The Weekender 5

Part 2 of some World Cup memories from the living rooms of Gateshead and beyond.

Jun 27, 2026

Part 2 -

1982 - Italian Job

A lot changed between the World Cups of 1978 and 1982. The main thing was the fates had determined I was due to exit the school-gates for the last time in the spring of 1979. Around the time I was weighing up non-existant opportunities in the big wide world, Margaret Thatcher mouthed some platitudes about bringing hope, St Francis of Assissi and then shattered the country’s industrial base north of The Wash. A bad situation became very much worse as the UK economy turned its face from manufacturing, energy and heavy engineering in the north and midlands to a service economy primarily on a financial sector in London. The beginning of a neo-liberal economic experiment the country in the urban north and midlands, Scotland and Wales has never and will never recover from.

There were no jobs so it was agreed to avoid me being idle, I’d stop on at school and do some A Levels. There was a vague plan to go to University but in truth I spent two years in a directionless funk reading books that meant nothing to me and fruitlessly looking for a form of vocation. A mediocre set of A Level results amazingly still secured a place at Uni doing a B.Ed in south west London. I could be a teacher … a career choice that would have delighted my old lady, desperate to see her eldest lad break the family tradition of being a horny-handed son of toil, wear a tie to work and bin the boiler suit. She had notions, god bless her.

My old man was genetically programmed to be suspicious of the professional classes and worried if I’d have enough money to stand a glass of beer when I reached the age of legal alcohol consumption. I didn’t fancy teaching and London meant nowt to me so St Mary’s College, Strawberry Hill got a thanks but no thanks and I headed for the Careers Office.

I’d get a Youth Opportunity Programme (YOP) type of job at Tyne & Wear Fire Service - based up on West Denton Way (ALPHA if you’re interested). I loved every minute of it in the Fire Prevention Department making maximum use of my Tech Drawing CSE and loving the crack with the lads - football, snooker, volleyball and great camerderie. An opportunity to become a Firefighter presented itself but I amazingly had options and opted to become a doughty public servant of the most junior variety. You divvent want to work shifts son - the counsel from Pop - a shift-worker himself, he hated his body-clock scrambled from the sleeping and eating patterns in service of the factory. He had my best interests at heart but lasses didn’t get the tingle for a laddie in a skinny tie and a fringe. They did for Pilgrim St’s finest. Reality bites for a newly indentured shiny arsed clerk.

Anyway, with Dole queues out of control and the North East human scrapheap visible from space, I’d blagged a number which paid enough to keep me in records, beer, clothes and the admission money to the Gallowgate corner. And my board of course.

Newcastle United were shite. Going into Espana ‘82, I took my kid brother to his first Newcastle United game at SJP. They played Wrexham in the final home game of the Second Division 81/82 season on a sun-drenched afternoon. We won 4-2. The scorers were Waddle, Varadi, Trewick and Brownlie. There was a crowd of 9,419. That’s the lowest attendance I’ve ever been in for a first team game at SJP. I’m amazed wor young’un ever wanted to go back but he did and plenty.

The old Leazes End had been demolished for no discernible reason but it did add to the grimness around the place. Ironically, things had started to get a little better under manager Arthur Cox who had replaced Bill McGarry. But it was still shite and I maintain that for any supporter who regularly went to games in this era (78-82) when they pack this lot up, they will have to be taken out in a box.

A rather larger crowd attended at SJP later that summer when the Rolling Stones became the first big music act to play in the stadium. I went. It pissed down. It was great but for a smarmy Mackem on the pitch next to us turning to his mate and saying “I wonder when they’ll get a crowd like this again”. Book-mark that folks.

And so … the attentions of a global football public turned its eyes to Spain. England had qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1962. Naturally the tabloid press oscillated between laughable over-confidence and shitting itself England fans would disgrace this glorious nation © as they had been doing for several years previously. In the Euros of 1980 England’s following was involved in serious disorder in Italy, most notably in Turin. As ever, if you fitted the demographic of a hooligan - young, white, working class there was a chance Police would be on the look out for you and likely to over-react whatever your intentions were.

