This is Easter Day, in its early hours, and I have risen to complete my confession, seeking absolution for a great sin enjoyed yesterday, and which I intend to commit again. I was unfaithful to my present mistress with whom I have lived since 1992. But worse is to come because my new mistress is a relative of the other, and with whom I lived between 1974 and 1991, shortly after moving into the area, and she has insisted on moving in with us in later this year. The first knows there is no choice but to accept the situation unless willing to cope without my continuing financial support.
They have been more like wives than concubine, with the difference that instead of a national marriage certificate we entered into annual contracts in which the minimum quantity of marital rights is agreed at an overall cost, but where further rights can be purchased on an agreed scale of charges depending on the form of service.
Both relationships possess the same characteristics in which the period of courtship was short before the first contract was agreed. Both relationships have been of a sadomasochistic nature, but where unfortunately the heights of orgasmic pleasure have not been experienced, but it is in the nature of this passion that you live eternally in hope. However, my behaviour is not as bad as many others, because with the consent of the first and returning partner, I had only one fling with a third party from my youth although it was not with my first love.
For those not too shocked to have moved immediately on to more appropriate matters on this day of redemption and rebirth, you will have worked out this is not about sex, but professional football (soccer).
Nevertheless our problem is how to break the news to our closest of friends, because in this tribal area you can belong to one of the mistresses, but even if you have the funds to enjoy the pain of both it is not the done thing. There were those who refused to speak to me when I broke off the first relationship and considered the sin greater than if I had switched religions, and these are unlikely to ever forgive, even if I have returned. The best way of indicating the strength of feeling is to say that it was like being an active member of the National Union of Mineworkers before the Thatcher years Miner's strike and immediately becoming a shop steward for Union of Democratic Miners. You cannot become a Conservative and Labour Member of Parliament at the same time, oh I dunno, there are many in active politics that believe this is what has happened within the Labour Party and that it has worked so successfully, that it is now being tried by the Conservatives.
There are also many who thoroughly disapprove of any kind of marital relationship based on money and even worse one where one partner willingly submits to severe pain caused by the other, but at least one of my present friends understands everything that I have said, as an Aston Villa supporter from England's second city, Birmingham, and I mentioned the second city bit to annoy all those to support Manchester United (The Manchester City fans along with those who travelled to support Wolves yesterday, "are one of us" abused and long suffering). Our American cousins, who are buying into our game both over here and in taking our nomadic Beckhams, do not appear to have the same loyalty as franchises move between cities, although this is not to question the intensity of supporters which I witnessed when plane loads arrived from across the Atlantic to watch teams play their form of soccer at Wembley.
I am already going to the new Wembley this year, having secured tickets for a concert to mark the ten years since the death of former Princess Diana. I was hoping to get their earlier if Newcastle had progressed in the Cup competitions or now through the playoff final for entry from the Championship to the Premiership, but after yesterday's performance, there is a strong possibility that Sunderland will achieve one of the two places of automatic promotion, if not the championship title itself.
My masochistic love affair with the game commenced when I was taken to support the then nearest professional team of Crystal Palace as part of extended family visits at Easter and Christmas. First Mass, and then football. Later when I was older I would go on my own but meet up with a few other supporters within the ground. Crystal Palace then played at natural amphitheatre of open terraces with one main stand, and the crowd was so small, only a few hundred at one period, that most of the regulars were known to each other, and this was not surprising because the team had to seek re-election to the football league for three years in succession when at the bottom of the former Third Division South. I know, because in that Welsh tongue of Max Boyce, "I was there."
It is this fear of "not being there" when success comes that makes most supporters continue to attend games knowing that their team will lose because it is not as good as the opposition. It is in fact now questionable, from the supporter's viewpoint, if it is worth actually getting promoted into the Premiership unless there is access to almost unlimited wealth in order to purchase the best players from the rest of the world. Otherwise you face the prospect of spending most of the season losing to better teams, worrying about being relegated and hoping for a good cup run, or the chance of playing against some inferior foreign team who would struggle in the second and third divisions. The more teams there are with the dosh to compete in the Premiership, the more difficult it will be for the national team to become successful, although it would help if the three levels of national team played the same system, enabling and encouraging accelerated mobility.
