Friday, 7 March 2008
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done
There are many opposing ideas about the exact point at which one crosses the line into adulthood. Some say it's when you lose your virginity. Others insist it is the day you pass your driving test. They can't both be right, because I did one of those twenty years ago but have never managed the other to this day, and the only freakish adult/child hybrids currently known to British medical science are still Ant and Dec.
Getting older is a different experience for everyone. There are those who seem to retain their youth well into middle age without the use of radical cosmetic surgery. And there are others whose craggy looks and stroppy demeanour make them seem a couple of decades older than their actual chronological age. Step forward, Mr Wayne Rooney.
Ageing seems to happen more quickly at some times than at others. "You're only as old as you feel," people say. For most of my twenties, as I shrugged my carefree way between temping jobs and postgraduate degrees, I still felt about 17. Then after the last five minutes of the match on Tuesday night, when Town's hopes of a trip to Wembley were under relentless bombardment from Morecambe's hefty forward line, I felt about 90.
Indeed, my mood has continued beyond my years for the rest of the week. This weekend's match has not helped. When the two greatest evils of the modern game combine in one fixture, you're bound to come over a bit crotchety.
It's bad enough having to watch your team play against a shameless franchise operation instead of a legitimate football club, but when it's on a Friday night as well it's all you can do not to book yourself into the nearest care home for the elderly, develop premature dementia and spend the week explaining to the staff that it wasn't like that in your day and the world is going to Hell in a handcart, and all those other weary clichés that people recite from the Daily Express when they're a bit fed up.
At the same time, though, there are always things that make you feel young again. Springtime does the trick. A good night out never fails. And it's surprising how often I meet 18-year-olds who have projected their entire career structure, earnings and annual pension contributions on an interactive Excel spreadsheet.
Personally, I'd like to see Justin Whittle back in the side and playing as many games as possible between now and the end of the season. Because the real indicator that you're properly grown-up is when you're older than every player in the team you support. And since Sir John McDermott retired, the Sarge is all I have left to cling to.
Getting older is a different experience for everyone. There are those who seem to retain their youth well into middle age without the use of radical cosmetic surgery. And there are others whose craggy looks and stroppy demeanour make them seem a couple of decades older than their actual chronological age. Step forward, Mr Wayne Rooney.
Ageing seems to happen more quickly at some times than at others. "You're only as old as you feel," people say. For most of my twenties, as I shrugged my carefree way between temping jobs and postgraduate degrees, I still felt about 17. Then after the last five minutes of the match on Tuesday night, when Town's hopes of a trip to Wembley were under relentless bombardment from Morecambe's hefty forward line, I felt about 90.
Indeed, my mood has continued beyond my years for the rest of the week. This weekend's match has not helped. When the two greatest evils of the modern game combine in one fixture, you're bound to come over a bit crotchety.
It's bad enough having to watch your team play against a shameless franchise operation instead of a legitimate football club, but when it's on a Friday night as well it's all you can do not to book yourself into the nearest care home for the elderly, develop premature dementia and spend the week explaining to the staff that it wasn't like that in your day and the world is going to Hell in a handcart, and all those other weary clichés that people recite from the Daily Express when they're a bit fed up.
At the same time, though, there are always things that make you feel young again. Springtime does the trick. A good night out never fails. And it's surprising how often I meet 18-year-olds who have projected their entire career structure, earnings and annual pension contributions on an interactive Excel spreadsheet.
Personally, I'd like to see Justin Whittle back in the side and playing as many games as possible between now and the end of the season. Because the real indicator that you're properly grown-up is when you're older than every player in the team you support. And since Sir John McDermott retired, the Sarge is all I have left to cling to.
Labels: age, ageing, football league trophy, mcdermott, morecambe, rooney, time, wembley, whittle
Friday, 29 February 2008
You shook me all night long
Seismologists are hard at work investigating the cause of this week's Market Rasen earthquake, which is pretty much the first time anything has ever had an epicentre in northern Lincolnshire apart from the explosion in teenage pregnancy.
During this inquiry one crucial piece of evidence must not be overlooked: an important seismic event which took place just four hours earlier in an adjacent region of the Earth's crust. I refer, of course, to Grimsby Town winning away at Morecambe in the first leg of the northern area final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.
