Friday, 1 February 2008
A not particularly brief history of failure
I was in the north-east last weekend, wearing a Cod Almighty T-shirt, which meant I had to spend a lot of time saying "John McDermott, Grimsby Town" to people trying to work out which Newcastle player was decorating my upper body.
At one point this developed into a discussion about the original use of black and white stripes, but eventually we had to concede that neither Newcastle nor the Mariners could claim that honour and were reduced to bickering over which club was the first to have nicked their kit design from Notts County.
County, as all non-Premier League supporters know, are the oldest professional football club in the world. In 1862, when they were formed, the game was still played by toffs instead of working men, and County were known as a "gentlemen-only club". As anyone will tell you who witnessed their brutal exhibition of knees and elbows at Blundell Park in August, or indeed Jason Lee's astonishing recent tally of yellow cards, this is not a description that would readily apply today.
The Mariners, too, are older than many clubs, having been formed in 1878. Clubs such as Town and County have an extensive official chronology, encompassing well over a century in the Football League and membership of every division.
But not every club in the league can claim so proud a past. There are outfits such as Peterborough and Scunthorpe which have been members for only 40 or 50 years. And then there are Wycombe and Macclesfield and the like, who arrived even more recently. Finally there are Milton Keynes Dons, whose entire history reads: "2004 – Scandalously permitted to steal identity, players and league status of Wimbledon FC. 2006 – Relegated to fourth division."
An interesting item of history that links the two clubs meeting at Meadow Lane tomorrow concerns the number of defeats and relegations they have suffered. When Nicky Law expertly guided us to the fourth division in 2004 it was the 13th time Town had gone down. Notts are the only English professional club to have been relegated more often.
County have also lost more games in the Football League than any other club: a total of 1,716. Coming up a close second – despite being formed 16 years later – are our very own Grimsby Town with 1,710. In County's case this is largely attributable to their long history. In Town's case this is mostly attributable to the directors deciding that people like Nicky Law and Mick Lyons would make really good managers.
So be grateful for the existence of tomorrow's opponents. Their history is a long and venerable one, without which the fabric of English football would be noticeably less vibrant. And if it weren't for them, we'd be the biggest losers in the country.
At one point this developed into a discussion about the original use of black and white stripes, but eventually we had to concede that neither Newcastle nor the Mariners could claim that honour and were reduced to bickering over which club was the first to have nicked their kit design from Notts County.
County, as all non-Premier League supporters know, are the oldest professional football club in the world. In 1862, when they were formed, the game was still played by toffs instead of working men, and County were known as a "gentlemen-only club". As anyone will tell you who witnessed their brutal exhibition of knees and elbows at Blundell Park in August, or indeed Jason Lee's astonishing recent tally of yellow cards, this is not a description that would readily apply today.
The Mariners, too, are older than many clubs, having been formed in 1878. Clubs such as Town and County have an extensive official chronology, encompassing well over a century in the Football League and membership of every division.
But not every club in the league can claim so proud a past. There are outfits such as Peterborough and Scunthorpe which have been members for only 40 or 50 years. And then there are Wycombe and Macclesfield and the like, who arrived even more recently. Finally there are Milton Keynes Dons, whose entire history reads: "2004 – Scandalously permitted to steal identity, players and league status of Wimbledon FC. 2006 – Relegated to fourth division."
An interesting item of history that links the two clubs meeting at Meadow Lane tomorrow concerns the number of defeats and relegations they have suffered. When Nicky Law expertly guided us to the fourth division in 2004 it was the 13th time Town had gone down. Notts are the only English professional club to have been relegated more often.
County have also lost more games in the Football League than any other club: a total of 1,716. Coming up a close second – despite being formed 16 years later – are our very own Grimsby Town with 1,710. In County's case this is largely attributable to their long history. In Town's case this is mostly attributable to the directors deciding that people like Nicky Law and Mick Lyons would make really good managers.
So be grateful for the existence of tomorrow's opponents. Their history is a long and venerable one, without which the fabric of English football would be noticeably less vibrant. And if it weren't for them, we'd be the biggest losers in the country.
