COMMUNITY
Football in the Plutocratic Community
Newcastle United played Paris St. Germain last night at St James Park and won 4-1 in the Champions League. As we speak merchandise commemorating this event is being designed and manufactured, hangovers are just about subsiding on Tyneside, and WhatsApp groups are pinging with happiness. The latest is a photo with the full-time scoreboard with advice to “stick that in the effing Louvre”. We’re reacting as triumphant underdogs who’ve got the Hollywood ending, indeed the Chronicle match report wrote that we “floored moneybags PSG” and triumphed over the “oil-rich French giants”, a view that might surprise many who are aware of the estimated $700billion assets of the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the source of its oil wealth but it shows that underdog status takes a while to grow out of and that whilst we may have money, we’re not allowed to spend it under Financial Fair Play rules.
One of the lessons of history that Newcastle always face is that someone else makes the rules and whether it’s the FA and other teams inspecting our teams spending, transfers and sponsorship agreements, King Charles (another one) selling us to the Danes, the Leamside railway or the perennial promises about duelling the A1, the message is that “they” don’t like us having nice things.
Thus, many people here, who have witnessed the neglect and exploitation of our region can be excused for caring more about the prospects of inward investment than the newly found sensibilities of those who know less about football than most and consider NUFC and PSG two of the richest football teams in the world, part of the petrochemical plutocracy, playing with the beautiful game.
As an aside, this term was coined first, before Pele (RIP), by Newcastle’s Edwardian superstar, the socialist, thespian, artilleryman, and footballer Colin Veitch. Newcastle fans, who have seen a rise from the Championship under Rafa Benitez, a festering mediocrity of desperate survival under Steve Bruce and lately a bit of restricted investment still feel the fury of the disaffected and despised. Frankly, not many care what you might think of us, our team and even our owners. We saw no opposition to Saudi economic investment to the media, horseracing, F1, universities and Chambers of Commerce, we saw no picketing of petrol stations or academic institutions.
But for 24 hours we had the excitement of the match. The day before, the Parisian team bus parked at the Innside Hotel just underneath the High-Level Bridge and next to Wetherspoons in case they got hungry, while kids waited outside for a glimpse of Mbappe. The Parisian Ultras mobbed up the afternoon of the match behind their “Ultras” banner and, holding Ultras scarves aloft marched past Greys Monument, which commemorates the Great Reform Act of 1832; an Act that emancipated slaves in the British Empire.
They illuminated their path with red flares; possibly in tribute to Newcastle having the world’s first electric lights, before Paris obviously. There were the usual performative scuffles that are typical of such a script for confrontation, but nothing serious and, once they were stashed safely on top of the Leazes End in the UK’s highest stand, where the wind coming off the North Sea kept them refreshed and they could see plenty of our beautiful city, we were able to enjoy the pre-match atmosphere undisturbed.
St. James Park, for those who are unaware, is very close to the city centre with 177 pubs available so most of that involved prolonged happy boozing, some ate something, many clustered around Strawberry Place and contributed to the NUFC Fans Foodbank. They have collected there for 7 years now and contribute all funds raised to Newcastle Foodbank (formerly the West End Foodbank) as depicted in Ken Loach’s “I Daniel Blake”; it now distributes in 7 locations all round the city with 2 Pantry Vans coming soon. One of NUFC’s owners, Jamie Reuben matches all donations made and the totals raised – typically £2,500 to £3,500 per match, or £5-£7,000 when matched - fund a huge proportion of the £200,000 spent on food to feed the 1000+ people in our city needing help from starvation every week. If you stand there with us you’ll see beautiful wonderful unmatched generosity and morality.
It is an example, along with all the other footballing foodbank collections, started in Liverpool, Everton, Glasgow, Manchester, London and many other places. It’s normally busy until kick-off but this time, a combination of the fear of digital ticket failure and desire to get into the ground to wave “Wor Flags” meant the streets were empty by 7.45pm.
