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| I can't think of many sides that aren't Blackpool that I liked more than this one |
I've always had a little bit of a soft spot for Sunderland. They're not as annoyingly self aggrandizing as Newcastle nor as flashy as peak Steve Gibson era Middlesbrough. I really liked their last decent team for a number of reasons. Peter Reid is one of my favourite footballers/humans who isn't a Blackpool player and there was something of a dreamy throwback quality to the way they played, big man/little man (who was, of course, Kevin Phillips) some of the players plucked from nowhere in particular. This was right at the time that English football was metamorphosing into 'the best league in the world ever, ever, ever, ever' and it was reassuring to see them right up there, mixing it with the continentally inspired elite, one of the final pre-Pep/Jose/general tactical wankery, throws of a perhaps unfairly maligned English style that might have been getting outdated, but was fantastic to watch and that took English football to a position of dominance in Europe, even if it never really worked for the national team.
Anyway, this 'preview' isn't really a preview. It's more of an abstract collection of thoughts loosely inspired by the idea of 'Sunderland' as a concept. It's not really about Sunderland to be honest. I don't know it well enough. You've had fair warning. If you want analysis of McGeady vs Kaikai or Wyke vs Yates look elsewhere. I'm not your man. Take a deep breath. This is a shite blog extravaganza.
I'd argue quite strongly we should have a second capital. A capital that is more typical of the rest of the country. London (spelled S.H.I.T.H.O.L.E) is atypical of the UK culturally, economically and they eat jellied eels for fucks sake. How can a government based there, feel the experience of the rest of the country? London is, almost literally, another world. You only have to step off the train (after passing through Broken Dreams Parkway) and you can feel it. There's wealth that you never encounter in a typical UK town, there's a sense of investment, a bewildering plethora of languages, transport network that underpins a sense of opportunity and a general feeling of importance, presence and aspiration that isn't in line with how say, the street outside the bus station in Blackburn, Wigan, Darlington, Bromsgrove or wherever makes you feel. Put it this way. I feel more at home in Glasgow than I do in London. There's a shit pub within about 150 yards of you wherever you are and it's not hard to find a poundland. That's not what London is like. Ok, some of it is, but A LOT OF IT really isn't.
If we had a second capital, politicians, civil servants, all the mandarins, spin doctors and lobbyists, would be forced to spend 6 months in somewhere else. Somewhere that has been 'left behind' (to use their horrendous phrasing.) I've only been to Sunderland a couple of times, I would never claim any expertise on it, but I'd say it's got a shout of being the ideal place. It's a real place, it's got a real history, it's got a pride, a presence and a beauty to it, but there's no sense in which anyone outside of Sunderland really gives a fuck about it at all. It could definitely be something if someone cared. Last time we went there, I proposed it as the Monte Carlo of the UK. I'm not saying I should be the regional recovery tzar for the North of England but them beaches are a bit special, the bridge is decent and there's plenty of grand buildings to work with. If all the 'regional regeneration' task forces had to actually do their work in the drafty back rooms of public libraries (also known as where smackheads go to get warm) in un-regenerated regions whilst staying in half empty travel lodges and 'traditional' B+Bs, I think we'd see redistribution of the countries wealth gather pace quite quickly.
If you want to understand why we have political turmoil in this country (and possibly the world as a whole), you simply need to know that all over the place are big towns and cities where once there were lots of jobs and now there aren't and that London isn't really like that as a whole. The industry of London (and a few other cities) was replaced by gherkins, skyscrapers and gated apartment complexes. The industry of the rest of the uk is replaced by a big Home Bargains and some half hearted WainHomes development called 'Spinner's Place' which in turn gets bought up by people who live in the London Docklands and then rented out to people hundreds of miles away cos that's how shit works. Whilst the nation rages at each other over people kneeling down for five seconds or the finer points of trade deals no one really understands, what really lies at the heart of the malcontent is the fact the deindustrialisation of the UK has left 100s and 100s of towns 'a bit pointless' and that politicians of all colours haven't really come up with anything to challenge that because the interests of the city come first.
I'm not looking at this from the outside. I've lived a fairly peripatetic life. I moved house 15 times before I was 25 and I would say a tour of Leigh, Wigan, Huddersfield, Milnsbridge, Adlington, Chorley and Fleetwood (with notable periods at sunny Layton and the suburb of all suburbs Anchorsholme) before finally settling in the relative glamour of Lancaster (very near a derelict lino works) would qualify me to say I've lived mostly in the less 'thrusting' (in economic terms) parts of the UK. Put it this way. I don't know many bankers. I don't know many people with aspiration to be bankers. I'm happy with that. The sun rising behind a red brick terrace, with Chat Moss in the background. What more could you want in life? I'm just not sure our country is run in such a way that really understands every day experience.
