Category: lifestyle

More middle age gigging: Embrace at Leeds First Direct Arena

IMG-20200315-WA0005It’s 2.31am. My ears are ringing and my head is full of songs. Sleep, at least for a little while, is no longer an option. So I get up to write some thoughts down to go towards this blog. Given the current climate it’s best to point out that I’ve not come down with the dreaded virus and it’s not worrying about the toilet roll and paracetamol stocks that’s woken me up so soon after getting to bed. No, I’ve got another bout of middle age gigging to blame. Clearly, the excitement of two gigs in 5 months is just too much to handle for this particular 48-year-old.

Around mid afternoon it didn’t look like this gig was going to happen for us. My wife is feeling ill and despite the fact that she’s doing her best to just soldier on through it, it doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. We’re going to drag ourselves into Leeds (I say drag; it’s a whole 6 miles or so!) and there’s a distinct possibility that we could be heading home before the first support band is done. I’ve said it before here and I’ll say it again; going to gigs in your middle age is not the experience that you would have had in your teens or twenties. Now, we have a whole load of other factors to consider.

One of these factors is the babysitter and having not heard back from ours for a while we were beginning to worry that they’d forgot. Sure enough, a mid afternoon text confirms that, yes, they’d forgot! A little while later though, they confirm that they’ll be here and it’s all systems go, but at a lot more relaxed pace than ever before. In fact let’s call it all systems slow.

Before I know it though, we’re heading out of the door, having said a fairly straightforward goodbye to our kids, who are normally a great deal more fretful than this. On reflection it’s clear that having had another night out just a few short months ago our children are becoming more accepting of our gallivanting. Considering that this is probably our second night out in the last calendar year it’s indeed very accepting of them to not be hanging off our legs and crying as we head down the hallway. On reflection though, given the global pandemic that we’re experiencing, it’s best that we don’t get used to this going out lark. I mean, I can always turn all the lights off in the kitchen and ask Alexa to play Embrace every so often and just jump around a bit, while having someone else in the house occasionally stand on my feet. I’m sure it’s much the same. Maybe this going out is actually overrated.

So tonight we’re off to see Embrace at Leeds First Direct Arena. Embrace are easily one of our favourite bands, if not the favourite, and in the car on the way we find ourselves discussing just how many times we’ve actually seen them live. We settle on somewhere near 30 times, so tonight is kind of a big deal.

As usual when we get in there I’m reticent to move too far forward. I’m a big fan of my toes and none too keen on other people’s elbows. Never have been. My poorly wife however has other ideas and in what seems like seconds we’ve snaked our way through the crowd, levitated a bit – as mentioned before, it’s one of her super powers – and hovered into a space about 5 yards from the front without anybody else batting an eyelid. Being the rebellious type these days, I haven’t even apologised to any one of those we’ve stood in front of either. Rock, and indeed, roll.

We take our place just in time to catch the last bit of local Leeds indie Legends Cud’s set. Having not particularly been a fan back in the day, it’s no great shame to have missed them, but there is just about enough time to realise that these days, singer Carl Puttnam is quite the ringer for Swiss Toni off The Fast Show. So while he’s throwing a few shapes as the set draws to a close I’m listening closely for any lyrics about ‘making love to a beautiful woman’ or any mention of junior salesman Paul. Sadly, it seems we must have missed that particular tune.

With a bit of time until main support Starsailor take to the stage I have a little look around me. It’s still a little bit weird to see genuine grey-haired folk standing around at a gig, especially so far forward. They’re usually stood around the sound desk just nodding. But then reality bites and I realise that although I’m not completely grey – more a rather suave salt and pepper sort of look these days – I’m very much one of this middle aged gang. And as much as I kid myself that I’m still physically fit for my age, I’m going to feel this in the morning. I would certainly hate to think that I’d done it on a school night and was faced with a day at work the next day.

As Starsailor arrive and launch into their first song, something incredible happens. I’ve said before that I’m terrible with lyrics and will frequently either forget them or just sing my own version with an inane grin on my face. I kid myself that this tactic will convince people that I’m high and therefore incredibly cool, rather than just quite old and forgetful. One day, you’ll find me right at the back of an Embrace gig, just doing my ironing and humming along, looking incredibly pleased with myself. Please dear reader, have a look at the address on the tag around my neck and have someone at the venue stick me in a taxi if it happens. However, tonight as the band play Alcoholic I’m transported back 19 or so years. Suddenly, I know every word. Every one of them. No really, all of the words. I have no idea where this gift comes from, but it’s a lovely feeling. Maybe Starsailor hold the key to eternal youth or something. I resolve to ask James Walsh about this should I ever bump into him in either of my favourite haunts, Asda Morley, or Sainsbury’s at the White Rose Centre. I’m sure it won’t be long given everybody’s current obsession with panic buying hand sanitizer and beans. See you Wednesday, James.

Starsailor’s set is fantastic. James’ voice is as powerful as ever and the band are wonderfully tight. They streak through some of the classics – Four to The Floor, Poor Misguided Fool and Silence Is Easy sounding particularly good – before ending with a fantastic version of Good Souls.

However, by 9.15, whatever has gone before is, in the nicest way possible, forgotten. For two reasons. One: my middle aged feet are killing. I’ve chosen to wear Converse boots and in return they’ve chosen to make me feel like I’ve got the swollen feet of an ultra marathon runner. I resolve to contact Hush Puppies about producing a special middle-aged gig-goers shoe. Something a little bit trendy, yet above all, comfortable. And featuring Velcro so I we don’t have to bend for too long fussing with laces. My legs hurt as well, and my back doesn’t seem to be enjoying my efforts at dancing along.

Then the house lights go down and the stage lights go into overdrive. There’s dry ice rising at the same rate as the tension. And then, we’re off. It’s Embrace.

The opening three songs – ‘All You Good Good People’, ‘My Weakness Is None of Your Business’ and ‘Come Back to What You Know’ – are amazing, as well as making for a shit-hot Scrabble score. In particular, the opener brings back some particularly simple but happy memories. I’m transported back to living in our first flat in Leeds and hearing someone leaving the pub next door singing the song at the top of their voice and being sat smiling at the fact that there were others who’d fallen in love with this still relatively new band. And, super special middle age bonus time; I also know a lot of the words! ‘All You Good Good People’ always makes me feel like I’m part of something, like I’m one of the people that it’s for. Maybe after all of these years I am. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Despite the sore feet and creaking knees, I’m smiling along, happy to be here.

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In amongst a section of songs from the album ‘Out of Nothing’. ‘Someday’ stands out. It sounds great and like everything in the set tonight, it simply soars. By the time we’re singing along to the line ‘a light is gonna shine, for you and I’ I’m in my own little world and probably screeching at the top of my voice. I might even have my arms stretched up in the air like I’m having a Polyphonic Spree moment. Awkward. I’ve said this in middle age gigging blogs before, but apologies if you read this and realise you were standing near me.

Alongside ‘Someday’ there’s ‘A Glorious Day’ which is another one that brings the memories flooding back, especially here in Leeds, where Embrace’s own mini festival of the same name took place some years back in Millenium Square. We attended both days and then, while watching the DVD of it (remember them old folk?) some months later we noticed a familiar face could be seen repeatedly in the crowd – me! It’s now known in the house as ‘my gig’, often prompting the tired old line of ‘Have you seen Embrace at my gig?’ and is my very own claim to fame, albeit it a pretty poor one!

The pace of things picks up again as the band play ‘Last Gas’ and ‘One Big Family’. During both we’re guided through a bit of a singalong by Danny as we scream out the ba-ba-ba- sections. All of a sudden there’s something of the Bruce Forsyths about him as he motions and mimes to us when it’s ‘our turn’. Little does he know that in my head I’m fulfilling something of a lifelong ambition singing back-ups for the band!

During ‘Higher Sights’ and ‘Retread’ I think I manage to put myself in some kind of trance. It’s possible that this is a middle age thing. It may not actually be a trance, more that it’s just way past my bed time and I’m not used to being out of the house. However, for the sake of the music, let’s call it a trance. Both are songs that I love. Coincidentally and somewhat improbably, given my lack of memory for lyrics, both are songs that I know the words to. Hence the fact that it’s not long before I’m back to screeching at the top of my voice. I may have even closed my eyes for few seconds at one point during ‘Retread’ for the refrain of ‘Will you fight?’ later on in the song. The point is that the gig has reached some kind of peak at this point. This is why we love music, why we follow bands and, in terms of the blog, why we’re still hauling our tired bodies off the settee to go and throw ourselves around in rooms full of like-minded souls in our middle age.

After my trance/impromptu middle aged nap, I find myself checking my watch. I’ve staved off the yawning so far, but my body is telling me that it’s late. More middle age flagging than middle aged gigging. Oh for the days of being a teenager or in my early twenties again when I would leave the gig sweaty and shattered, but then continue on with the evening until the sun was coming up.

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I’m perked up somewhat by the sound of ‘Gravity’. This was the first dance at our wedding and – ridiculous as it sounds – we even invited the band. It genuinely felt like the right thing to do given how much Embrace meant to us. We didn’t think for a second that they’d show up, but having met them we knew that our invite and accompanying letter would at the very least raise a smile. As it turned out the band sent us a congratulations card which was read out at the reception much to our delight. ‘Congratu-fucking-lations’ it said and the person reading out the cards just read it word for word, like Ron Burgundy on the autocue! As ‘Gravity’ begins I wrap my arms around my wife and we sing and dance along together – any excuse for a cuddle! It’s another wonderful moment in yet another wonderful Embrace gig.

And then, Danny says a few sentences that are equal parts thrilling and terrifying to me and probably every other middle aged gig-goer in the room. ‘We haven’t asked this once yet, but we will now. We want you to go mad, jumping up and down for this next one.’ He advises us to settle back down during the verses, like some kind of health advisor who’s all too aware of the creaking joints and aching muscles in front of him. But it’s with some trepidation that we go along with the notion of going mad during the more up tempo section. It’s time for Ashes.

In what is now time-honoured tradition as the song starts Danny leans forward towards the audience and implores us to pogo by waving his arms and shouting ‘Up, up, up, up.’ And up we go.

Brilliantly, I find I can bounce for ages – a boast that I should only really share with toddlers and Tigger, but I’m pretty pleased with myself all the same. As always, the song is immense and the atmosphere in the crowd lifts another few notches. But it’s over all too soon. I resist an ever-growing urge to check my heart rate via my watch and concentrate on applauding the band as they leave the stage, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be back for an encore.

Sure enough, in what seems like no time, Embrace are back. It’s very much a sing-a-long encore ending with ‘Fireworks’ and ‘The Good Will Out’ and ensures that the whole night ends at very much a late forties friendly kind of pace. Even then though, there’s time for one last personal moment of magic. As he walks across the stage towards the end of the final song Danny is eyeing the crowd and giving thumbs ups. As he approaches my section of the audience, I swear I catch his eye and then, almost in slow motion he aims a thumbs up in my direction. In fact, not in ,my direction, more straight at me. My arms are already raised and I give an instinctive thumbs up back, he nods and in the blink of an eye the moment passes. But it was our moment. Even as a middle age gig goer, it’s a thrill.

Shortly afterwards the music stops, the band assemble at the front of the stage and there’s a last bow before they’re gone. Danny, Richard, Mike, Steve and Mickey, thanks. You’ve made an old man very happy indeed for around about the 30th time!

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Life in grassroots football: How to turn your Under 11s four match losing streak into a personal crisis!

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Right lads, read this, take it all in and get out there and play like Brazil. Oh, and enjoy yourselves!

Every week, I try to make the last words that I say to my team exactly the same. “Enjoy it”, I say. And I mean it. I won’t lie though. I desperately want them to win because I know that winning football matches is a great deal more enjoyable than losing them. It’s simple really. But I always tell them ‘enjoy it’.

There’s no doubt that there’s a boat load of enjoyment to be had from running a kids’ football team. Certainly that’s what everyone will tell you. It’ll be a tonne of fun. They’re right as well. It is fun. So why am I currently turning our form into some kind of personal crisis then? Well let me attempt an explanation.

“I take it all very personally”

First up – and I know from conversations with other coaches that I’ve got no exclusivity here – I take it all very personally. When I played, as a kid and as a much younger man, I wanted to win. Desperately. Now, as an adult, I won’t ever send a team out thinking that any of us will enjoy it if we get beat. I certainly won’t. I don’t even enjoy it when we’ve got beat and played well. I might tell the kids that it was enjoyable to watch, but that’s a carefully placed white lie. When I played I would brood on defeats or bad performances for days on end. Nowadays, as a coach, it wakes me up in the middle of the night. ‘What could I have done to prevent that from happening?’ I tell the kids that I enjoyed watching them play, but inside I’m already asking myself how I could have changed things in order to avoid that defeat. Or I’m wondering how what we did in training on the Thursday and what we spoke about before kick-off didn’t make it to the match.

Kids don’t enjoy defeat either, especially when it’s a run of them. This thing that was meant to be fun isn’t anything like fun when the other team are laughing at you or celebrating yards away as you sit and have a drink of water miserably at the end of the game.

“I didn’t shout and bawl and I wasn’t cruel.”

