THE WEEKENDER #8

The World Cup heads back to Europe and France in 1998 and off to South Korea and Japan 2002.

Good Times, Bad Times …

Starting on the home front and Newcastle United … there cannot have been much more of a dramatic turnaround in the club’s history between ‘92 and ‘98 … battling relegation to Division 3 (old money) to then going within a knacker’s hair of winning the Premier League title. England’s semi final disappointment in EURO 96 (sound familiar?) had followed the heartbreak of our bid to win the Premier League in the 95/96 season. But when England exited the tournament the country hosted so well, all eyes turned to the future of Blackburn Rovers’ striker, one Alan Shearer.

A son of our fair and noble city, Alan had made no attempt to disguise his affection for his home town club but it is fair to say, that as the most potent striker on the planet, Gosforth’s finest was in demand. Shearer’s name had been linked with Barcelona, Juventus, Liverpool and of course Manchester United. The talk of football was that he had told Blackburn Rovers owner, Jack Walker he wanted to leave the Lancashire club at the end of the previous season. The obvious destination would have been Man Utd - Premier League Champions with ambitions to win the Champions League and everything else in the game. As one of the richest clubs in the world, there would have been little difficulty for the Red Devils in meeting Blackburn’s demands for the fee and in making Alan Shearer one of the best paid players in the world.

I watched more than a few of the EURO 96 games up at my Mam and Dad’s with their Granddaughter taking most of their attention but my old man saying repeatedly - “Newcastle have to sign that Shearer lad, son”. I’d have a sharp intake of breath and sigh I’d love it if he did but my money was on him going to Man Utd, the Champions.

Then I’m driving home with the bairn in the car and by a newsagents (remember them?) and The Chronicle billboard reads something like “Shearer Signs for United!” I nearly swerve off the road but manage to get home, park up, decant the golden girl with her Mammy and run up to the paper shop (it hadn’t blown away - geddit? Oh, suit yourself) to get hold of a Ronnie Gill. Its true … Kevin Keegan and the board of directors have pulled off a massive coup … after all kinds of subterfuge, Alan Shearer has joined the Newcastle United party on tour in Malaysia and there is the best striker in the world, Geordie born and bred, at his peak, signed on the dotted line for an eye-watering £15m. Back home. Cue euphoria.

These were the days pre-internet, smart-phones and all of that so after devouring The Chronicle’s copy (I always preferred The Journal to be honest - a far better read), the telly is on trying to catch news updates. It’s real and its happening.

We’d win everything now wouldn’t we?

To say the years preceding France 98 was eventful is putting it mildly. At the end of 1996, an exhausted Kevin Keegan resigned. A lot of old guff has been said and written about KK’s resignation but the likeliest explanation is the Hall-Shepherd move to float the club on the stockmarket and take financial advantage of its status as a PLC. The club became less about football and more about upholstering Hall and Shepherd’s bank accounts. Largely worthless (and powerless) shares were sold to supporters which immediately tanked in value. But for the directors it was payola. KK saw the writing on the wall and walked. Not that we saw that at the time … in came Kenny Dalglish, flushed with title winning success at Liverpool and Blackburn, with a great relationship with our No.9, so we can all be forgiven for thinking we’d go again.

In his first half season, United qualified for the new fangled Champions League and with a phenomonal strikeforce of Shearer and Ferdinand - the 97/98 season could be massive for us. It turned out to be massive … but not quite in the way we thought.

By the way - that final game of the 96/97 season with United qualifying for the Champions League was delicious. We had thumped a relegated Forest 5-0 and hung around in the stands waiting news from elsewhere …. Boro relegated - cheer, Sunderland … relegated … marvellous, dancing in the stands … with a few celebration pints in my mind, I headed down the Leazes End steps as the Mackem news warmed the cockles of all of our hearts - and my mate launched himself on my back, my legs buckled and down we tumbled like out of control skittles … upside down and laughing our heads off. No injuries, dusted down, Adelphi Bar here we come.

With money pressures, United sold Sir Les to Spurs at almost exactly the same time Shearer went down with a serious cruciate ligament injury in a pre-season friendly at Goodison Park. If it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all.