Thus I also confess to being no different from other supporters in that we pay the money so we have a right to expect what we pay for, which includes telling off individuals and the team when their performance is less than anticipated, and explaining to the manager why our team selection is better than his, regardless of his experience, although I don't think I would say anything to Roy Keane except, "what would you like me to say, sir?" In fact the extraordinary aspect of Sunderland's performance yesterday is that there were eleven Roy Keane's playing as a team on the park, and five others able to participate if required. But I am ahead of myself.
The most memorable game in my childhood was not at the Palace but at Highbury to watch Stanley Matthews, then playing for Blackpool. I was taken by my uncle, who was celebrating his birthday and it was my first experience of travelling from South to North London and of being in such a large closely packed crowd. My uncle suggested that I be lifted over the heads of the crowd to the front where I would be able to see, but I was too scared so only saw what happened in the final third of the pitch because we stood behind one of the goals. Afterwards we had fish and chips at a Lyons Corner House and went to see Danny Kaye at the Odeon Leicester Square. It was the greatest day of my childhood, and still is.
In 1974 when moving to the North East for occupational reasons, the family home was sufficiently close to Sunderland's ground that when working in the garden you could hear the noise of the crowd when a goal, or near goal was being scored. It was only a couple of games before buying a season ticket. Even then Sunderland, divided by the River Wear, was much like the City itself, the regional underdog compared to the prosperity of Newcastle on the North bank of the river Tyne. I mention the two rivers because they were not just working class clubs, but clubs where the majority of the supporters were manual workers of the shipyards and mines. Sunderland, the football club, has never forgotten this, and the new stadium built directly out of a coal mine, has retained its heritage in its approach and through its symbol of a large lighted miner's lamp, as a constant reminder. I fear Newcastle had become seduced by the wanting to become an internationally recognised venue first, and which consequently affects consideration for the majority of its extraordinary support.
The best example of this is that in order to increase revenue, Newcastle evicted a large number of long standing ticket holder from their seats to create areas where the price of seats was doubled in order to have the privilege of spending time before and during games drinking and eating fast food in heavily smoked rooms. At Sunderland, admittedly with no guarantee of Premiership football, I was offered a season ticket seat not dissimilar to one in my present location for about half the price. I could afford three of these old age concessionary seasons tickets for the price of one of the Club seats at Newcastle.
Nor was I a fair weather subject when originally with Sunderland, attending matches all over the England and Wales, in the depths of snowy nights, our coaches besieged by stone throwing kids from behind parked cars, caught up in most violent of fights between supporters of rival London Clubs on underground trains away from the stadia, and having to run for ones life from attacks from home supporters within grounds, fortunately witnessed by senior local authority councillors standing with me in one instance. I experienced all the rocketing highs of promotions and getting to Wembley, followed by the depths of despair of relegation and poor play.
It was after a succession of bad years when I could remember only a couple of enjoyable experiences that the season ticket was given up as the club progressed down from 1st to 2nd and 3rd division, while across the Tyne the Kevin Keegan bandwagon was getting underway.
I felt as guilty attending the first match at St James as a home supporter as I did going to buy a ticket for the Sunderland game against Wolves yesterday. This is daft when thought about, but then my mother would never have dreamed of entering a church, let alone participating in a service that was not Catholic, and although the aunt who provided mothering in my childhood said that my mother had switched from Conservative to Liberal Democratic because they disliked Lady Thatcher, I suspect that through the secrecy of the ballot box she remained true to supporting Conservatives, because the local man asked her to when he arranged for us to be allocated a requisitioned flat after World War II.
In fact, and this locals will say is because I am a lily livered Londoner, I have continued to support my former mistress, watching her progress on the telly and commiserating with the punters who had the most diabolical of seasons last year, hee, hee.