What has this to do with football? Nothing really, except for in towns and cities across the country, the types of places that sneering cunts like to term 'crap towns' and Guardian journalists visit once in a blue moon and do a hand wringing piece where they interview 3 people near the train station and extrapolate the identity of the place from them, the football teams really matter. What else is there? A mixture of hopeful 'enterprise zones,' under funded public services and flatpack warehouses. A sense of ever increasing anonymity and ever dwindling connection to the past or place. A statue, a pit wheel embedded somewhere, a plaque on the wall or a mill conversion, the only denominator now between here and the next place down the road. A legacy of hundreds of years of toil, marked only by a slightly off green field that is pockmarked with half bricks and scarred by tracks where scrambling bikes whine. A tight street of terraced houses called 'Colliery Row.'
This isn't nostalgia. Thank fuck the pits have closed. Thank fuck I didn't have to even think about going down them because the past was a brutal place. But what happens when memories are wiped? What happens when something is replaced by nothing. We're left, not really knowing what we are or why we're here. I don't have clue. This is England.
This is where the football club comes in. We can wave a union flag, but really what does it mean when everywhere feels like where we are right now could be anywhere?, Wither the folk song, the dance, the working mens club, the colliery band, the scrubbing of the front step, the union man, the belching smoke of the factory chimney. Wither glass from St Helens, Staffordshire pottery, coals from Newcastle, King Cotton and so much more. In many ways, good riddance to all of that. But long life Saturday afternoon. Long live the town, coming together, under one roof, long live the hope that springs eternal, no matter how much the thick soled boot of defeat stamps it down. Long live the club colours, long live the connection that our team gives us with other, in a world that is becoming increasingly atomised, increasingly one of bubbles, of isolation, of staring into a phone screen to avoid conversation. Long live our voices entwining with each other. Long live that 90 minutes of togetherness.
Our clubs make nowhere somewhere. Our clubs gave us something to hold on to as our world became the product of shifting global trade patterns. Our clubs are a ritual place, a sacred space. Somewhere that connects us to who we were and who we are. Blackpool is forever time spent with my dad, even though I haven't been to a game with him for years. It's forever Mortenson meeting a Matthews cross, though I never saw them play. Sunderland is the clown prince, that Jim Montgomery save. It's forever the Roker Roar though it hasn't been heard for nearly 30 years. This isn't a preview in any sense of the word. I just always regard Sunderland as somewhere that knows the score. It's as far from fake as you can get and places like that deserve more respect.
Saturday afternoon is an anchor, an island in the storm. It's not an opportunity to be seen, a chance to dine and wine your clientele or a lifestyle experience. It's proper, it's real, for better or worse and in a way that can't be quantified on any spreadsheet or balance paper. I think Simon Sadler understands that. I hope the 12 year old who has taken over Sunderland does too. On any other Saturday, I generally hope for the best for them. Today, of course, I hope we muller them and they crawl back to the east coast, the tail between the legs of the black cat.
I wish we were there.
utmp
Bonus feature - Blackpool vs Sunderland as represented by solid gold records that should have got to number one but barely anyone bought.
I'd argue quite strongly we should have a second capital. A capital that is more typical of the rest of the country. London (spelled S.H.I.T.H.O.L.E) is atypical of the UK culturally, economically and they eat jellied eels for fucks sake. How can a government based there, feel the experience of the rest of the country? London is, almost literally, another world. You only have to step off the train (after passing through Broken Dreams Parkway) and you can feel it. There's wealth that you never encounter in a typical UK town, there's a sense of investment, a bewildering plethora of languages, transport network that underpins a sense of opportunity and a general feeling of importance, presence and aspiration that isn't in line with how say, the street outside the bus station in Blackburn, Wigan, Darlington, Bromsgrove or wherever makes you feel. Put it this way. I feel more at home in Glasgow than I do in London. There's a shit pub within about 150 yards of you wherever you are and it's not hard to find a poundland. That's not what London is like. Ok, some of it is, but A LOT OF IT really isn't.
If we had a second capital, politicians, civil servants, all the mandarins, spin doctors and lobbyists, would be forced to spend 6 months in somewhere else. Somewhere that has been 'left behind' (to use their horrendous phrasing.) I've only been to Sunderland a couple of times, I would never claim any expertise on it, but I'd say it's got a shout of being the ideal place. It's a real place, it's got a real history, it's got a pride, a presence and a beauty to it, but there's no sense in which anyone outside of Sunderland really gives a fuck about it at all. It could definitely be something if someone cared. Last time we went there, I proposed it as the Monte Carlo of the UK. I'm not saying I should be the regional recovery tzar for the North of England but them beaches are a bit special, the bridge is decent and there's plenty of grand buildings to work with. If all the 'regional regeneration' task forces had to actually do their work in the drafty back rooms of public libraries (also known as where smackheads go to get warm) in un-regenerated regions whilst staying in half empty travel lodges and 'traditional' B+Bs, I think we'd see redistribution of the countries wealth gather pace quite quickly.
