What a weekend of Cup excitement – the FA Cup massaged the soul of a nation. It did what the World Cup does : catch the eye of the innocent bystander, sensing something special is afoot. For now it was all Barnsley and Cardiff and “Goodnight Irene” sung at valiant Bristol Rovers. Plus Portsmouth beating the mighty Man United.
In Cumbria, there is a another Cup, not sanctioned by The FA, but nevertheless running since 1922. It involves teams of farmers boys over in eastern Westmorland : the Waitby Cup. Today I got to hold the Cup, lifting it out of the window of The Black Bull in Nateby where it is on display. Nateby are the holders. Few records – nothing on the web – lists the winners down through the years so I get out my pencil and read them off the plaques surrounding the trophy’s base. 2007 is missing : easy, that’s Nateby. 1939–1945 are missing : the World War. 2001 is missing – it was never played for, because of Foot & Mouth. Livelihoods if not lives themselves were lost at this juncture.
The Waitby Cup came into being so that farmhands who could not sign up for a weekend team – such is the demands of their job – could at least have a go during a mad few weeks of May and June, a kind of reward for the harvesting of crop and animal. The teams revolved around village communities and HAD to have the team’s core locals or lads working locally (many attempts since have been to swell a team and its prospects enlisting ‘proper’ players). What is more they played on make-shift pitches loaned them by a farm, rutted and being Cumbria, likely muddied. They kicked lumps out of each other. Not necessarily on purpose but because as footballers go they weren’t practised. And they were egged on by quite a crowd. Legend has it now of tremendous brawls involving all. Carried on to the very doors of the post-match pub. Nowadays the games are likely all played on the one pitch at Kirkby Stephen, the town acting as magnet for the game – Waitby has long since surrendered its famous field, its pub, and most of its farmhands. Some teams live on as amalgams of villages. Looking at the list of winners Warcop are probably top of the all-time winners, with Ravenstonedale on their heels. Other holders include Crosby Garrett (a force in the early years), Hartley, Winton, Kaber + Winton, Soulby, Asby (though not since 1950 as well as in that very first year Mr.Chairman!!), Newbiggin, Musgrave, Brough Sowerby, Church Brough, Smardale, Ormside… forgotten anyone?
Across from the Black Bull I met one of the holders, a player, one of 3 brothers Alderson, who own the Nateby garage. In fact the only one left. The others have flown the nest, potentially weakening the chances of turning out a winning team.
The big Cup Draw is in April, matches in May with the Final in June.
So, finally we have proof of a near human-like life on Mars. That picture on the tv weeks back.
Coming the other way, we are being invaded by… THE LIKEABALLS : friendly and of good character aliens.
The Likeaballs are willing to take on any team in the universe – teams that are Blobs of primeval matter, Zombie-robots, creatures made of Granite, a team of Weedy Geeks. Even Blades.
Yes, they have their enemies. There is the shadowy group of Earthlings called T.H.R.A.A.P.F. (The Humourless Race Against Aliens Playing Football), which are against…er…aliens playing football.
This animated cartoon series is broadcast by CBBC. The Likeaballs team are taking part in Sport Relief during March 2008.
£300,000,000 (million) pounds was spent by the nation on betting on the Cheltenham Horse Race Meeting. Much much much more than was raised by Sport Relief in the same week – both receiving extensive coverage on terrestial television.
Surely most of the betting punters knew they were going to lose in putting their money on a horse-race.
Thierry Henry, that champion racehorse of a player, was recently commenting on his lack of form at Barcelona thus : “As you all know I’ve got some personal problems and my daughter is the most important thing in my life. I’m not happy because a father that only sees his daughter five times in the last eight months cannot be. If you know what it is to have a daughter, then you can imagine what it is like. “
Henry had split up from his wife – they have a daughter Tea.
Henry’s former Arsenal temmatePires had been quoted in the Spanish press as saying that Henry left the Nou Camp recently without talking to him, seemingly disappointed at having been substituted.
Henry said he rushed from the stadium to see his daughter.