What impressed about that first game at Newcastle and the subsequent seasons was the quality of the football played with passion and while winning a trophy would have been great, my head is filled with a kaleidoscope of great moments from twinkle toes Peter Beardsley, and Faus(Tino) Asprilla, Les Ferdinand and Alan Shearer, alongside others, although the defence throughout has been suspect and prone to making stupid mistakes.
What caused the break up of one relationship and return to the former? The experience over the past three years has been exactly the same as that at Sunderland. I maybe a masochist, but I try and learn from previous mistakes. No amount of soft soap and hollow promises can disguise the fact that despite filling one the biggest stadiums in the UK the heart and the soul have gone out of the Toon. The crowd has become dead and at times hostile. I suspect the manager is too loyal and nice a guy to take the kind of ruthless decisions necessary for success. At Sunderland it is evident that Chairman is the nice Guy.
Why did I change? Well I had not planned to do so and the decision was not made because Sunderland were on a good run or could play in the Premiership next season but because the Chairman Niall Quinn got off a plane to ensure that supporters who were asked to leave were going to get home safely without there being further trouble. That one gesture made several thousand people decide to commit themselves to supporting next year, regardless to what happens this, I betcha.
And what happened yesterday. Well it was exciting, and who can say that after thirty years of domestic matrimony, and when the young bloke next to me gave me a hug when "we" note how easy it has been to say "we" scored the second goal and I hugged him back? Birmingham lost which will delight my Villa friend. There was also one player at the centre of team, who showed all the guts, determination and skill of the former master himself. Oh, and that fling I mentioned, it was Wimbledon when they were at Plough Lane. This was the friendliest of friendliest of places. You were invited to take a seat in the office while they unlocked the safe to give you a seat ticket for the match, and which enabled you to watch the game again on the telly in the club room afterwards, with the regular long 'standing' members, and they also gave me a ticket to watch them beat Liverpool at Wembley in the Cup, Now she was a mistress who delivered, but look what then happened to her!
You are an odd soul sometimes Colin, but maybe that is what fascinates me about you. When I want to escape the hum drum of life and do some serious reading I can always count on your blogs. Ironically, I usually learn something too.
Posted by <> on 21:04 - 21:18
They have been more like wives than concubine, with the difference that instead of a national marriage certificate we entered into annual contracts in which the minimum quantity of marital rights is agreed at an overall cost, but where further rights can be purchased on an agreed scale of charges depending on the form of service.
Both relationships possess the same characteristics in which the period of courtship was short before the first contract was agreed. Both relationships have been of a sadomasochistic nature, but where unfortunately the heights of orgasmic pleasure have not been experienced, but it is in the nature of this passion that you live eternally in hope. However, my behaviour is not as bad as many others, because with the consent of the first and returning partner, I had only one fling with a third party from my youth although it was not with my first love.
For those not too shocked to have moved immediately on to more appropriate matters on this day of redemption and rebirth, you will have worked out this is not about sex, but professional football (soccer).
Nevertheless our problem is how to break the news to our closest of friends, because in this tribal area you can belong to one of the mistresses, but even if you have the funds to enjoy the pain of both it is not the done thing. There were those who refused to speak to me when I broke off the first relationship and considered the sin greater than if I had switched religions, and these are unlikely to ever forgive, even if I have returned. The best way of indicating the strength of feeling is to say that it was like being an active member of the National Union of Mineworkers before the Thatcher years Miner's strike and immediately becoming a shop steward for Union of Democratic Miners. You cannot become a Conservative and Labour Member of Parliament at the same time, oh I dunno, there are many in active politics that believe this is what has happened within the Labour Party and that it has worked so successfully, that it is now being tried by the Conservatives.
