When just a few days are left of my days in this city, which has been no less than a home to me, here's what I feel - and will always feel for this place...
The time has come when my six year's attachment with this dusty old town is about to end. Amidst the boring life of packing my bags, clearing my desks and getting ahead with the project work, the only attraction - rather the only tension - is where in the English Premier League will the black and white football team of this black and white city will end the season. I've seen people playing football at other places - I can count atleast four to five teams around London playing in the EPL - but there's something different here. Week in, week out, the ninety minutes run by the eleven black and white players of the team at St. James' Park - the most prominent feature in the city's skyline - is not just another football match to the people of the Tyneside. It may be just a recreation for the Southerners, but beyond the north-south divide, at Tyneside or Wearside or Teesside, football is the means of going head to head with London. Of these, the philosophy of the Tyneside stands out - it's way better to lose after giving the opponent a big scare - than to hide behind the defence and save a match. Football is entertainment - as Keegan said few weeks ago - Southerners go to the West End for a theatre or the Opera - after a hard week, for the working class of of the Tyneside, football and tens of cans of beer provide the entertainment.
A few months ago - the Tyneside were terribly dissapointed after the team manager boasted a good performance when the team drew 0-0 with Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium - for months, they have been dissatisfied with the spineless display of their team. Soon after the first leg, the manager was gone which started the now-familiar soap opera of associating famous names - such as "the Special One" Mourinho, or someone else. At Southampton, a friendly old taxi driver informs me that it's "Arry" Redknapp who's going to be the next manager. It goes on for some days - then - on the evening of the 2nd leg match with Stoke City at St. James' Park, things change. No one was that confident anymore - but it will all change because of a two-line text message from the club - which said "The King is back, more to follow." There's one man whom the whole of Tyneside recognises as the King - and that man is Kevin Keegan. On my way home from the University, I saw a different city - may be the people of Ayoddha celebrated in a similar fashion when Ram returned to his kingdom after 14 years. It didn't take much long for tens of thousands of people to queue up infront of the gate of St. James' Park. When the suddenly rejuvenated Newcastle team were scoring their first of the four goals, the majority of the spectators were still trying to locate the King at the Directors' Box. The Chronicle wrote on the following day - "The Return of The King - Kev Comes Back to Settle Unfinished Business". At a reserve game, I saw thousands of kids - seven-eight years old - jumping with joy after seeing Keegan at the stands. Craze? Madness? But why?
My stay in this city during the past six years taught me why. I know from where this emotion comes. To an outsider, it might appear to be madness, but once you start knowing this place, you know that behind this emotion, there are the dreams of all these people - the dream of being back to the haydays when Newcastle was compared to Peru...
It's not a new town you know - it dates back to the Roman era - the ruins of the Hadrian's Wall, built by the Roman Emperror Hadrian still be seen at the eastern end of the town. After the Romans, the place became a part of the strong Anglo-Saxon kingdom and came to be known as Monkchester. It was destroyed several times due to war and floods - and during the times of Robert Curthose, on the ruins of Monkchester stood up Novum Castellum - Newcastle. The golden era started during the industrial revolution - mainly due to the huge supply of coal around the area - in Durham, Ashington, Northumberland. People started saying "Carrying coals to Newcastle" - that was around 1538AD. Heavy engineering industries, ship building industries ruled the place, and Newcastle competed with the likes of Manchester and Liverpool - but that was a long time ago. Tyne has changed its course a number of times since then - the affluence of the Tyneside has been washed down in the dark and muddy waters of Tyne. The last coalmine shut its doors just a few years ago. Two years ago, the closure of the Swan Hunter, the last shipyard on the Tyne, signalled the death of the ailing ship building industry. The growing North-South Divide made Newcastle look like the asthmatic patient who desparately wants to stand up and be counted like it did years ago - but doesn't have any means to stand up. The Millenium Bridge or the Science City are only recent developments - but the recent past only shows the history of ruins, and the dying industries. There was a time when the Swan Hunter shipyard was full of dust from the boots of no less than 45000 workers - around 1600 ships were built here - some of them now-famous - today when I drive past the yard, the towering cranes resemble a haunted graveyard - the rude awakening to the North-South Divide. And within this haunted house, for the past few decades, the Geordie pride is revolving around the eleven black and whites running at the St. James Park. "The Geordie nation, that's what we're fighting for. London's the enemy! You exploit us, you use us" - the direct effect of the North-South Divide, and the beginning of the well-calculated financial gamble of Sir John Hall. The beginning was astonishing too - with the fans' favourite Kevin Keegan as the Manager. Kevin picked up the ruins of the club when it was down at the wrong end of the 2nd Division and brought them back to the first - and the following years still remains fresh in the minds of the Geordie faithfuls.