And then as a coach, what do I say? I understand the need for positivity, but I think sometimes you have to be human too. Sometimes I just find it really tough to choose my words. And it becomes something that I worry about. Another reason to lie awake on a Saturday night. After our last game, and at the end of the four game losing streak that kind of prompted this blog, I’d had enough. I didn’t shout and bawl and I wasn’t cruel. But I couldn’t tell them lies. Not on this occasion. It had genuinely felt like every instruction given had been ignored. It had genuinely felt like, as coaches, we’d been let down. Of course I didn’t tell them that, but they were left in no doubt that they simply hadn’t been good enough. We’d been forced to make three substitutions because of the attitude of some of the boys and the fact that they’d decided to shout at not just the ref, but their coaches, parents and each other too. Of course, I then worried about that as well! Should I have been negative? Did I need to say anything? Would I need to sit them down again before the next training session and be all ‘cuddly’ and positive? In the end I said no more, but I must have thought it through at least a dozen times in the days between the game and training.

I did end up spending even more hours on football that week coming up with a code of conduct for the boys with some ‘rules’ and sanctions. I gave it out at training still feeling like I might be taking it all too seriously, but then comforted myself later with the thought that I’d taken out the bit where I wanted them to sign it! I’d planned to photocopy each of the signed code of conducts, so that I had a copy as well as the boys! I’m still keeping it in mind for next season though! After all, they’ll be coming up to 12 by then…

As coaches we took that day personally. In the heat of the moment I genuinely considered quitting as it just felt like I wasn’t making any kind of difference any more. As I do on many a Sunday, I found some time to sit and think things through in the afternoon after the game and came to the conclusion that I was taking things a little too seriously. There was no option but to carry on, making sure that training was purposeful and fun and that we worked more towards getting things right in games. After all, it’s an under 11s team, not someone fighting to win the Champions’ League. But it demonstrates how easy it is to become completely obsessed by the small part we play in football. And I’m sure I’m not alone in being this way. I hope I’m not, anyway!

“…I’ve allowed running a team to become too big a part of my life.”

The lengths I go to and the time I put into my team probably pales into insignificance when measured against some coaches. But I still feel that I’ve allowed running a team to become too big a part of my life. In the lead up to a game I can be regularly found scribbling down teams and formation on the backs of envelopes or scraps of paper. I’ll invariably then proceed to lose the envelope and have to search out another one and do it all over again! The trouble is that a combination of a big squad of players – we have 16 kids for a 9-a-side team – and a poor memory means that every team is different again as I forget a player and include someone else. Suffice to say the whole envelope thing can be unnecessarily stressful!

I used to keep a record of every game we played as well. I’d mark each player out of ten, record scorers and write a paragraph or two about how we’d played and things to change. Family life and work has put pay to that particular obsession though as I can just never find the time anymore. Again though, the little orange book is something I’m thinking of bringing back for next year!

When I’ve got time I get out my little magnetic board with the counters that represent players and play about with it, working out who’d be best where and what I’d need to tell them in order to get the best out of them in said position. I haven’t yet had the bottle to use it at an actual match, but the time will come when I finally convince myself that it’s not that embarrassing and that it’s what other coaches do! I’ll stress myself out about that too.

“…please don’t get me started on dog walkers!”

And then, in terms of obsession and crisis, we get to the pitch. Our pitch takes up so much of my time that it’s criminal really. I live quite close to the club, so in times of bad weather I’m forever thinking about it. What will that near side touchline be like? Will the top goalmouth be holding water? Is the grass too long in the corners and is it possible that my lines have disappeared again? As a further consequence of living close, I’m forever checking the weather forecast for the week a well, just in case there’s a few days worth of rain that I need to panic about while being unable to actually do anything about it.

All this is of course before we even touch on the subject of kids using the pitch to ride bikes on. And please don’t get me started on dog walkers! It seems that every time I go over to re-paint the lines someone has let their dog use our pitch as a toilet and then conveniently not noticed! And I swear that every time I’m leaving having re-done those lines someone will proceed to walk their dog over our pitch, even though they can see me coming out of the clubhouse! I’m beginning to feel paranoid; that someone is watching me paint the lines while simultaneously winding up Fido ready to go and run all over our grass!

It gets worse. I can often be found hanging out of my bedroom window, craning my neck to see if I can get a view of the pitch from about 400 metres away. I can’t, but it never stops me trying! Sometimes I’ll see dog walkers or, Heaven forbid, kids playing football and quietly curse to myself while trying not to worry too much. I’ve genuinely become a pitch bore and I fear that I may need to seek some kind of professional help in order to shake the disease.

The final form of obsession can be found on the morning of any match. As a supporter I’ve been ridiculously superstitious for as long as I can remember. Nothing too crazy…just the lucky pants, the lucky socks, the lucky top, not using any plates, bowls or mugs that are the same colour as opposition shirts, the lucky pebbles found on a beach stuffed into coat pockets, buying a programme from the same place week in, week out. Just the kind of things I’ve found as a Newcastle United fan that are proven to work and responsible for all of our success over the years. I mean you can’t always rely on the likes of Mike Ashley, Joe Kinnear and Alan Pardew.

As a coach I’m much the same. If we lose I won’t wear the same top for the next game. I’ll change tracksuit bottoms after a bad result too. I put things out in a certain order when I get to the pitch. I haven’t quite got to the lucky pebble level yet, but I know it’ll happen. I just haven’t found the right pebble yet!

We finally have a game again this weekend after the last four were postponed due to the weather. After what has felt like months and months being obsessed and feeling like I’m in the middle of some kind of personal crisis I have an outlet! I hope that we go out and play well. I hope that the formation I’ve been considering will work and that the changes I’m planning won’t be too much. I hope we can win. And, you know obviously, I hope everyone enjoys themselves. Whatever happens I’m sure I’ll sulk and moan and overthink every last second of it!

 

 

 

More middle-aged gigging! The Bluetones at Leeds Stylus.

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Picture the scene. Tea time in an ordinary three bedroomed semi in suburban Leeds. The telly’s on. A family – mine – are sat around watching a bit of post football television.

“You’re not going out again? Really?”

“You’re always going out! It’s ridiculous. What about me?”

Now if you’re thinking that this is perhaps my middle aged reaction to my teenage daughter heading out on some shopping trip or hanging about with ‘the girls’, then you’d be wrong. Horribly wrong. This is in fact the kind of dialogue that my kids hurled my way on Saturday evening when, without warning – unless you count the many warnings that they simply didn’t listen to – me and my wife headed out to watch The Bluetones at Leeds Stylus.

The sense of outrage is palpable. The sheer horror undisguised. The grief is multiplied by the fact that it’s Uncle Richard babysitting and not fun loving, just out of his teens cousin, Martin. Thankfully though, it’s mostly put right by the simple fact that we’re having pizza for tea. This serves to calm the nerves and rationalise the fears of what might happen should your parents have the brass neck to go out for the second time this year, for a few hours. Kids eh? Possibly the simplest and most complex things ever to walk the face of planet Earth.

As I’ve documented in a previous blog, middle aged gigging is fraught with tension, pitfalls and problems. The first of these is brought to light fairly quickly this evening when we realise that we don’t know where the gig actually is. Well, we know where, but we don’t recognise the name of the venue. And this was never the case when we were young and cool. A Google search allays a few of our fears, but even when we’ve parked up, we don’t really know where we’re going. For a start it seems to be part of the student’s union and sadly, it’s been a long time since either of us were students.

And this brings into play another fear. Will there be actual students at our gig? Are we about to have to watch an entire gig from one of our favourite bands while simultaneously hiding in a corner trying to disguise the fact that we’re the oldest swingers in town. And by ‘swingers’ I mean people attending a gig, not people conducting illicit sexual relations with the partners of other middle aged folk. I mean, even the image of me naked, let alone other more out-of-shape-forty-and fifty-somethings is enough to prompt you, dear reader, to be sick in your mouth. So come on, pull yourselves together: stop picturing me naked and read on!

Thankfully, our first element of tension, is dissolved when after a relatively short walk I find memories of my PGCE at the University of Leeds come flooding back. I know – sort of – exactly where I am and before we know it we’re heading into the building and down the stairs towards the Stylus. We don’t have a ticket though and instead are relying on picking them up on the door, so there’s an anxious wait while the girl scans the list before finally finding our names and highlighting them. She stamps our hands and we’re in. However, here’s another potential crisis point if you’re a middle aged gig goer. How can you preserve the memory in the time honoured fashion if there’s no ticket? What do I put in a box of memories that’s destined for the loft? What do I frame with other tickets in order to attempt interesting artwork that the wife will not allow on our walls?

Overcoming this tiny existential crisis we go into the gig. It’s early and the crowd is sparse so we head to the front. Sort of. I’ve always been too polite at gigs. It’s got worse as I’ve got older. So now, in middle age, while I’ve got a bit bolder in moving forward I’m still unlikely to stand straight  in front of those people who’ve left a gap. Don’t get me wrong, it’s their fault if they’ve left a gap and someone’s inevitably going to stand there, but it most likely won’t be me. So we stand and ponder for a couple of minutes. My wife is a lot shorter than me – a clause that will undoubtedly get me into trouble – while retaining her status as an intellectual giant – a clause that might just get me out of jail – so she likes to be as far forward as possible. So we’re caught between two stools, so to speak.

I’ve been going to gigs with my wife for a very long time. It’s a wonderful thing. We like much of the same music and it helps us get on. I’ve noticed my wife has certain mystical powers that only come out at gig time, but I’ll only let you in on the one in case you’re ever at the same gig as me and we need to use her power’s for the greater good. She can levitate. Genuinely levitate. And as such, while I’m worrying about standing in front of a couple near the front, she levitates into the space, forcing me to follow. I’ve let slip that she does mind control as well now. But she’s levitated and I’ve not even noticed her moving, which in turn helps me overcome my middle aged gig politeness. We’re now just three people from the front of the stage. If this was someone like Take That I could reach out and touch Mark Owen’s testicles as he gyrated in front of me. But it’s not and I doubt Mark Morriss would enjoy such over familiar fandom. Anyway, we’re no longer between two stools. Just metaphorically within touching distance of Mark Owen’s scrotum. It’s been quite a journey in a very short space of time.

As a younger man I had a reasonably encyclopedic knowledge of music, especially with what was new at the time. So during what are referred to generally these days as ‘The Britpop Years’ I knew my stuff. And of course, this is where my love of The Bluetones came from. Nowadays however, my grasp of things has slipped. Having a career, a marriage, children etc; these commitments will get in the way of any kind of interests and my knowledge of bands has suffered. Hence tonight, even though I’ve read who they are, I still have no idea who the support band are. In fact, there are two support bands, but being middle aged these days, the temptations of having a proper tea and staying in the warmth for a little bit longer meant that we weren’t out in time to be queuing at the doors and being two of the 23 people who may have watched the first support.

We make it in time to catch the second support though, although due to middle aged hearing and a lack of annunciation on the singer’s part I couldn’t tell you what they’re called. However, I can furnish you with a few observations. Firstly, they sound and dress a bit like Joy Division. There are hints of The Fall in there too. Secondly, they swear quite a bit. ‘Fuck’ this and ‘fuck’ that and no doubt ‘fuck’ the other as well. Risqué. Thirdly, they’re quite brave. Why? Well they follow one song that has a chorus of ‘this in not a joke, not a fucking joke’ with another that asks ‘Can I speak to a manager please?’ If you think about it there’s a certain level of confidence there, right?

Once they’ve left the stage a glance at my watch tells me that we’ve got about 25 minutes until our heroes, The Bluetones arrive. They’re touring their album Science and Nature, released in 2000, which for fans is a bit of a classic. Not only that though, having played the album through in its entirety, the lads would be back with a second ‘Greatest Hits’ set afterwards. This is great in theory; a real treat. However, given my age, it actually throws up another middle age gigging problem. By the end of these two sets, while I may experience a certain euphoria, to misquote Khia, my legs, my back, my everything is going to hurt. It’s bad enough having to stand still for this long, but tapping a foot, raising the odd hand, arm, pair of hands to clap, actual dancing, well of this is going to take its toll. And that was never a worry when I was a younger gig goer. And this is before we even give a thought to what state we’ll be in the next day.

Age is a constant concern at gigs these days and as such I find myself turning around to check the rest of the audience. I scan both balconies – although their more like ledges in the Stylus – and have a good look at everyone behind me and I’m more than a bit pleased to see so much grey and white hair, as well as many a bald head. We’re all middle aged gigging together and as far as I can see there’s not a hipster student type in site!

There is one more slight problem of a middle aged nature, however. It’s cold out tonight and I’m feeling the cold a little bit more these days – another reason to revoke my Geordie membership as well, I know. So I’m wearing a jacket. It’s not quite sitting at the football with a tartan blanket round my knees, but I feel that it marks me out as old. It reminds me, once again, that middle age has well and truly hit, but there’s nothing else for it. The days of being cool are sadly long gone.With a two hour set ahead of me I’m going to get hot, but there’s no way that I’m tying my jacket round my waist. I can’t avoid feeling like a bit of a twat though. That said, I’m surrounded by middle-aged gig goers, so I can afford to relax a little bit and it wouldn’t be a surprise to find more jackets knocking about. As long as there are no gilets, eh?

