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The north-east, football, boom & bust
by Michael Walker
DeCoubertin Books, £16.99
Reviewed by Paul Brown
From WSC 334 December 2014

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In 1960 the BBC journalist Arthur Appleton wrote a still-admired portrait of north-east football called Hotbed of Soccer. The title was apt, the book being published between Jackie Milburn’s Newcastle winning the FA Cup three times in the 1950s, and Bobby and Jack Charlton’s England winning the World Cup in 1966. The north-east had long been regarded as football’s great nursery, producing a succession of fine players and 
influential managers.

Yet Appleton recognised that the area’s influence on British football was waning. Its clubs were in decline and its players were leaving the region. As cases in point, Newcastle have not won a domestic trophy since the 1950s, and neither Charlton brother played for a north-east team. Even from his 1960 vantage point, Appleton was inclined to look back. “When the present has been temporarily exhausted, there is the rich past to be peeped into,” he wrote.

Fifty-four years later, Michael Walker explores that rich past, and the unavoidably depressed present, in Up There, an excellent and long-overdue social history of north-east football. From the game’s earliest years, Walker shows how the industrial north-east established itself as a football powerhouse. Cash-rich Sunderland won the Football League four times by 1902 and innovative Newcastle won the League three times, and the FA Cup, by 1910. There was a seemingly infinite stream of great players, from Colin Veitch, Raich Carter and Wilf Mannion to Stan Mortensen, George Camsell and Stan Anderson (who, uniquely, captained Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough).

Some became great managers. Brian Clough and Don Revie both grew up in terraced houses in Middlesbrough. Bob Paisley and Bobby Robson, like many of the region’s most prominent football characters, came from mining communities. As Walker discovers via a series of insightful interviews, mining and other industries were central to the success of north-east football, providing structure and stability for community teams and local players. When north-east industry took hits, so did north-east football, particularly after the wars, and then, fatally, during the brutal 1980s.

The 1990 World Cup represented something of a last hurrah. England’s starting XI included four north-east players in captain Bryan Robson, Paul Gascoigne, Peter Beardsley and Chris Waddle, plus manager Bobby Robson. By the 2014 World Cup, England’s sole north-east-born starter was Jordan Henderson. Henderson is one of the few remaining north-east players in the Premier League, with Steve Bruce the only north-east manager.

The decline of north-east football at all levels is well illustrated when Walker presents Durham FA secretary John Topping with a 1983-84 yearbook, and asks what has happened to its list of 16 youth leagues. “Gone. Gone. Gone…” replies Topping. Only two of the 16, he explains, are still around.

Walker does manage to find some causes for optimism. The pioneering Northern League is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, Gateshead are pushing for a return to the Football League and Middlesbrough are challenging for promotion to the Premier League. At junior level, Northumberland’s Pinpoint League is thriving, catering for 12,500 young players. “It’s a mini-revival,” the Pinpoint League’s Ian Coates tells Walker. “In five years’ time I think what you’ll see are more local boys and better local boys playing for the big 
north-east clubs.”

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A long-suffering supporter’s search for the soul of Scottish football
by Iain Hyslop
Luath Press, £9.99
Reviewed by Archie MacGregor
From WSC 308 October 2012

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The tumultuous events of the last few months in Scottish football have made any effort to offer a narrative on the longer term implications a hazardous affair, even for those providing the most up to the minute commentaries on the unfolding litany of farce, ultimatums and actual drama. Pity then Iain Hyslop, who set out the season before last to research and write this overview on the state of the Scottish game. Though he has tried manfully to keep his manuscript as up to date possible by adding brief references here and there on the Ibrox crisis, the sheer pace and scale of what has taken place leave his efforts looking hopelessly Canute-like.

Hyslop is actually a Rangers fan himself and the downfall of his club fowled by the emergence of “Newco” has served up several unforeseen ironies, not least the fact that here is a Rangers follower undertaking a safari tour of the grounds of all 42 senior clubs in Scotland. Like most of us he probably never imagined that his team would soon be following in his footsteps, paying visits to Annan, Berwick and Montrose.

Hyslop makes the case for some radical changes to the structure of the Scottish game, including that hardy annual suggestion – League reconstruction. In a desperately cynical throw of the dice, the chief executives of the SPL and SFA, Neil Doncaster and Stewart Regan, belatedly embraced all manner of changes to the league structure but only as a means of facilitating a soft landing for Rangers into Division One. The days of smoke-filled rooms having long since gone, everyone saw through that one.

Unfortunately it is not just the aftermath of the Rangers saga that leaves a sense of things not quite hitting the mark with this book. The format of visiting all the League grounds in Scotland has been just about done to death in recent years and observations about run-down facilities and sub-standard catering are hardly revelatory. There is little colour or insight afforded on the individual clubs, so the reader might as well head for the last 20 pages and consider Hyslop’s suggested prescription for getting Scottish football off its knees.

Even here there is a sense of frustration. Few would disagree with clubs developing stronger ties with their local communities, greater supporter involvement or reduced admission prices. Rather than taking up space describing the texture of meat pies and cost of Bovril around the country, however, it would have been far more informative to have spent time examining why these worthy initiatives have worked at some clubs, but not in all instances. If summer football is indeed the way ahead why not take stock of the impact it has had on the League of Ireland? If earlier kick-offs really are more supporter-friendly as the author suggests, surely put it to the test by canvassing some opinions? The baw may not be burst, but the reader is certainly left more than a tad deflated.

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Tom Davies explores the boardroom politics causing trouble at Wrexham, Port Vale and Rushden & Diamonds

Few clubs can have attracted such a remarkable string of inappropriate suitors as Wrexham in recent months. To a backdrop of winding-up orders and threats of disqualification from the Conference play-offs, an extraordinary soap opera has been playing out in the battle for ownership of the club, which now has a fighting chance of a happy ending as supporters stand poised to take control.

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Grasshoppers Zürich have been forced to share the home of their city rivals, which isn’t fit for purpose. Paul Knott fears the worst

One of the great names, literally, of European football is at risk of disappearing. The record 27 times champions of Switzerland, Grasshopper Club Zürich (GCZ), are in debt, struggling on the field and without a home of their own.

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Cameron Carter investigates the vast spectrum of football collectables, with some unusual finds

It used to be a lot simpler. Collecting football memorabilia meant saving your match programme and tremblingly accepting the football card from father’s cigarette packet. Now there appear to be hundreds of different categories of collectables to choose from. And, like television channels, the greater choice means only that there are a lot of choices that should never have existed.

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