The match itself was one of those experiences that none of us there will ever forget. PSG had fast, talented, balanced footballing athletes. They nearly scored after 1 minute when Dembele volleyed Mbappe’s cross a foot past Pope’s post with the power of a howitzer. We gaped. Then Newcastle United, players and crowd got themselves together and attacked them like wild dogs, disturbing the poise of the PSG players and forced the odd mistake. Then, because they were too cocky, still too aristocratic, we seized the opportunity and scored.
First Miggy with art and flair from his wand of a left foot, then Big Dan Burn with an unstoppable header, then Sean Longstaff, put through by Trippier belted one in at the Gallowgate and then, at last PSG took control and we just defended, and ran and defended. EUFA regulations are funny things. All normal advertising boards were obscured to emphasise the “UCL advertising partners” and this included the clock. Time therefore stood still, and they scored a delicate directed header from a chipped assist showing style, grace, talent, flair and all that other scary stuff.
Tonali was substituted, the consensus being that he was knackered, so rewarded with his song “Drinks Moretti, eats Spaghetti, hates effing Sunderland” as Elliot Anderson, our “Geordie Maradona” with his first name alluding to Reiver forebears and their creative warrior tradition fought for possession. He was able to keep the ball and the lads showed the incredible athleticism and unity that characterises Eddie Howe’s Toon. We found ourselves 3-1 up, normal time was up, and with 5 minutes injury time to go we started to relax and then we saw something special.
There are times when reading too much history can inspire you rather than depress you.
One of Newcastle upon Tyne’s most celebrated residents was Jean Pierre Marat, born in Neuchâtel, in Switzerland (Newcastle…!) who arrived in toon in 1770, where he practised as a doctor, wrote “Chains of Slavery”, and advocated that a decent government would feed its citizens and ensure certain basic provisions. He ended up getting killed in his bath in Paris, forgetting that women make the best assassins, as a leader of the French Revolution and its militant heart the Committee of Public Safety. I was wondering who he’d support out of the two teams, us sans-culottes or that lot with their Blackpool Tower on their flag, and whether his habit of guillotining kings might make him unpopular at the Qatari or Saudi court, but thinking he’d help with NUFC Fans Foodbank.
Then, Newcastle’s most famous Swiss citizen, our centre-half Fabian Schar scored our 4th goal, a sublime 25 yard shot into the top corner at the Gallowgate End. Words fail, final whistle, there is a roar of acclimation and communal triumph; time for pints at the Irish Centre. Howay the Lads!
The day after, as the triumph continues in the media, we Newcastle fans are starting to understand that we’re opening the door. Will we too succumb to the aristocratic arrogance of those born to rule? Will we change to try and fit in with what is depicted about our owners? I consider it unlikely. First, our LBGTQI+ brothers, sisters, friends and people we haven’t met yet attend the match and are safe with us. So are the increasing numbers of BAME and female fans, where fan action has seen free sanitary products placed in toilets to influence the region and a strong and active Inclusion Department monitors all of this closely and takes action when incidents are reported. Secondly, we hope and believe that the Saudi’s bought Newcastle United as part of the change they seek in their own society.
One characteristic of a (British) declining state is the increase in cynicism and black humour. Those who aver that “them that has the cash makes the rules” and who don’t know Newcastle United, will refer to the ownership of PSG being the gas rich Qatari state; the basic ownership of Newcastle United being the Saudi Public Investment Fund. If PIF is not technically and legally part of the Saudi oil-rich state, it’s certainly closely aligned.
Newcastle has a history of non-state-owned corporations like Vickers-Armstrong, Swan Hunters, and the Walker Naval Yard where the British state funded and benefitted from the product so will understand the nuance well. Does this make either team part of their patron state’s soft powered armoury? Maybe a little bit. Enough to get a hearing, but not enough to change us.