In Spain in ‘82, only seven years following the death of fascist dictator, General Franco, you can imagine the culture of the Guarda Civil faced with some lairy herberts full of lager, over-estimating their ability to take on a squad of lads in riot gear with fearsome-looking batons.

Spain Bilbao World Cup England vs France Riot Spanish riot police with batons look on as England football fans tumble over barriers during a minor disturbance with French fans at the World Cup Soccer match between England and France in Bilbao, Spain on June 6, 1982. England won the match 3-1. (Ap Photo/Str/Jacques Langevin) Date: 16/06/1982

And so it proved when England played France in Bilbao when the Spanish (well, Basque) Polis didn’t hold back from what they perhaps reasonably imagined was a repeat of what they had watched in Italy two years previously.

For those England fans who had travelled to Spain for the football, as opposed to the pagga, the whole thing became a bit of an ordeal. News reports interviewed young lads on camp sites who had been scooped up by the Spanish polis and on the end of some rough treatment. They protested their innocence of any wrong-doing but it seemed a right-wing media was happy for them to be battered by association. That kind of thinking would dog ordinary football fans of the era and lead to tragedy in ‘85 and ‘89.

A reputation had gone before England fans and it was one they have not totally shaken off. Will they ever?

On the park, England started the tournament brilliantly. Chester-le-St’s Bryan Robson (and Mag) maintained the region’s record in the World Cup by scoring against France in the first minute. He’d get a second later in the game with Paul Mariner notching the third. Wearing the red version of the Admiral cult classic with the coloured panel above the chest, Roy Greenwood’s team beat a strong French side 3-1 in the San Mames to send a jingoistic English press into overdrive.

England would acquit themselves reasonably well - adding to the win over France with good results over Czechoslovakia (2-0), Kuwait (1-0) but needing a win over West Germany to qualify. They went out after a nils apiece draw. So, without losing a game and conceding only one goal, they were on their way home. This would be Greenwood’s only World Cup with Langley Park’s Robert William Robson leaving Portman Road to take the national team job.

As well as Greenwood’s only World Cup it was captain Kevin Keegan’s too. Southampton’s KK never got going. A back injury saw him traversing the continent for treatment and the permed deity would almost get the goal his team needed to qualify in the game v West Germany, stretching for a header. He didn’t though. The tournament would leave the son of a Durham pitman reflecting upon his career goals and what he would do next to energise himself. Bookmark this.

Amongst the other Home Nations, Scotland had qualified and looking at them it is hard to recall them having a better set up. Their manager, the great Jock Stein is a bona fide legend but there was more. Dalglish, Souness, Hansen, Archibald, Roberston amongst others were genuinely top drawer players … the Scots have had few better players than the Liverpool trio. It wasn’t unrealistic to have big expectations of them. They failed again to even get out of the group stages. As you might expect Scotland dealt with New Zealand - 5-2 but lost heavily 4-1 to Brazil. A win over the Soviet Union would have seen them qualify. They drew 2-2 and all that talent got to the Duty Frees quick snap. A missed opportunity with those players and manager. I have no memory of watching any of their games which is unusual as I know I’d have been cheering them on.

Northern Ireland had also qualified and they provided the tournament with some memorable moments. For reasons I am yet to understand, I found myself next to the pool table in bar of the Turk’s Head Hotel on High Bridge (its got a daft name like Pleased To Meet You now or some such - to be fair the Sunday dinners look canny when I’ve had a blimp in). The telly - the kind you’d have in your own living room was pitched in the corner - out of reach for anyone who fancied climbing up and nicking it - something that wasn’t entirely unknown in these parts. What was surprising was that I was with my old man, who regarded the bars of NE1 as places selling piss-water beer at rip off prices that only daft young’uns would pay (hello there).