"Micheal Martin, the editor of the True Faith fanzine, recalls his own Geordie blood stirring as Keegan's rejuvenated side galloped into the breakaway Premier League. 'John Hall tapped into something latent, the pride and the apartness of the north-east. Newcastle was depressed; industries like mining and shipbuilding had been destroyed. We bought into the idea of the club as the flagship of revival.'" [The Guardian, 8th February, 2006]
The Hall family made a fortune by spreading the Geordie-nation dream - season tickets, replica shirts were selling like hotcakes - the entire Tyneside dreaming about the glorydays dressed themselves up in black and whites - from the cute four year old to the ailing eighty year old - even though the last trophy was back in 1969. Keegan was partly successful in providing some pillars to the dreamworld - the performance of the black and whites during the mid-nineties won't be forgotten even by the staunchest of the Cockneys - and the Tyneside responded by naming Keegan as "The King." The Hall family may have seen the club as the cash-cow, but it remained the flagship of survival within the minds of the thousands of fans. From the Hall family to a PLC, now to a new owner - the time has changed, but the Geordie pride and the pashion haven't diminished a bit. From the parents, the baton has been transferred to their children, and will be transferred to their children - generation after generation...
There is a considerable body of literature on the aspects of football and society - the rivalry between the two Glasgow clubs - Celtic and Rangers is not just a footballing rivalry - rather the roots lie in the battle between the IRA and the Unionists in Northern Ireland - the green and white Celtic shirts and the green Ireland flags at the Ibrox are testaments of this history. Research into football and society says "The psychological satisfaction that people gain from “football” victories, related media coverage, social events, wearing the respective team colours and identifying with the emblems and symbols, which represent hundreds of years of history as well as everyday realities, is immense" - which is the case between Celtic and Rangers, and here at the Tyneside. This is the feeling which correlated the 1911 IFA Shield victory of Mohun Bagan over the (British) East Yorkshire Regiment with the ongoing Indian Freedom Movement against the British - the same feeling turned Newcastle United into the Geordie flagship of revival. It's the same at the Wearside, or at the Teesside. The three cities of the North-East of England have been clinging to their football clubs for the past few decades. They are the children of the North-South Divide.
There's a famous ditty which dates back to 1653 -
"England's a perfect world; has Indies too.
Correct your maps; Newcastle is Peru."
