Life through a lens

Above the floodlights

Stuart Clarke — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:50:00 GMT

Ten thousands of starlings have gathered near the estuary, seen from the motorway, on the borders between England and Scotland. Their number swelled to 50,000 by the arrivals of more escaping Russia’s serious cold. The gathering of the clever little birds paints patterns across the sky as they move and circle and dip, as one, changing shape, losing sections only to rejoin.

This is in the sunset and beneath the full moon. The shapes are glorious and pyschedelic, ranging in split moments from a pharoah sat upright to a dolphin swimming. Then a spaceship, then a figure of eight. Anything you want to see will be there if you look for long enough. Certainly a love heart, definitely a face. Humans gather knowing they have met their artist.

Within sight at Gretna, the football club is in shock. The patron gravely ill. The manager departed. The wages delayed or gone for good. The club bottom, detached. They were top for years on end, success upon success. THAT goal which got them to the Premiership proved their undoing.

Almost a year ago in April I watched from a safe distance the owner (Brooks Mileson) choaking on the drama, his team’s chances ebbing away into many minutes of injury and torture time. Then wee James Grady popped it in. Gretna were up!

But it meant moving away from their small stadium – playing every game away at Motherwell, dragging what support they could muster to many miles from home and always away from the home of the fairy-tales. With a refit of players continually throughout the season as oldies once goodies on borrowed time and long contracts were farmed out and the younger legs needed schooled in.

All in mid-flight. With mountainous appointments with Hibs and Hearts, not to mention Celtic and Rangers. All this needing the guidance of one man now gravely ill. The Premiership adventure was a season too soon.

Get well Brooks - get on home from the hospital – the starlings are in sight of your house.

One small step for mankind

Stuart Clarke — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:46:00 GMT

The moment I heard the bold plan to take a 39th step abroad... I was excited.

Me of all people, with my ‘fans’ background. However, whilst I am used to putting on shows about British football mostly for the British people - I also have the foreign market in mind – I want to show off what is peculiarly ours to those that would lap it up on first sight and those who are harder work, perhaps with their own agenda or League.

You know I would love to show it to the Spanish, and the Italians, right now. British football particularly has thrilled me over the years.

My perception of this deemed fan-hating Premier League plan is of a weekend perfectly placed in the symmetrical middle of the season which is unlike any other and which is when the homegrown fans can have a day off, put their feet up, ask all their mates around and have a great time watching all 10 premiership pairings one after the other, with something at stake.

I don’t think their loyalty is at stake. I don’t think it’s the beginning of the end – indeed it’s the greatest opportunity to ask of the Premier League something special be returned to the fans to help reestablish football as part of a community fabric in the country that shall ever be the cradle of the game.

Sack the coach

Stuart Clarke — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:45:00 GMT

My team Carlisle have lost 5 away games in a row.

After a round of ground-hopping (Aston Villa v Newcastle United, Walsall v Yeovil, Wolves v Stoke) I arrived to take in the whole of the second half of Port Vale v United.

On my way in I found my way almost blocked by the most massive and lavish coach. One with 6 big wheels. The Carlisle team coach.

Watching the team tinker or tanker about on the pitch I realised that had they travelled in 3 or 4 cars, like many teams, albeit non-professional teams, perhaps had to get the wheel-jack out on the way, I am sure they would have got down to business, fleet of foot, mindful of their fellow man. And not have pansied about tossing away a must win in front of their loyal away support.

The ‘team’ must have felt they could just turn up – riding high up inside that fancy coach.

Friday night/ Saturday morning in Workington

Stuart Clarke — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:05:00 GMT

A huge fight broke out involving 200 people.

Which sounds fun, at a distance. But Workington has already its own unique football-kicking-scrum involving everyone, which may look to the eye like a giant fight: it’s the Uppies & Downies which takes place every Easter since anyone can remember, on the Cloffocks. Sacred ground. Of Village Green status.

Deeds were written once giving the land over to the people. The deeds are desperately being sought as Tescos has planning permission to concrete over the Cloffocks. This Easter could be the last.

