• Contact
  • About
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
North East Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • European News
    • Health
    • Politics
    • Science
    • UK News
    • World News
    Electric black taxi

    South Tyneside taxi transitioning dilemma

    man looking anxious

    Never assume: honesty and mental health

    Flood in York in 2022. Climate change brings about more floods and not just heatwaves and wildfires

    The Tories’ climate change policy does not add up

    A sign with the "not equal" symbol is held in a crowd

    Inequality and development: from global to local

    South Tyneside's only black electric taxi

    A sustainable policy for Tyneside taxis

    Ben Houchen by Scott Hunter

    Alleged National Audit Office review of Teesworks

    Child poverty protestor

    Child poverty: enough is enough

    Boys with kite in Kabul

    One year since the fall of Afghanistan

    North East for Europe at an earlier London march

    The North East in London for National Rejoin March

    Trending Tags

    • Ukraine
  • Culture
    • All
    • Animation
    • Books
    • Illustrations & More
    • Music
    • Performance
    • Poetry
    • Social Media
    • Theatre
    • TV & Radio
    The Flying Wheelnuts

    Saturday sellout at Hardwick Festival

    The Rock Showman

    Hardwick Festival is down with the kids

    Witty Look

    All aboard the festival bus for Hardwick this weekend

    Boys with kite in Kabul

    One year since the fall of Afghanistan

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    Master Chef of Great Britain

    Master Chef of Great Britain at Lumley

    Prezzo

    Discovering the new summer menu at Prezzo

    Chef and son

    MasterChef’s’ Posh Street Food chef’s own summer of entertainment

    Scottish highlands

    The beauty of the Scottish Highlands

    Kleo Tabuku

    Top chef to open Newcastle restaurant, Lovage

    Pop up park

    Pop up to the park in Sunderland

    The Blackbird Inn, Ponteland

    The Blackbird Inn flies high with its new summer menu

    gymnast

    Culture of fear in British gymnastics uncovered by the Whyte Review

    Kennedy and Rhind

    Kennedy and Rhind: more time to enjoy a North East favourite

    Trending Tags

    • Business
      • All
      • Economy
      • Rural
      • Technology
      • Trade
      • Voluntary Sector
      Electric black taxi

      South Tyneside taxi transitioning dilemma

      Liz Truss

      Tory leadership election: Liz Truss should look at how economies work

      Ben Houchen by Scott Hunter

      Alleged National Audit Office review of Teesworks

      Fishing protest

      Dead crustaceans on North East coast: the next chapter

      Scottish highlands

      The beauty of the Scottish Highlands

      loo

      A room with a loo

      Newcastle quayside

      Newcastle named as one of the best cities for graduates

      Brexit economics

      New research shows the economic effect of Brexit

      Wetherspoons pub

      Wetherspoons sparkle: has it gone flat?

      Trending Tags

      • Region
        • All
        • Co. Durham
        • North East
        • Northumberland
        • Teesside
        • Tyneside
        • Wearside
        Fire in Gosforth

        Firefighters praised for life-saving response to Gosforth arson attack

        A sign with the "not equal" symbol is held in a crowd

        Inequality and development: from global to local

        South Tyneside's only black electric taxi

        A sustainable policy for Tyneside taxis

        Ben Houchen by Scott Hunter

        Alleged National Audit Office review of Teesworks

        Child poverty protestor

        Child poverty: enough is enough

        Tyne Bridge

        Newcastle shortlisted for Eurovision 2023

        Wildfire at Witherwack

        “Busier than Bonfire Night” as wildfire rages for over 20 hours

        Fishing protest

        Dead crustaceans on North East coast: the next chapter

        NUFC foodbank

        Howay the lads and lasses: the new football foodbank season ‘22/23

        Trending Tags

        • Opinion
          Titanic coming out of Southampton

          The 110th anniversary of the Titanic’s departure

          There is an England

          There is an England

          Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs the Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union"

          The parody of disinformation: Boris Johnson on Ukraine and Brexit

          Boris Johnson’s comments on Ukraine and Brexit are an insult

          TV Agency staff jumping in the air

          The TV Agency celebrates 10th anniversary with global success

          North East of County Dublin

          North East of England and North East of County Dublin: Compare and contrast

          North Sea oil rig

          Copping out of COP: Ukraine, fossil fuels and nuclear fusion

          Placard with Boris Johnson as a clown

          Dictators, media and mobility: erosion of identity, sustenance and safety

          close up on a child's eye

          Racism and misogyny where there should have been safeguarding and security

        AUDIO
        No Result
        View All Result
        • Home
        • News
          • All
          • Brexit
          • Education
          • Environment
          • European News
          • Health
          • Politics
          • Science
          • UK News
          • World News
          Electric black taxi