Our Premier League form nosedived and when FC Barcelona arrived at SJP on that balmy, unforgettable, mental night in ‘97 - Gillespie - Asprilla et al - no-one expected what was to follow. Along with the PSG game of a couple of years back, this remains one of Newcastle United’s greatest nights.

No-one really had signing geriatrics Ian Rush, Stuart Pearce and John Barnes on their United bingo cards but there we were. Dalglish did sign some good players in his time here … Given, Solano, Hamann, Speed, Ferguson, Tomasson (badly used and had his confidence destroyed) … but there were a load of stinkers too - Perez, Serrant, Hamilton, Georgiados, Brady, his son and apologies for others I’ve missed (Ketsbaia? Not sure what category to put him into be honest). On we limped, desperate for news of Shearer’s rehabilitation and hanging on every word from his surgeon, Richard Steadman.

Miraculously, Shearer was back for the FA Cup 4th round. After beating Everton away courtesy of an inevitable Ian Rush goal in the third round, we were drawn away to Stevenage which somehow became a PR disaster after Dalglish offered to play the game at SJP with the oppo getting a bigger share of the gate. This was somehow turned into big boy bullying by the media … it wasn’t … it had been done before … and Dalglish had perfectly understandable misgivings about the safety of the away ground … if anyone was entitled to be nervous about crowd safety it was him … but Stevenage behaved like Knobheads. After a replay, Stevenage were despatched after a frosty reception at SJP. On we went in the FA Cup, serving to distract from a poor league campaign.

Good draws saw us beat Tranmere 1-0 and Barnsley 3-1 at home to take us to the FAC SF at Old Trafford to play Sheffield United. Another kind draw. Not that we made light work of The Blades mind. A Shearer goal on the hour sent what seemed to be two thirds of the stadium into raptures and we were on the way to Wembley for our first final since the League Cup of 1976.

Not that this was a simple Cup run, with fans innocently cheering their heroes on. We got more than an insight into what people in football boardrooms thought of fans following a News of the World expose snaring Douglas Hall and Freddie Shepherd. Both men were recorded in what seemed to be a Spanish bordello sneering at fans for buying club merchandise, slagging local hookers and mocking Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan for their decency. Arsehole directors didn’t start with Mike Ashley.

There was a bad smell around the club but on we went to the final to face Arsenal, now Champions under Arsene Wenger, chasing the double. We were fortunate to get away with a 2-0 defeat after an abysmal performance. The day summed up the limitations of old English football manifested by Dalglish (a decent and likeable man) in contrast to Wenger, a football sophisticate, urbane, intelligent and with a continental knowledge of stuff about diet, recovery, mentality etc that did so much for a dressing room mix of Gallic talent and Anglo Saxon grit. Liverpool fans chanted “Dalglish” at SJP in offence at how poorly they believed an Anfield icon had been treated on Tyneside. But Dalglish bombed at Celtic as an ersatz Director Football with a hapless John Barnes as Head Coach. He did little to convince anyone his star hadn’t sunk without trace when he took up the reins briefly again for Liverpool in 2011-12, notably splashing £35m for one Andy Carroll.

Before Dalglish was shown the door at SJP there was the small matter of the World Cup in 1998.

Now managed by Glenn Hoddle, England had qualified for the big doo across the channel but as ever there was controversy. Hoddle had made some bizarre claims about people carrying the sins of former lives into the present in the shape of their disabilities. Whether Hoddle was quoted out of context, misrepresented or just having a brain fart, this kind of mumbo jumbo painted him as an odd-ball. Naturally, the press went to town on him as they do with all England managers but his whacko media image wasn’t helped with his relationship with faith healer, Eileen Drewery. It is fair to say Drewery’s (cough) talents did not convince many in the England party heading over the English Channel. Copper bands for rheumatism, things that go bump in the night … all of that shite … you can see how a group of largely unreconstructured working class lads from across old Albion were less than convinced.

Ahead of the World Cup, Hoddle of course had a squad to select. The big news was the omission of Paul Gascoigne. Told privately of his non-selection at the England hotel, Paul reacted in the manner we had come to expect - by going radge, smashing the hotel room up, bursting into tears and going on the piss. No stiff upper lip from Gazza.

