"Football is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings."

Queen of the South vs St. Johnstone

With apologies to Robbie Burns.

This, readers, was how football should be. Goals, enthusiasm from the players, occasional flashes of skill, plenty of local character in the groundscape, and a big old echo-chamber of a terrace upon which to perch one's ample self.



Portland Park, home of Queen of the South, hosts Scottish football's largest remaining standing area, the Portland Drive Terrace. It's a throwback in steel and blue Dulux, being rather louder and loftier than the rest of the ground, and with just the one tiny hatch at the top dispensing more Ribena than you've ever seen in one place.

One thing I love with traditional grounds is the way the stands are flanked by huge floodlight pylons, and in this case four halogen beacons stand proudly above the town and its attractive position on the River Nith.



We had taken the train north to Dumfries, home of Robert Burns, following a rather sodden night's camping in the Lakes (Tesco Value Tent -£7.99 - its purchaser did claim it was the next model up from value, and insisted that 'value' or not, there shouldn't be any difference in the quality of waterproofing; anyway, I digress...)

It was a welcome, warm day with blue skies, the first day of the Scottish season. These things make a difference to the great unwashed (I'd had a shower, but then I'm not a real groundhopper in the overnight-train-across-three-European-countries-with-all-your-clothes-hung-out-to-dry sense). We mooched around the very pleasant town centre and decided to plump for a themey-looking pub called the Hole i' th' Wa', which turned out to be the fans' local, full of Doonhamers watching Inverness Caledonian Thistle take on Rangers (more on the QoS nickname and the pub-quiz Bible thing here - I also heard a couple of people cheering on the 'Rievers,' but I've no idea how widespread that one is). Anyhow, for once, Mr. Murdoch and Co. did me a favour. Calie's ground, whilst modern, does appear to have plenty of uniqueness, with a view across the water and over to the mountains. It joins Ross County on my all-new Highland hitlist.

After we'd sunk a couple of 70'- , we made for the ground, just across the river from the town centre and round the back of an ice rink. The stadium filled nicely, though the open terrace was closed. At this time of year, it's nice when you can saunter round the side of the pitch and into a sunny spot. In so doing we got a better view of the impressive terracing where we stood during the first half. Apart from the (I guess) obligatory guy with a drum in a kilt, there was also a woman with an old-fashioned football rattle, something I got for Christmas when I was six, but that I've never seen at a ground.



The match was excellent, ending 3-3 - though very much a case of two-nil up (including a missed penalty, and you all know the rest) when St. Johnstone got their equaliser on 89. The Doonhamers' Steve Dobbie looked especially worthy of the 'great touch for a big man' cliches. His opener, a smart lob from twenty yards after three minutes, was the first of many great touches - skilful, strong, but not too quick, a bit like our own Pawel Abbott.



An appreciative and upbeat crowd in a superb football setting helped make this a great experience. As Scottish fans will know, it's just great to have football back a week earlier than everyone else. As one columnist wrote in last month's WSC, "we need football like we need air."

That just about sums it up, regardless of the absurdities.

Ten notes lighter

Stafford Rangers 1 vs 3 Walsall

24 July 2007

A scintillating pre-season encounter that featured what is perhaps a non-league first - an amazing footballing cloud formation ghosting in unnoticed at the back stick... say no more (somehow I can't bring myself to write anything anyway, except that one really does feel ten notes lighter at the end of it).

Urban Countryside

A few weeks ago, Mike Wolfe - who I often find myself agreeing with - wrote a strange opinion piece (sadly not on the website) in the local rag, criticising plans to create green corridors between Central Forest Park and Hanley Park.

Stoke-on-Trent's urban countryside is one of its best features. It also helps the place retain a humane sense of scale and space. In fact I'm off there in a min.

Anyway, there was a good show about urban biodiversity on the radio the other night, which makes these points far more elegantly than I can.

A500 Apartheid Road

Alec enquired today about what else I rant about if not the more masochistic extremes of our national game. It's as if I have a one-track mind and the only break I give my mind is the lunch-time trip to Soo's Shop for a carnivorous treat. No, fair point though, actually, all things considered.

Well, the debate that I totally own on a regular basis - mysteriously unblogged until today - concerns the relative merits of Stoke-onTrent and our dear, near neighbour, Newcastle-under-Lyme, home of those two twins off Big Brother (ha - and we're like, "one-nil!").

It does seem to be emphatically the case that our sub-region is a divided one. The 'professionals' flock in their waves to 'nicer' Newcastle via Checkpoints Penkhull and Porthill, eschewing the glories of this illustrious city for all they are worth.