Labels: colours, franchise, history, law, losing, lyons, newcastle, notts county, relegation
Saturday, 3 November 2007
You're not bothered any more
Last season I was at Rotherham to report on their match against Forest. It was a 1-1 draw and a fine match, really enjoyable for the neutral fan. There was a great atmosphere too, with a lot of 'banter' between the two sets of fans. I just didn't expect that most of it would be based around an industrial dispute that took place more than 20 years ago.
Younger readers may be surprised to learn that many British people were quite recently prepared to fight against injustice rather than just shrug and say "whatever" and put Strictly Come Dancing on. They may be equally surprised to learn that many British jobs quite recently involved things like digging coal out of the ground, rather than making PowerPoint presentations about leveraging your envisioned outshoring gains to facilitate the delivery of excellence.
So in 1984, when the Government announced plans to sack 20,000 miners, they went on strike. The strike was not widely observed in Nottinghamshire, though, and the bitterness this caused in neighbouring Yorkshire persists to this day, to the extent that Forest fans were being denounced as "scabs" last season by thousands of Rotherham supporters – some of whom wouldn't have been alive while the strike was on.
Perhaps this demonstrates that the young people of South Yorkshire have an admirable awareness of their local socio-economic history that is all too rare in these days of globalised consumer culture. Perhaps, on the other hand, it just shows that they'll use any term of abuse they can lay their hands on.
And the great danger with taunting opposition fans about the collapse of their town's key industry is that it can cut both ways. When Barnsley employed Gudjon Thordarson as manager the other year, they were clearly still sore about Town fans singing "You're not mining any more" in the 1980s, and were subtly reminding us about being trounced by Iceland in the Cod Wars.
Either way, these taunts aren't quite so out-of-date as the Yorkshire Ripper songs that are still performed by a section of the Town support. Blundell Park is not notably populated by people listening to Bucks Fizz or wearing lemon yellow suit jackets with the sleeves rolled up, so there is no good reason to retain a chant that lost any relevance it might have had when Peter Sutcliffe was arrested in 1981.
Nor, of course, is it so morally dubious to berate another community for breaking ranks during an industrial dispute as to make fun out of their having suffered multiple murders. If you're going to abuse the other team's fans then try and do it in the spirit of working-class solidarity rather than by evoking the name of a local serial killer, that's what I always say.
Younger readers may be surprised to learn that many British people were quite recently prepared to fight against injustice rather than just shrug and say "whatever" and put Strictly Come Dancing on. They may be equally surprised to learn that many British jobs quite recently involved things like digging coal out of the ground, rather than making PowerPoint presentations about leveraging your envisioned outshoring gains to facilitate the delivery of excellence.
So in 1984, when the Government announced plans to sack 20,000 miners, they went on strike. The strike was not widely observed in Nottinghamshire, though, and the bitterness this caused in neighbouring Yorkshire persists to this day, to the extent that Forest fans were being denounced as "scabs" last season by thousands of Rotherham supporters – some of whom wouldn't have been alive while the strike was on.
Perhaps this demonstrates that the young people of South Yorkshire have an admirable awareness of their local socio-economic history that is all too rare in these days of globalised consumer culture. Perhaps, on the other hand, it just shows that they'll use any term of abuse they can lay their hands on.
And the great danger with taunting opposition fans about the collapse of their town's key industry is that it can cut both ways. When Barnsley employed Gudjon Thordarson as manager the other year, they were clearly still sore about Town fans singing "You're not mining any more" in the 1980s, and were subtly reminding us about being trounced by Iceland in the Cod Wars.
Either way, these taunts aren't quite so out-of-date as the Yorkshire Ripper songs that are still performed by a section of the Town support. Blundell Park is not notably populated by people listening to Bucks Fizz or wearing lemon yellow suit jackets with the sleeves rolled up, so there is no good reason to retain a chant that lost any relevance it might have had when Peter Sutcliffe was arrested in 1981.
Nor, of course, is it so morally dubious to berate another community for breaking ranks during an industrial dispute as to make fun out of their having suffered multiple murders. If you're going to abuse the other team's fans then try and do it in the spirit of working-class solidarity rather than by evoking the name of a local serial killer, that's what I always say.