          South Tyneside taxi transitioning dilemma

          man looking anxious

          Never assume: honesty and mental health

          Flood in York in 2022. Climate change brings about more floods and not just heatwaves and wildfires

          The Tories’ climate change policy does not add up

          A sign with the "not equal" symbol is held in a crowd

          Inequality and development: from global to local

          South Tyneside's only black electric taxi

          A sustainable policy for Tyneside taxis

          Ben Houchen by Scott Hunter

          Alleged National Audit Office review of Teesworks

          Child poverty protestor

          Child poverty: enough is enough

          Boys with kite in Kabul

          One year since the fall of Afghanistan

          North East for Europe at an earlier London march

          The North East in London for National Rejoin March

          Trending Tags

          • Ukraine
        • Culture
          • All
          • Animation
          • Books
          • Illustrations & More
          • Music
          • Performance
          • Poetry
          • Social Media
          • Theatre
          • TV & Radio
          The Flying Wheelnuts

          Saturday sellout at Hardwick Festival

          The Rock Showman

          Hardwick Festival is down with the kids

          Witty Look

          All aboard the festival bus for Hardwick this weekend

          Boys with kite in Kabul

          One year since the fall of Afghanistan

        • Lifestyle
          • All
          • Fashion
          • Food & Drink
          • Health & Fitness
          Master Chef of Great Britain

          Master Chef of Great Britain at Lumley

          Prezzo

          Discovering the new summer menu at Prezzo

          Chef and son

          MasterChef’s’ Posh Street Food chef’s own summer of entertainment

          Scottish highlands

          The beauty of the Scottish Highlands

          Kleo Tabuku

          Top chef to open Newcastle restaurant, Lovage

          Pop up park

          Pop up to the park in Sunderland

          The Blackbird Inn, Ponteland

          The Blackbird Inn flies high with its new summer menu

          gymnast

          Culture of fear in British gymnastics uncovered by the Whyte Review

          Kennedy and Rhind

          Kennedy and Rhind: more time to enjoy a North East favourite

          Trending Tags

          • Business
            • All
            • Economy
            • Rural
            • Technology
            • Trade
            • Voluntary Sector
            Electric black taxi

            South Tyneside taxi transitioning dilemma

            Liz Truss

            Tory leadership election: Liz Truss should look at how economies work

            Ben Houchen by Scott Hunter

            Alleged National Audit Office review of Teesworks

            Fishing protest

            Dead crustaceans on North East coast: the next chapter

            Scottish highlands

            The beauty of the Scottish Highlands

            loo

            A room with a loo

            Newcastle quayside

            Newcastle named as one of the best cities for graduates

            Brexit economics

            New research shows the economic effect of Brexit

            Wetherspoons pub

            Wetherspoons sparkle: has it gone flat?

            Trending Tags

            • Region
              • All
              • Co. Durham
              • North East
              • Northumberland
              • Teesside
              • Tyneside
              • Wearside
              Fire in Gosforth

              Firefighters praised for life-saving response to Gosforth arson attack

              A sign with the "not equal" symbol is held in a crowd

              Inequality and development: from global to local

              South Tyneside's only black electric taxi

              A sustainable policy for Tyneside taxis

              Ben Houchen by Scott Hunter

              Alleged National Audit Office review of Teesworks

              Child poverty protestor

              Child poverty: enough is enough

              Tyne Bridge

              Newcastle shortlisted for Eurovision 2023

              Wildfire at Witherwack

              “Busier than Bonfire Night” as wildfire rages for over 20 hours

              Fishing protest

              Dead crustaceans on North East coast: the next chapter

              NUFC foodbank

              Howay the lads and lasses: the new football foodbank season ‘22/23

              Trending Tags

              • Opinion
                Titanic coming out of Southampton

                The 110th anniversary of the Titanic’s departure

                There is an England

                There is an England

                Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs the Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union"

                The parody of disinformation: Boris Johnson on Ukraine and Brexit

                Boris Johnson’s comments on Ukraine and Brexit are an insult

                TV Agency staff jumping in the air

                The TV Agency celebrates 10th anniversary with global success

                North East of County Dublin

                North East of England and North East of County Dublin: Compare and contrast

                North Sea oil rig

                Copping out of COP: Ukraine, fossil fuels and nuclear fusion

                Placard with Boris Johnson as a clown

                Dictators, media and mobility: erosion of identity, sustenance and safety

                close up on a child's eye

                Racism and misogyny where there should have been safeguarding and security

              No Result
              View All Result
              North East Bylines
              No Result
              View All Result
              Home Region North East

              Toon! Toon! Toon!