There we were though for the Northern Ireland - Spain game and one of the best matches I’ve ever seen on TV. The game became completely absorbing and we twisted and turned for every challenge - even more invested as our own lad, Tommy Cassidy (he was a Burnley player by then however) was in the service of Norn Iron.

Our corner of The Turk’s became enraptured by the Ulstermen taking it to the Spanish. In the 47th minute when Gerry Armstrong scored the only goal of the game, the place went mental and there’s my old man diving, arms out-stretched across the pool table, glasses off and with a big red, happy face. That David McCreery looks a canny player. What’s he doing playing for a daft team like Tulsa Roughnecks? Bookmark this.

Off we went for the bus with a group of lads singing “Noren Iren” in faux Belfast accents. Happy days.

The game of the tournament however was Italy - Brazil. The Brazilians were out of the shadows of their Mexico ‘70 team - Zico, Eder, Socrates, Eder … they looked brilliant and everyone’s favourites to win the World Cup. I watched the game alone, curtains closed in my Mam’s living room to counter the glare and with the house to myself. I don’t think its hyperbole to say this game was one you couldn’t take your eye off for a second. Nowadays we watch games on TV, cracking on with pals in Wats App groups, idly distracted by whatever is on your phone but I sat from half time onwards desperate for a piss but going nowhere. The ebb and flow of the game, the technique and the goals were compulsive viewing. This was football at its best. I’d wanted Brazil to beat Italy and go onto win the World Cup but Paolo Rossi put paid to that with a resurrection story of his own.

I watched the final between Italy and West Germany in the family living room of a girl I’d taken out a few times - nowt serious. None of her family were much interested in football which made me something of a fish out of water. My exclamation of YESSSSSS as Tardelli went on his run after scoring caused some alarm in that suburban lounge but I was invested. Not so much as I wanted the Azzuri to win but more because I wanted the West Germans to lose and none more so than their fucking bastard of a goalie, Schumacher whose foul on the French striker Patrick Battiston was the worst I have ever seen to this date. It is no exaggeration to suggest Schumacher, one of West Germany’s best ever goalies, could have killed the France player but how he managed to stay on the field only the referee can explain. It was an outrageous act of violence. Ever more galling he saved two of France’s penalties in the shoot-out to decide the fixture. Germans winning on penalties? Imagine.

I was delighted Schumacher the thug had lost the game. My emotional investment was lost in this family, they probably thought I was a bit of an odd-ball which wasn’t too far off the truth I suppose. We didn’t see each other much after that.

1986 - Hey Gringo

Do you ever get those periods in life when you don’t know what you’re doing with yourself? Don’t worry I’m not going all Cilla Black on you. I’d settled into a mundane routine of work as a junior public sector worker, advising the many thousands of blokes about their employment and benefit options. They were the same age as my Dad … ex-miners, ex-shipyard workers, ex-everything. Most were resigned to never working again. A few got gigs driving taxis, security guards etc and some moved away, most claimed sickness related benefits and became sullen, resentful and purposeless. The Miners Strike had kicked the arse out of the labour movement and the NE was probably affected more than most in the aftermath.

I didn’t like my job and didn’t think I was doing that much to help anyone. I knew I was helping to massage the unemployment figures for a Tory government I despised with every fibre of my being.

Life settled into going to work, the match and getting pissed on a weekend. I’d kind of lost my personal mojo, no longer excited by music in the way I’d been in the late 70s and early 80s with Joy Division, The Jam, The Clash, The Specials most of whom by then ceased to be important. Weller and New Order held my interest and I still went through a couple of books per month but it was a directionless habit. I did become a dedicated follower of Viz magazine however. A light in the dark.