Owning a football club doesn’t grant you the emotional direction of a city, Abramovich’s Chelsea, Al-Fayed’s Fulham, and the Glazers Man Utd didn’t and don’t influence political opinion in those cities and any football fan knows that you create more enemies the more matches that you win. Liverpool, Man Utd, now Man City and teams like Bayern Munich, Juventus, Real Madrid, and Barcelona are always more hated by their nation, even if they are loved in part of their cities. Any means of attack is used and friends of mine in the Fans Supporting Foodbanks network who, like Marat believe in the “Right to Food”, laugh about how we are all patronised when we’re rubbish, then condemned when we win.
Newcastle upon Tyne is used to this. We’ve been patronised for centuries as simple creatures who like a pint and a singsong but require firm leadership. They forget that we pioneered the first industrial society that allowed dignity, leisure, shopping, education, and sport to working people, the first railways which reduced the cost of food; coal which powered industry and heated homes, and arms which expanded the realms of the Queen.
As a result, those carping from the media or failing to mention human rights before 2019 will be seen as the opportunists that they are and the NUFC fanbase will divide into those honourable few that absolutely reject Saudi involvement (a Supporters Trust survey reckoned that as 3%). There are those that couldn’t care less about international morality (like their government and all the other ones) and there are those that believe that since they won’t compromise our beliefs and inclusive society, that the Saudis, just like the rest of the world, must accept us as we are and recognise that we’re not going to change. Therefore, they and I hope that the simple facts of political life in Saudi will motivate positive change.
A young literate population of around 35 million are unlikely to return to Bedouin life when the oil runs out in 2050 or whenever the world stops using it. They all know that they must adapt their economy to services, tourism, trade or whatever and unlike Qatar (population 313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.3 million expatriates) where they have £70 trillion worth of future gas reserves and all citizens can access funds from central government, Saudi subjects have less wealth. They know their economy must change and therefore so will their society. I can’t think of a better guide than Newcastle United supporters with their generosity, sociability, hard-working humour, and endurance; certainly, we’d be better than the diplomats and academics, the traitors, and perverts like Kim Philby’s dad Harold who helped found Saudi Arabia in the first place.
Observant TV viewers watching the match may have seen a survivor of the Champions League advertising cull, a Rainbow Flag deliberately placed by the club mid way along the East Stand, opposite the Directors Box where Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Head of Saudi PIF and his Qatari opposite number and all the people in the Directors Box sit. They include Mehrdad Ghodoussi, Amanda Staveley’s husband, a director and co-owner of Newcastle United who comes to the NUFC Fans Foodbank stall and donates money and released a statement in support of oppressed Iranian women – “Women Life Freedom.”
Life is not ever a simple matter of black and white, and even in the most celebratory monochromatic place in the world and, in the last week, where we’ve had 3 home matches versus two midlands club’s Manchester City and Burnley and an international glamourpuss, Paris St. Germain, we’ve had the usual cynics alleging we support murder and oppression.
Without playing footballing whataboutery, the truth of this situation is that there is, and never has been much international morality. Every treaty from the Field of the Cloth of Gold to the UN Declaration on Human Rights has been a lie. Every sovereign state kills, and tortures when it believes it national interests are affected and all humanity will pick a favourite villain to attack until the next one comes along. That is not in any sense an attack on the people who support freedom from oppression, Amnesty and the like. Neither is it saying that they waste their time pointing the finger of blame at the rulers of this world who kill for dividend income, personal status or the worst excuse of all, political necessity.
On 5th October 1789, some women in Paris found the courage to steal bread and weapons to feed themselves and their communities. That protest became the French Revolution and it has been argued ever since whether it was a good or bad thing; or as the Chinese feller said, it’s too early to tell. One thing I know was that those women had a go. We’re having a go with the Foodbank, and we hope our team win everything, liberalise Saudi and the whole middle east and inspire Britain to better deeds.
I can promise you one thing; the methods previously used, spying, religion, diplomacy, trade, politics, philosophy, and war have killed far more people than football ever will.