              On the tribal nature of football

              Peter LathanbyPeter Lathan
              13-08-2020 15:43
              in North East, Opinion, Teesside, Tyneside, UK News, Wearside
              A Newcastle and a Sunderland supporter

              Cartoon by Suzy Varty

              Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
              ADVERTISEMENT

              I used to work with a guy who was a fanatical NUFC supporter. So fanatical was he that he claimed to get more pleasure out of Sunderland losing a match than Newcastle winning one.

              Now we’re not just talking Newcastle v Sunderland games – haven’t had many of those in recent years! – but any matches at any time of the year at any level – a defeat for Sunderland Reserves (or even Sunderland Under-23s) was, he claimed, almost as good as a Toon First Team win in a cup match against Man U.

              When he first said this, I looked at him and shook my head in disbelief.

              “Why?” I said. “Just why?”

              “Well, it’s Sunderland, isn’t it?” was the reply.

              This reminds me of when, in The Lion King, Simba asks, “What’s that shadowy place over there?” and Mufasa replies, “Croydon. (Or Bradford. Or Sunderland. Or Luton. Or anywhere the speaker doesn’t like.) We don’t go there.”

              Look up ‘we don’t go there Simba meme’ on Google and you’ll find hundreds of them. They’re international, too: DC, Edmonton, San Francisco, Adelaide… There’s one where Mufasa says, “We don’t go there because we’re Arsenal supporters.” And there are even a few meme generators which provide hours of endless fun insulting neighbours, complete with Disney illustration.

              When I were a lad – why do I always slip inte t’Yorksheer dialect when I’m thinkin’ abaht childhood? I mean, my family left Teesdale around 1870! – we supported all the North East teams – even The Boro! I kid you not. We did. We even gave Carlisle honorary NE status in footballing terms.

              We did tease each other. Of course we did. In the mid-seventies a pal of mine had a ‘Support Darlington FC’ sticker on his car to which we added ‘Because I’m lonely’, but it was all in the best possible taste!

              In 1957-58 there were great celebrations in the NE because Gateshead reached the second round of the FA Cup. (Sadly they were beaten by York City in the third round. Bloody foreigners!) But at least they got there and Gateshead had the support of Sunderland, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Darlington, Stockton and everywhere else. We were all North East patriots!

              There had always been economic rivalry between the towns and cities themselves, between Tyneside and Wearside (inevitably), between those two and Teesside (equally inevitably), between Newcastle and Gateshead, between Newcastle and South Shields, between South Shields and… I could go on – but football fans supported all the NE teams.

              And then it all changed, and not in a good way.

              It got all tribal and there is no better illustration of the tribal nature of modern NE football fandom than the incident in which that NUFC ‘supporter’ punched a police horse in a Newcastle street because ‘the Toon’ had ‘got beat.’

              I blame Thatcher.

               I do. I really do. Until the eighties every part of the North East had its place in the world: the Northumberland and Durham coalfields; lead mining in Weardale and Teesdale; shipbuilding and ship repair on the Tyne and the Wear; the Teesside chemical industry, not to mention agriculture in Durham, Northumberland and the Tees Valley. We knew who we were and what we were. We were proud of the mighty ICI on Teesside (even though it gave a rather derogatory name to the people of Middlesbrough, ‘Smoggies’), of Rohm and Haas in Jarrow, of Sunderland being ‘the biggest shipbuilding town in the world’ (and winning the 1973 FA Cup!). And everybody loved Durham City, Corbridge and Hexham. And if you hadn’t had an ox sandwich at Houghton Feast, you hadn’t lived! We were North Easterners and proud!

              And then – almost, it seemed, at a stroke – it was all gone: the pits, the yards, the factories, North East pride, and in its place we were told to get on our bikes and look for work (OK, perhaps Tebbit hadn’t meant it as an instruction, but that’s the way it came across, that’s what people believed was the government’s answer) and that our supportive communities were nothing, for ‘there is no such thing as society.’

              The message coming from Downing Street and the Palace of Westminster was unambiguous: “Self! Self! Self! Look after number one.”

              And that’s what people did, more and more, increasingly, until that sense of community narrowed from encompassing the whole North East to ‘me and me mates.’ And so suspicion and dislike abound and a poor police horse gets punched in a Newcastle street.