There are also many who thoroughly disapprove of any kind of marital relationship based on money and even worse one where one partner willingly submits to severe pain caused by the other, but at least one of my present friends understands everything that I have said, as an Aston Villa supporter from England's second city, Birmingham, and I mentioned the second city bit to annoy all those to support Manchester United (The Manchester City fans along with those who travelled to support Wolves yesterday, "are one of us" abused and long suffering). Our American cousins, who are buying into our game both over here and in taking our nomadic Beckhams, do not appear to have the same loyalty as franchises move between cities, although this is not to question the intensity of supporters which I witnessed when plane loads arrived from across the Atlantic to watch teams play their form of soccer at Wembley.
I am already going to the new Wembley this year, having secured tickets for a concert to mark the ten years since the death of former Princess Diana. I was hoping to get their earlier if Newcastle had progressed in the Cup competitions or now through the playoff final for entry from the Championship to the Premiership, but after yesterday's performance, there is a strong possibility that Sunderland will achieve one of the two places of automatic promotion, if not the championship title itself.
My masochistic love affair with the game commenced when I was taken to support the then nearest professional team of Crystal Palace as part of extended family visits at Easter and Christmas. First Mass, and then football. Later when I was older I would go on my own but meet up with a few other supporters within the ground. Crystal Palace then played at natural amphitheatre of open terraces with one main stand, and the crowd was so small, only a few hundred at one period, that most of the regulars were known to each other, and this was not surprising because the team had to seek re-election to the football league for three years in succession when at the bottom of the former Third Division South. I know, because in that Welsh tongue of Max Boyce, "I was there."
It is this fear of "not being there" when success comes that makes most supporters continue to attend games knowing that their team will lose because it is not as good as the opposition. It is in fact now questionable, from the supporter's viewpoint, if it is worth actually getting promoted into the Premiership unless there is access to almost unlimited wealth in order to purchase the best players from the rest of the world. Otherwise you face the prospect of spending most of the season losing to better teams, worrying about being relegated and hoping for a good cup run, or the chance of playing against some inferior foreign team who would struggle in the second and third divisions. The more teams there are with the dosh to compete in the Premiership, the more difficult it will be for the national team to become successful, although it would help if the three levels of national team played the same system, enabling and encouraging accelerated mobility.
Thus I also confess to being no different from other supporters in that we pay the money so we have a right to expect what we pay for, which includes telling off individuals and the team when their performance is less than anticipated, and explaining to the manager why our team selection is better than his, regardless of his experience, although I don't think I would say anything to Roy Keane except, "what would you like me to say, sir?" In fact the extraordinary aspect of Sunderland's performance yesterday is that there were eleven Roy Keane's playing as a team on the park, and five others able to participate if required. But I am ahead of myself.
The most memorable game in my childhood was not at the Palace but at Highbury to watch Stanley Matthews, then playing for Blackpool. I was taken by my uncle, who was celebrating his birthday and it was my first experience of travelling from South to North London and of being in such a large closely packed crowd. My uncle suggested that I be lifted over the heads of the crowd to the front where I would be able to see, but I was too scared so only saw what happened in the final third of the pitch because we stood behind one of the goals. Afterwards we had fish and chips at a Lyons Corner House and went to see Danny Kaye at the Odeon Leicester Square. It was the greatest day of my childhood, and still is.
In 1974 when moving to the North East for occupational reasons, the family home was sufficiently close to Sunderland's ground that when working in the garden you could hear the noise of the crowd when a goal, or near goal was being scored. It was only a couple of games before buying a season ticket. Even then Sunderland, divided by the River Wear, was much like the City itself, the regional underdog compared to the prosperity of Newcastle on the North bank of the river Tyne. I mention the two rivers because they were not just working class clubs, but clubs where the majority of the supporters were manual workers of the shipyards and mines. Sunderland, the football club, has never forgotten this, and the new stadium built directly out of a coal mine, has retained its heritage in its approach and through its symbol of a large lighted miner's lamp, as a constant reminder. I fear Newcastle had become seduced by the wanting to become an internationally recognised venue first, and which consequently affects consideration for the majority of its extraordinary support.
