I’m back. I’ve had nothing much to say. Spring is overpowering. Too beautiful almost for words. I have 3 new shows to add to the 6 that are already on show at Ambleside (plus the permanent collection) COME AND SEE THEM…
NEW Football exhibition April 4–29 : “Trinidad (& Tobago)”
T&T were the smallest country ever to qualify for football’s World Cup Finals – Clarke visited them on the very eve of their World Cup adventure in Germany in 2006 and watched with interest their progress through the Finals.
NEW Photography exhibition April 4–29 : “The Road Home, Ambleside to Armathwaite”
A take from the Cumbria Surrounded epic. Finally Clarke has a car after much hitching. This is his almost daily journey home, to Blaze Fell, his very own fell, through a veritable dreamscape of challenges to the eye and car.
NEW The World exhibition April 4–29 :
“G-r-e-t-n-a (Living The Dream / Auld Land Syne)”
The football club is leading the marriage-town a merry dance towards the premiership. A town known for as many as 20 weddings a day, particularly on a Saturday …when also will arrive the Celtic and Rangers hoardes. Gretna has possibly little else to shout about, straddling the border between England & Scotland. Dumfries, with its own ‘famous’ football team Queen of The South, will not be best pleased at all the attention afforded the prancing princess from up the road.
ALSO SHOWING IN APRIL : “German World Cup Summer recalled” plus shows held over : “Ava my Daughter”, “St.Maria’s Walk, Burning Ground”, “FA Cup”, “Cumbria Surrounded”, “Music Festival”.
This evening I am off to Workington to see the most incredible game of football “Uppies & Downies”. You could join in, if you dared.
It was the day to get promoted, for the third time in a row, and drive a wedge between first and second, and create another big points gap whereby Gretna could claim again that there could be no doubting them as Champions.
When I strolled up the far end to see the Saints of St.Johnstone of conservative Perth warming up, blasting balls at the goal and into the crowd, knocking people over without apology nor smile, I concluded that ‘They are up for this’.
There had already been the Bobby Robson teamtalk. It will go down in history. Being a friend of Mick Wadsworth, and in love with the game and its fairy-tale, and no fairy-tale comes bigger than Gretna, Bobby accepted an invitation to be picked up from Durham and transported to Gretna, where he would sit behind near the goal in the spring sunshine in a red chair, like a mini throne.
Before that : his speech. The lads did not know he was coming. At 2pm an hour to go, he addressed them, taking time to find his words, they on the edges of their benches. He spoke of each player considering whether he could be better on the day only than his counterpart. ‘If so, in at least 7 cases’ Bobby concluded ‘THEN YOU WILL SURELY WIN’.
He then asked each player about himself, where he was from. The light through the window creating of him a godly presence with his snowy hair and benign smile. And, his vulnerability. Like Brooks Mileson, he had defied the odds to be here at all.
Not for the speech, but for the application of St.Johnstone, those merciless shots into the crowd in warm up, coupled with some home nerves, St.Johnstone’s own Saints steamrollered over Gretna. And the Championship race grew close, again.
The train chugged out of Armathwaite where me alone got on. Through breathtaking countryside along the Eden Valley, towards Leeds. Leeds fans – be they farmers boys and even from Carlisle – eventually surrounding me, talking about their game ahead and porn.
I was going further, to Scunthorpe, where they could be promoted for the first time ever to the 2nd flight of English football. Fabulous names had grown up in this steel and smelting town which no one from outside claims to like, but all had become famous when elsewhere.
The High Street was quiet. Eventually a throng descended down the hill on the industrial estate-styled ‘football ground’ (the former home now a supermarket like so many others).
What a boiling hot day. Like the blast from a furnace. And yet this was only April.
Scunthorpe created a vision of happiness, if only on this dragonfly day.
Then I continued my journey by train to see my fabulous daughter Ava, who would be coming to live with me from tomorrow, for ever.
It’s quite wonderful watching man’s attempts to put things right on his planet. We are probably too close to be able to watch and appreciate our efforts. Three steps forward which I have picked up on are 1. the eco-warriors case that we should stop breeding (actually this isn’t entirely good news); 2. The European Union finally being able to make it law that holocaust denial will be a criminal and jailable offence ; 3. Britain being 50 less times less likely to host a civilian gun-killing than the U.S.A.
Since the 3 are not necessarily all positive footprints, a 4th is : Duchovny and Anderson are within touching distance of reigniting their X-Files tv series/film, preferring to ‘remember the things they loved about each other rather than the things they hated’.
Ava’s week was nearly over. She and her mother would not be staying for ever, afterall.
I was a guest at my other love Carlisle United. I sneaked out of the match before the end to rush up to Gretna to see if, in scoring one single minutest fluff even will do GOAL, they could be promoted after the disappointment of the St.Johnstone game (who were now right up their arse).
I arrived to hear squeals, and the final whistle and a sigh, and an unhappy throng all leaving RayDale Park. They nodded their heads. They told me they would now not do it.
Next week, some of them would go through the torture of the trip to Dingwall, their last chance.
I’m off to the PFA awards down in London tonight, for players from all our divisions. I wonder whether any player (Steven Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes or Didier Drogba) can stop Cristiano Ronaldo from running, jigging and jinking away with the top award for the year.
No. Meanwhile I tripped David Nugent returning to his table as I stretched my weary limbs.
What an honour to be here. But the film they showed did not do justice to the talents and speed of the players at the end of another ‘best season ever in football history.