Everyone welcome – you can even join in what looks like a mass fight but has noble undercurrents and true, genuine sportsmanship.

Psyching out the opposition

Stuart Clarke — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:44:00 GMT

Is this dark art lost from the modern game? Legend has it Shankly greeted each player off the visiting team bus assuring them they were terrible and going to lose. A thread of some art picked up from his harsh coal-mining Ayrshire background which also produced Stein and Busby.

Now it is the pantomine tabloid hacks like super Star scribe Brian Woolnough who do the equivalent – willing everyone to lose!

Returning to the noble art, there is another sport on my doorstep which offers a clue as to how it can be done. I hate the charade that is World Wrestling, but as for the original Cumberland & Westmorland outdoor wrestling... here is an excerpt from our local newspaper:

“Some wrestlers have a necessary routine before wrestling. Ted Dunglinson walked into the ring with his very big toes pointing up towards his nose. Alf Harrington used to cast off to the right and circle the ring anti-clockwise, before taking hold.

The great Northumbrian wrestler Alan Davidson used to thump you into your place on the field with his great chest before a bout. Peter Hunter, more subtly, would take a quiet hold and then utter the killer words “Are you right ...lad” before the wrestling started.

Alan Jones meanwhile overcame nervousness by going into a rage, entering the ring second – his opponent isolated in the middle. He would then bend forward, legs apart, pull up his socks, adjust both knee braces, fiddle with his bandages (still appearing in a huff), pluck some grass, rub his hands together and then walk with dramatic urgency with a bulldog face into the centre of the ring to take hold of his man.

I trained my son to counter such intensity by pretending he hadn’t seen him and tun his back just as raging Alan reached the centre, so that he had nowhere to unleash all that intensity”.
Roger Robson, Cumberland News

Now, imagine one team on the pitch all having their backs turned to the opposition up to the second the referee blew his whistle to commence proceedings. What effect would that have? Some teams seem to have their backs turned just to file their nails.

A king to the rescue

Stuart Clarke — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:15:00 GMT

Without wishing to sound alarmist, all of us need to make a 3 year business plan (which includes personal aspiration) as the world is changing rapidly. Not only are the major rivers full-to-bursting, those little brooks running through the hamlets are in days like these, like torrents. Added to this the eastern seabord is tilting ever more down into the sea. It’s time to do something. Plan. Make it happen.

On this eastern side sits Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Saturday was coronation day: a new old king of Tyneside returning from a needless abdication.

I drive from west to east and back again. Past the castle/cathedral/throne/play-house in the middle: St.James Park. At first light I see Newcastle as one: Blaydon across the River and clear on up the Scotswood Road, looping up through Gosforth, Heaton, Jesmond and Sandyford, through Byker where cars are hardly allowed, to Walker and Wallsend, pausing at Swan and Hunter, with its brightly coloured cranes in semi-dismantlement.

No Keegan shirts hung over their vast frames. Just yet. Three lads cycle past, weaving stripes of black and white, fishing rods to the fore. Everyone on this day is bearing flowers and ringing Mum - Valentine's day come early. Rosettes on every chest: on all the staff in the joke shop, all the staff in the bakery.

Ordinary people in the streets knowing exactly why they don’t know why they are smiling (teeth gone to the tooth-fairy).

A magical figure is in town.

The Magic of the Cup

Stuart Clarke — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:27:00 GMT

The British went for Christmas like there was no tomorrow, but the feeling the morning after was one of wrapping paper. A spiritual dimension craved for, outside of the church, was finally offered up not even at New Year, but on January 5th/6th with the staging of the 3rd Round of The FA Cup.

This is a key date for the British, north and south of the border, shown live on terrestial TV. We feel connected, we feel humbled, ennobled – appreciative of the underdog. We love our uneven battles, uneven playing surfaces, costume dramas, weathers.

The winter sun low and yellow was a dazzler. At Burnley’s Turf Moor there were shades of It’s A Wonderful Life but missing the snow. The football club has new faces, but in the corridors there are many of the old faces, albeit looking older and older. Some of the new faces are related to the old faces. Paul Fletcher is back in town only he wasn’t there today – he was in Barbados. He starts tomorrow, waving some wand, building a new old era, including a new stadium.