It used to point to the affluence of the entire Northumberland area - comparing the place with the Peru of the Aztecs and the Mayas - at a time when Newcastle and Sunderland were coming out of the darkness of the medieval ages to the lights of civilization, courtesy of the mining and the shipbuilding industries. "The alleged mists of barbarism and backwardness had been swept away by the winds of economic and social change. The growth of the coal industry since 1560 had had a profound impact; a rural world of corn-laden mules and cottage collieries had been transformed into England's first industrial landscape, dominated by coal-filled wagons, pit-heads, and the great wharfs of the Tyne and Wear. Newcastle and Sunderland had grown into major centres surrounded by prospering agricultural hinterlands aided by the recent enclosure of fields. Newcastle was England's third largest city, with a population of 12,000 in 1660, and had been described in 1633 by William Brereton--widely travelled in Britain and the Low Countries--as 'beyond all compare the fairest and richest town in England, inferior for wealth and building to no city save London and Bristol'. North-east England was anything but a backwater, and for some, Newcastle was a place of fine living, wining and dining: a true capital of culture." [Cattle to Claret: Scottish economic influence in North-East England, 1660-1750: Matthew Greenhall]
And in 2008, the North-east of England is an alien territorry to many Southerners - dying industries, foggy skies - it resembles a backward polluted backwater to the affluent Cockneys in the South. Stuart Jeffries wrote in the Guardian - "There is something different, not just about Newcastle and its football club, but about the north-east. Newcastle's like Liverpool - only more so - and nothing in the rest of England quite prepares you for it." The people are used to what the Southerners might think and are proud about their area and the history - the place is different, because they think it is - "pride in immutability and apartness are Geordie sentiments." This inward pride creates a platform of immense solidarity, a deep fellow-feeling, which is not just about the football club - but covers everything that is local - Northern Rock, for example. When Northern Rock collapsed, the local newspaper, The Journal, ran a big appeal - "In the past 10 years 1,520 organisations have received £175m from the Northern Rock Foundation. NOW IT'S YOUR TURN TO HELP" - I can't think of any place in the world where people would think so fondly about a financial institution. It may be even more impossible to believe - for those who are alien to this place - that people really responded to the appeal by opening new accounts when others in London were queueing infront of the counters to get their money back. Crazy, is the other name of Geordie.
And, crazy, is the other name of a Bengalee too - crazy and emotional Bengalee - and that's what I am, and no wonder, I fall for it. Watching and living with the people in thse six years turn me into an almost-Geordie Bengalee - I eat and drink and sleep the football here - in my blog, I keep a link to Newcastle United right beside my childhood favourite Mohun Bagan - I shout while listeing to the match on the radio - when the black and whites lose, the delicious eveing meal seems rotten. On the day of Alan Shearer's testimonial match, when the town dresses up in black and whites, I too put on a Newcastle United's black and white shirt. Sometimes, I walk with my six-year old black and white dressed "Junior Magpie" to watch a game at the stadium...
Only a few more weeks - at the end of which I'll take a huge chunk of my life in the past six years woven within those two black and white shirts - and written within the two Geordie dictionaries - from which I've also learnt to say "How'ay man, ya'aalreet?"
The time has come when my six year's attachment with this dusty old town is about to end. Amidst the boring life of packing my bags, clearing my desks and getting ahead with the project work, the only attraction - rather the only tension - is where in the English Premier League will the black and white football team of this black and white city will end the season. I've seen people playing football at other places - I can count atleast four to five teams around London playing in the EPL - but there's something different here. Week in, week out, the ninety minutes run by the eleven black and white players of the team at St. James' Park - the most prominent feature in the city's skyline - is not just another football match to the people of the Tyneside. It may be just a recreation for the Southerners, but beyond the north-south divide, at Tyneside or Wearside or Teesside, football is the means of going head to head with London. Of these, the philosophy of the Tyneside stands out - it's way better to lose after giving the opponent a big scare - than to hide behind the defence and save a match. Football is entertainment - as Keegan said few weeks ago - Southerners go to the West End for a theatre or the Opera - after a hard week, for the working class of of the Tyneside, football and tens of cans of beer provide the entertainment.
A few months ago - the Tyneside were terribly dissapointed after the team manager boasted a good performance when the team drew 0-0 with Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium - for months, they have been dissatisfied with the spineless display of their team. Soon after the first leg, the manager was gone which started the now-familiar soap opera of associating famous names - such as "the Special One" Mourinho, or someone else. At Southampton, a friendly old taxi driver informs me that it's "Arry" Redknapp who's going to be the next manager. It goes on for some days - then - on the evening of the 2nd leg match with Stoke City at St. James' Park, things change. No one was that confident anymore - but it will all change because of a two-line text message from the club - which said "The King is back, more to follow." There's one man whom the whole of Tyneside recognises as the King - and that man is Kevin Keegan. On my way home from the University, I saw a different city - may be the people of Ayoddha celebrated in a similar fashion when Ram returned to his kingdom after 14 years. It didn't take much long for tens of thousands of people to queue up infront of the gate of St. James' Park. When the suddenly rejuvenated Newcastle team were scoring their first of the four goals, the majority of the spectators were still trying to locate the King at the Directors' Box. The Chronicle wrote on the following day - "The Return of The King - Kev Comes Back to Settle Unfinished Business". At a reserve game, I saw thousands of kids - seven-eight years old - jumping with joy after seeing Keegan at the stands. Craze? Madness? But why?
