we all cried, all of us; three generations of self-styled tough guys, each his own version of the great northern hard-man, reduced to tears by the dubious decision of a referee from stoke. me, my dad and granda, just standing there in the pouring rain, our chests a synchronised heave of unbridled emotion. the spartans […]

knees blooded & black with clarts: moist troops in the reek of liniment & smoke: the gaffa is steaming, hoofing the kit-bag, eyes shooting daggers at les, the keeper. four whole minutes of dry-mouth silence, then tommy explodes: absolute shite! every last one of you is playing like a turd! & you les! you’re playing […]

I am too sensitive to be a centre-back! each attack stops my heart like an awkward question, each panicked call of ‘clear it!’ like an oncoming car; & it’s hardly surprising that the last man in defence always looks much older than he actually is. but the manager is deaf to my cris de coeur, […]

is what john motson would have called it: a ‘fracas’, a ‘rut’, perhaps making reference to ‘handbags at ten paces’; their ugly number seven, with his paul nicholas hairdo & the birdshit highlights, & me, the great pacifist, with a momentary lapse; our respective frowns knitted like gear cogs, our mouths forming statements our mothers […]

blyth spartans 4, boston 3; & according to my dad, the greatest football moment to occur this side of war. i tell this tale often. tonight it’s to a fat bloke who is sat at the bar: he has just ‘found’ the game like others find god; preferring plato to platini in his previous incarnation: […]