Some attempted to find a way to claim Gascoigne being dropped and ultimately ending his international career, was wrong, unfair and misguided. I don’t think any England manager - with an emerging Paul Scholes at Man Utd under the guidance of Alex Ferguson - would have opted for Gazza and the associated drama if offered the choice. Gascoigne had come to the end of his time at Rangers and was on the road to ‘Boro at that point. No-one can claim Paul was at anything like his peak years with injuries and lifestyle dimming one of the brightest football talents this country has ever produced. He was nowhere near good enough for Newcastle United in that era as a consistent performer so how he could be touted to perform in the globe’s premier competition is lost on me. His lifestyle was well known and his personal life was hardly a bed of roses too. I find it very difficult to criticise Hoddle for leaving Gascoigne out of that England squad and only revisionists would argue the contrary.

Plenty of us of a certain vintage from the Gateshead area, have more than a few Gazza stories - albeit some of them are secondhand and barely on nodding terms with reality. Many of them are true however.

It was another Geordie though, who Mags focused on pulling on an England shirt. Alan Shearer captained the national team and although I’d never describe myself as an England fan, I did get a tingle from one of our players - and one of our own, pulling on the captain’s armband. He was unquestionably one of Hoddle’s best performers, getting amongst the goals (v Tunisia and a pen v Argentina). Admittedly, Owen got a rather better goal v the Argies that day.

Losing to Romania suggested a weakness in the England set up but at the knock-out stage game v Argentina, I made the Three Lions the better side. There are some who want to blame Shearer for a foul that led to Sol Campbell’s goal being chalked off but even taking my B&W goggles off, that seems harsh.

Not that there was a shortage of people to hang out to dry after England eventually lost the game on penalties. Depending upon your perspective, Beckham’s red card for a flick of the leg towards Diego Simeone while he was lying down, was the petulant act of a spoilt, over-privileged brat of a footballer, wrapped up in himself - or a complete over-reaction from the referee to not very much really.

I was never much taken by the whole Becks thing - yes, he could put in a decent cross and get up and down the line - but world class? I’m not having that and his value to Real Madrid had more to do with marketing and selling white shirts with his name on the back in the era of Galacticos. I made Gareth Bale a million times better.

Putting that to one side and my inherent distaste for Manchester United and all of its evil works, I thought Beckham was harshly treated by the referee. But that was nothing compared to what awaited back home with effigies hanging from outside East London pubs and other assorted shite. That’s not to mention the tabloid press hate campaign against him. No wonder Man Utd’s away fans and hardcore turned against the England team and goaded those harassing Beckham with chants of “Argentina, Argentina”. Perfectly understandable and justified in my opinion. Fair play to them.

Strangely enough, I don’t think Beckham ever got any really bad treatment at SJP about his sending off - or much about the sexual preferences of Posh Spice either. To his credit, Beckham played through it and that is testimony to his strength of character that he did - even if he has turned into a money and status obsessed ghoul with ethics in the shallow end to say the least.

My old man invited me round to watch the final between hosts France and Brazil. I say invited … I mean my Mam mentioned that my Dad had wondered if I was coming round for the match. Nothing near an invite directly from him. As ever my Mam put a few sarnies up for us and I fetched a few cans - “smashing son, thanks very much”.

I loved these moments. Despite what it might seem in these pieces I wasn’t really close to my Dad. He was moody when I was a kid, which I now realise was largely hangover induced. He wasn’t a bad bloke by any stretch of the imagination and did well in his life - food on the table, put clothes on our backs and never raised his hand to us. That was what constituted a decent bloke in those days on working class Tyneside. He ticked every box in that regard.

He had an incredible work ethic, prudent and an excellent judge of character. His moral code from his Catholic faith was admirable (politically he was slightly left to Fidel Castro, socially conservative as you’d expect from a card carrying RC and one who, if he made a promise, it was always kept). But as the eldest son I found him aloof. Poor me. He was like so many of his generation. But he adored my daughter and with her there was none of the awkwardness I’d experienced as a son. She led him by the nose everywhere. He was completely enraptured by her. Looking back on the love and happiness of their relationship - and my Mam too obviously - is one of the great joys of my life.