Whatever my age, the pre-gig excitement remains the same. So as 9pm approaches, I’m watching the door at the side of the stage like a hawk. And when it opens a fraction, letting in a tiny bit of light, my heart leaps a little bit. Seconds later and our heroes are taking to the stage. Without checking I’d say it’s around 24 years, maybe more, since I first saw them live, but just the sight of The Bluetones walking onstage still makes me smile. In fact, as I get older and especially as a few years ago we attended their ‘farewell’ tour and I thought I’d lost this forever, I think it makes me smile a whole lot more. It’s widened a little bit more tonight as well as the lads are resplendent in white jeans and white lab coats – Science and Nature, you see?

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The gig is an absolute triumph. Frontman Mark is on top form, regaling us with tale after tale of life in The Bluetones over the years. And the songs don’t sound bad either! First up it’s Science and Nature and we’re treated to a number of favourites. It’s an album I’ve always loved and the sound of opener Zorro immediately lifts my spirits a little bit more. Suddenly the self consciousness of the middle age gigger is gone. I don’t feel like a mature student or in fact a bloody English teacher and I’m shuffling from foot to foot in something that resembles at least a kind of rhythm.

We’re quickly in to ‘The Last of the Great Navigators’ and Mark is crooning the line about believing ‘there’s something good around the corner’ and do you know what, he’s never sounded more convincing. The beautiful ‘Tiger Lily’ is next before drummer Eds takes centre stage – kind of – with the ‘Ch-ch-ch-ch’ refrain from ‘Mudslide’. We’d been listening to this round the tea table before we came out and bizarrely none of the family can actually do it, apart from me. As I’m the bloke who always sings the wrong lyrics this is quite the achievement, believe me! As the song kicks in and I’m doing it – obviously – my wife turns around with a knowing smile. A knowing smile that says, ‘Yes, you can make a noise, but face facts love, when it comes to actual words you’re like a four-year-old.’ I don’t care and I’ll take any victory I can get, even if it is that I make noises better than anyone else.

Perhaps the last time I heard ‘Blood Bubble’ live was when we saw this album toured originally, although given my age and my memory, I could be wrong. But it’s sounding great tonight. I’m a sucker for an instrumental. And then we’re into the wonderful run of ‘Autophilia’ and ‘Keep The Home Fires Burning’. By now I may well be singing – loosely – at the top of my voice. This makes me a little self conscious as you don’t want to spoil anyone else’s night, but gig after gig after gig I can’t help it. I suppose after all these years these songs just mean a lot and I rationalise my brief worries with the thought that the band’s amps and mikes might just make them a bit louder than me anyway. If you’re reading this and thinking you were stood near me as I yelled along and it spoilt your night, I’m sorry. And I’ll extend my apologies for getting the words wrong so much as well. I was in my element though!

The set ends in frankly remarkable fashion, even if it was completely scheduled and not a surprise to many present who simply know the album. I’d like to think I speak for a lot of Bluetones fans though when I express my total and utter undying love for ‘Slackjaw’, the band’s humble, beautiful and wonderful ode to lost love. It’s a song I could listen to again and again and not ever tire of, with the added bonus that it’s short enough even for a perennial lyric loser like myself to remember all the way through! And with that in mind, if you’re reading this Mr. Morriss (either of you) I’m available for back up vocals on this one in the future.

A brilliant set is ended with the wonderful ‘Emily’s Pine’ and the band are off stage as quick as a flash. We’re into what Mark has referred to as an interval for the benefit of an ageing audience and he’s even given us permission to retire to the foyer to purchase drinks and locally sourced ice creams, but apart from a few middle age bladders being emptied, as you’d expect, we’re going nowhere. (And I hope you appreciate the lack of a ‘never’ in there to avoid using an awful pun, Bluetones fans).

Before there’s time for my joints to seize up the boys are back on stage and we have the second half of the show to look forward to. This time it’s a ‘Greatest Hits’ set and we’re treated to a few that aren’t always played, like ‘Freeze Dried Pop’ – revealed by Mark as a potential top 27 hit that never happened – and ‘Fast Boy’.

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But it’s the old favourites that dominate and put the perfect glaze on tonight’s gig. ‘Bluetonic’, ‘Never Going Nowhere’ (with Mark chanelling The Eurythmics), ‘Solomon Bites The Worm’ and many more, as they say, are played to the delight of all in the crowd. We end with ‘If’ and a brilliant moment of Bluetones magic as Mark asks for the phone of the woman in front of us in order to film the whole thing for her. There are cameo appearances for the rest of the band including a lingering shot of Adam’s crotch before it’s handed back. Tomorrow, the video will ‘go viral’ as they say, albeit on a smallish, Bluetones sized scale and thousands will view it on Twitter. I will spend much of the day ruing the fact that it could have been me and thinking about the benefits it would have had for this blog! I gather myself, forget the blog – knowing my luck Mark wouldn’t have pressed ‘record’ anyway and look to the stage. After a well deserved bow The Bluetones are gone and it’s almost time to head home. But what a night!

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We end the night with a visit to the merchandise stall to make some apt age-related purchases, including a tea towel and some fridge magnets. Never has gigging felt so middle aged and yet so bloody brilliant. I’m shattered, my feet hurt, my ears are ringing and I know that Sunday is already even more of a write-off than usual, but boy am I happy! The Bluetones are a band to be cherished and thankfully – and you promised, Mark – they’ll be back again in 2020. And there are new songs to look forward to as well. Can’t wait. The battle for renewed gig fitness starts now for this middle-aged gig goer!

 

 

 

Legs like jelly and lungs fit to burst, but crossing the line with a smile – my experience at Parkrun.

As some of you know, for the last 18 months or so I’ve been on a bit of a quest to stay fit. And for those of you who didn’t know, well…how to put this? For the last 18 months or so I’ve been on a bit of a quest to stay fit. So now you know.

The quest came as part of a reaction to a health scare. In April 2018 I was admitted to hospital with quite severe heart palpitations and about a month later had to have an operation called a boob job. Just kidding, it was a cardiac ablation. Basically they destroy the bit of your heart that’s causing the problem by inserting catheters through your blood vessels and blasting the affected area with radio waves to create scar tissue that doesn’t conduct the electricity that is reaching your heart and causing the problem. Basically.

My reaction to this was to be a little bit frightened. On the whole it wasn’t a pleasant experience and it left me feeling quite worried that I might be a lot closer to death than I’d ever imagined. And so, as part of a lifestyle change, I began to exercise again. I began to run. Because, baby, we were born to run.

For the most part this has been a very solitary activity. Apart from a few early runs when my son would come with me, I’ve been out running alone. Having discovered X-Box though, my son has decided that he no longer cares about his dad’s health and thus I have no running partner and a son that couldn’t care less whether I live or die. And of course, I jest there. Dark humour and all that. Of course he cares. The whole family does. I mean, who would put the bins out if I keeled over?

I don’t mind the solitary side of things. I like running alone. It leaves me free with my thoughts – I don’t tend to listen to music – and since the operation I feel like I’ve become mentally a lot stronger too. So while as a young man I’d readily give in to the little voice telling me to stop, nowadays I’m made of sterner stuff. I’ll battle on when I feel tired and I’ll run through the periods when I feel like I might be sick. That solitary half hour or hour is more like a break – no one to engage with, nothing to bother me, except tired legs and lungs.

Recently though, my daughter had begun her bronze award in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. As part of it she has to volunteer for anything up to six months and so, when she was struggling to find somewhere to do this, my wife intervened and contacted the people at our local Parkrun. The organiser, Michelle, couldn’t have been more helpful and agreed instantly to take on my daughter and her friend as volunteers. And this is how I found myself on a narrow lane in Oakwell Hall, West Yorkshire stood in a crowd of people buzzing with anticipation.

In truth Parkrun has been on my radar for ages. It appealed as soon as I read about it, but there was always something stopping me doing it. There are several local to me so I wasn’t short of options and wouldn’t have to travel too far, but that final push to take myself along had always eluded me. But then, with my daughter needing a lift to Oakwell Hall and there being nothing to do but hang around when I got there, I decided to take the plunge. And so I found myself standing on the aforementioned narrow lane in a country park in West Yorkshire wondering what I’d let myself in for one Saturday morning in late August.

It had been a couple of weeks since I’d last run and so my head was full of doubts. And there seemed to be hundreds of others here too. Most were fellow runners – I optimistically classed myself as a runner, despite my feeling that the last bit of today’s run might well be crawled – and then there were quite a few others either volunteering in some capacity or spectating. For a few minutes I was convinced I’d made a big mistake and wondered if anyone would notice if I simply wandered off in the direction of my car. But then I looked over to where a group of volunteers were standing, getting ready to head off to their marshalling points, and spotted my daughter and her best friend. Both were here as part of their Duke of Edinburgh bronze award…I couldn’t let them down. I couldn’t face explaining why I’d done the wrong kind of runner. So I pushed the positives.

One of the moments that I was dreading was the guidance for new Parkrunners. I’d got it into my head that I was sure to be the only one and that while someone lectured me about running, a whole load of Saucony clad young folk would be standing around eyeing me up and tutting at my inexperience.

Unsurprisingly, it was nothing of the sort. Firstly, there were around a dozen of us new to the run, so I could hide in company. Secondly, the talk was enthusiastic and good humoured; it was clear that everyone wanted us to do well. And finally, a quick glance around told me that there was no difference between us newbies and the veterans that we stood amongst – everyone was just here for a run.

Following the briefing of the virgins, I decided to head down to the start of the run. Still suffering from nerves and a little bit of self-doubt I headed towards the back of the ever growing group. Looking around it didn’t take long for me to notice that everyone seemed happy. There was a selection of ages and body shapes, the weather was good and it was the very start of the weekend. Amazingly, it didn’t take long for this Parkrun ‘vibe’ to take hold of me. While normally I’m cynical and quite resistant to smiling, I found myself gradually relaxing. Positive thoughts seeped into my mind and it wasn’t long before I was telling myself that not only could I actually do this, but that I could enjoy it and perhaps even do it well. Such is the atmosphere at Parkrun.

It wasn’t long before I was joined in the starting area by a lot more runners. A check of my watch revealed that it was a few minutes to the 9am start time. And then, at the head of the pack, sans megaphone, appeared race director Michelle. At first I struggled to hear precisely what she was saying, such was the noise of dogs around me. Actual dogs…that’s not me turning all pirate on you. But occasionally people would clap, so dutiful as ever, I clapped along, not sure whether I was feeling positive or not. Slowly but surely though I got to hear what she was saying and basically Michelle was being a one-woman motivational/relaxation tool. She also seemed to be a dog whisperer too, as the more she shouted, the quieter the hounds became. By the time she began asking whether there were any tourists or first timers I was relaxed and ready to run. I secretly hoped that the dogs had fell asleep – surely even I couldn’t finish last if the saying about letting sleeping dogs lie was going to be adhered to. And then, before I knew it, we were off!

At the back of the field we shuffle awkwardly forward, occasionally breaking into a jog, before slowing again as the road narrows. Luckily, by the time I pass my daughter for the first time, I’m doing something that resembles running. Despite the uphill start and the fact that the lane narrows to a path within a couple of hundred yards, I’m feeling fine as we reach the first turn onto a track I know well from family walks around the park.

For a short while I jog steadily along, sort of stuck behind people, but also running on auto-pilot and not particularly interested in upping the pace. And then, as the track widens enough a couple of runners pass me and it snaps me into some sort of action. I kick on a few times and get round some of the runners around me, picking up a comfortable pace and stretching my legs a little.

Soon, we hit the first downhill stretch and I negotiate this fairly carefully, aware of the fact that if anyone’s going to take a tumble, it’s going to be me. Then the track narrows again and the pace is back to a crawl, but I’m feeling relatively good.

As the track opens out we face a short, energy sapping uphill climb over some cobbles – well we are in deepest Yorkshire – through the car park and we’re about halfway around our first lap of the park. I’m suddenly aware of clapping and some shouting and when I look up I’m greeted by the sight of several high-viz jackets adorning a group of volunteers who proceed to do a wonderful job of congratulating everyone that passes on their progress, however slow we may be, or in my case how much our face resembles a plum tomato. And this is one of the many great things about Parkrun; everyone is so supportive and positive. At various points around the 5 kilometre course they stand and congratulate you or tell you what a great job you’re doing. And in the spirit of the whole thing you find yourself thanking them right back. As a veteran of 6 Great North Runs I know that I react well to such encouragement and crowd participation and although it’s on a much smaller scale here, it’s no less welcome.

We crest the hill and across the road from me is my daughter and her friend. Again, despite my embarrassment, it’s a boost and I lengthen my stride ahead of another downhill section. Another bit of a kick and I’m feeling pretty good – *coughs* for a man of my age – and I manage to pass a few people on the way down the hill. Near the bottom though comes a bit of a test. Oakwell Hall features a path that zig-zags down towards the stream at quite a severe angle, so you’re going back on yourself and taking some rather sharp turns. My legs are tiring and by the time I’ve hit the bottom of the hill and crossed the bridge over the stream I’m blowing a bit. In what I’m rapidly finding out is true Parkrun fashion there’s another volunteer twist as a female marshall stands shouting encouragement while shaking maracas at us at the bottom of the hill. Strange, but brilliant and the kind of thing that takes my mind of my aching body and makes me laugh in spite of it.