Newcastle United had as it does, promised so much and delivered so little. Sound familiar? We had been promoted on a wave of KK euphoria with Beardsley and Waddle showing the potential to be something truly special. Cox would be given some dough to buy 3-4 decent players and we’d continue the Keegan inspired progress into Division One without our spiritual leader - now fully occupied on the golf courses of Marbella. That seemed too sensible and after promotion, Cox resigned following the news he’d be getting hardly any spends and another downward spiral began. Waddle would check-out around January ‘85, clearly tapped up by Spurs but the football put out by Jack Charlton, semi-interested it seemed at best, was awful and followed the pattern of the time - launch it to the big-man. We brought in Tony Cunningham and George Reilly for that purpose - laughably bad footballers whose haplessness endeared them to us in some way.

Waddle headed for White Hart Lane in the summer of 1985, to be replaced by Northern Irishman, Ian Stewart, who was a poor excuse for a footballer. At a pre-season friendly v Sheff Utd at SJP, the resentment towards the quality and style of football we played after the excitement of KK, brought jeering from a very small crowd and sent Charlton to the boardroom to hand in his notice. We’d then be managed by Willie McFaul, fortunate to have Beardsley in the team and the emerging talent of Paul Gascoigne under the radar. The general quality of the play improved slightly … Paul Goddard endeared himself to those of this parish but the overall direction of the club under the dead hand of McKeag, Seymour et al was downward. No-one really expected us to do anything. And we didn’t.

But the World Cup would occupy us as Mexico again hosted the biggest football tournament on the planet. The whole thing would become defined in memory by Diego Maradonna, hand of god and all of that schtick.

But the highlights for me were some Scousers in the crowd with a flag DHSS ON TOUR - which scandalised the permanently puce faced readers of The Mail etc. I thought it was brilliant as did the Liverpudlian girlfriend of sorts I’d met following a trip to that fair city after a union conference. I’ve been predisposed towards Scousers ever since (don’t write in) and doffed a cap to those lads’ wind up skills. Annoying all the right people.

The other highlight was Peter Beardsley - Longbenton born and by some distance Newcastle United’s best player. The best player I have seen in a B&W shirt in my lifetime. He didn’t make Bobby Robson’s first team at Mexico ‘86 but following disappointing results the Langley Park England boss switched from a 5-3-2 formation to a 4-4-2. If memory serves me Beardsley got the nod over Trevor Francis and Little Peter was in the first team. We willed him to do well and he did. Our hearts leapt watching him scampering around the pitches of the World Cup putting chance after chance on a plate for striker Gary Lineker. I don’t think I’m going OTT to say Peter Beardsley made Gary Lineker great on the international stage.

A few things to remember from that tournament which kind of contradict some rose tinted versions of the past. In these parts Bobby Robson wasn’t then the lionised figure he became after he left Newcastle United. There was a residual resentment Robson had dropped KK from his first England squad back in ‘82 without giving our idol the courtesy of a phone call to explain his decision. It also denied us the thrill of seeing a Newcastle United player wear the England captain’s armband. That’s not to say there was hostility towards Robson amongst our B&W tribe but there was little warmth.

The next of course is the now forgotten treatment of Robson by the tabloid press. The London media had no inside track with Robson unlike say the Londoner, Terry Venables. Robson was provincial and distant from them. Their coverage and treatment of him was shameful as they hunted him down with headlines. They’d do the same with Graeme Taylor and never left Terry Venables alone either as it happens regards his business via a nightclub (Scribes). An impossible job because of impossible expectations and awful people writing about it.

England crashed out unfairly of course. There was pagga in the crowd between Argentine and England fans as a hangover from the completely avoidable Falklands War only four years previously. Thatcher’s war had put a cloud over the fixture but whatever there was to moan about handballs etc, no-one was killed as they had been completely unnecessarily in the South Atlantic.

But the So Americans would go on to win the World Cup. Maradonna would become a folk devil of the English football public but for all the controversy of the Hand of God, that second goal is still replayed forty years later and these islands haven’t produced anyone even in the same class as Diego.