The best example of this is that in order to increase revenue, Newcastle evicted a large number of long standing ticket holder from their seats to create areas where the price of seats was doubled in order to have the privilege of spending time before and during games drinking and eating fast food in heavily smoked rooms. At Sunderland, admittedly with no guarantee of Premiership football, I was offered a season ticket seat not dissimilar to one in my present location for about half the price. I could afford three of these old age concessionary seasons tickets for the price of one of the Club seats at Newcastle.
Nor was I a fair weather subject when originally with Sunderland, attending matches all over the England and Wales, in the depths of snowy nights, our coaches besieged by stone throwing kids from behind parked cars, caught up in most violent of fights between supporters of rival London Clubs on underground trains away from the stadia, and having to run for ones life from attacks from home supporters within grounds, fortunately witnessed by senior local authority councillors standing with me in one instance. I experienced all the rocketing highs of promotions and getting to Wembley, followed by the depths of despair of relegation and poor play.
It was after a succession of bad years when I could remember only a couple of enjoyable experiences that the season ticket was given up as the club progressed down from 1st to 2nd and 3rd division, while across the Tyne the Kevin Keegan bandwagon was getting underway.
I felt as guilty attending the first match at St James as a home supporter as I did going to buy a ticket for the Sunderland game against Wolves yesterday. This is daft when thought about, but then my mother would never have dreamed of entering a church, let alone participating in a service that was not Catholic, and although the aunt who provided mothering in my childhood said that my mother had switched from Conservative to Liberal Democratic because they disliked Lady Thatcher, I suspect that through the secrecy of the ballot box she remained true to supporting Conservatives, because the local man asked her to when he arranged for us to be allocated a requisitioned flat after World War II.
In fact, and this locals will say is because I am a lily livered Londoner, I have continued to support my former mistress, watching her progress on the telly and commiserating with the punters who had the most diabolical of seasons last year, hee, hee.
What impressed about that first game at Newcastle and the subsequent seasons was the quality of the football played with passion and while winning a trophy would have been great, my head is filled with a kaleidoscope of great moments from twinkle toes Peter Beardsley, and Faus(Tino) Asprilla, Les Ferdinand and Alan Shearer, alongside others, although the defence throughout has been suspect and prone to making stupid mistakes.
What caused the break up of one relationship and return to the former? The experience over the past three years has been exactly the same as that at Sunderland. I maybe a masochist, but I try and learn from previous mistakes. No amount of soft soap and hollow promises can disguise the fact that despite filling one the biggest stadiums in the UK the heart and the soul have gone out of the Toon. The crowd has become dead and at times hostile. I suspect the manager is too loyal and nice a guy to take the kind of ruthless decisions necessary for success. At Sunderland it is evident that Chairman is the nice Guy.
Why did I change? Well I had not planned to do so and the decision was not made because Sunderland were on a good run or could play in the Premiership next season but because the Chairman Niall Quinn got off a plane to ensure that supporters who were asked to leave were going to get home safely without there being further trouble. That one gesture made several thousand people decide to commit themselves to supporting next year, regardless to what happens this, I betcha.
And what happened yesterday. Well it was exciting, and who can say that after thirty years of domestic matrimony, and when the young bloke next to me gave me a hug when "we" note how easy it has been to say "we" scored the second goal and I hugged him back? Birmingham lost which will delight my Villa friend. There was also one player at the centre of team, who showed all the guts, determination and skill of the former master himself. Oh, and that fling I mentioned, it was Wimbledon when they were at Plough Lane. This was the friendliest of friendliest of places. You were invited to take a seat in the office while they unlocked the safe to give you a seat ticket for the match, and which enabled you to watch the game again on the telly in the club room afterwards, with the regular long 'standing' members, and they also gave me a ticket to watch them beat Liverpool at Wembley in the Cup, Now she was a mistress who delivered, but look what then happened to her!
You are an odd soul sometimes Colin, but maybe that is what fascinates me about you. When I want to escape the hum drum of life and do some serious reading I can always count on your blogs. Ironically, I usually learn something too.
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