But there’s no let-up as we hit another steep uphill section. I make the mistake of running up the stairs and have legs like jelly at the top. Within a few minutes there’s another steep uphill climb, but by the top we’re heading towards halfway and as the trail opens up I realise there’s more people to be passed. By the time we hit halfway I feel a strange mix of being full of running and absolutely knackered! I’m feeling OK though and more to the point, I’m enjoying myself. There are more marshalls encouraging us, more downhill sections and, sadly, more uphills too, but before I know it I’m heading along the final few hundred metres of trail and powering -sort of – for the finish line. I have no idea whatsoever of how I’m doing or of what my time might be, but I’m enjoying myself and I know that I need to open up my stride and try to have a big finish. Just before we turn right into the final straight I’m passed by a couple of runners. I tell myself that it’s OK, they’re both a lot younger than me, but I try to respond and catch them. There’s nothing left in my legs though. Still, I spot a woman in colourful leggings ahead of me running with a dog. I’ve enjoyed my run, but I can’t get beaten by a lass in fancy dress. I summon up one last kick and seem to be catching her up, but it’s too late. As much as my mind wants to sprint, my legs have had enough. I’m making no more ground up today, so with my time in mind, I keep up my middle-aged sprint and try to pass the finish line with a tiny bit of style and probably slightly less dignity.

Whatever I might look like though, I’m done. And I think I’ve done OK. Parkrun may not be a marathon or any kind of huge test, but it’s a lot of fun. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my morning. Everyone’s been welcoming and the runners come in all shapes, sizes and approaches, which is comforting when your legs are like pipe cleaners and as your body heats up it all goes to your face, making sure you look like the aforementioned tomato after about 500 yards.

It’s not really a race, but you’ll be informed of your position in the field and your time, so there’s always going to be that competitive edge. As it turns out, shortly after I get home I’m informed by email that I managed to drag myself around the 5km course in just over 31 minutes. It’s an automatic personal best too, due to the fact that I’ve never done Parkrun before!

As a result of the run I have to give myself a couple of weeks rest as my back reacts badly to the trail running. However, within a fortnight I’m back and this time I manage to take almost a minute off my personal best. Then, a week later when I’ve clearly caught the Parkrun bug I manage to get round in 29 minutes and 3 seconds. My third Parkrun and my third personal best!

I hope that I can go on and complete many more. For now I’ll stick to Oakwell Hall, but I have it in my mind to sample the atmosphere at others as well, because that amount of encouragement is strangely addictive. And maybe that’s the thing about Parkrun – a non-threatening, friendly, positive place where everyone – even your competitors – want you to do well. Who could ask for anything more while dragging their middle aged, lycra-clad body round a park?

It’s time for a new teaching year…and I’m stressed out already!

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From next week thousands of people will be returning to a place that they most likely have a love hate relationship with. A place that, while it brings them fantastic highs and untold joy, will also land upon them terrible amounts of stress and enough moments of disbelief in a typical couple of months to last a lifetime. Sounds like a cross between a crack den and a soft play centre, doesn’t it? Well in fact, I’m talking about school.

After 6 weeks of summer holidaying – or if you’re British, dodging downpours – us teachers (and other school staff) are set to return to work. Most, for any number of reasons, will be dreading it, which is something that lots of non teaching folk and those who don’t work in education simply refuse to understand. Well, allow me to explain.

You’d expect that after six weeks worth of holidays that we’d be fully relaxed, re-invigorated and enthusiastic to go back to work. And I’ve no doubt that some staff are exactly like that. These people are not to be trusted in my humble opinion. Wrong ‘uns, the lot of them.

This next academic year will be my twentieth in teaching. It’s a job I love – no two days are the same, there are highs and lows aplenty, there are some great people – we’ll leave the not-so-great ones for later – and working with kids will always make you smile. But I’m not one of the teachers who don’t mention the pull of the holidays. Thirteen weeks a year and I can honestly say I genuinely think that it’s still not quite enough. Every half term will leave me exhausted and so any time off is largely spent recuperating, rather than enjoying myself. I’ve never spent 6 hedonistic weeks in Ibiza or somewhere partaking in copious amounts of drugs and free love. More likely, I’ll watch a bit more telly and try in vain to do jobs around the house. For me, the holidays are vital.

So conversely, I find the going back to work bit quite the ballache. Now teacher or not teacher, I know what you’re thinking. Or at least the kind of thing you’re thinking. It’ll be within a ball park that contains outrage, a feeling of negativity towards my perceived ingratitude and probably the odd utterance of that strange phrase ‘Man up‘. I don’t care. And furthermore, I have plenty of colleagues and friends who don’t care either.

An old Head of mine used to compare teaching to being on an oil rig. The feeling being that mentally, we’d be completely out of reach for our families during term time, as if we were offshore, almost. It was a particularly challenging school, by the way. As each term ended she’d tell us to switch off, go back to our families and loved ones and spend precious time with them. So if you don’t like my trepidation about going back to work then you’re heartless; I’m off to a bloody oil rig, for Christs’s sakes.

Psychologically, the problems with going back to work can start at any time during the six weeks holidays. And we’ll all have suffered with it. I’m talking of course about the anxiety dreams. You’re sitting in front of a class who just won’t listen. They’re all laughing hysterically at you, even the nice kids. Especially the nice kids! Whatever you try, fails. And try as you might these kids just won’t listen or do what you ask. You might even end up in tears in front of them, pathetically calling out things like, ‘Guys?‘ (always as a question). Inevitably you’ll wake up in a cold sweat, heart racing and possibly in need of a parent. But that parent can’t help. You’re going to repeat that dream – possibly exactly the same dream – a good few times before stepping back over the threshold of your school again in September.

As a rule, I don’t suffer too badly with the anxiety dream and the out of control class. In fact, I usually save mine up for one big nightmare on the eve of my return to work, resulting in me going back looking worse and more exhausted than when we broke up for the six weeks! This year though, has been different. I’ve had a number of these dreams and every last one has left me sat in our bathroom, sweating and trying to yoga-breathe my way to some kind of tranquil mindset that will enable me to sleep again.

The worst one actually started quite well. I’m in control of the class, cracking the odd joke, everyone enjoying their learning and Mr Crosby is kind of a big deal around these parts. And then, slowly but surely, things fall apart. The odd bit of calling out, some general low level disruption. And just when it looks like I’m about to wrestle back control, a boy the height of a giraffe gets up and wanders into my cupboard before emerging again wearing a lampshade as a hat and wandering aimlessly around my room. Every time I try to get to him, he appears back in the cupboard. Try as I might, Giraffe-Boy Lampshade Head just will not listen. And you don’t get that in your council office, your accountancy practice or your supermarket. It’s not you sitting naked – sorry, fight that image, think of giraffe boy – sweating on the edge of a bath considering doing warrior pose or downward dog in order to get back to sleep.

The next thing that can contribute to a dread of going back to work seems like a nice thing, but in fact, it’s not. As an adult, I thought that those signs telling me that it’s ‘Back to School’ soon were no longer applicable. And then I went into teaching and found that every summer the lure of those Back to School signs and their promise of stationery was to prove all too much. Stationery is a huge part of life as a teacher. At least I hope it is and that it’s not just me clinging on to shiny notebooks and refusing to grow up! Even now, after nearly twenty years in the job, I still get a little bit excited at the thought of new pens, highlighters, markers and the like come September. And I still enter Asda with a spring in my step at the prospect of a rollback on notebooks and plastic wallets.

However, while the acquisition of such things is a delight it will quickly lead to stress. Now I’m aware that this is probably just a particular foible of mine, but there is a possibility that somewhere, within the educational community there are more of us. So let’s see how many people find themselves nodding along to this. The fact is I get ridiculously precious about my new stationery and as a result I tend to stockpile it. I become like a stationery squirrel, with drawers of pens, pencils, notebooks, folders and files that are so lovely I’ll allow no one to us them; including me. Sometimes the teacher in the adjoining room to mine – a friend I’ve known for years – will pop in searching for a pen and I reluctantly agree to get one, slowly ripping opening the packet with a rictus smile spread across my chops as I attempt to hide the fact that this is killing me! Lately pupils have started to ask if they can have a plastic wallet, something I have hundreds of. They need them to carry certain notes around and I then have to pretend that it’s no problem and that of course they can have a plastic wallet, when really, hidden just beneath the surface the real Mr Crosby is screaming, ‘GET YOUR OWN PLASTIC BLOODY WALLETS!’ But of course I look forward to going back to work and of course I’m sure that my behaviour is fairly normal. Whichever way we look at it though, the pursuit of the perfect stationery can be a particularly stressful thing for us educators.

Another one of the stresses, one of the painful adjustments that needs to be made by people in education returning to work can be found with clothing. Imagine that, for a 6 week period almost everything you wore was casual. You got up in the morning, and dependent on the weather, you slung on a crumpled pair of jeans or shorts and a t-shirt. If you had to go out, you wore trainers, almost exclusively. And sometimes, just sometimes, you didn’t even bother to give your hair – and maybe even your make-up, although I personally like to spend at least a week in summer dressed as Ziggy Stardust, just for kicks – a second glance. Now you may not admit it, but this would be a world of bliss. Except for the Ziggy themed days, which frankly can be a pain in the arse. Go on, give it some thought…

Nice, isn’t it?

I haven’t ironed a shirt for over 6 weeks. And, let me tell you, when I do iron a shirt I’m pretty damn precise. No corners are cut and each one can take quite some time. So my break away from this is absolutely fantastic. The same can be said for polishing shoes. I haven’t even looked at my work shoes for the entire summer. I’ve slobbed around in Stan Smiths, Nike runners and even flip flops without a care in the world. I’ve worn t-shirts and shorts for days on end – different ones, I’m not an animal. I’ve gone sockless, like some kind of ageing surfer. And now, within hours, I’ll be back in a routine of wearing a suit, shirt, tie and brogues five days a week. All of this formality – and I love to look smart – weighs me down. I don’t miss the days of suddenly remembering, I need to iron a shirt. But I’ll miss not putting a great deal of thought into what I wear. I know, that as an adult – almost a fully functioning one as well – I shouldn’t find any stress in this, but I do. And you would too if you were annually given a massive break from it.

Lots of people don’t realise something really, vitally important about the summer break. And when they find out the truth, it can prove difficult to handle. But, for the uninitiated, here it is. We get paid for the time off. It’s a question I’m quite often asked and when I answer that yes, of course we get paid it can lead to meltdown for some. And while I won’t go into the rights and wrongs of this fact here, I would ask this. If you got paid to take 6 weeks off work, every year and do anything you liked, or even nothing at all, would you miss that when it was gone? It’s simplistic and almost boastful, but I really, really like getting paid for not going to work. It’s not just what gets taken away that makes returning to work for those in education a stressful and sometimes even miserable time. Undoubtedly, what happens when you get there can grind you down as well.

After 6 weeks away from work we inevitably return to what’s referred to as a ‘training day’. Now without swearing it’s hard to express my negativity about these days adequately. But, suffice to say, I’m not a fan. Training days used to be relaxed affairs. You’d have an initial all staff meeting, a department meeting and then be left to your own devices to get organised. This meant that the pay-off for sitting through two mind numbing meetings was the joy of pottering. Bliss. And it meant that I had time to sort out everything I needed in order to be ready for the new term. But not anymore.

Nowadays, with education it would seem moving in a far more corporate direction, training days are…what’s the phrase? Oh yes…’a massive pain in the arse’. An all staff meeting can last hours while various people tell you about things like ‘vision’ and ‘missions’ while referring to you all as ‘guys’. So lots of my favourite words then. The schedule that you’re given might as well come with a match to destroy it as time and again people talk beyond their slot, so to speak. And that’s not necessarily a criticism – when talking in class or conducting an assembly or a staff briefing I inevitable run over time while getting carried away at the thought of just bunging in another joke or better still, talking about myself. But after 6 weeks away from the job, I’m not in the mood – or headspace if you’re under thirty – to be talked at. In fact, I’m probably not listening. And I’m not the only one. You, dear colleague, are probably not listening either, so that later when we get together in another meeting, none of us has the first clue about where we work anymore, let alone our ‘vision’.

On the first day back at work I will almost certainly be given a schedule of where I have to be at any given moment during the day. And, when I read said schedule, I’d bet my mortgage that I will whine like a small child something along the lines of ‘Why do I have to go to that?’ And this is because, after 6 weeks gone rogue, I have regressed to kidult. And now this kidult is being forced to behave like a proper adult once more. Three days previously I was playing Scalectrix with a ten year old or burying my face in a chocolate muffin while watching ‘A Place in the Sun’ or ‘Homes Under The Hammer’ and now someone far more skilled at adulthood is banging on about their mission. Don’t tell me that 6 weeks off is long enough!

It gets worse. At some point you will be faced with a mad scramble to gather together things like exercise books, a diary, a planner, pens etc. Bloody stationery again! Inevitably, you will get to a store cupboard to find it’s already been ransacked by the dreaded young, enthusiastic colleagues who were ticking it all off their desk planner while you stared at your classroom walls for a moment that turned into 20 minutes! But it’s OK, because you will rise above this stress and have the last laugh by entering their classrooms once they’ve gone home, to pilfer the books that you missed out on, while telling yourself that your 20 years service to the teaching profession allows you such privilege! Little do you know, that you’ve forgotten to pick up any of the set texts you’re meant to be teaching, because year in year out, you don’t actually look at your desk planner.