Scotland had qualified again which was becoming a habit for them. Their trip to Mexico however was overshadowed by the sudden death of the great Jock Stein who had a heart attack after their qualifying game in Wales. If there was another manager to replace Stein for the World Cup then I don’t suppose there were many better than Aberdeen’s Alex Ferguson.

Of Ferguson’s great achievements, Mexico ‘86 isn’t amongst them. The Scots lost their first game 1-0 to Denmark and another defeat to West Germany - 2-1 before drawing with Uruguay nils apiece. They were dull as dishwater … uninspiring v the Danes and Germans with the Uruguay game that would “get football done away with” according to my old man who was irritated by how shite the Scots were.

I watched the final with my Liverpool Lou, ignoring her excellent advice about getting my life in order. I was too keen to get to the pub and boast to the locals about Peter Beardsley. Which I did endlessly!

1990 - Do it at the right time …

On the opening day of the 1990 World Cup I had taken a flyer from work. A few of us went to the bar and I had a couple of pints before heading home. Home was an upstairs Tyneside flat in NE10 I’d bought 2-3 years previously. I was man of property. I was on the ladder. The reality was somewhat different. Interest rates meant I was painfully skint and the place needed doing up and money was required for GCH and Double Glazing. Fuck, shit bastard.

I jumped off the bus looking forward to Argentina v Cameroon from the San Siro, Milan … an impossibly brilliant, space-ship looking stadium shared by European football aristocracy Internazionale and AC Milan. Sub-consciously I clocked a young lad dash round the corner and towards the back lane. I didn’t take much notice. I put the key in the door, climbed the stairs, put the telly on to clock the game had already started and thought I’d have a cup of tea with some hob nobs in my afternoon of complete solitary pleasure.

Those familiar with Tyneside flats know they have a galley kitchen and toilet and bath room as extensions to the main building. Mine had a stairway down the back to the yard and backlane. The door was open as was the gate, both had been jemmied ajar. The scrote I’d seen vamoosh up the side street had obviously been keeping toot for his scumbag mates who were in the act of screwing my flat. What they hoped to get away with God only knows as I had not much beyond fuck all - a second-hand microwave? A toaster and kettle? My portable telly was about ten year old and the records I had wouldn’t have been worth much to the burglar class.

Sadly this wasn’t the first or last time someone would try to screw my flat. Nor was I alone. House burglaries had exploded across Tyneside and I make no apologies for calling those that committed those crimes the cunts that they were and are. I understood all of the social breakdown arguments, poverty and deprivation explanations. That’s why when this part of the world invented ram-raiding, there was a kind of shrug. But robbing from your own class? Nah, not having it and when I met folks from Belfast and they described the para-military means of dealing with crimes against the community like burglary, I found it difficult to find fault in it.

These were bad times in the NE and Tyneside in particular. A Police car chase on the Coast Road left at least one young lad dead who had been attempting to evade arrest. Some unsympathetic soul left a less than kind note amongst a bouquet of flowers at the scene. Apologies if I’ve got the details wrong. A relative of the family objected to the media descriptions of joy-riding and he explained they had been out “grafting” - though it was committing crime all the same. Most folks watched incredulous of the relative’s indignation the deceased lad was being accused of one crime as frivolous as joy riding when his occupation was as a dedicated criminal. The distinction was lost on most.

There followed nights of rioting centred around the Meadowell Estate which spread to other parts of Tyneside … Elswick Road being but one as the Police became the targets of disaffected, local, Geordie youth. Unlike the early 80s rioting in Brixton (London), Toxteth (Liverpool), Mosside (Manchester), St Paul’s (Bristol), Tottenham (London) the Tyneside riots had no racial dimension. The protagonists were white, working class and male. Their Dads and Granddads had worked in the shipyards, factories and collieries that had disappeared in front of them. Their paternal line had served in world wars too.

Right-wing political commentators used the description “under-class” … they might as well have been Hitler describing part of the population as Unter-Menschen or perhaps what Marxists described as the “lumpen-proletariat”.