A football commentator friend of mine, whose family and in particular the children don’t share his enthusiasm for the game, has been charged by his young daughter to insert a few words of her choosing into his live Premiership-match commentary. So “Nincompoop, minted and bravo” were all to be used separately or he would face a dressing-down on return home.
Meanwhile the summariser, an ex-footballer, not quite so equipped with vocabluary, is having a few sideways looks at his commentator in the thick of the play and the prose.
Meanwhile still, daughter is readying her next arsenal of words.
That man (taller) and woman (shorter) who stand there in the studio, with the grave tone, whilst the chimes of doom are rung, are having a laugh?! Sensationalising all manner of bad news. Particularly the weather. Anyone would have thought it was ‘the end’.
But they are only doing their job. They may be creating the news and the news style and the news agenda, but they really would not get away with it if people really didn’t want it. We do. I guess. It’s our way of wrapping our arms around ourselves and creating a siege mentality (favoured by Manchester United under Ferguson) whereby we retain a sense of ‘nation’. Of England and Britain foremost. Then of ‘the family of man’. If we could find life on any or many of these new planets that keep being discovered, we would truly feel ourselves the global village and feel the Stans and Slavs and others to be truly our relatives and on our team. As it is, geographically we certainly do not.
We have an oversubscription of news-gatherers, seizing on every little thing, policing our shores, pressurising every Premiership football manager and player and referee. Perhaps this is all inevitable and not so bad, even if a little spoiling. One shudders at many of the bigger things going unreported in less ‘important’ (historically rich) countries.
Get ready for the News, any second now.
What will a Europe be like without England? We have this summer’s Euro 2008 football tournament to find out. Indeed none of the ‘home’ countries will be there. I almost wasn’t there – today I got a call from the organisers reversing a ‘final’ decision of a few days ago refusing me accreditation for the tournoi. When originally they refused me, there was for a moment some relief : I could get on with my life in England… but this would also deny the tournament my photographic skills ( I have photographed every major international tournament since 1990). And this would also damage my commission for FourFourTwo – restricting me to roaming the streets and not the stadiums and matches. Restricting me even to just photographing British fans back home half-heartedly watching it from the comfort of their homes and bars. As it is I am going.
I have picked the matches – all without England – and it will resemble that last strange week in Germany 2 years ago when suddenly England were dumped out (beaten on penalties by Portugal) and I was relatively on my own wandering a huge big foreign country – my hoardes of fellow countrymen all packed up and gone. This is also a lesson in what the World will be like without our influence because apart from me photographing, and the BBC dutifully reporting, and some English fans out there because they are match-a-holics, and the thought of what it could have been like with the armies of English, the rest of Europe will play out the great show and command the distinguished (diminished) stage.
I’ll be at :
Switzerland v Czech Republic , Basel 7th June
Austria v Croatia, Vienna 8th June
Romania v France, Zurich 9th June
Spain v Russia, Innsbruck 10th June
Czech Republic v Portugal, Geneva 11th June
Croatia v Germany, Klagenfurt 12th June
Italy v Romania, Zurich 13th June
Sweden v Spain, Innsbruck 14th June
Austria v Germany, Vienna 16th June.
… then my job will have been done, and I will return to England and pitch myself into Cumbria in summertime and various Pop Music Festivals north south east and west. In the big push to finish 2 books due out later in the year.
That “despicable liar” and “phantasist” Heather Mills will not think that she is wrong, despite even the Judge’s observations. She will continue to believe, on the basis that she was hard done by (even before she met Paul McCartney) that she has a right to say the truth as she sees it.
Indeed, there is an argument that women (generally) pursue argument on the basis of emotion and familial relationship (they protect the nest) whilst men tend to think logic and reason and points of penetrative truth, scoring goals and bursting the net, are the right way of going about things.
In the case of Heather Mills, meanwhile and over time, the populist press won’t settle for anything less than her ultimate death (that they can have the final say and write her obituary) and before then the return of daughter Beatrice to the McCartney clan along with the handling of charitable work to someone who is indeed genuinely charitable and does not use the McCartney daughter to emotionally bribe and travel 1st Class.