We’d sit in the living room, not speaking much, bar some cursory … “how’s the job going?” That kind of thing. But it was good - and when I think about him, as I do almost every day, I think of sitting on my Mam’s sofa, in his company and without the need to fill the silences with pointless chatter.

We both agreed the French had a brilliant national anthem but we had fancied Brazil to retain the trophy they had won in the USA four years earlier. Brazil had been sparkling throughout the tournament and not for the first time had the world’s best player in Ronaldo (the proper one) in their ranks. They looked nailed on - despite facing the home country and a formidable French squad comprised of Blanc, Desailly, Viera, Petit, Deschamps, Henry, Dugarry, Zidane and of course the greatest of them all (ahem), heading for SJP after the final, Stephane Guivarc’h (cough).

Imagine - Guivarc’h made it to the French squad but Nikolas Anelka didn’t! Try and work that one out.

God knows what happened to Ronaldo. We watched news break before KO in the run up that Ronaldo wasn’t playing but then he was. It later transpired that Ronaldo had suffered a form of convulsions, frothing at the mouth at the squad’s hotel and had been omitted from the final pool of players to face France in the final. There was talk of pressure from Nike to play but who knows really?

For some reason, reported to have been the player begging the manager to select him and he was back in the side. You can’t say all of this did not completely upend the Brazilian preparations. France walked all over them … Zidane notching two and Arsenal’s Petit getting the other in a one-sided 3-0 dance.

It is said three million French people celebrated in Paris after the final. But the team that won it, spoke of a modern, multi-cultural France - with a team diamond-studded with the children of immigrants from France’s former imperial colonies - no less than Zidane himself but also Viera, Djorkieff, Desaiily and others. France’s World Cup win would and should be a riposte to Le Pen and his racist National Front party.

It hasn’t worked out like that.

All Things Must Pass

In truth, I didn’t watch much of the World Cup in Japan and So Korea. There are reasons.

If my old man had gone a few days without seeing the bairn, he’d magically appear out of thin air either comically Mr Benn style (ask your Dad) from behind a tree in Saltwell Park as she and I meandered through on her bike (the stabilisers era), on the boats, feeding the ducks or kicking a ball between us. They loved picking her up from school, making her tea and generally treating her like a princess. I couldn’t help but laugh at my Dad appearing out of nowhere at soft plays he knew we’d be at, arts and crafts stuff she loved and the post-school activities she went to - swimming, gymnastics, roller-blading and god knows what else. Parents reading this know what I’m on about.

His favourite though was to ring ahead … the notion of him actually ringing me up still makes me laugh … on a Sunday morning … and ask if it was okay to pop in for a cuppa on the way to the Club. This was code to see the bairn and get refuelled with that feeling only his grand-daughter gave him - before heading for the Saltwell Road Social Club to meet with his pals - aka the Supreme Gateshead Soviet.

As he left one Sunday … I watched him walk away from the house and to an appointment with the CIU. He seemed tentative on his feet, the confident gait wasn’t there … he looked fragile, uncertain. Just as I was processing that, my better half cut to the chase … your Dad doesn’t look very well, he’s lost weight and he’s pale. I rang my Mam and she went quiet … he’s been to the Doctor’s … he’s struggling at the toilet, pains in his stomach but he’s been prescribed penicilin. Weeks go by … he’s getting no better and at last he’s sent for a scan. Intuitively I know I have to go with him. We’re going into the QE … I ask him if he’s okay and for the only time ever in his life he shows some vulnerability … “I am because you’re here”. The radiographer does the business and hands him his x-rays to take to someone else. He’s being processed. I catch the lad’s eye and he looks away.

Things start moving quickly. There’s a lot of talk none of us understand … investigations … more tests … my Dad is completely off his food which is unknown as he was a great scranner. He goes to the club but can’t touch his pint. I’m sat at work in my office (get me eh?) on a Friday morning and not thinking about much beyond my Dad. I want to know what’s going on, so I ring the nurse and she kindly invites me along to the QE to see her.