Battles for control of the doors of pubs in the city centre and elsewhere between rival criminal gangs became heavier in those unregulated times. If you know Tyneside you know the names, the characters and those who were the main players in all of this. Lads like me kept our heads down and avoided them. Nothing changes in that regard.

This was the era of Ecstasy with the sound track to accompany it. See also some other drug called Wobbly Egg which served to completely cabbage those that took it. That ramped up the criminality … the Ford Cosworth driving roid heads, the Twoccers, the psycho doormen … ah the good old days.

Anyway, you’re not here for my pale Beatrix Campbell impersonations. Football. That was shit as well. Entirely as expected Newcastle United had cashed in the golden Geordie generation with Spurs taking Waddle and then Gascoigne with Peter Beardsley in between going to Liverpool. The club predictably squandered the money, some of it for half a new West Stand (renamed the Milburn Stand in memory of Jackie Milburn who had died as the new build got underway) which Gordon McKeag breathlessly told us was the same as the one at Watford. We were meant to be impressed. We had of course been relegated. All of the KK energy and good will wasted. Willie McFaul departed to be replaced by old hand Jim Smith aka The Bald Eagle but he couldn’t keep us in Division One either.

Catastrophe visited tragedy as we missed out on automatic promotion in the 89/90 season and fell into the Play-Offs. You know the rest - the Mackems beat us at SJP in the second-leg. I haven’t forgiven any of that team for that display that night. I told them to fuck off on the night and I’m still saying it thirty six years later. The Mackems lost at Wembley in the Play Off Final to Ardiles’ Swindon who in their turn were denied promotion due to financial irregularities and Sunderland went up instead. I recall vividly hearing the news on Radio Newcastle and going and hitting my head off something hard and repeatedly.

This was the mood in these parts as some of you settled down to watch Cameroon beat the World Champions, Argentina 1-0 and I got a crime number from a disinterested copper who told me with confidence … nowt we can do … we won’t catch them. Cheers … how many did you manage to lift at the Poll Tax demos? Twat.

Shit flat and empty pockets to one side, I had sort of sorted my head out. I was studying part time at Newcastle Polytechnic (ask your Dad) getting my head around Durkheim, Weber, Keynes, Friedman, Marx, the Chicago School, Public Policy and enjoying it. Stalking is such an ugly word but I’d managed to persuade a lass into my life after my Mersey Miss and I fizzled out. Hell, I’d even been promoted. In my mid-20s there was signs of life.

Oh and there were fanzines … lots of them. I’d loved reading The End when bouncing around Liverpool, impressing mates down there with copies of Viz which they loved and which was going supernova. We were all really proud of what the Donald Bros & Co were doing for Tyneside. Manchester might have been producing the bands - Joy Division-New Order, The Smiths (which took me until they were broke up to appreciate their appeal, irritated by their too keen fan-boys and girls), Stone Roses, Happy Mondays … oh and The Fall, who more than forty years of becoming aware of them gave them a proper listen this last year or so - my verdict - some canny and some ear melting bad - but we had the comic and the laughs. I failed in my ambition to be featured in Viz photo-stories but did once sit next to Chris Donald in The Trent one afternoon extremely conscious that one false move and I’d be a caricature in the next issue.

By some distance The Mag and Black & White were our leading fanzines of the era. The latter of which was a keen advocate for the United Supporters For Change group and which I had a lot of respect for. They had advocated match boycotts and they were led by a group of committed, capable and intelligent Mags.

I’d gone to a meeting at The Gloucester Pub in Gateshead with wor kid as The Mag set up but just had too much on … studies, work, doing a flat up and scanning Julie’s to see if the object of my ardour was in throwing shapes on the dance floor to Grandmaster Flash and his marras. I’d leave the fanzine lark for a bit.