I asked Nick the commentator to ask Carlos and Kenwyn where in Trinidad they grew up, my having travelled the island thoroughly ahead of the 2006 World Cup (Trinidad were the smallest country ever to get to the Finals).
The premiership stars at Sunderland were forthcoming and offered up placenames. So specific was Carlos that he said in the tiny island hamlet where he grew up I could find his Dad out the back on the plantation and his Mum pottering about on the verandah (or was it the other way around?) and that I would simply HAVE to say hello and accept their hospitality when I am next there.
I did a talk to some of Tebay school in the week, – trying to inspire a future generation of photographer. Or even just one. Farming, now in decline, has been the staple diet in these parts.
I was chatting to the headmaster of a junior school over the way in Blyth, formerly a hotbed (as with the whole of the north-east) for producing footballers. He said that ‘wanting to be a footballer’ was well down the list of what kids were signing up to do. The sea-change had come about in the last few years. Gardening classes, along with cookery, line-dancing, learning French were all above football in ‘the most popular’ league table.
However, today, Newcastle United, with many foreign players, finally won a game under Kevin Keegan. His second coming as manager.
It was when returning from a visit to Thomas Clarkson at his house at the foot of Ullswater Lake that the Wordsworths spotted the famous daffodils dancing in the breeze. Clarkson had come to the Lake District on the back of his egalitarian and Quaker efforts to abolish the slave-trade. A campaign taken up by the more powerful and charismatic William Wilberforce (who also had a house in The Lakes) who saw it more as his religious duty to change the World.
In my mind the daffodils, particularly the dancing type so described, are forever connected with the freedom of slaves.
I have been doing some talks and interviews where I am asked if I am influenced or inspired by anyone, to do what I do (photography). And of course people try compare what you do with someone else as a point of reference and discussion – especially if they can’t show the pictures at any great size. The Independent in 1998 reported my work as being like Matisse, Rothko and Caravaggio – all painters! On the photography front a few students have confused me with Martin Parr. Indeed when I was a student Mr Parr came to my Final Year show and said how much he liked what I did. Invited me to his home in Birkenhead. I was polite but in actual fact I have never liked his work – it is unkind and a bit pratty for my liking. Rather I used to look at pictures (and feel they were my friends) by Donald McCullin – an Englishman, and by August Sander – a German, and by Robert Frank – a Swiss-American, and by W.Eugene Smith and by Elliot Erwitt – both Americans. For years I hated Cindy Sherman’s work then saw it in a show in Stockholm and decided she was fab.
Can one artistic medium be translated into another? Because when growing up I listened and listen still to Bruce Springsteen and Ian Hunter and (Bob Dylann of course) and Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell and saw and see great pictures. I can’t imagine how crass and repetitive music by Martin Parr would be if it was a translation of his photography!
A painter has recently caught my eye. His work is ‘brave’and makes me feel truly alive and inspired and sexy. John Currin. In what will appear like a disease (for some) or an addictive drug (for others) his work is just arriving in England for the first time at the shady Sadie Coles Gallery in London’s Mayfair. I know if I was there and saw it I would walk awkwardly out of there, run and jump home afterwards punching the air and saying YES, YES! Seeing humanity and fantastic things in every-body.
By the way, YOU are the inspiration.
by Stuart Roy Clarke
The Easter games 2008 by Joe Clark (no relation as such)
Good Friday
A quarter past six and the anticipation is tangible, already the crowd of players is about 200strong and the spectators are beginning to assemble in small packs around the long bridge.
A cold night, the hardy, or foolhardy, players in their tee shirts standing out from those more sensibly attired, bravado on show for all to marvel at.
Friendly banter echoes across the beck, player to player and players to crowd, old friends greetings, some only meeting from one year to the next at the Easter games.
I am interviewed by the press and by border television, will it be the end of the games?
In their current form, yes, the development of our ancient playing ground will certainly have an impact but we will carry on the tradition none the less.
Half past six and the game is about to begin, the crowd has swelled to two thousand, with some three hundred players positioned either in the pack or in their favoured positions on the fringes, hoping for that slice of fortune that brings the ball their way.