More stress will come in the shape of things that others have planned for you. For instance, I dread the Duty Rota email like no other email across the year. Even writing about it makes my blood run cold. Will I get outside duties again? Because believe me, winter in deepest Dewsbury is like, well…summer in Dewsbury really. Rain, wind and more rain. And then there’s the issue of who else is on duty. Will I share a duty, will I know this person, will I have to actually speak to them? This year I’ve been blessed in that although I’ve been outside I’ve had good company. Someone of a similar cynical mindset to me (cheers Paul). But what awaits me this year? In terms of conversation I only really do subjects like football, music, football and moaning. And so if I’m lumped together with someone, what do I talk about? I mean perish the thought that someone wants to talk about education. And what if it’s one of those younger members of staff, someone in their twenties? I can’t escape the fact that I may well have to stand on duty with someone who I’m old enough to be the dad of. What can I talk about? These people are off living a life, going out, travelling, seeing bands, while I’m inevitably battling for control of the telly with a teenager at home. It may well be easier to just see the doctor and get signed off with stress at this rate! (If you work in HR, that’s a joke. I’ll explain jokes at a later date, but I’m not going to get signed off work with stress).

And there may well be other surprise bits of responsibility. Because while I know that the Duty Rota is coming, it’s not beyond a more senior colleague to have a surprise up their sleeves with my name on it. In the past for instance I’ve been assigned as a ‘buddy’ for newer members of staff. That’s right, me, a buddy. Imagine being so shit at life that you got me as a buddy. I think I managed to catch up with this person twice across the year, partly because I’m fairly useless, but also because they had already been assigned a mentor. And so I spent far too much of the year worrying that I wasn’t really helping, while simultaneously wondering what my job might be as a buddy. If it happens again I truly feel for the poor thing that’s landed with me. I’m not exactly sociable or talkative, I’m fairly certain I can’t solve your crisis and I have a tendency to furtively leave the room when colleagues cry. I’m genuinely shy and don’t actually like meeting new people. Clearly someone sees something in me that I simply haven’t got. Some buddy! But this is the kind of thing that we face in those first days back.

Once the initial training day is over we’re then left with facing new classes. And this truly is a battle of wills. Pupils are trying things out to see how much they can get away with while I’m, as usual, maintaining a heavily sarcastic streak and well, seeing how much I can get away with, really. If I have a Year 7 class I always feel that I have to appear ever so slightly cheery and friendly, which again is quite the battle due to the fact that I’m not in the least bit cheery or friendly, but I have to make the effort in their early days at ‘big school’. After all, by the time they reach Year 8 I’ll simply be a familiar grizzled and sarcastic figure for them so the odd smile at this point probably isn’t going to harm any of us. It does add to the stress of the return to work though.

Further worry will arrive in the form of new seating plans and trying to work out just the right mix of pupils in order to keep classes stable. This is complicated by the need to have certain types of pupil sat in certain areas in order to keep any observers happy when they look at data. Ridiculous really. And another time consuming exercise that for at least one of my classes will be inevitable forgotten about for far too long, resulting in chaos every time they walk in and find that there’s still no seating plan. Later, I’ll kid them that it was a deliberate ploy, designed to allow me to observe behaviour, friendship groups etc in order to create the perfect seating plan…eventually.

So there you have it. Having had 6 weeks off work many of us will feel nothing like going back, however much we love what we do. And many more people will not understand the stress. But this time next week, I for one, will be back to being Scrooge, although I mot likely won’t have collected the texts.

Is it too early to start counting down the week until October half-term?

 

 

 

 

Parenthood: the dread of living with a teen!

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Once upon a time it was Hello Kitty and Barbie. Now? Make up…just make up. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a teenager.

At the end of June another chapter of my parenting journey came to a close. The baby years have gone and the toddler times flew by. Then we tackled life at primary school and all of the hurdles that would bring. Next, double figures happened and the end of the primary years, which was all too quickly followed by the challenges of high school. And now, it seems we’re to be in possession of one of those teenagers.

In the most stereotypical kind of truth, my daughter has been a teenager for years. Or at least she’s acted like one. And I know that not all teenagers are the same…but for the sake of a good read let’s stick to the stereotypes. I’ll write this with a caveat though. For all of her faults, my daughter is a sweet, caring and loveable kid. I’m very proud of what she is and what she’s becoming and, despite the fact that we clash and no doubt find each other equally irritating, I adore her. That said, if what’s gone in the previous 12 years is any kind of guide, then these teenage years promise to be interesting to say the least.

As the teenage years begin I guess I have to face up to the fact that my little girl – for that’s what she always will be –  is going to turn into a woman. This is a tough reality for me, as I’m sure it will be for the majority of fathers. But it’s a reality that begins with those dreaded teen years. As many girls of her age will, she’s already moving on with her interests. She’s never been particularly interested in boys, viewing them as some kind of necessary irritant. However, just a few weeks ago I was present when she declared that a boy was ‘fit’ and a little bit of my heart broke, never to be repaired. The words were enough, but the delighted smile that spread across her face was the killer. The boy in question happened to be Zac Effron, so at least I can comfort myself with the fact that they’re very unlikely to meet and thus she can’t begin to explore what ‘fitness’ means and leads to.* Big sigh of relief. But it confirmed to me that my little girl is, in many ways, well and truly gone. And I feel sure that this side of things will go rapidly downhill now that the age of thirteen has been reached.

She confided in my wife that in Year 7 she’d had a boyfriend, but this had only lasted for a day! So there’s good and bad in that – bad = boy, while good = her boredom at him following her around like a lap dog. However, her choice of ‘boyfriend’ had been appalling – a ridiculous name, seemingly always in trouble at school etc. The kind of choice that was never going to impress her school teacher father, hence confiding in her mother!

I fear that this is the kind of choice that she’ll continue to make though. As teenhood – have I just invented a phrase – approaches she seems to label any boy who does any actual work or shows any sign of intelligence as a ‘geek’ and therefore untouchable, which for now is fine, but in the long term I’d rather she was going for the hard-working geeks than the ridiculous, half-witted bad boys that she seems to be attracted to. For now though, she seems a little behind the times in terms of her interest in boys. I teach kids of the same age and lots of them appear far more advanced than my own darling daughter, – goodness me I hope so – especially the girls. You only have to be on a corridor with them and you’re sure to overhear something that you really didn’t want to hear and that means you can never look them in the eye again. I sincerely hope that my nearly teen daughter isn’t thinking along the same lines for quite some time to come!

One thing that she is definitely advanced with is make-up. This is one that is very much against our wishes as well. I say ‘our’ wishes, but I suspect that my wife is ever so slightly in cahoots with my daughter on this one. I’ve been there when one of them has unintentionally mentioned some make-up that my daughter was going to get or had been promised, so the rules have definitely been relaxed without me knowing anything about it! My daughter also went through what can only be described as an out of character phase where she was regularly making her bed, hoovering her room, putting washing away etc, in order to gain pocket money. Now despite the incentive of money, she’s never been particularly interested in this before. But then, all of a sudden she’d be pointing out that her bed was made, or leaving the hoover outside her room to indicate that she’d been busy ridding her carpet of small animal carcasses or whatever disease had festered there in the years since the last time she’d hoovered. (And if you think this is unkind there’s an open invite to pop round and have a look at her room – enter at your peril).

It turned out that what she was doing was earning just enough money to go out and buy the odd bit of make-up in order to supplement the small amount that she already had. And as a result of this she’d also decided that she could walk all over the rules – a much more regular occurrence for her – and come down plastered in make up for no apparent reason. We’ve managed to curtail this to a point, by repeating the message that she looks so much better without it, and image being so important to a girl of her age, she’s listened to an extent. Still though, if we’re going out she tends to disappear for much of the afternoon, before emerging early evening looking like she’s wearing some kind of tribal mask. I expect this very much to continue as she moves through her teen years and the mask to get more and more colourful!

For as long as my daughter has been able to express an opinion she has done so, forcefully. Now, as she enters her teen years, I fear that her level of perceived expertise is going to see her opinions go into a potentially dangerous overdrive. Don’t get me wrong, on important issues like race, sexuality etc she has formed good, liberal, accepting opinions. She’s against no one (well apart from the aforementioned geeks and me) which is not only good, but a lot less time consuming than if she was forming dangerous opinions. In fact, she’s more likely, if we have an opinion against anyone or anything, to defend them, however unreasonable. As a staunch Newcastle fan I’ve found it quite disheartening and disturbing when she’s routinely defended Sunderland fans. Maybe she’s just incredibly chilled out – she’s really not – or maybe she’s just wrong.

As she enters her teenage years though, the one thing she has strong opinions on seems to be style. Now given her formative years, this is quite the surprise – many’s the time she’s come downstairs in a variety of colours and styles that simply didn’t match – reds, yellows, pinks, spots, stripes, you name it. But now my daughter has developed some kind of style. She likes nice clothes and is constantly telling us how she’s ‘planning an outfit’. I suppose that this is to be expected, especially when she’s not paying for said outfits! But the worrying thing seems to be that she has installed herself as some kind of fashion expert. And this is where her opinions come in.

Recently she’s decided that she must have her bedroom decorated. Grey and pinks, dahling, don’t you know. And such is her sure and certain belief in her status as some kind of style guru that she literally won’t listen to anyone else’s opinion. The fact that she currently resides in a room that look like squatters must have invaded years ago doesn’t seem to occur to her at all. She simply cannot keep it tidy. And I won’t embarrass her here by detailing the levels of untidiness, but suffice to say, you need to take your own ideas and multiply them by around a million to even get close.

We recently went on a shopping trip – a speculative one where we were more looking for ideas than actually buying anything. We found countless grey items, probably in even more than fifty shades, and yet she rejected them time after time. And this is understandable for a short while, but when it becomes clear that this is just because she is adamant that she knows better than you do on every subject ever, it gets a little frustrating. And again, I can only see this getting worse as the teen years advance. I imagine we’re leaving behind the years of buying her clothes from George at Asda that’s for sure, which will leave me as the only one in our house still wearing stuff from that particular designer!

Which brings me nicely onto clothes. As a self identified style guru my teen daughter has also decided that it’s perfectly within her remit to be openly critical of what her family are wearing. In fact, she seems to be making it her business to pass judgement on the style decisions of almost anyone and everyone, family or not. The ‘wrong’ t-shirt will instantly – and loudly – be deemed ’embarrassing’, while she herself is wearing something like a crop top with a coat over it…on the hottest day of the year. But it gets worse. She sees no problem, no lack of simple manners even, in declaring an item of clothing ‘ugly’. And why? Well, because teen wisdom seems to dictate that she must know so much better than anyone else.

Worse than the loudly proclaimed opinions is the choices that she wants to now be making. As a toddler and even as a primary school kid, we could get away with sticking to a budget and to an extent dressing her head to toe in clothes from a supermarket. But then she began to grow out of this. And we tried to accommodate it, but it’s quite a balance trying to buy your kid the ‘right’ clothes while also attempting not to bring up a spoilt brat. So now we’re told (and she really does tell as opposed to asking), ‘I need a Tommy Hilfiger top’ or ‘We have to get me a pair of Adidas leggings’. And this becomes a problem for me, personally. I was brought up in a household where the things that I wanted were often out of reach of my parents’ pockets, so to speak. So I became used to not getting most of what I wanted and I quickly realised that there wasn’t much point in asking, but also that it was a bit unfair on my parents to ask anyway.

As such, my daughter’s demands cut no ice with me. I want her to have the types of things that I didn’t have, but I also want her to appreciate them. And her teenage way of demanding stuff can be quite difficult to live with. So again, it’s going to feel like an eternity seeing her through these next 6 or 7 years!

I hope that seeing my daughter through her teenage years will be a largely enjoyable and ultimately rewarding experience. I know that there will undoubtedly be trials and tribulations along the way. But I hope that she begins to see that we’re not the enemy and that she simply doesn’t have all of the answers. That way harmony lies. Let’s wait and see!

 

  • Just in case your reading this, Zac Effron, should you ever turn up on my doorstep, asking for my daughter, you’ll be given very short shrift indeed. Take your fame, your Hollywood riches and even your impressive pecs, and nick off.