After all, it is surely no coincidence that Cleethorpes people could be heard shortly afterwards reeling off shouts such as "Only 5.2 on the Richter scale? We should be beating these 8.6", "Booooooo, no ambition, sack the quake", and "You're not fit to move the earth".
And Britain's last major tremor was the Dudley earthquake of 2002. Its epicentre in the West Midlands prompted researchers to conclude that it resulted from a clash between the vastly oversized expectations of Wolves fans and the immense mass of Aston Villa's historical baggage.
Not that earthquakes are the only so-called natural disaster that is really attributable to football. We are told that climate change is responsible for events such as the flooding of Hull last summer, but they never mention that this particular climate change event was precipitated by the second most popular local sport, as the mere prospect of relegation prompted Hull City's 90 per cent glory-seeking fan contingent to bawl their eyes out for weeks on end.
(Incidentally, the Yorkshire floods were remarkable for another reason. After the plight of the victims was ignored by the national media, one local MP dubbed Hull "the forgotten city". This was a tremendous coincidence, as many Grimbarians had already been calling it that for years.)
So two more matches with Morecambe stand in the way of Town's great surge upward from the depths. The Earth's tectonic plates, as we have seen, can make great lurching movements from one position to another, without warning and with potentially destructive consequences – much like the Mariners' form and confidence since the return of Alan Buckley.
One expert has suggested that this week's tremor resulted from "the reactivation of an old fault zone which has lain dormant for tens or hundreds of millions of years".
This is close to the truth, as the fault zone has indeed lain dormant, but only for ten years – and it runs straight through Grimsby. On one side of it is a very recently created upward motion caused by the powerful resurgence of the local football club. On the other are billions of tonnes of overwhelming downward pressure exerted by the irresistible natural force of local pessimism.
During this inquiry one crucial piece of evidence must not be overlooked: an important seismic event which took place just four hours earlier in an adjacent region of the Earth's crust. I refer, of course, to Grimsby Town winning away at Morecambe in the first leg of the northern area final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.
After all, it is surely no coincidence that Cleethorpes people could be heard shortly afterwards reeling off shouts such as "Only 5.2 on the Richter scale? We should be beating these 8.6", "Booooooo, no ambition, sack the quake", and "You're not fit to move the earth".
And Britain's last major tremor was the Dudley earthquake of 2002. Its epicentre in the West Midlands prompted researchers to conclude that it resulted from a clash between the vastly oversized expectations of Wolves fans and the immense mass of Aston Villa's historical baggage.
Not that earthquakes are the only so-called natural disaster that is really attributable to football. We are told that climate change is responsible for events such as the flooding of Hull last summer, but they never mention that this particular climate change event was precipitated by the second most popular local sport, as the mere prospect of relegation prompted Hull City's 90 per cent glory-seeking fan contingent to bawl their eyes out for weeks on end.
(Incidentally, the Yorkshire floods were remarkable for another reason. After the plight of the victims was ignored by the national media, one local MP dubbed Hull "the forgotten city". This was a tremendous coincidence, as many Grimbarians had already been calling it that for years.)
So two more matches with Morecambe stand in the way of Town's great surge upward from the depths. The Earth's tectonic plates, as we have seen, can make great lurching movements from one position to another, without warning and with potentially destructive consequences – much like the Mariners' form and confidence since the return of Alan Buckley.
One expert has suggested that this week's tremor resulted from "the reactivation of an old fault zone which has lain dormant for tens or hundreds of millions of years".
This is close to the truth, as the fault zone has indeed lain dormant, but only for ten years – and it runs straight through Grimsby. On one side of it is a very recently created upward motion caused by the powerful resurgence of the local football club. On the other are billions of tonnes of overwhelming downward pressure exerted by the irresistible natural force of local pessimism.
Labels: buckley, earthquakes, flooding, football league trophy, hull, morecambe, optimism, pessimism, science, west midlands, yorkshire
Saturday, 17 November 2007
I don't like to be beside the seaside
The towns of Morecambe and Cleethorpes have more in common than their fourth division football clubs. Both are coastal resorts, currently recovering from decades of decline in English seaside tourism. Both have recently closed down major local landmarks. Cleethorpes' demolition of the Winter Gardens is a literally monumental act of stupidity – as was Morecambe's decision to build the World of Crinkley Bottom theme park in the first place.