Its up! Straight into the middle of the pack, ‘in the beck with her’ the shouts arise, ‘push it uppies’ ‘get behind it downies’ the cacophony of sound mingles into a roar as the crowd add their encouragement.
Tussling to and fro on black pad, a mighty push from the uppies sends the pack into the beck where the ball is spilled.
This is what the crowd like to see, players hurl themselves down the grassy bank into the stinking mud.
The ball is thrown onto the cloffocks car park and the pack mass around it to push, pull and shove in their chosen direction.
The downies gain momentum, pushing as one they advance across the car park, spinning off as the uppies try to get in front of the ball, ‘keep it moving, its turning, get behind it downies’
The downies momentum increases, they are effectively ‘bouncing’ the pack along the road, forty to fifty bodies being swept along, some on the fringes being brushed aside or simply trampled over.
We reach the grassed area at the top of church road, it is imperative that the uppies halt the momentum or the downies will walk the ball all the way down.
The uppies enter the pack in force, the plan being to ground the ball, this is achieved by two means, getting to the ball and dropping to the floor with it or simply throwing oneself in front of the advancing pack to trip them up.
The ploy works and the advance is halted.
There is no doubt that once grass is reached the players are happy to take a breather, a small scrum develops around the ball and whispered plans are concocted to smuggle the ball away.
Those who have been in the beck often crawl into the scrum at this stage to warm up.
Others dip in and out of the scrum, some to try for the ball, others to make sure the ball is still there.
A number of dummy runs are made to create diversions while a player can walk away with the ball up his jacket.
This can be a painful experience for the dummy runner, who is usually brought very sharply to the ground.
This tactic eventually works, in the darkness runners break and there are three or four scrums taking place simultaneously.
The confusion helps Paul Clark, who slips the ball up his jacket and calmly walks away, taking the ball up by a very circuitous route to Curwen Hall.
One nil to the uppies!
Easter Tuesday
One nil down and the downies are determined to even the score, having lost the previous three years they do not want to lose again.
The banter before the game now has an edge to it, the greetings curt rather than friendly, some players withdrawing into their thoughts.
The difference becomes more evident upon throw off as the downies display a ferocity in the pack which simply brushes aside those not fully alert to the game.
Very quickly the downies get the ball onto the disused dog track, their aim to get to the river.
They know that despite the uppies resurgence in recent years there are many uppies who will not enter the river.
A stalemate ensues, the ball grounded and very little obvious movement to the observer, though within the pack the plotting and wrestling remains intense.
Its free! The crowd scatters in alarm, the ball somehow retrieved from the mass of bodies and hurled toward the river, only to be picked up and thrown back toward whence it came.
For over an hour this pattern is repeated, the downies slowly inching their way toward the Derwent.
Seeing this pattern of play I make my way over Navvies bridge to the Northside side of the river in order to ambush any downies that may come across with the ball.
Two other uppies have had the same idea and follow me round.
We sit and watch for half an hour, then, in the darkness I see four people coming across the river but no chasing pack.
It is obvious the downies have managed to smuggle the ball out.
We wait at the top of the riverbank, unseen by the downies, and as they emerge we jump them, catching them by surprise and causing the ball to spill.
It gets really frantic then as we wrestle with the downies and try to make our way parrellel to the river toward Hall Park.
I take a punch on the side of the head, I have no idea who from as arms and legs are everywhere.
We end up in a scrum and eventually other players arrive from both sides, some having run up to Hall Park in the belief the ball had been smuggled up.
The scrum on the northside road had to be seen to be believed, it was immense, displaying a ferocity that was undimmed despite two hours of play having elapsed.
As a veteran, I had seen nothing like this in over thirty years of play, the ball being so close to the northdside, downie, stronghold and yet the downies unable to make headway for something like forty five minutes.
Again, somehow out of this throng, an arm appeared and hurled the ball back toward the river, chased by the pack as the crowd scurried out of the way.
Into the river, the tide is out so the water is low, a good sized scrum around the ball, both uppies and downies, which is gratifying to see.