I met her in the reception area of the Oncology department. I later learn Oncology is another word for cancer. Naive doesn’t cover it. She’s warm but professional. She talks me through it … primary and secondary cancers, tumours, operable, inoperable, my head is swimming and I cut to the chase … is my Dad going to die? She answers yes … she doesn’t sugar coat it … he has cancer in his bowel and stomach .. possibly elsewhere, they don’t know. How long? Unknown … he probably has six months … its June / July 2001. I think one last Christmas.

I know he’ll want to know. He’ll want to sort everything out, allocate tasks to us and give us information. He’ll also want to know first. He’ll want control of that. A consultant will tell him in private and then he’ll tell us and handle it his way. That’s how it goes. He comes out of the consultant’s office and looks at my Mam, wor young’un and I before saying “no long faces”. He knows we know and that I’m responsible for this choreography. He doesn’t complain. We leave. My brother drives us home and he sits down on his sofa. The bairn comes in from school and goes straight to him, her intuition telling her something, she squeezes in right next to him and he puts his arm around her. He winks at me as if to say everything is perfect.

He deterioates quickly but not before clocking two planes going into the Twin Towers and wondering if he’ll ever find out who was responsible. The hospital let him come home. England are playing Greece to qualify for the World Cup at Old Trafford. Neither of us are England fans but its on the telly so I ask if its okay to pop down and watch it with him. We spend an afternoon agreeing with each other about everything. We smile at each other constantly. Its the best time I ever spent with him. Those hours were precious. Beckham is a force of nature and gets the vital goal - my old man is full of praise - proper footballer that lad - the contradictions of my old man are unexplainable but he’s right. I can see he’s getting tired so I tell him I’m getting off and if he needs anything just shout up “I know Michael … hasn’t today been great?” I hug my Mam, get in the car, drive to the end of their street, pull over and sob.

Twenty days after Beckham’s heroics at Old Trafford, my Dad died. Wor kid and I are with him when he passes, on either side of his bed. Its 4am at a silent QE where both of us were born. He’s conscious but can’t speak. He indicates for me to lower the bed and shitting myself as I’m so clumsy I do so - I manage it, he looks at us both, puts his thumb up and leaves us. We’re numb.

1998 to 2002 and lots of things happen. At last I start a fanzine. I indulge my love of New Order by calling the new A5 title TRUE FAITH (you guessed that didn’t you?) which sums up the well of love and loyalty there exists for Newcastle United despite everything. My old man is the first to subscribe and insists on buying his copies. He files them neatly in his little private cupboard in the spare room. I found them when I went through his things in that agony bereaved people have to discharge in the administration of death.

It hits the newstands in 1999. It makes its debut for a home draw with Wimbledon 3-3 ahead of a derby defeat for the ages in a storm of biblical proportions at SJP. I’m in the Leazes End with no roof and am suitably drenched. I think it was 2004 when I finally dried out. The fanzine does reasonably well. People like it and tell me so … the kind of people who aren’t quick to praise. I’m doing it in collaboration with The Mag - a decision which unquestionably helped establish TF in its early days but would also later restrict its growth and became a test of my tolerance. That whole thing is a seperate story on its own.

Crucially, vitally, miraculously, Glenn Ashcroft gets in touch and offers to help out on the design side of the fanzine. For free. It is the making of the fanzine. Glenn was a supremely talented graphic designer, a brilliant, lovely lad, devoted Mag and that hard copy fanzine might have been edited by me but it was Glenn’s. God bless you mate. You’re never forgotten.

Gullit quickly resigns before he is punched the colour of beetroot by Duncan Ferguson and Alan Shearer not to mention every red blooded Mag foaming at the mouth following a desperate and wholly avoidable loss to the enemy. Dalglish, Gullit … now Bobby Robson.

It’s not overdoing it to say Bobby Robson healed Newcastle United after the successive piss poor management of Dalglish and Gullit. We’d lost our way following the high of KK but we were healed. Shearer recovered his mojo under Robson’s emotional and football intelligence and off we went again. We were back in the Champions League having finished fourth at the end of the 2001/02 season. We’d reached an FAC semi final played at Wembley but despite coming close, narrowly lost to Chelsea but it felt good to be mixing it again. If we’d won that semi, we’d have beaten Villa in the final … I have no doubt about that … we’d had no luck facing Champions Arsenal and Man Utd in the preceding finals we’d reached in ‘98 and ‘99. But we’d have beaten Villa, no danger.