Meggies definitely seems on the up, though. All those new cafés are a bit posh. Enormous red men now break bottles over each other's shaved heads around the Riverhead rather than the seafront. Property prices are leaping, and little kids on the beach can paddle and build sandcastles instead of playing the old favourite seaside game of guess-whether-that-sewage-is-human-or-canine.
It's all the sadder, then, that Cleethorpes' revival has coincided with a slump in the fortunes of its football club. Just as the resort has again become a place people want to go to, Blundell Park has become a place people can't get out of quickly enough. Even the most sympathetic observer would admit that one or two of the players who have turned out for the Mariners in this decade seemed less suited to professional football than giving rides to children along Cleethorpes beach.
There are plenty more donkeys in the fourth division, of course, and consumer-minded spectators choose to take their custom elsewhere. The people of North East Lincolnshire notoriously 'support' Liverpool and Manchester United rather than their local club – and while the great Eric Morecambe may have taken his stage name from his beloved home town, when he joined the board of a football club it was Luton. Comedy aficionados recognise this as the greatest gag of his career.
The Mariners' football, furthermore, at times bears a striking resemblance to Eric's technique on the piano. Right now Alan Buckley's players are making all the right passes – just not necessarily in the right order.
And even if Morecambe are enjoying their Football League debut this season, and the resort is recovering strongly from the 'Blobbygate' scandal, Noel Edmonds' theme park lasted only 13 weeks – roughly the same as most of Town's recent managerial appointments.
Like Cleethorpes, Morecambe saw a fine art deco building become one of its most famous monuments. But rather than demolish its glorious Midland Hotel, or let it fall apart, the town has rallied to invest in this asset and restore it to its former splendour.
And the only hope for Town fans is that the population of Grimsby and Cleethorpes can discover the same sense of what's worth preserving. If the Mariners are not to go the same way as the Winter Gardens, local people will need to demonstrate that they can tell their Crinkley Bottom from their elbow.
Meggies definitely seems on the up, though. All those new cafés are a bit posh. Enormous red men now break bottles over each other's shaved heads around the Riverhead rather than the seafront. Property prices are leaping, and little kids on the beach can paddle and build sandcastles instead of playing the old favourite seaside game of guess-whether-that-sewage-is-human-or-canine.
It's all the sadder, then, that Cleethorpes' revival has coincided with a slump in the fortunes of its football club. Just as the resort has again become a place people want to go to, Blundell Park has become a place people can't get out of quickly enough. Even the most sympathetic observer would admit that one or two of the players who have turned out for the Mariners in this decade seemed less suited to professional football than giving rides to children along Cleethorpes beach.
There are plenty more donkeys in the fourth division, of course, and consumer-minded spectators choose to take their custom elsewhere. The people of North East Lincolnshire notoriously 'support' Liverpool and Manchester United rather than their local club – and while the great Eric Morecambe may have taken his stage name from his beloved home town, when he joined the board of a football club it was Luton. Comedy aficionados recognise this as the greatest gag of his career.
The Mariners' football, furthermore, at times bears a striking resemblance to Eric's technique on the piano. Right now Alan Buckley's players are making all the right passes – just not necessarily in the right order.
And even if Morecambe are enjoying their Football League debut this season, and the resort is recovering strongly from the 'Blobbygate' scandal, Noel Edmonds' theme park lasted only 13 weeks – roughly the same as most of Town's recent managerial appointments.
Like Cleethorpes, Morecambe saw a fine art deco building become one of its most famous monuments. But rather than demolish its glorious Midland Hotel, or let it fall apart, the town has rallied to invest in this asset and restore it to its former splendour.
And the only hope for Town fans is that the population of Grimsby and Cleethorpes can discover the same sense of what's worth preserving. If the Mariners are not to go the same way as the Winter Gardens, local people will need to demonstrate that they can tell their Crinkley Bottom from their elbow.
Labels: buildings, cleethorpes, morecambe, seaside, support
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