 

Grassroots Football: The Gala Experience

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On Sunday 7th July I took my Under 11s football team to compete in the Wakefield Owls Soccer6 Gala, a tournament for various age groups across Yorkshire. This is our story. From previous experience I know that galas are a frenzied affair. There are teams as far as the eye can see, accompanied by parents, close relatives and coaches. And as an actual coach you’re attempting to be in several places at once, coaching your team, instructing subs, keeping parents informed, finding out what’s going on and where you’ll be off to next, as well as trying to stay composed and focused. This may well be what they term ‘mini soccer’ but at a gala it’s like the circus have come to town…and brought the auditions for Britain’s Got Talent with them. And on closer inspection, some of the under 7s do have more than a passing similarity to both Ant and Dec. Gala day begins early in our house as we need to be there to register our team by 9am. Having attended a family wedding the day before, this getting up early lark is not going to be easy. I struggle through a shower and make breakfast for the kids, while intermittently attempting to sort out my coach’s bag and footballs. We load up only the essentials today – first aid kit, bibs, etc and just the 5 footballs so that we can get some practice in without spraying dozens of footballs all over other people’s pitches; after all this isn’t the usual herding cats scenario that we know as training on a Thursday night, with 17 kids and footballs being relocated from anywhere within a half-mile radius. It’s strange how none of our boys can spot the bright yellow football that they themselves have just kicked onto a neighbouring pitch or a patch of grass 50 yards away on a Thursday! Away games can be chaotic in terms of travel. Despite living in Leeds for over 20 years I’m still not that well versed on its geography or that of the surrounding areas and so we’re often screeching up to pitches later than the majority of parents. But today, we’re early, negotiating the journey with no wrong turnings and easily managing to get parked. It helps that we’ve played here several times before, of course. I meet up with my assistant coach and his son. It’s not even 9 ‘o clock and we already have two players present, which is a relief. Just the other six to tick off now. We wander down to the clubhouse and meet some other parents and players before registering the team’s attendance. One of the mum’s makes herself the least popular adult with our squad by producing suncream from her bag and liberally lathering it all over the necks and faces of the boys! There’s an outcry that can probably be heard back in Leeds, but it’s better to be safe than sorry though, right? At this point there’s always a shared sense of determination and optimism. Football at this level is meant to be fun, but in truth, none of us have turned up today to lose while maintaining inane grins all over our faces. We all want to win and nobody is looking to be humiliated. It’s a nice, positive atmosphere to be part of and it’s even nicer to see the undisguised excitement of our boys. Before we know it, we have a list of fixtures and the excitement is ramped up a notch. There’s a managers’ meeting where rules and expected conduct are explained and in almost the blink of an eye we’re on our pitch, sitting the boys down to explain tactics, rules and teams. We’re feeling quietly confident; we have a good set of boys, all of whom can be trusted with the ball and all of whom have shown that they can hold their own against decent opposition. We’ve played three of the teams in our group before and again, never looked out of place. We do still have one nagging problem though. Our goalkeeper still hasn’t turned up. I’ve checked my phone and the text was sent on the previous Thursday, but not replied to. It’s looking increasingly like we’ll be re-arranging the team and start with one of keener outfield players in nets. It’s not ideal, but we’ll have to cope. And then, just as I call my new ‘goalie’ over to give him the shirt, I take one last hopeful look at the entrance to the gala. It’s a miracle. My goalkeeper is jogging somewhat dishevelled and shame-faced over to us! It turns out that they’d lost their door keys, but they’re here now and we can all settle down! Games are one half of ten minutes. It’s only six-a-side and there are no offsides. It’s generally quite hectic, end-to-end stuff and as a coach it can be quite stressful to watch. Usually, if there’s a mistake you’ve got plenty of time to try and put it right, but a game of just ten minutes puts the pressure on somewhat and you have to guard against casual mistakes as you might not have time to put them right. Our first game is against Allerton Bywater, a team we’ve never played. It’s quite an even match, but at the end I feel like we should have won it. Our boys look a little taken aback by the pace and despite warnings they’re fussing over corners and throw-ins, rather than just getting on with it. We snatch at a couple of chances, but defend well at the other end. It ends in a frustrating nil nil draw. We’ve got a point on board, but it could easily have been three. With five teams in a group we get to take a rest next as the other four play each other. It’s a baking hot day, so in one way the rest is welcomed, but it also means that we face three games back to back after this. With that in mind we’ll need to rotate. The rest does give a coach a little bit of time to think though. So I spend the next 5 or so minutes going round my players trying to stay positive, but also reiterating a few key messages and instructions. With that done and dusted there’s time to take in a little bit of the gala. It’s an amazing sight if you love your football. We’re surrounded by games going on and the sound of encouragement fills the air. A glance across at the under 7s brings a flash of nostalgia too and I think back to my son’s first games where he wore a kit that was more like a tent and he barely looked able to run, let alone dribble with or pass a football. The excitement across the site is tangible and it would be easy to get carried away and just wander off to take in some games, but before I know it we’re back to business and our next game. We play a Beeston side from the league above us next and again it’s close. I’ve brought our two subs in to start, the idea being to give everybody a rest, while also making sure that everyone gets a decent amount of football. We lose the game 1-0 though and again have enough chances to at least get a draw. But it’s not to be and if we’re going to qualify for the main trophy we’ll have to win at least one of our last two games. The change in format doesn’t seem to be helping our boys. The pitch is much smaller than we’re used to and the length of game much shorter. And yet, every time we get a corner we’re over-hitting them, lofting them into the air and out of play on the other side of the field. Similarly, when we get a throw in we’re fussing about who should take it or taking an age trying to be ever so precise about where it goes, rather than just getting it taken quickly, down the line as instructed. We’re making mistakes and piling pressure on to ourselves. And we’re yet to score a goal. This changes in our next game. We’re playing one of the host’s teams – Wakefield Owls – and it feels like we are dominant. It takes us a while – which is the very definition of things being relative with a ten minute match – but eventually we get our goal. It’s a scrappy affair, with the ball bundled in at the back post, but they all count. It feels like we can go on and win from this position, but within a minute we’ve presented our opposition with the ball and they’ve scored. Suddenly the tables turn and we’re under pressure, but we ride this out and in the end (again!) we’re unlucky not to grab a winner after we hit the bar once and slam a few chances narrowly wide. It feels like we’ve finally gotten into our stride though. The games seem to be kicking off at different times and so we’re left waiting for our final group opposition, which gives me a bit of time to go around the lads once more, passing on instructions. We eventually sit them down and give them the big pep talk. That’s pep as in building the boys up and trying to make them feel more positive, rather than being any kind of tactical genius with a Catalonian accent. This is a big game for our boys. Exactly twelve months ago to the day we played the exact same opposition at the exact same stage of the gala and lost in a bit of a bad tempered game. It meant that we didn’t qualify for the latter stages of the trophy and a few of the boys ended up in tears. As it turned out we went on to win the less prestigious cup that the teams in the bottom end of each group played for, so the tears soon turned into smiles. But we really want to win now! It seems churlish and perhaps a little immature to talk about revenge, but then again, if we’ve not come to win football matches then why have we even turned up? The game is close, but frustratingly – again – we have more of the ball. We’re fairly dominant, but again we just can’t seem to score. We force the keeper into saves and we hit the bar, but that ball just will not go into the net. I’m struggling to retain any sense of professionalism by this point and each time we go close I’m either sailing through the air ready to celebrate or dropping on to my haunches like some kind of over emotional teenager. But that’s football. I don’t go along with the theory that we’re better coaches because we stand there saying very little. And I don’t think that it’s a case of the more vocal the better. We just all have different styles. I can’t help but get involved. I’m not negative, but I’m not particularly quiet either. And at this point on Sunday I was struggling to maintain control! The game ends in a 0-0 draw. This almost certainly means that we will drop into the lower end of the knock out matches. After a few minutes of standing around I head down to the clubhouse to try and get some more information. This is a well organised gala, so it’s easy to get our finishing position confirmed. And it’s exactly what we thought. However, some games are running over and so we’re faced with an anxious wait to see who our semi final opponents will be. I say ‘anxious’ but it’s of no interest whatsoever to my team who proceed to spend the next ten minutes or so practising elaborate corner kick routines. They even devise a celebration to fit the corners! That’s the brilliant thing about football at this level. Yes, it matters, but the emphasis has to be on enjoyment and my boys are definitely enjoying themselves. It’s getting the balance right, again, that’s key. Meanwhile, I’m having no fun whatsoever, sweating over the team for the semi final and fretting about how we’ll react to the pressure! We play another side from Beeston in our semi final and in the end we make too many mistakes. We lose 2-1, despite some frantic attacking once we’d gone two goals down. We pepper the opposition goal and manage to scramble one in but we run out of time. And that’s it. We’re out. We encourage our boys to shake hands, but for some it’s a step too far. There are tears and sullen faces everywhere I look. We try to get around each player, staying positive, congratulating them on all of the good things that they’ve done today and reminding them that they should feel proud. But it’s to no avail. These boys care deeply about this team and I have to admit that this makes me feel even more proud of them. As I walk around the pitch I hear a distinctive sound. It’s the sound of one very upset little boy and it’s a sound I’m only too familiar with. Like many coaches, I coach my son and for now he’s devastated. Despite the fact that he scored our goal he’s blaming himself as he misplaced a pass in the lead up to Beeston’s second goal. So the coach has to be put to one side and dad takes over. I want to scoop him up like I did when he was much smaller, but I know that he’ll be mortified. So, I crouch down next to him, give him a big hug and talk to him, telling him that it’s not his fault, that it’s no one’s fault and reminding him what we all learn in the end; this is football. We decide to watch the final as a team at the boys’ request and again, like we’ve witnessed all day, it’s a brilliant competitive match. Again there are tears at the end, but thankfully not from our boys who by now, my son included, have moved on. Afterwards we make our way down to the clubhouse where our team are presented with medals; a lovely touch from the organisers. By now, all of my boys are smiling and have their team photo taken holding medals aloft proudly, like they’d won the tournament after all. And there’s that lesson again; this is football. One minute your as low as you imagine you can be and then next you’re flying high. Whatever you feel, it’s an utterly brilliant game to be part of. Thanks to Karen and all at Wakefield Owls for their hospitality and another fantastic gala. We’ll see you again next year!

Newcastle United – addressing the state of our nation.

This isn’t some kind of mock speech. It’s not an address where you’ll learn anything particularly new, but I do hope to add to what seems to be a growing number of fans thinking in much the same way. Because what needs to happen is going to take numbers. And I do hope to address the state of our club. And what a state it’s in.

Newcastle United are a proud club. We are 126 years old and as such have had a history that has been eventful to say the least. We’ve sat, several times, at the very top of the pile dominating English football and we’ve had our own personal rock bottom years too. We’ve never dropped into League 1, mind.

Sadly though, for the majority of the last 12 years, Newcastle United have been nothing short of a shambles and while there has been some relative success it has always been clouded by darkness, a lack of ambition and it would seem at times an unfathomable determination to do anything possible in order to alienate its fan base. We are a club stricken by disease and until we find a cure, Newcastle United cannot move forward and will continue, tragically, to be overtaken by the likes of Watford, Bournemouth and Southampton.

Mike Ashley ruined my club for me. His actions and his decisions made me give up on what had been a lifetime obsession. Born and raised in Newcastle I had followed my father in supporting our home town team. This had nothing to do with glory-hunting or bandwagon jumping; this was a decision made out of love, pride and blind loyalty. We were in Division 2 (the equivalent of the Championship) at the time. That was my story. That was the same story that many of us would have. But, having sat through so many highs and lows that I’d lost count I gave up my season ticket because of Mike Ashley and his cronies.

The infamous Hull City game made up my mind. It was September 2008, Kevin Keegan had just resigned and we were facing up to our first game without him, again. The atmosphere was toxic, the ground a seething cauldron of pure anger and hate. I sat, having previously been moved to a place in a different part of the ground away from people I’d spent years with, feeling alone and helpless to stop what was going on with the club. My decision was made that day. I would see out the season regardless of what happened – we were relegated – and I would never go back until there was no Mike Ashley.

I’ve never been back. It’s a decision that has been made slightly easier as I now have children and I live 100 miles away, but it still breaks my heart. As a kid and even as a young man, not going to St. James’ Park was something I couldn’t comprehend. But things change and people get older, move on and welcome other obsessions into their lives, like families. I had a family and had put some distance between myself and Newcastle. Neither reason would have stopped me going without Ashley though. I read the newspapers, watch the games and reports on television and scan through social media for news of my club. But it’s not the same. A chunk of me has been taken away.

So what started off as a small boy – I think I was 6 – going to home games with his dad and sitting fascinated by the colour and the noise and the fact that people genuinely got paid to play for my team, at the back of the East Stand, then blossomed into attending games with my mates and doing anything I could to scrape together the money to afford the ticket. As a teenager I started to travel to away games too, opening up a whole new world of following the Toon and just multiplying my adoration for the club. This continued as a young man and well into my late thirties. When I had kids I naturally assumed that this would be something we’d do together, like me and my dad had many years before. But no. Mike Ashley and his reign of neglect have forced my hand, like it will have done to many other fathers. So if you thought describing this whole scenario as heartbreaking was a bit over the top, then maybe now you can understand.

Recently, even following from a distance has been painful. We’ve had two stable seasons and the signs have been good. We’ve had a world class manager; a man who clearly loves the club, the area, the people. We’ve – sort of – broken our longstanding transfer record. We have a team that cares, and team that tries and who, it would seem, would lay their bodies on the line for our club. It had seemed like this never-say-die quality was going to be supplemented by even better players. But no. Despite meeting with his manager weeks ago and despite said manager providing a list of potential signings Newcastle United has ground to a halt. Rafa Benitez – he of Champions’ League winning, managing some of the top sides in Europe, Paul Dummett transforming, popping his glasses back in his top pocket after games, calling it a cloob, and telling us C’mon Toons! – has been dispensed with.

It came as a shock, but at the same time was no shock whatsoever. Whichever way you look at it the decision was the most Mike Ashley thing ever (until the next one) and had I been a betting man I could have cleaned up. The offer made to the manager was never going to match his ambitions and it would seem that this was wholly intentional. And in the end why would any manager want to stay at a club that wouldn’t let him manage?

Rafa Benitez will be a huge loss to us all. His arrival awakened the club and in truth it awakened something in us all, too. He brought vision, class, passion, expertise and understanding, where before we’d had John Carver talking about the guys at the club, Alan Pardew talking about himself and forever adding to a seemingly never-ending list of excuses and Joe Kinnear talking out of his arse. Rafa did none of that. Rafa gave us hope.