Robson’s transfer business at United however was iffy and for every Craig Bellamy, Laurent Robert there was a Carl Cort, Darren Ambrose, Christian Bassedas, Titus Bramble, Carl Cort, Diego Gavilan, Clarence Acuna but his success was built around a Blue Chip brigade of Given, Barton, Bernard, Hughes, Lee, Ameobi, Lua Lua, Speed and of course Shearer. I’d have to add Kieran Dyer to that list who for a brief spell looked like he could be a world beater - a rare Ruud Gullit success in the transfer market. However, Dyer would develop a reputation as the leader of a brat pack at the club and his off the pitch antics and injury record that would limit his potential.

Robson did well to eventually remove the likes of Marcelino from the payroll. When Robson’s assistant, Mick Wadsworth allegedly laid into the Spaniard for his injury record (a broken finger keeping him out of action for months) many of us nodded in quiet agreement.

But onto the World Cup in the Far East. England now managed by former Lazio manager, Sven Goram-Eriksson again travelled with hope. Eriksson had succeeded Kevin Keegan as England manager in a role that never really suited him - or a staff which included Peter Beardsley and Arthur Cox. Missing from the England squad of course was our own Geordie Soul Brother No.1, the Lion of Gosforth Alan Shearer. Our No 9 had retired from international football after the Euros in 2000 in a bid to preserve his fitness and extend his Newcastle United career. Our sole representative at the 2002 in England’s World Cup squad was Kieran Dyer, at that time constantly linked with big money moves away. Ironically in that 2002 squad were two staple internationals in Nicky Butt (Man Utd and Michael Owen (Real Madrid) who would be on our books in subsequent seasons. Who can overlook Steve McClaren on the England coaching staff? I’d like to admittedly - a football genius, so-called Managing Director, Lee Charnley moved heaven and earth to accommodate at United in the ill-fated 2015/16 season.

Weirdly so would be Albert Luque (Deportivo), named in the Spain squad, Emre (Inter Milan ) in the Turkey squad, Hugo Viana (Sporting Lisbon) with Portugal, Geremi (Real Madrid) turning out for Senegal, Babayaro (Chelsea) with Nigeria, Hamann who had done one to Liverpool after finding Gullit unbearable with Germany and I shouldn’t forget Sol Campbell (Arsenal) who came to United in the autumn of his career carrying too much timber and with a massive opinion of himself. Andreas Andersson now back home rocking his Alice band for AIK as part of the Sweden squad also made the trip to the Far East.

Shay Given of this parish was of course Ireland’s net minder but the Bhoys in Green’s big story was Roy Keane’s headloss and deciding he preferred walking (I said WALKING) his dog in Cheshire to Mick McCarthy’s international impression of the Dog & Duck.

The highlight of the 2002 World Cup would be England’s 1-0 win (from a Beckham penalty) over Argentina at the Group stage giving Eriksson’s team a boost in qualifying after mediocre draws with Sweden and Nigeria. A more than handy 3-0 win over Denmark set up a quarter final game with Brazil which they lost. Brazil were the better side but England had given it a go. A match I watched alone at home thinking about sipping my old man’s beer for the same fixture back in 1970. A diiferent living room and a different time.

Despite the Man U captain preferring to fume at home near Manchester, the Irish didn’t do too badly. In the Group stages they drew 1-1 with Cameroon, swiped Saudi Arabia 3 zip, lost 1-0 to Germany but reached the last 16. There they gave a more than decent account of themselves in the game with Spain, a 1-1 draw before losing on penalties. My mind drifted back to 1982, The Turk’s Hotel Bar and Pop diving across the pool table as Gerry Armstrong did the business for Norn Iron against the Spaniards.

Again, I watched the final on my own … Brazil winning the final comfortably as they had back in 1970 and I’d sat next to my Dad as they beat Italy … this time Germany and led happily, by the best player in the world, Ronaldo.

At full time, I smiled and opened a can of beer.

Cheers.

Michael Martin, @Mick1892.bsky.social

Last Weekend

THE WEEKENDER - 7