              “Grow your own dope.
              Plant a Mackem!”

              What have we become?

              ADVERTISEMENT
              Previous Post

              Building back badly

              Next Post

              A little bit of kindness

              Peter Lathan

              Peter Lathan

              Peter Lathan first appeared on stage in a school play at the age of 13 in 1956 when he played Marion in Sean O’Casey’s Cock-a-Doodle-Dandy. He first directed a play – Chekhov’s The Anniversary – in 1966. He has been involved in theatre ever since. He has taught Drama in schools, youth theatres and stage schools, whilst also running drama classes for recovering addicts and adults with severe learning disabilities. He has written more than 35 plays and directed over 70 from site-specific Shakespeare to touring pantos, from new writing to classic plays, from Theatre in Education to corporate productions. He is the author of It’s Behind You: The Story of Panto. He has been, variously, artistic director of theatre company KG Productions (2000 – 2016), chairman of the board of the Wearabout Theatre Company of Sunderland, and a Trustee of the Customs House in South Shields (9 years) and of No Limits Theatre Company, a professional company for adults with a learning disability In 2001 he founded the online British Theatre Guide which he edited for 11 years. He remains its North East editor.

              Related Posts

              Fire in Gosforth
              Tyneside

              Firefighters praised for life-saving response to Gosforth arson attack

              byNorth East Bylines
              August 18, 2022
              A sign with the "not equal" symbol is held in a crowd
              North East

              Inequality and development: from global to local

              bySophie Lively
              August 17, 2022
              South Tyneside's only black electric taxi
              Environment

              A sustainable policy for Tyneside taxis

              byMark Bell
              August 17, 2022
              Ben Houchen by Scott Hunter
              Business

              Alleged National Audit Office review of Teesworks

              byScott Hunter
              August 16, 2022
              Child poverty protestor
              North East

              Child poverty: enough is enough

              byPeter Benson
              August 15, 2022
              Next Post
              A sign sating 'Be kind'

              A little bit of kindness

              Want to support us?

              Can you help North East Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

              DONATE

              Sign up to our newsletter

              If you would like to receive the North East Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

              NEWSLETTER

              LATEST

              Electric black taxi

              South Tyneside taxi transitioning dilemma

              August 19, 2022
              The Flying Wheelnuts

              Saturday sellout at Hardwick Festival

              August 19, 2022
              Liz Truss

              Tory leadership election: Liz Truss should look at how economies work

              August 18, 2022
              Fire in Gosforth

              Firefighters praised for life-saving response to Gosforth arson attack

              August 18, 2022
              man looking anxious

              Never assume: honesty and mental health

              August 18, 2022
              Flood in York in 2022. Climate change brings about more floods and not just heatwaves and wildfires

              The Tories’ climate change policy does not add up

              August 18, 2022

              MOST READ

              Electric black taxi

              South Tyneside taxi transitioning dilemma

              August 19, 2022
              The Flying Wheelnuts

              Saturday sellout at Hardwick Festival

              August 19, 2022
              Liz Truss

              Tory leadership election: Liz Truss should look at how economies work

              August 18, 2022
              Fire in Gosforth

              Firefighters praised for life-saving response to Gosforth arson attack

              August 18, 2022

              BROWSE BY TAGS

              Audio Beach Brexit Business castle leazes climate activism Co. Durham cost of living crisis Culture defra democracy ducklings Economy Education Environment fire and rescue firefighter Food & Drink food poverty Health Health & Care Home Affairs just stop oil Lifestyle Local Lockdown Northumberland Peace Performance Politics pride month refugee rescue Science Social Media Teesside TV & Radio Tynemouth Tyneside Ukraine volunteer Wearside

              We are a not-for-profit citizen journalism publication. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in the North East and beyond.

              North East Bylines is a trading brand of Bylines Network Limited, which is a sister organisation to Byline Times.

              Learn more about us

              No Result
              View All Result
              • Contact
              • About
              • Letters
              • Donate
              • Privacy
              • Bylines network
              • Shop

              © 2022 North East Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

              No Result
              View All Result
              • Home
              • News
                • Brexit
                • Education
                • Environment
                • UK News
                • Transport
                • World News
              • Politics
              • Opinion
              • Lifestyle
                • Culture
                • Music
                • Poetry
              • Business
                • Economy
                • Technology
                • Trade
              • Donate
              • Newsletter sign up
              • Boriiis Cartoons
              • Authors
              • Audio

              © 2022 North East Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

              Welcome Back!

              Login to your account below

              Forgotten Password?

              Retrieve your password

              Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

              Log In