Rafa also helped bring back pride and dignity to not only our supporters but to the region too. It gladdened my heart to see the pictures of him and his staff taking in the local landmarks a couple of years ago, in order to learn more about their new environment. And then there was his work with the Newcastle United Foundation and the NUFC Foodbank – both causes that the likes of Pardew wouldn’t have touched with the proverbial bargepole. There will undoubtedly be lots more causes that Rafa took an interest in, lots more lives that he touched, that you or I will never know of.

Rafa Benitez got Newcastle United. He understood the people, the city and the region. He invested in us and although it’s a terrible cliché, he became one of us. He stands alongside Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson as one of the greatest Newcastle managers of the modern era, as well as one of the most popular. It’s nothing short of a crime that the powers that be at our club – it’s not theirs – have allowed his contract to run down and essentially dismissed him. I understand that he wanted to leave, but that has nothing to do with anything or anyone other than Mike Ashley and his gang of halfwits. These people have made our club into a shambles by taking backward step after backward step and all of it without any real communication with their customer base; the fans. While all of this has gone on, off the back of – relatively speaking – another successful season, the club have churned out ‘no comment’ after ‘no comment’. In the end, what was happening was as predictable as it was inevitable. Most of all, it was heart-breaking.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the background, a takeover has been brewing. Someone in possession of both a shedload of money and a modicum of common sense had seen the potential of our club. It was really going to happen this time, right?

Wrong. Even amidst talk of a takeover it’s been difficult to get excited. There was optimism for a short while; someone was communicating with the fans. We didn’t know who they were or whether they had the money to buy the club, let alone whether Ashley would sell, but these people were telling us it was on. But as with Staveley and Kenyon (Christ, even like Barry Moat!), the trail has gone eerily quiet. We’ve gone from the bookies giving us relatively short odds on signing Kylian Mbappe to the majority of people suspecting yet another false dawn in a matter of weeks. A Newcastle United story if ever there was one. Aye, another one! But just because it’s all so very Newcastle United doesn’t make it any easier to take. And the silence from the club – apart from the now universally mocked ‘ no comment’ – is simply astounding. Astounding and absolutely unacceptable.

So what exactly is the state of our nation. Well, as I previously stated, it’s nothing short of a shambles. And that’s being reasonable. The club is quite simply an utter mess. At the time of writing we may or may not be being taken over by a billionaire. There should be a sense of optimism at the prospect of being labelled the new Man City and preparing ourselves to ride the wave of success that would inevitably bring. But there can’t be, can there? In actual fact, we can’t even be too sure that our owner, who put the club up for sale, actually wants to sell the club. And the fact that even one fan might regard this as a possibility is completely ridiculous. I’ve found myself looking at the buyer’s name to try and work out if it’s an anagram for something else that would reveal that we were being cruelly misled. We’ve seen an interview from Ashley himself, discussing the possibility of selling the club on more than one occasion and still, he might as well be saying that he’s attempting to sign Mickey Mouse for  world record fee (for a mouse).

As I write we have no manager. We had one. A world class one. But those in charge of the club decided that his help, guidance, advice and football knowledge wasn’t really needed anymore. Not exactly a forward thinking approach. However, add that to the fact that pre-season training starts in a couple of days and you wouldn’t get many sane people questioning you when you tell them you expect another relegation this season. On top of that we know that Lee Charnley is in charge of appointing the next manager, and I don’t think I’d be alone in finding that prospect as one that sends a chill down my spine. That said, I’ve got to the point where I’m actually not that interested anymore. Whoever becomes the new manager will still inspire the same lies, lies and more lies that any other manager in the Ashley era has been faced with. And whoever they are, you’d be surprised to see them get anything more than another lick of paint to the training ground in the next few year, let alone any stellar signings.

The transfer window has been open for quite some time now and we’ve still done nothing. No incomings – so little change there then – and plenty of ridiculous stories linking us with players who we simply won’t buy because of the finance involved, which is exactly the same as previous seasons. Think about it, last season there were several clubs in the Championship that comfortably outspent us. Christ, we haven’t even sold Joselu yet and from what we read in the press he’s been heading through the door for the last three weeks! But hot off the press comes new of Ayoze Perez’s departure and the seemingly strong possibility that Sean Longstaff may also be sold. And still, according to some in the media, it’s not Mike Ashley’s fault, he’s doing nothing wrong and us Newcastle fans are unreasonable. 

We could go on and on, but frankly it’s worse than depressing. Some people believe football to be a waste of time and a triviality that they sum up by telling you it’s ‘only a game’ or ‘it’s just a load of people chasing a ball around’. Well, they’re wrong. It’s an obsession for lots of us. It’s might well be the thing you love the most and if it isn’t it’ll be right up there. In times where mental health is an ever-growing issue, football can be something that brings unbridled joy and a smile to many a face. And if someone wants to trivialise something as wonderful and pure as that, then maybe they’re the trivial one. I’ve experienced many emotions across the course of my lifetime and some of the most joyous could have only been provided by football and specifically by Newcastle United. The joy, togetherness, laughter…even the heartache. Let me illustrate. On one occasion I sat in an ice rink and held hands with my two best mates while chanting ‘We three are one’ in order to somehow help John Burridge save a penalty. Our held hands were placed on top of a cut-out-and-keep picture of Uri Geller’s hand and our feet on top of each other’s, just to add that extra layer of stupidity and detail. Burridge saved the penalty – joy. We were three teenagers lads holding hands – togetherness that was ahead of its time, I think you’ll agree. We still laugh about it to this day. It was the first leg of the play-off semi-final against Sunderland and we lost the 2nd leg and didn’t get promoted – heartache. You’ll read this and understand exactly what I mean. But Mike Ashley, Lee Charnley, Keith Bishop, Dennis Wise and any of the others at the bottom of life’s barrel don’t understand at all. They wouldn’t go to anywhere near the lengths we go to in the name of their football club. And that’s exactly why things have to change.

I’ve never understood why Mike Ashley wanted Newcastle United. Not on a human level anyway. I understand the desperate need to grow his business, but even then, his junk shop was hugely successful and he was rich beyond his wildest dreams, without Newcastle United. So, as we know, it comes down to a simple matter of greed. He cannot get any pleasure, any fun, any joy out of our club. He can’t get what we get from Newcastle United. And in that aspect he can’t even begin to understand what it feels like to be one of us. He rarely even watches them play. He quibbles about buying players and employs PR staff to peddle us lines about being unable to compete with mediocre sides and relatively small clubs in order to try and dampen our enthusiasm and optimism for this thing that we’ve been brought up to love. He treats us like idiots even though you don’t have to be Einstein to work out that the Premier League is awash with money. So where’s ours, Mr Ashley?

Why bother, Mike? You’ll never be accepted and never be taken seriously. Face it, even your friendly apologists are on the payroll in some way. Our club has been dragged through the mud by your regime, suffering under the hands of people like Jiminez, Lambias, Kninear and Wise – although little Dennis’s hands were only tiny. We’ve been lied to and strung along and this has to be the last straw.

So how do we solve a problem like Mike Ashley? I don’t have a grand answer in terms of the protests that we could organise or a guaranteed way of removing that man from our club, but I know a way that we can and should hit back. It’s not original, but I reckon it would be effective. And if me writing this gets even one person to take some action, then we’ve had some success.

We no longer give him our money and we expose his lies to the world by boycotting games. As I mentioned previously, I gave up my season ticket years ago. It wasn’t a decision that I took lightly. Newcastle United have been a lifelong love and I adored everything about going to games. The sense of belonging was something to cherish even when we were being hammered into humiliation; something I’d grown used to. But the highs made it all worth it. Every chant that made me laugh reminded me of what I had. Every goal produced a joy that largely went unmatched elsewhere. Climbing the steps to look out over that ground, that pitch and watching those black and white stripes emerge from a tunnel meant the world to me. But I knew that I had to give it up. And I knew that others would be like-minded.

It’s hard. It’s unimaginably hard to face up to the fact that you’ll not be in your seat when there’s a game. It haunts you and you dream of the day when you’ll feel like you can go back. Like everything has slotted back into place. Because there’s something missing without it. And it’s an absolutely huge something as well.

But you have to give it up. Only for now. A temporary necessity, if you will. To keep going is to perpetuate the myth that everything’s alright. And it’s not alright. It’s not your club anymore. The shell is the same, but there’s a cancer attacking what’s at the heart of it and the only way to fight is to stop feeding it. That man wants you in your seat because it feeds his ego and helps to publicise his shop. Thousands of people sitting around his tacky logo looks like thousands of people endorsing it. But you can’t. You can’t endorse Wise, Kinnear, the Sports Direct Arena, Wonga, Xisco, Pardew, price rises, wheelie bin ice baths, paddling pools being used for the recovery of professional athletes at the training ground, selling off your best players and not replacing them and cheaply manufactured strips that denigrate our name.  And you can’t endorse a regime that gives you John Carver, but tosses the likes of Shearer, Hughton and now Rafa Benitez away like used toys. That regime don’t want a Newcastle united. To endorse that is to open yourself up to the fact that it’s going to just keep happening.

So give up that season ticket. Walk away – just for now – from this relationship. And for a while, don’t look back. Fill that void – just for now – with something else. Rediscover family and friends, take up a hobby, follow a new sport or a different team (nonleague, of course). Do anything – just  make it lawful – but don’t go back until he’s gone. Because one day we’ll get our club back.

Some Thoughts on Father’s Day

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Because nothing quite says Happy Father’s Day like fruit does!

As the father of two young children I look forward to Father’s Day every year. I’m lucky; I have two great kids – lively, thoughtful, caring and loving. Granted, they’re not always like this and like many parents, I assume, I spend several hours a week quietly calling them names under my breath and wishing they’d leave me alone! This isn’t being unkind, just honest. Sometimes, my lively, thoughtful, caring, loving kids are complete pricks. And despite loving them with all of my heart, I can’t deny it. But they never let me down come Father’s Day.

Now I suspect that we can attribute a lot of the credit for a succession of successful Father’s Days to my wife. She loves to plan. She explores ideas, leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of the perfect gift. And she has a way of making the kids think that this particular idea was there’s all along and that this gift choice was the kind of thing they meant when they told her that they thought I needed more socks. Don’t get me wrong, I know for a fact that the kids themselves – my daughter can be particularly thoughtful – have come up with some great gift ideas, but they still often need the wife’s guiding hand. And that of my Amazon Wishlist! However, the gift is just a part of why I love this particular day.

Both of my children are capable of terrible behaviour. Both struggle to control their emotions and tears are commonplace in our house. I suppose, for their age, in some ways they’re just a little bit immature, like their dad. It can be frustrating, but I’d rather this than a pair of emotional vacuums, holding everything in. They’re typical kids and I feel sure that as they grow they’ll learn to supress their reactions while retaining that emotion and knowing how to deal with it. And this is part of the reason why I enjoy Father’s Day so much. My kids both seem to make a conscious effort to behave. It’s usually payed back ten-fold on the following day, but on that particular Sunday, they suddenly learn to breath and reign their emotions in somewhat. As a result, Father’s Day seems peaceful. An island of calm waiting to be battered by a storm of emotion for most of the rest of the year. There have been exceptions, when one child has decided that they couldn’t possibly not speak up or cause a commotion, but largely speaking Father’s Day is fun.

Another reason to enjoy Father’s Day in our house is because my kids still haven’t lost their enthusiasm for it. Myself, I switched to just giving or sending a card decades ago. Me and my old man get along, but he sees no great need to be showered with gifts – or affection for that matter – and I see no great need to keep buying him stuff he won’t really appreciate now that I’m an adult. I sat through years of Christmas, birthday and Father’s Day present giving with much the same reaction – ‘Aye, that’s nice. Thank you.’ *Puts present on the floor by the side of his armchair – he’ll make it disappear later*. Eventually there seemed little point in the gift side of things. If I was doing it seeking some kind of love or affection, it wasn’t forthcoming and if I thought my present was going to change my dad’s life, then that idea was quickly shot down by his reaction.

My own children, on the other hand, excel at showing their enthusiasm for Father’s Day. The routine is always the same. We’ll decide when they’re going to give their gifts and then they’ll go out to retrieve them. The gifts are always ‘hidden’, adding to the excitement (they’re in the hallway, I’m just not allowed to leave the room). They will then re-enter the room, with their gifts still ‘hidden’ behind their backs. And here’s where the absolute joy of this day kicks in for me. They can’t contain their excitement. Both faces are plastered with wide grins. They can’t stand still, even though they’re lining up as though they’re about to be inspected. And they both have a present held, and usually only partially hidden, behind their back – there are probably others, hidden in plain sight this time, in a gift bag on the floor. Every year I pretend that I can’t see any of them.

They take turns in giving the first gift. Each year they start with something small, usually of their choice; something they’ve generally bought to make up the numbers a little bit. This is where Disney dad takes over, although it’s never a difficult role to adopt. By now I’m genuinely thrilled at what’s going on. My kids are practically quivering with excitement, almost unable to contain themselves and I am the focus of their attention. Brilliant!

After each gift or card I get hugs. If they’ve added kisses to a card – and they always do – I indulge myself, forcing them to give me every last kiss that they’d drawn on their greeting. If the kiss is in any way more of a glance I’ll not count it, just to get more. We squeeze each other tightly and even with my general fear of hugs I could stay like this all day. Even though I absolutely love a present, this is the best part of Father’s Day and the main reason why I love it. We may argue and fall out throughout the year, but for this 10 minute period we have all the love in the world for each other.