Football can unite people of all ages, identities, origins, orientations and opinions far better than anything else as it allows people to communicate without governments, priests or corporations. Newcastle United have had 2 years of links with Saudi Arabia, I think we’re making progress with the campaigns there that show our friendly, tolerant and open city. Let’s see how we do, and if we fail, like maybe the women of Paris failed in their quest for peace and dignity, let us have a go and we’ll see.
Liberty Equality Dignity. Howay the Lads and Lasses.
One of the lessons of history that Newcastle always face is that someone else makes the rules and whether it’s the FA and other teams inspecting our teams spending, transfers and sponsorship agreements, King Charles (another one) selling us to the Danes, the Leamside railway or the perennial promises about duelling the A1, the message is that “they” don’t like us having nice things.
Thus, many people here, who have witnessed the neglect and exploitation of our region can be excused for caring more about the prospects of inward investment than the newly found sensibilities of those who know less about football than most and consider NUFC and PSG two of the richest football teams in the world, part of the petrochemical plutocracy, playing with the beautiful game.
As an aside, this term was coined first, before Pele (RIP), by Newcastle’s Edwardian superstar, the socialist, thespian, artilleryman, and footballer Colin Veitch. Newcastle fans, who have seen a rise from the Championship under Rafa Benitez, a festering mediocrity of desperate survival under Steve Bruce and lately a bit of restricted investment still feel the fury of the disaffected and despised. Frankly, not many care what you might think of us, our team and even our owners. We saw no opposition to Saudi economic investment to the media, horseracing, F1, universities and Chambers of Commerce, we saw no picketing of petrol stations or academic institutions.
But for 24 hours we had the excitement of the match. The day before, the Parisian team bus parked at the Innside Hotel just underneath the High-Level Bridge and next to Wetherspoons in case they got hungry, while kids waited outside for a glimpse of Mbappe. The Parisian Ultras mobbed up the afternoon of the match behind their “Ultras” banner and, holding Ultras scarves aloft marched past Greys Monument, which commemorates the Great Reform Act of 1832; an Act that emancipated slaves in the British Empire.
They illuminated their path with red flares; possibly in tribute to Newcastle having the world’s first electric lights, before Paris obviously. There were the usual performative scuffles that are typical of such a script for confrontation, but nothing serious and, once they were stashed safely on top of the Leazes End in the UK’s highest stand, where the wind coming off the North Sea kept them refreshed and they could see plenty of our beautiful city, we were able to enjoy the pre-match atmosphere undisturbed.
St. James Park, for those who are unaware, is very close to the city centre with 177 pubs available so most of that involved prolonged happy boozing, some ate something, many clustered around Strawberry Place and contributed to the NUFC Fans Foodbank. They have collected there for 7 years now and contribute all funds raised to Newcastle Foodbank (formerly the West End Foodbank) as depicted in Ken Loach’s “I Daniel Blake”; it now distributes in 7 locations all round the city with 2 Pantry Vans coming soon. One of NUFC’s owners, Jamie Reuben matches all donations made and the totals raised – typically £2,500 to £3,500 per match, or £5-£7,000 when matched - fund a huge proportion of the £200,000 spent on food to feed the 1000+ people in our city needing help from starvation every week. If you stand there with us you’ll see beautiful wonderful unmatched generosity and morality.
It is an example, along with all the other footballing foodbank collections, started in Liverpool, Everton, Glasgow, Manchester, London and many other places. It’s normally busy until kick-off but this time, a combination of the fear of digital ticket failure and desire to get into the ground to wave “Wor Flags” meant the streets were empty by 7.45pm.
The match itself was one of those experiences that none of us there will ever forget. PSG had fast, talented, balanced footballing athletes. They nearly scored after 1 minute when Dembele volleyed Mbappe’s cross a foot past Pope’s post with the power of a howitzer. We gaped. Then Newcastle United, players and crowd got themselves together and attacked them like wild dogs, disturbing the poise of the PSG players and forced the odd mistake. Then, because they were too cocky, still too aristocratic, we seized the opportunity and scored.