I just don't understand what makes Newcastle such an attractive proposition by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I don't *mind* Newcastle particularly. What winds me up is the widely-held and frankly barmy perception that Stoke is the abyss to Newcastle's Arcadia. That is to say, it's just bollocks.

Nil thread!

This man is a genius

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuXSZJjSWf8]

Arrington de Dionyso, Taylor Johns House, Coventry
Sunday 27 May 2007

I first encountered Arrington de Dionyso (formerly of Old Time Relijun) at Festival Mo'fo in 2005, when Holty and I stood stunned before the stage as the performer greeted the crowd in broken French and proceeded to open his improvised set by blasting and snorting down the wrong end of his saxophone (or bass clarinet, whatever). We rapidly retreated for the bar, trying suppress a tipsy snigger each.

Fast forward to May 2007 and long-time mate Matt has texted me saying he's back in the country for a few days. A quick ride on the internet is enough to enlighten me: there's a gig(gle) on in Coventry and one Mr. de Dionyso of Portland, Oregon is headlining. Woop! Time to give him another spin - and drag along an unsuspecting primary school teacher too. Mwahahaha!

Tonight's venue, Taylor Johns House, is situated in Coventry's canal basin, an area regenerated in the late eighties but cut off from the rest of the city centre by the ever-dispiriting marble-chute of a ring road. The bridge providing access is wobbly enough to put its more famous London counterpart in the shadows - amateurs! The canal basin did however find fame on the back of a Specials LP. In all, though, it's A Rainy Night in Covo, and the wind wasn't whistling any charms (yeah, I know, wrong band).

We roll up during the soundcheck and are a little disconcerted to discover that the venue has been kitted out specially with those wooden chairs you used to have in school assembly's. I half expected to be told to pick up your chairs, 6P, and file back to the classroom. As it stands, we're politely ejected and informed that things are to kick off at 8.15. So we sod off to Wetherspoon's in the pouring rain, only to find there are no real ales on. Nnngh. Pivovar Herold is a worthy substitute. How very Bohemian.

Back to Taylor Johns and Mr. de Dionyso is busy fingering his iBook, pretty much the only other person in the bar. It's a bit like following Darlo away in the LDV vans trophy, when the only other people in the Maxpax queue are the subs, texting away on their mobiles instead of warming up or something. Nice venue though - bijou, housed in a couple of old coal vaults, and with (in the bar at least) nice chairs of comfy varieties.

Gradually, a few punters drizzle in, invariably looking like the sort of people that read The Wire. The only exceptions, us aside, are the group that can only be music lecturers, and the two EMO kids, who have probably come because it's the only gig on tonight. All in all, that makes about 16.

The first act is about to start. One of the staff is very anxious that we all amble over to the other vault: Adrian Palka awaits, with his home-made "bow chime" - a clutch of metal rods, a bow, a drumstick, and an amplifying "thing" that reminds me of a Roman centurion's shield, only much tweer. Palka produces an improvised series of textures, a strokes his instrument as if it it were an embryonic painting. The aural textures are gorgeous, but it's not my thing visually. I do think he should run some ante-natal neuromusical programming sessions - it's just that sort of meditative effect. Great anyhow. I like pop music and it takes me time to adjust, but great.

Ignatz is next, a quietly spoken Belgian who plays geetar kind of like a seetar - and treats the resulting vibes with a range of distorted drones and fizzes. It's the kind of soundscape that used to shake our student house when Ben was in his bedroom reading that massive blue book of Chaucer by which all English Literature students are to be identified. The textures are coarser, perhaps a little harsher, but I'm starting to adjust. Getting into this kind of stuff is a bit like the feeling in your ears as the plane climbs and descends.

It's just as well, since Arrington does not disappoint. His set commences with a freestyle montage on the sax / bass clarinet / whatever. He then carefully disassembles his piece, and experiments with each component in almost every conceivable way. Throughout the set, a cast of several instruments is introduced - two carrier bags, some bits of rubber, a sheet of tin foil, and one of those jaw harp thingies.

The EMO kids slouch in their school chairs, arms tightly folded.

Dionyso's star turn is his Tuvan throatsinging - like an impressive, and passable impression of a didgeridoo. Lungs and throat built at Shelton Bar, clearly. This is probably why critics (via his record company's website) describe him as "some fuckin' scary shit." He is.