If you want to understand why we have political turmoil in this country (and possibly the world as a whole), you simply need to know that all over the place are big towns and cities where once there were lots of jobs and now there aren't and that London isn't really like that as a whole. The industry of London (and a few other cities) was replaced by gherkins, skyscrapers and gated apartment complexes. The industry of the rest of the uk is replaced by a big Home Bargains and some half hearted WainHomes development called 'Spinner's Place' which in turn gets bought up by people who live in the London Docklands and then rented out to people hundreds of miles away cos that's how shit works. Whilst the nation rages at each other over people kneeling down for five seconds or the finer points of trade deals no one really understands, what really lies at the heart of the malcontent is the fact the deindustrialisation of the UK has left 100s and 100s of towns 'a bit pointless' and that politicians of all colours haven't really come up with anything to challenge that because the interests of the city come first.
I'm not looking at this from the outside. I've lived a fairly peripatetic life. I moved house 15 times before I was 25 and I would say a tour of Leigh, Wigan, Huddersfield, Milnsbridge, Adlington, Chorley and Fleetwood (with notable periods at sunny Layton and the suburb of all suburbs Anchorsholme) before finally settling in the relative glamour of Lancaster (very near a derelict lino works) would qualify me to say I've lived mostly in the less 'thrusting' (in economic terms) parts of the UK. Put it this way. I don't know many bankers. I don't know many people with aspiration to be bankers. I'm happy with that. The sun rising behind a red brick terrace, with Chat Moss in the background. What more could you want in life? I'm just not sure our country is run in such a way that really understands every day experience.
What has this to do with football? Nothing really, except for in towns and cities across the country, the types of places that sneering cunts like to term 'crap towns' and Guardian journalists visit once in a blue moon and do a hand wringing piece where they interview 3 people near the train station and extrapolate the identity of the place from them, the football teams really matter. What else is there? A mixture of hopeful 'enterprise zones,' under funded public services and flatpack warehouses. A sense of ever increasing anonymity and ever dwindling connection to the past or place. A statue, a pit wheel embedded somewhere, a plaque on the wall or a mill conversion, the only denominator now between here and the next place down the road. A legacy of hundreds of years of toil, marked only by a slightly off green field that is pockmarked with half bricks and scarred by tracks where scrambling bikes whine. A tight street of terraced houses called 'Colliery Row.'
This isn't nostalgia. Thank fuck the pits have closed. Thank fuck I didn't have to even think about going down them because the past was a brutal place. But what happens when memories are wiped? What happens when something is replaced by nothing. We're left, not really knowing what we are or why we're here. I don't have clue. This is England.
This is where the football club comes in. We can wave a union flag, but really what does it mean when everywhere feels like where we are right now could be anywhere?, Wither the folk song, the dance, the working mens club, the colliery band, the scrubbing of the front step, the union man, the belching smoke of the factory chimney. Wither glass from St Helens, Staffordshire pottery, coals from Newcastle, King Cotton and so much more. In many ways, good riddance to all of that. But long life Saturday afternoon. Long live the town, coming together, under one roof, long live the hope that springs eternal, no matter how much the thick soled boot of defeat stamps it down. Long live the club colours, long live the connection that our team gives us with other, in a world that is becoming increasingly atomised, increasingly one of bubbles, of isolation, of staring into a phone screen to avoid conversation. Long live our voices entwining with each other. Long live that 90 minutes of togetherness.
Our clubs make nowhere somewhere. Our clubs gave us something to hold on to as our world became the product of shifting global trade patterns. Our clubs are a ritual place, a sacred space. Somewhere that connects us to who we were and who we are. Blackpool is forever time spent with my dad, even though I haven't been to a game with him for years. It's forever Mortenson meeting a Matthews cross, though I never saw them play. Sunderland is the clown prince, that Jim Montgomery save. It's forever the Roker Roar though it hasn't been heard for nearly 30 years. This isn't a preview in any sense of the word. I just always regard Sunderland as somewhere that knows the score. It's as far from fake as you can get and places like that deserve more respect.
Saturday afternoon is an anchor, an island in the storm. It's not an opportunity to be seen, a chance to dine and wine your clientele or a lifestyle experience. It's proper, it's real, for better or worse and in a way that can't be quantified on any spreadsheet or balance paper. I think Simon Sadler understands that. I hope the 12 year old who has taken over Sunderland does too. On any other Saturday, I generally hope for the best for them. Today, of course, I hope we muller them and they crawl back to the east coast, the tail between the legs of the black cat.
I wish we were there.
utmp
Bonus feature - Blackpool vs Sunderland as represented by solid gold records that should have got to number one but barely anyone bought.
vs
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