Before I go on about the magic of the Cup , there are several new stadium plans afoot, so the Burnley story is doubtless replicated elsewhere, albeit in different colours, different accents. Bristol City, Liverpool and Everton both, Luton Town, Morecambe, Oldham Athletic, Portsmouth, Scunthorpe United, Southend United, Tottenham Hotspur are all seemingly ripping up or repointing what is in some cases more than 100 years of heritage on the same spot.

The process of new stadium building is not over. I set out in The Homes of Football (incidentally first shown at Burnley in 1991) to put a face to the changing football culture that it might be a mirror to society. It seems appropriate to continue that portrait given all these big plans in or around town.

At Burnley v Arsenal in The FA Cup, there were applications of lip gloss – the match was being screened live on terrestial TV; there were autograph hunters particularly of Arsenal players; there was barracking from both sides: “You’ve only come to see the Arsenal” versus “We are English, We Are English” versus “You’re just a small town in Blackburn” versus “You’re just a small town in France” versus “You could do with more Foreigners” and “We pay your rent through our taxes” versus “Burnley Burnley Burnley No One Likes Us we don’t care”.

On this day Arsenal won the battle of the wits on and off the pitch. In 1961 Burnley would have been more than a match for them. Some of the oldies no doubt pointed this out. The local couple wandered home up the local streets, through the puddles, flag as cloak on the girl. Past the chip shops and hardly noticing the showy cheeky boys who had nicked the blag sheets from outside the paper shop heralding the coming of the League leaders to Burnley.

By the time the cars had cleared Turf Moor, the stadium was heralding the Next match: PLYMOUTH ARGYLE. But not in the Cup. Burnley were out for another year.

Titanic football days

Stuart Clarke — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:26:00 GMT

I contemplated taking to a football match for what would be her very first time – a rather posh woman and witnessing what she would make of it – see if it is all it is cracked up to be.

Watching Xmas tv, that woman would be the golden-haired Rose character from Titanic, Miss Winslet. Watching Spurs v Reading I thought that Reading might become Rose’s team, with Dave Kitson her golden boy. The Royals ever involved in games with lots of goals. Hardly a chance of her getting bored, getting cold, letting go.

Oh-oh, a problem… she points at Berbatov to make a case for supporting Spurs instead. I redirect her fingers towards Jenas and Malbranque as proof she shouldn’t. Anyway, on hearing Kitson speak would seal her loyalty to Reading. The Royals. She’s rather posh afterall.

Hold on! What would she make of the beautiful Arsenal phenomenen? I would explain that whilst they are the best team they will undoubtedly not finish in the Top Six, as the English game is attrition and effort. She would stare at me with enquiring eyes and seek out the lie.

She would be stood in admiration at Upton Park, the entire crowd not wanting to go home, exploding with verses of “Bubbles”, their having beaten the other United yet again. She would raise her gaze to the night skies as City belted out “Blue Moon”.

She would be swamped by green in Glasgow’s impoverished East End at the Parkhead home of the Celtic hordes – squeezed by strangers arms around her urging “You’ll Never Walk Alone”... her breath returning, she would whisper that she thought that someone else sung that song.

“Why Irene?” she would enquire at The Gas as The Bristol Rovers pummelled my Carlisle United. And “Delilah” at Stoke? What on earth has this (song about a) crime of passion got to do with football? – we had better not go there!

Back in the suburbs of the big one (lowly) QPR fans would be singing a loony tune about money as they turned over the Championship leaders. Puzzled she would say that she was sure she had heard that neighbours Chelsea were the rich ones!

We would watch the local game, where she had a chance to get on first name terms with everyone present. But only having scrambled over the Bullens roof at Everton, on our way to the TV gantry, her high on a rail, her arms outstretched, eyes closed (me holding her from behind). After all it was in this very city that Titanic ship was built. Here ends the first part of a titanic football education.