First Miggy with art and flair from his wand of a left foot, then Big Dan Burn with an unstoppable header, then Sean Longstaff, put through by Trippier belted one in at the Gallowgate and then, at last PSG took control and we just defended, and ran and defended. EUFA regulations are funny things. All normal advertising boards were obscured to emphasise the “UCL advertising partners” and this included the clock. Time therefore stood still, and they scored a delicate directed header from a chipped assist showing style, grace, talent, flair and all that other scary stuff.
Tonali was substituted, the consensus being that he was knackered, so rewarded with his song “Drinks Moretti, eats Spaghetti, hates effing Sunderland” as Elliot Anderson, our “Geordie Maradona” with his first name alluding to Reiver forebears and their creative warrior tradition fought for possession. He was able to keep the ball and the lads showed the incredible athleticism and unity that characterises Eddie Howe’s Toon. We found ourselves 3-1 up, normal time was up, and with 5 minutes injury time to go we started to relax and then we saw something special.
There are times when reading too much history can inspire you rather than depress you.
One of Newcastle upon Tyne’s most celebrated residents was Jean Pierre Marat, born in Neuchâtel, in Switzerland (Newcastle…!) who arrived in toon in 1770, where he practised as a doctor, wrote “Chains of Slavery”, and advocated that a decent government would feed its citizens and ensure certain basic provisions. He ended up getting killed in his bath in Paris, forgetting that women make the best assassins, as a leader of the French Revolution and its militant heart the Committee of Public Safety. I was wondering who he’d support out of the two teams, us sans-culottes or that lot with their Blackpool Tower on their flag, and whether his habit of guillotining kings might make him unpopular at the Qatari or Saudi court, but thinking he’d help with NUFC Fans Foodbank.
Then, Newcastle’s most famous Swiss citizen, our centre-half Fabian Schar scored our 4th goal, a sublime 25 yard shot into the top corner at the Gallowgate End. Words fail, final whistle, there is a roar of acclimation and communal triumph; time for pints at the Irish Centre. Howay the Lads!
The day after, as the triumph continues in the media, we Newcastle fans are starting to understand that we’re opening the door. Will we too succumb to the aristocratic arrogance of those born to rule? Will we change to try and fit in with what is depicted about our owners? I consider it unlikely. First, our LBGTQI+ brothers, sisters, friends and people we haven’t met yet attend the match and are safe with us. So are the increasing numbers of BAME and female fans, where fan action has seen free sanitary products placed in toilets to influence the region and a strong and active Inclusion Department monitors all of this closely and takes action when incidents are reported. Secondly, we hope and believe that the Saudi’s bought Newcastle United as part of the change they seek in their own society.
One characteristic of a (British) declining state is the increase in cynicism and black humour. Those who aver that “them that has the cash makes the rules” and who don’t know Newcastle United, will refer to the ownership of PSG being the gas rich Qatari state; the basic ownership of Newcastle United being the Saudi Public Investment Fund. If PIF is not technically and legally part of the Saudi oil-rich state, it’s certainly closely aligned.
Newcastle has a history of non-state-owned corporations like Vickers-Armstrong, Swan Hunters, and the Walker Naval Yard where the British state funded and benefitted from the product so will understand the nuance well. Does this make either team part of their patron state’s soft powered armoury? Maybe a little bit. Enough to get a hearing, but not enough to change us.
Owning a football club doesn’t grant you the emotional direction of a city, Abramovich’s Chelsea, Al-Fayed’s Fulham, and the Glazers Man Utd didn’t and don’t influence political opinion in those cities and any football fan knows that you create more enemies the more matches that you win. Liverpool, Man Utd, now Man City and teams like Bayern Munich, Juventus, Real Madrid, and Barcelona are always more hated by their nation, even if they are loved in part of their cities. Any means of attack is used and friends of mine in the Fans Supporting Foodbanks network who, like Marat believe in the “Right to Food”, laugh about how we are all patronised when we’re rubbish, then condemned when we win.
