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Tag Archives | Blair

Our Friends In The North: The Rise And Rise Of Newcastle United

April 1, 2012 · Comments ( 6 )

Note: This Dispatch trades in lazy stereotypes. Newcastle fans, read to the end.

On a trip up to Edinburgh on the East Coast Main Line last August, one of the stops en route was Newcastle. As the train approached the city, the Tyne Bridge emerged with industrial majesty from the sunny haze of the train’s window and I inexplicably felt a slight shiver of awe. Almost immediately, as we waited to pull away from the station, we were greeted with the sight of a man in a Newcastle home shirt banging on one of the station platform’s vending machines uttering barely decipherable curses, having lost his money whilst trying to stay steady on his feet.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue: The Resurrections of Thierry Henry & Margaret Thatcher

January 8, 2012 · Comments ( 0 )

No matter how many times they tried, the enemies of Rasputin could not kill him. Like some beheaded zombie who continues to drag its carcass towards you, the mad monk just kept coming back for more. And that’s how I’ve been feeling lately about the return to the popular consciousness of two foes that I thought had been vanquished and banished to the dark recesses of the dog-eared history book or yellowing newspaper clipping in a dusty archive. Yes, Margaret Thatcher and Thierry Henry are akin to Robert Patrick’s T-1000. Seemingly indestructible and hell-bent on rising from the dead.

There’s Something About Mario

November 6, 2011 · Comments ( 1 )

Michael Owen. Jonny Wilkinson. Tim Henman. You still with me? Or have I lulled you into a mind-crunching stupor in the opening few sentences of this week’s Dispatch? Granted, these individuals achieved a certain level of success in their sporting disciplines during their careers but in all honesty, they won’t be lauded or celebrated for their exuberance and iconoclasm when their adventures are recalled in years to come. In many respects they were Blair’s Sportsmen; stylishly packaged by sporting manufacturers but very little substance beyond the obvious.

Justice For The 96

October 23, 2011 · Comments ( 5 )

For the lost.

For the survivors.

For the campaigners.

For the families.

For twenty-two years they’ve waited.

For twenty-two years they’ve been weighted.

By the untruths spread to be dispelled, negated

Home Is Where The Hate Is

August 15, 2011 · Comments ( 8 )

Part two of Dispatches From A Football Sofa’s season opener looks at the connections between football and the geography of the London riots.

The darkest dystopian fictions of Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick came shockingly to life across towns and cities in England last week but instead of the bowler hat, fake eyelashes and white overalls of A Clockwork Orange’s gang of droogs dispensing their nihilistic brand of ultraviolence on a terrorised public, the uniform of choice came in the form of an upturned hood, a pair of designer trainers and a masked, scarved face. This is England, 2011. As Blur put it in their homage to Burgess’ masterpiece, it really, really, really has happened.

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Marriage of Inconvenience

May 15, 2011 · Comments ( 6 )

A year ago, soundtracked by a score of ethereal tranquillity and the desolate scattering of rustling papers in the wind, Nick Clegg went for a walk across this country’s dales and tower blocks. He looked us square in the eye and decried that politics had let us all down. He called it “a trail of broken promises” and he vowed that should we vote for him and his party, fairness would be restored to a society that had been ravaged by the gluttony of the Thatcher years and the self-serving transparency of the Blair era. He believed his words and so did I.

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The Last Shadow Puppets

February 27, 2011 · Comments ( 2 )

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The television screens of the world were dominated this week, by an aging man railing at unseen forces hell-bent on dislodging him from his seat of power. Underneath his umbrella, (somewhat reminiscent of that pathetically iconic snapshot of Steve McClaren watching helplessly as his England regime dissolved in the Wembley deluge), Colonel Muamar Gaddafi ranted and foamed at the mouth blaming the twin evils of Al-Qaeda and drugs for the unrest engulfing Libya. Puffy-eyed and increasingly deluded, like any other shameless egoist, he doggedly failed to claim any responsibility for his own failings and threatened repercussions, promising to ‘cleanse’ the country of its enemies.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

January 23, 2011 · Comments ( 13 )

It was billed as an alternative to Newsnight. With much trumpeting on our airwaves, billboards and computer screens, Channel 4’s new satirical television show, 10 o’clock Live made its debut last Thursday night promising much. Attempting to harness the creative and celebrated talents of presenters, comedians and cultural commentators such as The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker and Peep Show’s David Mitchell what we were infact subjected to was a series of hackneyed one-liners, sneering asides and lazy tub-thumping aimed at utilising the partisan audience’s pre-existing disdain for authority. It all came across as an exercise in smugness by all involved. How sad.

Won’t Get Fooled Again?

December 12, 2010 · Comments ( 5 )

I was labelled ‘cynical’ this week. In my opinion unfairly so. Because as I understand the term, a ‘cynic’ is someone who readily dismisses subjects and topics with an air of negativity and a lack of faith. A cynic is someone who participates in a grown-up discussion about a particular theme but stifles any possible outcome with sneering suspicion. In short, a cynic for me, is the kind of person who plugs up his earholes with his fingers and says ‘no’. If people are so keen to attach labels to others, than the term I would give myself is that of a ‘pessimistic optimist’.

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Walking Alone

September 26, 2010 · Comments ( 1 )

With Liverpool’s humiliating elimination by Northampton Town in this week’s League Cup, coupled with yet another installment in their stuttering start to their League campaign against Sunderland yesterday, perhaps it is time for us to begin a re-assessment of what this famous club’s purpose is in the modern era. The instability of Liverpool’s ownership situation continues to rumble on but Liverpool’s decline as a football club has been long-standing and can more or less be traced back to the abandonment of their much-fabled Boot Room ethic, that appointed managers from within the inner sanctum of the club’s coaching staff, with the hiring of the divisive figure of Graeme Souness in the early 90s. With the renouncing of the ideals which formed the foundation of the club’s imperious domination of the game in the 1970s and 1980s, Liverpool Football Club has lurched from one transitional crisis to the next in the intervening years and despite having achieved such an improbable victory in the Champions League in 2005, a generation of fans has grown up viewing the club’s devouring of League titles as a fast-receding dot in the distance.