‘Get round it uppies’ someone shouts as the tussle moves toward the middle of the river, a bit deeper here, almost up to the waist.
Inexorably, the river takes the pack downward toward deeper water.
I have been in this position many times over the years, I can only recall two occasions when we uppies managed to retreive a ball from this far down the river.
There is nowhere to go, if you get to the bank with the ball the downies either fight to retrieve it or simply push you back in the water, knowing you will not hail the ball down and eventually let it go.
The ploy works, one by one uppies start to emerge from the water until there are only downies around the ball.
Dean Askew has the ball and with his friends walks it the remainder of the way to the hailing point.
One all!
Easter Saturday
All to play for and the atmosphere is electric.
Once again the media are out in force, ‘the last game? Never! We will carry on the tradition no matter what is put in our way.
The ball is thrown off and it is quickly apparent that the downies have learned from Tuesday, they keep the ball away from the beck and quickly get it onto the old dog track.
The river beckons and we uppies have a mighty struggle to slow the progress of the ball.
We ground the ball, then rise to push back toward black pad, grounding again as the downies threaten to make a recovery.
This goes on for an hour and as the darkness deepens I suspect a repeat of Tuesday so I make my way to the other side of the river.
I am alone this time and wait in anticipation, hoping a lone downie comes across and that I could catch him unawares and steal the ball.
Half an hour passes with no sign of movement so I make my way back through the crowd to the scrum.
I need to check the ball is indeed still there and perhaps try to smuggle it out myself.
I flatten myself to the ground and crawl beneath the tangle of bodies, the heat is unbelievable and there seems to be almost no air.
Someone farts in my face, a hand caresses my nether regions, a voice says come on lads the pubs are going to be shut, another says if you’re going to be like this I will take my ball home.
It’s another world in the scrum, funny comments, whispered plots, wandering hands, a threat here and there.
Breaths are heavy and pungent, bodies wet with sweat and beck water, the smell of dog shit.
In the darkness my finger touches leather, the ball!
I push further in, stretching both arms, my body aching with the exertion.
Finally, I have both hands around the ball as others weary fingers loosen their grip.
I jerk hard a couple of times to pull the ball closer to me and hunch my body over it to shield it from prying fingers.
A whisper in my ear, is that you dad.
It’s my son Paul, I whisper in return, pull it to the left so I can get a better grip.
Lying still for a few moments I hear muffled shouts of ‘its gone and she’s away’.
I pull the ball up under my jacket and begin to edge my way backward from the scrum.
Damn, I feel a hand reaching from behind, patting at my chest and stomach, someone knows I have it.
Suddenly the pack collapses on me and my body is crushed onto the ball, a rib breaking instantly.
I shift weight, twisting off the area of pain, but the pressure is too much and I am crushed again, another rib breaks and I know I am in serious danger of more going.
I shout pull me out but the pressure is becoming worse as players fooled by the ploy hurl themselves back into the pack.
Back off, back off I am shouting as hands tear at my jacket for the ball.
Let the ball go someone shouts, while friendlier hands seek purchase under my armpits to pull me free.
I have no choice, I pull down the zip of my jacket and release the ball as I am hauled bodily out.
As I lay in agony on the fringe of the pack a number of downies frisk me in case I am pulling a flanker, I laugh despite the pain, they must think me a good actor to really think I still had the ball.
My game over, I move away from the pack to watch what happens next.
Dummy runners start to break, some heading toward the river, others toward the beck, players chasing after them in packs.
Those in the scrum rise in confusion, has it really gone?
People frisking one another, a shout of its here but it is a false alarm.
In the dark and confusion one lucky person has walked away unnoticed with the ball, I hope its an uppie.
Shouts along black pad, its gone up!
Turns out a sixteen year old lad had got the ball but panicked and gave it to Tony Berwick, who walked off and then ran up to Hall Park.
2–1 to the uppies, bragging rights for another year.
joe.a.clark@ukaea-sellafieldsites.com
nota bene : This was possibly the last year in its 1,000 year-old form.