My stay in this city during the past six years taught me why. I know from where this emotion comes. To an outsider, it might appear to be madness, but once you start knowing this place, you know that behind this emotion, there are the dreams of all these people - the dream of being back to the haydays when Newcastle was compared to Peru...
It's not a new town you know - it dates back to the Roman era - the ruins of the Hadrian's Wall, built by the Roman Emperror Hadrian still be seen at the eastern end of the town. After the Romans, the place became a part of the strong Anglo-Saxon kingdom and came to be known as Monkchester. It was destroyed several times due to war and floods - and during the times of Robert Curthose, on the ruins of Monkchester stood up Novum Castellum - Newcastle. The golden era started during the industrial revolution - mainly due to the huge supply of coal around the area - in Durham, Ashington, Northumberland. People started saying "Carrying coals to Newcastle" - that was around 1538AD. Heavy engineering industries, ship building industries ruled the place, and Newcastle competed with the likes of Manchester and Liverpool - but that was a long time ago. Tyne has changed its course a number of times since then - the affluence of the Tyneside has been washed down in the dark and muddy waters of Tyne. The last coalmine shut its doors just a few years ago. Two years ago, the closure of the Swan Hunter, the last shipyard on the Tyne, signalled the death of the ailing ship building industry. The growing North-South Divide made Newcastle look like the asthmatic patient who desparately wants to stand up and be counted like it did years ago - but doesn't have any means to stand up. The Millenium Bridge or the Science City are only recent developments - but the recent past only shows the history of ruins, and the dying industries. There was a time when the Swan Hunter shipyard was full of dust from the boots of no less than 45000 workers - around 1600 ships were built here - some of them now-famous - today when I drive past the yard, the towering cranes resemble a haunted graveyard - the rude awakening to the North-South Divide. And within this haunted house, for the past few decades, the Geordie pride is revolving around the eleven black and whites running at the St. James Park. "The Geordie nation, that's what we're fighting for. London's the enemy! You exploit us, you use us" - the direct effect of the North-South Divide, and the beginning of the well-calculated financial gamble of Sir John Hall. The beginning was astonishing too - with the fans' favourite Kevin Keegan as the Manager. Kevin picked up the ruins of the club when it was down at the wrong end of the 2nd Division and brought them back to the first - and the following years still remains fresh in the minds of the Geordie faithfuls.
"Micheal Martin, the editor of the True Faith fanzine, recalls his own Geordie blood stirring as Keegan's rejuvenated side galloped into the breakaway Premier League. 'John Hall tapped into something latent, the pride and the apartness of the north-east. Newcastle was depressed; industries like mining and shipbuilding had been destroyed. We bought into the idea of the club as the flagship of revival.'" [The Guardian, 8th February, 2006]
The Hall family made a fortune by spreading the Geordie-nation dream - season tickets, replica shirts were selling like hotcakes - the entire Tyneside dreaming about the glorydays dressed themselves up in black and whites - from the cute four year old to the ailing eighty year old - even though the last trophy was back in 1969. Keegan was partly successful in providing some pillars to the dreamworld - the performance of the black and whites during the mid-nineties won't be forgotten even by the staunchest of the Cockneys - and the Tyneside responded by naming Keegan as "The King." The Hall family may have seen the club as the cash-cow, but it remained the flagship of survival within the minds of the thousands of fans. From the Hall family to a PLC, now to a new owner - the time has changed, but the Geordie pride and the pashion haven't diminished a bit. From the parents, the baton has been transferred to their children, and will be transferred to their children - generation after generation...