Labels: banter, barnsley, fans, forest, history, industrial action, mining, rotherham, striking, work, yorkshire
Friday, 7 September 2007
Modern life is rubbish
The trouble with modern life, and all its whizzy gadgets and conveniences, is that we have come to expect everything, and expect it instantly, when very often it's more rewarding to wait a bit longer for stuff.
Take the railways. I've been going to London a lot lately – it's actually a really good service, and pretty cheap if you book in advance and all that. This is clearly not the way to run a railway in Britain in 2007, so the franchise is being given to other train operating companies who promise to get us there about ten minutes quicker, just as long as we let them put up the fares at three times the rate of inflation.
And it's only recently that we've watched the football through the filter of these inflated expectations and deflated attention spans. For the first Town fans, back in the 1870s and 1880s, life was rubbish and there was stuff all they could do about it. Every week the trawler owners' lackeys would get you of bed at 3am, burn your house down and make your children into soup, so it scarcely mattered if you'd spent Saturday afternoon watching the Mariners lose 9-0 at home to Goxhill Clodhoppers.
Conversely, in these days of luxury we have a coronary if we have to lift the cushion up to get the remote control, so it's beyond all human toleration when there are things we can't change immediately just by pressing a button – like Town being stuck in the fourth division.
And some are already condemning the Mariners to another disappointing finish this season – on the evidence of just four league games.
Partly I blame this newspaper for saying Town are "joint bottom". We're not joint bottom – we're ahead of Wrexham and Accrington on goal difference, which is just as valid a measure as points. When Arsenal scored with the last kick of the 1988–89 season to seal the league title on goals scored, even Liverpool fans would have been too embarrassed to claim their team were actually "joint champions".
But at the same point in bygone years, we wouldn't have a league table to be joint bottom of, because nobody drew one up until mid-September. Nowadays websites publish tables before the season has even begun, and some fans spent July calling furiously for Alan Buckley to be sacked because Town were several places below Accrington on alphabetical order.
Four games into the 1997–98 season Town were in a relegation spot – and I trust we haven't forgotten what the current manager achieved just afterwards. If I had my way, Buckley would be manager for life – and I'd probably have him running the railways as well.
Take the railways. I've been going to London a lot lately – it's actually a really good service, and pretty cheap if you book in advance and all that. This is clearly not the way to run a railway in Britain in 2007, so the franchise is being given to other train operating companies who promise to get us there about ten minutes quicker, just as long as we let them put up the fares at three times the rate of inflation.
And it's only recently that we've watched the football through the filter of these inflated expectations and deflated attention spans. For the first Town fans, back in the 1870s and 1880s, life was rubbish and there was stuff all they could do about it. Every week the trawler owners' lackeys would get you of bed at 3am, burn your house down and make your children into soup, so it scarcely mattered if you'd spent Saturday afternoon watching the Mariners lose 9-0 at home to Goxhill Clodhoppers.
Conversely, in these days of luxury we have a coronary if we have to lift the cushion up to get the remote control, so it's beyond all human toleration when there are things we can't change immediately just by pressing a button – like Town being stuck in the fourth division.
And some are already condemning the Mariners to another disappointing finish this season – on the evidence of just four league games.
Partly I blame this newspaper for saying Town are "joint bottom". We're not joint bottom – we're ahead of Wrexham and Accrington on goal difference, which is just as valid a measure as points. When Arsenal scored with the last kick of the 1988–89 season to seal the league title on goals scored, even Liverpool fans would have been too embarrassed to claim their team were actually "joint champions".
But at the same point in bygone years, we wouldn't have a league table to be joint bottom of, because nobody drew one up until mid-September. Nowadays websites publish tables before the season has even begun, and some fans spent July calling furiously for Alan Buckley to be sacked because Town were several places below Accrington on alphabetical order.
Four games into the 1997–98 season Town were in a relegation spot – and I trust we haven't forgotten what the current manager achieved just afterwards. If I had my way, Buckley would be manager for life – and I'd probably have him running the railways as well.
Labels: accrington, buckley, history, league tables, patience, promotion, relegation, trains
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