Energising Newcastle United’s fanzine movement (honourable mention to the amusing Half Man, Half Biscuit by the way) was the fevered atmosphere around the club’s ownership. Gordon McKeag had established himself as Public Enemy No.1 with descriptions of Newcastle United as the “family silver” and an upper-crust demeanour that hardly endeared him to the Geordie public. Mr Metrocentre, John Hall talked a load of half-arsed Thatcherite shite but for all of the swivel-eyed messianic patter, he was the only thing on offer which even hinted at a future for the club - so folks like me held our noses and went along with it. Geordie Nation? Fucking hell, there was some bullshit.

As for the wider game … I don’t think English football has been in a worse situation in its history. English clubs had been banned from European competition following the horrors of the 1985 European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus at Heysel Stadium. There was of course the Valley Parade Fire at Bradford City as well as the Hillsborough tragedy where 97 Liverpool fans died in a horrific crush at the Leppings Lane End - situations those of us who were going to see United play in death trap stadiums were all too familiar with. The England following was known for its thuggery which in turn created a vicious circle of bad reactions from foreign anti-social elements and Police everywhere it went. As ever after the bad lads went on the rampage, the good lads got the reaction. It was much the same at club level.

I’ll get to Italia ‘90 soon I promise.

I didn’t think much of the tournament to be honest. England was amongst the best watches and the NE was well represented with Robson as manager. The supporting cast of Peter Beardsley, Paul Gascoigne and Chris Waddle in the England squad just added to the teeth grinding misery of Newcastle United’s reduced status. Add in the likes of Bryan Robson (Chester-le-St) and Trevor Steven (Berwick) who had slipped the (cough) Newcastle United scouting net and there was much to be dissatisfied about.

England highlights were of course the scenes in Turin when Robson’s team lost on penalties to West Germany.

Waddle and Pearce sent their pens into orbit and the Germans did what they do. When Gascoigne picked up his harsh yellow card and he and we knew he’d miss the final if England made it, we knew what was behind the mask. We’d seen the emotion and fragility when he turned out for us little more than a teenager. The skill, tricks, strength and impudence delighted SJP - he always had the aura of a back-lane superstar - completely uncoached, uncoachable … a free spirit … but one who was in love with football … a man-child and one we knew would self destruct in some way. Tyneside gossip hummed with the Gazza tales and if only 10% of them were true a fall was in the post. He’d be pushed hard by the media who it has been proven tormented the lad. When he started bubbling and Lineker famously mouthed “have a word” we were all a bit grateful he had good people watching his back.

England, to be fair in this tournament were well, cool. The set up seemed to have lost the sense of entitlement I have long detected within the media for the Three Lions. They seemed normal. Bobby Robson was a recognisable fella from the NE coalfields … tough, honest and polite. The multi-racial squad made it more reflective of the urban landscape it belongs to and of course it had the song … World In Motion … by MY band, New Order.

In truth when I heard Sumner, Hook, Gilbert and Morris were doing an England song my heart sank. No, no, no, no … that’s not what the coolest band on the planet do high on their TECHNIQUE apex. Then I heard it … fucking hell, this is good … subtle, clever lyrics, Chicago House beats, Hooky’s bass, Barney’s magnificent vocal … filled with meloncholic longing and a video shot on playing fields overlooked by tower blocks. Keith Allen is in it - there’s the zeitgeist boys and girls, Gazza irrrepressible laying some vocals with traces of John Barnes fading Jamaican patois doing the rap. I love Peter Beardsley but it was for the best he was removed from rapping duties. Barney had the look down in that England shirt and those raybans. When something’s good it’s never wrong.

Scotland had of course got to Italia 90. Andy Roxburgh took the Tartan Army to Italy full of the usual expectation. They staggeringly lost their first game 1-0 to Costa Rica which I watched alone in my flat incredulous with crisps for company.

