The dirty northerners and their trial by football
This is a guest post by Alex Jackson, who is a writer from Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. He mainly writes unsuccessful novels but takes an interest in editorial pieces on politics, the media and local news. If you'd like to write a guest post for Enemies of Reason, email me at antonvowl@live.co.uk
Think of the North East and what do you visualise? Football? Unemployment? Violence? As a Northerner I wish to wipe these stereotypes from the Southern agenda, yet every now and again someone takes a stab at us Tynesiders (or Wearsiders or whatever), the most recent example being a Tory saying Northerners should be used to pick berries in the Summer. Yes, I am often upset by the Southern attitude to the North, partially due to the belief that we're all thick as bricks. Really? My sister recently left school and got a place at Newcastle University: one of the most prestigious schools in the UK, but I need to get to the point of this editorial: The Tyne-Wear derby.
There were some ugly scenes at the Stadium of Light on Sunday as Asamoah Gyan scored a late equaliser: A fan ran onto the pitch and pushed Steve Harper over, the fans got fighting as per usual and chairs were torn from their moorings and thrown around like deformed beach balls. Ugly indeed, but there were also some dodgy scenes in Birmingham during the Blues-Villa game (albeit not as bad as Newcastle-Sunderland, but you catch my drift), but who gets the most coverage in the Daily Mail? Of course, it's the poor, Labour voting thugs on Tyne and Wearside:
The title of the article is magnificent:
Sunderland vow to boot out thugs after crowd violence erupts in derby showdown with Newcastle
because you can't cram too much provocative language into one sentence.
Of course, the Mail need a nice big picture of the thugs fighting one another, and an equally big picture further down the page showing a big, tattooed man scuffling with Police, just to drill home the 'Ooh! Look at those horrible Northerners fighting at a football match!' effect. Yet what about Villa-Birmingham? Ah yes, further down the page are the pictures with the trails of smoke from a smoke bomb (with a Police officer handily caught up in the midst to get the Mail going about the lower classes) and a line of Police trying to paint the football fans in a bad light despite the fact there wasn't much fighting. Of course, they are two small pictures because they don't want to draw the attention away from the scummy Northerners. They also seem to think the idea of banning hooligans from grounds is a new concept, but then again, it's the Daily Mail, they probably think they're too upper class to go to football matches.
I'm not going to lie: the violence was unacceptable, as was throwing a smoke bomb onto a pitch, yet the pictures in the Mail make it look like everyone at the Tyne-Wear game was fighting. Think about it: the Stadium of Light holds around 49,000, at the most there would have been 100 people fighting, so that leaves 48,900 law abiding fans. Of course, the Mail doesn't furnish us with the fact that only 24 (or 33, depending on your source) arrests were made because they want it to look like all the Northerners were scrapping, then again, the other papers were no better. The Sun, The Mirror, The Times and another paper Mr Vowl loves with a passion: The Express
The picture pushes all of their buttons: a Northern thug of student age wearing a hoodie, it couldn't have been better for them unless Diana had rolled in to calm the violence. For some reason they appear to have put the word attack in speech marks. What was attacking Steve Harper if it wasn't an attack? 'A Northern scuffle' probably.
If you take a look at the BBC's article it seems quite fair despite the jab at European fans at the bottom of the page, but compared to The Star's it is slim pickings. The Star's article is perfectly summed up in the title: Steve Bruce's Fan Fury, basically an Orwellian Two Minutes Hate for the football world. Was Bruce furious about the fans? erm...no, he spent the majority of his interview praising the fans who handed the Harper attacker over to the Police.
Taken in isolation the violence itself is bad enough, but today every paper had either the back page or a double spread painted with pictures of Geordies and Mackems fighting it out to try and paint us in the worst image possible (not surprisingly, there were no pictures of the smoke bombs at St. Andrews). The Tory-orientated papers were the worst culprits, the Mail being the worst example and The Star the worst for vocabulary (article and spelling wise). Of course this sort of thing will sell their glorified bundles of dead tree, but as proved in the past it will only succeed in stoking the fires of hatred. First it was Labour, then the Muslims and then the Poles. This time it's Northerners, football fans or both.
P.S. I apologise for the blatant plagiarism of Mr Vowl's other post title: Chris Jeffries and his Trial by Media
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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January 19th, 2011 - 10:29
As I’m not into soccer this stereotype is all new to me.
G
January 19th, 2011 - 11:18
Or, to paraphrase the Chief Superintendent into a headline, “Mainly Good Natured Crowd Overwhelmingly Free From Violence as Mackems Scrape Draw With Jammy Goal.”
