got To Be A Way….
Backin1997,IwasstillazealousNewcastlefan,evenifDalglish
wasstartingtomakemequestionmyfaithinTheMagpies.Coincidentally,Newcastledidn’thaveagameonSaturday30thAugust,asanawaytriptoLiverpoolwaspencilledinforSundaylunchtime;intheeventthisgamewaspostponeduntil20thJanuary1998,whenwelost1-0courtesyofaMichaelOwengoal,asthe former Diana SpencerdiedinacarcrashinParisintheearlyhoursofthenextmorning,necessitatingthecancellationofallBritishsportingevents. All was not
lost though; Channel 4 still showed Lazio against Sampdoria that afternoon.Interestingly,BoltonWanderersstillplayedtheirfirstgameattheReebokthedayafter,onMonday1stSeptember,whenpoorRobbieElliottbrokehislegonhishomedebutfortheTrottersaftertransferringfromNewcastle.
ApartfromseeinganEnglandvSlovakiaUnder21internationalatSSoL(nosniggeringplease)inJune2002whenSholaAmeobiwasmercilesslybarrackedfromkickoffuntilfulltime,ratherlikeheisatSJP
these daysIsuppose,I’veneversubsequentlybeentoasunderlandhomegame,soI’venowaytocomparemyexperiencesattheNorwichCitymatch,withthewaythegroundortheirsupporthasevolved.WhatImostrememberwastheconfusionattheturnstiles,asnoneoftheentrypointswerenumbered,leadingtoafreeforall,bothinsideandoutsidethegroundintermsofgainingaccessandfindingaplacetosit.Fortheopeningfifteenminutes,peoplewereaimlesslywanderingaroundlookingforseats;manyticketswereduplicatedandthiscausedmuchconsternation,especiallyasthestewardswereasunsureofthelayoutasthepuntersandcouldonlyadvisebewilderedfanstositwhere theycouldfindaspace.Startingastheymeanttogoon,theMackemshadissuedmewithafreebieviaWSC,thoughnotinthepress
boxasI’dhopedasthatwasstill“underconstruction,”showingthebuildershadbeenforcedintoabitofarushjobtogettheplacereadyforthestartoftheseason.Eventually,Iendedupquitehighupbehindthegoal,inanalmostemptysection,whichaffordedaperfectviewoftheCanaries’DarrylSutchgrabbingtheonlygoalthatwasthewinneron76minutes;itwasn’ttheseat,roworevenstandonmyticket,butitwouldbeextraspecialforme.