Newcastle upon Tyne is used to this. We’ve been patronised for centuries as simple creatures who like a pint and a singsong but require firm leadership. They forget that we pioneered the first industrial society that allowed dignity, leisure, shopping, education, and sport to working people, the first railways which reduced the cost of food; coal which powered industry and heated homes, and arms which expanded the realms of the Queen.
As a result, those carping from the media or failing to mention human rights before 2019 will be seen as the opportunists that they are and the NUFC fanbase will divide into those honourable few that absolutely reject Saudi involvement (a Supporters Trust survey reckoned that as 3%). There are those that couldn’t care less about international morality (like their government and all the other ones) and there are those that believe that since they won’t compromise our beliefs and inclusive society, that the Saudis, just like the rest of the world, must accept us as we are and recognise that we’re not going to change. Therefore, they and I hope that the simple facts of political life in Saudi will motivate positive change.
A young literate population of around 35 million are unlikely to return to Bedouin life when the oil runs out in 2050 or whenever the world stops using it. They all know that they must adapt their economy to services, tourism, trade or whatever and unlike Qatar (population 313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.3 million expatriates) where they have £70 trillion worth of future gas reserves and all citizens can access funds from central government, Saudi subjects have less wealth. They know their economy must change and therefore so will their society. I can’t think of a better guide than Newcastle United supporters with their generosity, sociability, hard-working humour, and endurance; certainly, we’d be better than the diplomats and academics, the traitors, and perverts like Kim Philby’s dad Harold who helped found Saudi Arabia in the first place.
Observant TV viewers watching the match may have seen a survivor of the Champions League advertising cull, a Rainbow Flag deliberately placed by the club mid way along the East Stand, opposite the Directors Box where Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Head of Saudi PIF and his Qatari opposite number and all the people in the Directors Box sit. They include Mehrdad Ghodoussi, Amanda Staveley’s husband, a director and co-owner of Newcastle United who comes to the NUFC Fans Foodbank stall and donates money and released a statement in support of oppressed Iranian women – “Women Life Freedom.”
Life is not ever a simple matter of black and white, and even in the most celebratory monochromatic place in the world and, in the last week, where we’ve had 3 home matches versus two midlands club’s Manchester City and Burnley and an international glamourpuss, Paris St. Germain, we’ve had the usual cynics alleging we support murder and oppression.
Without playing footballing whataboutery, the truth of this situation is that there is, and never has been much international morality. Every treaty from the Field of the Cloth of Gold to the UN Declaration on Human Rights has been a lie. Every sovereign state kills, and tortures when it believes it national interests are affected and all humanity will pick a favourite villain to attack until the next one comes along. That is not in any sense an attack on the people who support freedom from oppression, Amnesty and the like. Neither is it saying that they waste their time pointing the finger of blame at the rulers of this world who kill for dividend income, personal status or the worst excuse of all, political necessity.
On 5th October 1789, some women in Paris found the courage to steal bread and weapons to feed themselves and their communities. That protest became the French Revolution and it has been argued ever since whether it was a good or bad thing; or as the Chinese feller said, it’s too early to tell. One thing I know was that those women had a go. We’re having a go with the Foodbank, and we hope our team win everything, liberalise Saudi and the whole middle east and inspire Britain to better deeds.
I can promise you one thing; the methods previously used, spying, religion, diplomacy, trade, politics, philosophy, and war have killed far more people than football ever will.
Football can unite people of all ages, identities, origins, orientations and opinions far better than anything else as it allows people to communicate without governments, priests or corporations. Newcastle United have had 2 years of links with Saudi Arabia, I think we’re making progress with the campaigns there that show our friendly, tolerant and open city. Let’s see how we do, and if we fail, like maybe the women of Paris failed in their quest for peace and dignity, let us have a go and we’ll see.
Liberty Equality Dignity. Howay the Lads and Lasses.