Roy Aitken was notionally Newcastle United captain but despite my expectations from his time at Celtic, the arm-band never sat well on him at SJP. He did lead the Scots to a 2-1 win over Sweden, a decent win in any circumstances. Naturally, Scotland lost to Brazil 1-0 after a Jim Leighton fumble and did the cause of Scottish goalies no good. The Jocks were on a fast plane home.

The tournament ended with West Germany beating Maradonna’s Argentina 1-0. It was a poor game as many had been. Maradonna, then of course the doyen of Napoli had encouraged Neapolitans to back Argentina against Italy in their fixture at the Sao Paolo. The locals of course didn’t but to my disappointment Schillachi and Co couldn’t get to the final in their home country. Diego led his unloved team onwards.

The other great NE connection in Italy that summer was Ashington’s Jack Charlton taking the Republic of Ireland into the World Cup. Unlike his tenure at Newcastle United, I really liked Charlton in his time as Ireland manager. He fitted in perfectly … his easy going, Northumbrian manner charmed the whole of Ireland and his background as an England international World Cup winner caused him no problems. The Irish loved him and that he drew recruits for the Bhoys In Green from the Irish diaspora in the UK didn’t raise a question. His approach was an anaethma to us at SJP with a folklore of Mitchell, Hibbitt, Jinky Smith, Tony Green, Waddle and Beardsley but he gave the Ireland team an identity - Put ‘Em Under Pressure, get the defenders turning, launch it to the big lad … it worked magnificently. Charlton had a system … if you wanted to play … you did what you were told … they had a great team spirit.

Yours truly remained a regular visitor to the family home and it didn’t take much to get me around the dinner table for a proper feed. These occassions seem to coincide with Ireland games … my Mam was beyond overjoyed to see Charlton take his team to see the Pope - Pope John Paul II - the Polish Pope and my Mam’s favourite Pope - Top of the Popes - she went all over the country when he was on his tour of the UK. I wouldn’t have blinked if she had started wearing a Pope tour t-shirt. Like Barry McGuigan fighting at Loftus Road and his old man singing Danny Boy before the bout, this was one of the few sporting events I can remember my old lady ever watching.

First up the Romania game and me and my Dad exchanging amused glances at my Mam’s squeals at moments of high dudgeon during the game as well as encouraging Packie Bonner to give it some welly from his goal kicks. Unncessary advice to be honest as were her observations “there’s Jackie Charlton” …. “I know Mam”. Bonner saves the Romania penalty and I’m waiting for my old man to dive across the living room carpet as per the Turk’s Hotel ‘82. Not this time but he did open a can with a smile and my old lady disappeared into the kitchen singing the wrong words to a rebel song. Marvellous.

Rinse and repeat for Ireland’s final game v Italy though with no happy ending this time. I teased … I think the Pope will be backing the Italians Mam … you better give the rosary beads a rattle for old Ireland. My old man gave me one of his Captain Mainwaring “stupid boy” looks. Ireland went out and my Mam disappeared into the kitchen as if nothing had happened … only here for the wins.

What we’d witnessed though in Italia ‘90 was of course a marketing masterstroke. For the watching middle-classes who had never been inside a football ground much they saw a new world. That world was miles away from the rampaging Millwall fans running across the pitch at Kenilworth Road hurling stadium ordnance at a retreating Police on the 10 o’clock news.

They saw the emotion of Gazza and a likable England team with decent men like Lineker, Pearce and Barnes … recognisable lads from the towns and cities of England. They also heard Pavarotti and Nessun Dorma and football played in stadiums that turned the game into theatre. Football had a future … Nick Hornby was looking for a publisher and the sports pages of national newspapers looked nervously at the fanzines on sale outside crumbling grounds and knew there was a different story being told beyond press rooms. And there still is.

Back at my flat, which could have been a decent set for a gritty, realist 60s drama, yours truly got broken bottles cemented into the top of the backyard wall, had the back gate and door virtually boarded up completely and wondered how long it would before I could sell the fucking shit hole.

Michael Martin @Mick1892.bsky.social

Last Weekend