Well, that last bit was me, but the rest was accurate.
There’s a lot of puff surrounding the story, aided by a couple of very tight long-lens photos of nobheads fighting, the implication being that you could point a camera anywhere in the ground and snap some bother. There is an important point here, that in recent weeks there have been some prominent examples of the nobhead tendency among football supporters rearing its head. But unpleasant as they are, it’s not the near-Heysel that the papers are here reporting with their nasty glee.
I don’t doubt that there’ll be equal newspaper coverage of the subsequent story, which is the apology the Pixelated Mystery Sunderland Thug made to Steve Harper, to the extent of visiting the Newcastle training ground the day after to do so in person. He even appeared on 5Live on Monday night, possibly still pixelated and Crimewatchy and sinister, sounding a bit thick and contrite, to be ticked off by Mark Chapman.
But then perhaps, “This isn’t what we are like, this family. We have never been in trouble in our lives. It was just a one-off and we wanted to apologise, quite simply,” isn’t as inspiring as headline material.
(More here: http://tiny.cc/idq9e )
January 19th, 2011 - 11:22
I’m a Birmingham City fan and if you think this is bad, we were vilified by the media after our derby against the Villa in December, the BBC wrote something rather nasty and when they commented on it they tried to blame us for England not getting the World Cup.
January 19th, 2011 - 13:08
Police made fifteen arrests after the Crewe v Port Vale ‘A500′ Derby on Saturday, but don’t tell the Daily Mail!
January 19th, 2011 - 13:52
But hang on, Birmingham is Up North as well, so there’s no point being made here.
.
January 19th, 2011 - 14:59
Oh no, we’re filthy Northerners? My entire world view is smashed to pieces.
January 19th, 2011 - 16:28
Of course you are. You’re north of the Watford Gap, aren’t you? (I have a friend who takes her passport if she goes north of Watford, let alone the Gap…)
January 19th, 2011 - 14:01
I recall a similar level of outrage when Wolverhampton supporters bricked Notts County’s supporters club coaches, hospitalising a pensioner, after a Carling Cup game earlier in the season. The media uproar in that case also included prominent mention of flares being thrown onto the pitch by the Wolves supporters during the game
Oh wait, no I don’t and no it didn’t
January 19th, 2011 - 15:12
Only State-Sponsored violence is acceptable in the eyes of the gutter right-wing, corporate media- Iraq, Afghanistan, Met Police goons kicking ten bells of crap out of students etc.
Two dozen pissheads getting nicked at a football match and its a ‘national disgrace’.
Then again, its not as if the fine body of men and women who make up the staff at these media outlets are usually prone to sanctimonious, hysterical, shit-stirring bollocks is it?
January 19th, 2011 - 16:56
I have had a look at both photos several times. In the top one I cannot see anyone fighting. I can see no angry faces, fists being thrown or anything obviously violent. There is one young man towards the upper portion, just off centre and to the right who is looking aggressive but I genuinely cannot see any fighting! In fact the group of men, centre frame and looking to the left look positively benign.
In the lower picture the lady police officer is being crushed but this happens with crowds. Again I can determine no overt violence. The two thugs immediately to left of the lady police officer are not fighting. They appear to both be looking over the barrier to something happening below. Obviously it is the same scene taken a few moments apart. The two hefty gents, the lady police officer and a man in a stripy hat are in both, It may show a surge and the lady police officer crushed against the barrier but I still cannot see overt violence or fighting.
If this is evidence of a football crowd out of control then I give up. These are photos of a football crowd. Maybe even a football crowd in motion. It is not photographoc evidence of a fight in any way, shape or form.
January 19th, 2011 - 21:41
Wait. Newcastle is even further north than Birmingham? Gosh.
Jon, Essex
January 20th, 2011 - 17:49
I’m not sure if this is quite true – However I think the media is guilty of vilifying all football fans when there is the slightest hint of trouble anywhere!
January 20th, 2011 - 23:54
Hi – Mackem born and living in Gateshead, I agree wholeheartedly. Went on the Metro Sunday morning about 11 to visit the folks in Sunderland. Not a hint of unpleasantness, even got a seat. Same on the way back at around 2.30. The only sign of anything untoward was the closure of one station. The police looked quite relaxed at St Peter’s. But remember, the Mail is the voice of Middle England, which means it reflects the prejudices of bigoted know-alls at Home Counties golf clubs. Reality is another matter entirely.