There is a considerable body of literature on the aspects of football and society - the rivalry between the two Glasgow clubs - Celtic and Rangers is not just a footballing rivalry - rather the roots lie in the battle between the IRA and the Unionists in Northern Ireland - the green and white Celtic shirts and the green Ireland flags at the Ibrox are testaments of this history. Research into football and society says "The psychological satisfaction that people gain from “football” victories, related media coverage, social events, wearing the respective team colours and identifying with the emblems and symbols, which represent hundreds of years of history as well as everyday realities, is immense" - which is the case between Celtic and Rangers, and here at the Tyneside. This is the feeling which correlated the 1911 IFA Shield victory of Mohun Bagan over the (British) East Yorkshire Regiment with the ongoing Indian Freedom Movement against the British - the same feeling turned Newcastle United into the Geordie flagship of revival. It's the same at the Wearside, or at the Teesside. The three cities of the North-East of England have been clinging to their football clubs for the past few decades. They are the children of the North-South Divide.
There's a famous ditty which dates back to 1653 -
"England's a perfect world; has Indies too.
Correct your maps; Newcastle is Peru."
It used to point to the affluence of the entire Northumberland area - comparing the place with the Peru of the Aztecs and the Mayas - at a time when Newcastle and Sunderland were coming out of the darkness of the medieval ages to the lights of civilization, courtesy of the mining and the shipbuilding industries. "The alleged mists of barbarism and backwardness had been swept away by the winds of economic and social change. The growth of the coal industry since 1560 had had a profound impact; a rural world of corn-laden mules and cottage collieries had been transformed into England's first industrial landscape, dominated by coal-filled wagons, pit-heads, and the great wharfs of the Tyne and Wear. Newcastle and Sunderland had grown into major centres surrounded by prospering agricultural hinterlands aided by the recent enclosure of fields. Newcastle was England's third largest city, with a population of 12,000 in 1660, and had been described in 1633 by William Brereton--widely travelled in Britain and the Low Countries--as 'beyond all compare the fairest and richest town in England, inferior for wealth and building to no city save London and Bristol'. North-east England was anything but a backwater, and for some, Newcastle was a place of fine living, wining and dining: a true capital of culture." [Cattle to Claret: Scottish economic influence in North-East England, 1660-1750: Matthew Greenhall]
And in 2008, the North-east of England is an alien territorry to many Southerners - dying industries, foggy skies - it resembles a backward polluted backwater to the affluent Cockneys in the South. Stuart Jeffries wrote in the Guardian - "There is something different, not just about Newcastle and its football club, but about the north-east. Newcastle's like Liverpool - only more so - and nothing in the rest of England quite prepares you for it." The people are used to what the Southerners might think and are proud about their area and the history - the place is different, because they think it is - "pride in immutability and apartness are Geordie sentiments." This inward pride creates a platform of immense solidarity, a deep fellow-feeling, which is not just about the football club - but covers everything that is local - Northern Rock, for example. When Northern Rock collapsed, the local newspaper, The Journal, ran a big appeal - "In the past 10 years 1,520 organisations have received £175m from the Northern Rock Foundation. NOW IT'S YOUR TURN TO HELP" - I can't think of any place in the world where people would think so fondly about a financial institution. It may be even more impossible to believe - for those who are alien to this place - that people really responded to the appeal by opening new accounts when others in London were queueing infront of the counters to get their money back. Crazy, is the other name of Geordie.
And, crazy, is the other name of a Bengalee too - crazy and emotional Bengalee - and that's what I am, and no wonder, I fall for it. Watching and living with the people in thse six years turn me into an almost-Geordie Bengalee - I eat and drink and sleep the football here - in my blog, I keep a link to Newcastle United right beside my childhood favourite Mohun Bagan - I shout while listeing to the match on the radio - when the black and whites lose, the delicious eveing meal seems rotten. On the day of Alan Shearer's testimonial match, when the town dresses up in black and whites, I too put on a Newcastle United's black and white shirt. Sometimes, I walk with my six-year old black and white dressed "Junior Magpie" to watch a game at the stadium...
Only a few more weeks - at the end of which I'll take a huge chunk of my life in the past six years woven within those two black and white shirts - and written within the two Geordie dictionaries - from which I've also learnt to say "How'ay man, ya'aalreet?"