After the gig, Matt wondered whether the guy was mad or a genius. I love the fact that he can tour the world and make a living on the back of a very idiosyncratic talent. Long may he continue. As a gig, it's not the sort of thing I'd go to regularly, but it's a damned refreshing (and relaxing) change.

Taylor Johns House is a really friendly joint that seems to specialise in this sort of night. Apparently The (excellent) Chap are there on Friday, so you never know, I may be back.

First the Dudgeon, then the Spurn...

First the Dudgeon, then the Spurn,
Flambro' Head comes next in turn,
Whitby Light shines clear and bright,
Sunderland Light lies in the night,
And if all gans well, we'll be in Shields tonight.

Today I received a consignment of photocopied notes that my grandfather had apparently made towards the memoirs that he never wrote up before his death. All I know of him are the odds and ends, the ships and exotic places named in his old log books, and the occasional song and rhyme passed down through our family. So this bunch of papers, with that wonderful wrought-iron handwriting that nobody uses nowadays, is the closest I've ever come to the old seaman himself:

"South Shields: a back street just off King Street and at the corner of Chaplin Row and near the G.P.O: Merkel's the Pawn Shop. Window filled with instruments of all descriptions, mainly nautical but other things as well, treasures brought home from afar, or so it seemed to me. This shop always had a fascination for me and became my first stop in a journey around Shields. At this time I would be around 13/14 years of age. Always alone out of preference. No-one to please or displease. It was at this shop that I would in a few years time, having acquired a B.O.T. certificate , buy my very first sextant. This would be in the year 1924. Mr. Merkel took me into a back room in which the mahogany sextant cases were piled high right up to the ceiling, rank upon rank. Each one represented a 2nd mate or a chief mate or a master down on his luck. One thing that a mate or a master never parted with was his sextant. In much the same way the cabler with his awl, the gunner with his linstock, the seaman with his sheath knife, and so the navigator with his sextant: all of them tightly bound up with the tool of his trade. There was a saying in those days which ran: "a sailor without a knife is like a whore without a fanny." And so in 1924 in one pawn shop alone, hundreds of sextants, a bitter indication of the state of the Merchant Service.

Lots more to get through, including a description of a visit to South Shields by Gustave Hamel and his monoplane :-)

Death of a football ground

Nuneaton Borough vs Vauxhall Motors


I'd hazard a guess Manor Park is just the place William Carlos Williams had in mind when he took such delight in the 'anarchy of poverty.' It's exactly the sort of creation you'd expect to find down the local allotments, and today we were witness to the final competitive game ever to be played here, prior to the Brewers' move across town to Liberty Way.

Nuneaton's sun-soaked town centre was brimming with riot police when we arrived; presumably Warwickshire's finest were expecting some spin-off from Coventry's game with West Brom, as there wasn't a great deal of tension surrounding the main event. The ever-clandestine Holty had considered covering his face with a Greggs' cheese and onion pasty, but somehow slipped by unprotected and undetected.

After walking round the ringway and down Queens Road for probably the last ever time, we arrived to find the Cock and Bear End - a fine vantage point - bedecked with countless flags, and playing host to most of the 2,000-plus souls who eventually turned up to enjoy the sunshine.

Vauxhall Motors' coach had suffered a breakdown on the way from the Wirral, and it wasn't until around 3.30 that their squad gingerly entered the arena, red-faced and besuited and to a derisive chorus from the home crowd. Sufficient time, then, to visit a urinal so deep that Skippy is kept on standby in case of lost children.

A lively enough game ensued after some prolonged parading of 'legends,' and an extended encore from the Scotch pipers, whose repertoire was dragged to wedgie point with a wailing rendition of Auld Lang Syne, deep into what should have been first half injury time. On the pitch, Gez Murphy scored for the Boro' before Motors' excellent number ten equalised. Some tidy play followed, but neither team was incisive enough to particularly deserve the victory.

Two male streakers (and no police) later and the match was over. Both teams gathered for a squeeze of Lucozade and a rendition of The Last Post before a netful of perhaps fifty ballons was manhandled onto the pitch by some enthusiastic young 'uns.

Three neckless specimens in hi-vis jackets tried manfully to free the contents, and after five minutes managed to liberate a lone balloon. This in turn quivered back and forth on a breeze of indecision, briefly motioning towards the sanctuary of a corrugated stand roof, before bravely mounting a noble cross-wind (and doubtless popping on a TV aerial somewhere quixotic like Bedworth).

Then the customary pitch invasion, and that was that. "We'll be coming back next year," raged a small quorum of die-hards, as the curious onlookers (myself included) dissipated towards our rail replacement buses.