On the subject of gifts, over the years I’ve had some memorable ones. I still have a bar of chocolate that’s wrapped in personalised packaging, telling me that I’m the best dad in the world. I think this makes it official. I can’t bring myself to eat it, because of course it’s much more than just a bar of chocolate. I’ve also had brilliant books and CDs – yes, some of us still live in the past – as well as the obligatory pack of socks, because everybody needs socks.

The most memorable gifts though have both come from my son. My daughter has given fantastic gifts too, but the ones that will always stick in my mind just happen to have come from my son. He’s always been a thoughtful boy. Since he could read properly he has taken the time to scrutinise greetings cards so that he finds just the right message for the recipient. And he’s always given lots of thought to his presents. Both gifts, although very well meaning, undoubtedly fall into the category of ‘quirky’. The first one that springs to mind was a banana. Not a bunch mind, just a single banana. I got other gifts too, but the one that he was most excited about was the banana. He was about 5 at the time. He knew that this was a fruit that I liked, so it was definitely appropriate. However, his reasoning was slightly more complex than this. Apparently, he’d told my wife that he had to buy daddy a banana ‘to make sure he’s healthy’. Given my heart problems of last year, it may be accurate to wonder if he’s actually some kind of wizard. Maybe he had watched his dad snaffling one too many chocolates or bags of crisps and thought, ‘this bloke’s out of control, here’s me being force fed fruit my whole life and my dad seems to be working far too hard cultivating a belly that he’s going to really regret in a few years time.’ Whatever the thought process, it was a gift that made me smile and one that I’ll remember forever.

The other most memorable gift though was a bible. No really. As ever, Louise checked and checked that this was really the present that he wanted to buy, in the hope that he’d change his mind, but no; he was adamant. The reason he wanted to buy me a bible? ‘Because that way God will keep daddy safe’. He was only about 6 at the time and of course that’s not an age when you question God, but either way it was incredibly sweet. So although it was a gift with a limited shelf life, when you consider the old maxim about it being the thought that counts, it was lovely.

I didn’t realise that bibles could cost quite a bit and apparently with this in mind, my wife and son trawled around the local charity shops so that they could buy a cheaper one and still have money left to spend on me elsewhere. Maybe I was being upgraded to a whole bunch of bananas, I can’t remember. In the end they settled on a hardback children’s bible with shortened versions of all the stories and some pictures to boot. So you can probably imagine my confusion when I opened it up!

As a matter of course we would then spend time reading it together, at Dylan’s request. We’d lie on our bed, cuddled up and read after his shower at nights, with me rationing the amount of stories, so that we’d get more times reading together! This really was the Father’s Day gift that kept on giving. And an even bigger bonus was that sometimes Dylan would fall asleep on me as we read and so we’d then just lie there for a while longer, warm and cosy with me content to just cuddle him in and listen to his breathing.  So in the end, perhaps it really was a blessing that he bought me such a leftfield gift!

 

 

 

Fighting the flab – my battle with ‘Dad bod’!

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So many temptations with which to add to that dad bod!

As a young man I never dreamed I’d have any kind of problem with ‘body image’. I’d grown up a skinny kid, partly down to health problems and partly down to being a fussy eater who was indulged by a somewhat doting mother. I was active and sporty, meaning that I struggled to gain weight as I was always on the move. Therefore, as the possessor of barely any noticeable muscle at all this led to sometimes merciless name-calling and cruel comments about my size. They’d call it bullying nowadays, but at my rough comprehensive school it was just a way of life. Some people would exploit any weakness that they detected and unfortunately, my lack of bulk and legs that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a passing flamingo, were often a target, especially as I got older and everybody else filled out. As I got older and stayed relatively small those that grew to be more of an adult size would find fun in pushing me around. Still though, it didn’t particularly bother me and I was never unable to function as a result of it.

However, it must have been something that sat there, dormant, waiting for its chance as in adult life it became a problem that would hold me back. Not in a terribly debilitating way, but in a self-conscious sort of way. I have a seven inch scar down my chest which stopped me from removing my shirt on sunny days. I’m hardly well built either, which made t-shirts my friends at all times! As previously referred to, I also have legs that would look better on certain types of wildlife, meaning that shorts were often in, well, short supply I suppose.

The notion of ‘body image’ however, seems to be a relatively recent thing and at the risk of sounding like my dad, they didn’t have it when I was younger. I was always conscious of my size or of my body, but it was just something else to deal with. I never thought to talk to anyone about it, let alone write anything down. Until I was around 15 I was only just over 5ft in height as well, so bodywise I had literally nothing going for me save for a Hollywood smile and an earlier than most bumfluff ‘tache!

For a short while I joined a gym in the hope that lifting weights and exercising in different ways would help me to bulk up. It didn’t and more to the point it bored me and ended with me feeling even more self conscious. After a while I just accepted what I was and eventually (and I really mean eventually) when girls started taking an interest I began to feel a little more confident in myself. I could make people laugh and hold the interest of at least some girls; I didn’t feel the need to lift heavy weights, wear vests and sweat like a stallion. But I still didn’t like my body. The skinny legs, the stick-like arms, the scar on the chest…I didn’t particularly feel manly. Add to this the fact that one side of my ribs juts out at the bottom as a result of not being put back together properly after my heart operation – surgery wasn’t as precise a science in the 70s – and you begin to feel like you should have been picked up by the circus at some point.

University helped me to love myself a little bit more (not like that; stop sniggering). Maybe it was being away from some of the same people I’d been around for years who’d possibly gotten used to their own clever banter and didn’t feel that it could possibly be hurtful. My dad, for instance, was forever mocking my legs – if I played football in shorts he’d tell me to put my legs away because – and I quote – ‘there’s a spuggy up there feeding young ‘uns. She’ll think there’s two worms down here.’ Classic. No, really, hilarious. Especially when it’s repeated three or four times a week. Maybe it was the sudden independence that somehow boosted my confidence or maybe it was the fact that I was now around a foot taller and at least felt I finally had something going for me. Whatever it was, those three years made me feel a lot better about myself in terms of my body. I simply wasn’t mocked anymore and as a result I felt at least a little bit of confidence.

The issue of body confidence has never gone away though. And annoyingly, with the onset of middle age it feels like it’s getting worse. I think the young people call it a dad  bod, but whatever it is, it’s not particularly comfortable.

Now, I wouldn’t say I’m any kind of mess. But moving into my forties, and speeding towards my fifties has definitely brought plenty of unexpected body issues to go alongside the ones that I’ve carried around since my teens. Actually they’re more irritations than issues, but still, they bother me enough to actually spend time thinking about them. And that’s quite a surprise to me.

The biggest body irritant has to be my belly. I’ve never been in possession of a six-pack; not a proper one, anyway. In my early twenties, when I played football and ran a lot more often there was a lot less flab and some definite abs and even now I don’t exactly look like I might be 7 months pregnant. But there is a belly. And, try as I might to reason with myself about age, lifestyle and the stress of work, it really bothers me. Having spent most of my life worrying about being underweight I never thought I’d have a belly, especially as I’m still probably underweight! But it’s definitely there. And because it’s so unexpected I think I overplay its importance and worry about it far more than is healthy or even reasonable.

Nowadays, for the style conscious middle aged man, having a belly is a bit of problem whether it bothers you or not. You see, clothes are a lot closer fitting. Everything you look at is available in ‘slim fit’ and some even in ‘skinny’ fit. Style wise this is great. I can remember the 80s and 90s when clothes would literally hang off me and so now, when things actually fit properly, it’s much better. But things fit everywhere. So any slim fitting t-shirts that I might buy are sure to hug. But they can’t hug my belly. Not enough to actually hug it away. And so I find myself feeling self conscious a lot more. About four months ago my wife bought me an expensive compression top which I could wear while out running, but when I put it on I was appalled. It’s incredibly tight fitting, but despite its quality it couldn’t contain my belly and looking at myself in the mirror, I felt ridiculous. Needless to say it went back in the wardrobe and it’s only appeared in public in the last week or so.

In truth, I find that I try to hold my stomach in these days. On holiday, or if we go swimming it’s a conscious decision. While I have no real problem with the scar on my chest anymore, I now feel self conscious about a paunch that my wife assures me isn’t really there. I find myself walking around just that little bit more tense and sucking in the belly. I’m not trying to impress anyone. I’m not kidding myself that women (or men, the cheeky devils) may still cast a glance in my direction. But I do try to hold my belly in when I remember. I don’t want to feel like I’m being judged and I don’t want to feel like my nearest and dearest are quietly thinking, ‘he’s let himself go’.

On the belly front I’ve tried various things to help out. Sit ups, weights, running, walking, cutting back on certain foods like chocolate, crisps and beer, but I simply don’t seem to have the long term will power to make a difference. When I was exercising regularly and for a more significant and sustained amount of time it did make a difference and you could actually see the beginnings of a six-pack. But nobody’s impressed by a two-pack, least of all because actually divulging such information makes it sound like all you’re actually doing is informing them that you’ve got testicles. Even something as simple as a mere glance at my name tells you that there’s a fair chance I’ve got them anyway. And so, the exercise and the food sacrifice went south…a little bit like my belly.

With body image in mind, I’m currently trying to be much more disciplined about what I eat and drink. As lots of you will be aware I had a health scare last year and while I wouldn’t say it had a profound effect, it did make me think about my choices in terms of food and exercise. I’ve never been a big drinker, but for the last 6 months or so I’ve managed to restrict beer consumption to at the most 3 times a week. And even then it’s very rare that I’ll ever have more than one drink.

I’ve almost completely cut out crisps, which have always been my nemesis in terms of fighting the flab. Crisps have always had a heroin-like pull on me and I could eat them all day and still not have had enough. Even the thought of them makes me kind of wistful! The box of chocolate biscuits that used to reside in my desk draw at work has also now gone and has been replaced by two bananas a day. And even as I type I’m munching on my most recent dietary addition – a small daily tub containing pumpkin seeds, cashews and macadamia nuts.

But am I only kidding myself? Despite my size I’ve always loved my food and I live in constant fear of some kind of relapse. Walking around Asda on a Saturday morning can feel like some kind of purgatory as I try to avoid aisle after aisle of delicious fatty rollbacks! In fact, I can’t even walk down the biscuit or crisp aisles anymore, which I suppose is some display of discipline, however sad it might seem. Such is the hold that body image can have though. And it must be the same for thousands of middle aged men. We’re at a certain age; our bodies simply can’t exercise enough anymore and years and years of sampling various foods has led to this – a belly that suggests that you might just be about to go into labour.

And then there’s man boobs, or moobs as we’ve christened them for short. I can’t lie; I’ve spent a lifetime in love with lady bumps, but I’ve never actually wanted a pair myself. And it’s so far so good on this front, but I worry that it’s only a matter of time. While I don’t have impressive pecs, I do have something that actually resembles a masculine and muscular chest (small, but definitely made of muscle, all the same) and the thought that this could turn into something resembling snooker balls in a sock dangling from my chest area terrifies me. Because if slim fitting shirts and t-shirts bother me now, imagine how I’m going to feel if I develop moobs! Consequently, I don’t think I’ve ever been more serious about exercise!

As a middle aged man I’ve started to worry about lots of different aspects of my body. One of the more unusual aspects that I’ve begun to consider is the state of my backside. And no, I’m not about to reveal that I’ve got piles or anything like that. I’ve written some awkward paragraphs in my time on this blog, but the piles paragraph simply won’t be one of them. For one, thankfully middle age hasn’t brought that particular horror and for another thing, I don’t think I’d ever write about it if it had happened. I want to be sure that people can still look me in the eye if need be.

In fact, and almost as embarrassingly, what I worry about in an arse sense is actually whether or not it’s still pert. Yes, you read that right. As a slim fella I’ve always had a small bum. Pert too. But recently it occurred to me that, given my age, this might not be so anymore. I’ve even gone as far as checking it out. Not in an obsessive way, but briefly having a quick glance in the mirror. Thankfully, it’s not threatening to start hanging behind my knees or anything like that, so for the time being I’m fairly pleased. But of all the things I thought may concern me as I got older, this wasn’t one.

I think it says a lot about body image that as a man in my forties I’m concerned about having a saggy arse and it made me wonder if this is the kind of thing that other middle aged men worry about. I couldn’t bring myself to ask though. I mean, if it’s not considered wholly masculine to worry too much about your body shape, then I’m sure I’d be derided for asking that kind of question of any of my mates. However lads, if any of you have any concerns or have conducted any of your own personal market research, then I’m happy to talk. We could make a night of it – a proper boys’ night with some takeaway, a nice bottle of wine, candlight and a romcom. You know where I am…

Gaining grey hair was a sign that middle age was approaching. However, what sealed the deal with middle age, and simultaneously started me worrying was when I noticed that it wasn’t just the hair on my head that was changing colour; my chest hair was also going grey…and white in some places. I can’t lie…I began to pluck. And I kept on plucking. This was a visible sign of my body’s failure and its obvious lack of youth and I hated it with a passion. I’m not young enough in my outlook to think that shaving my chest is OK. That’s for a different, weirder generation. For me chest hair is cool and it made me feel decidedly masculine. But grey chest hair? This was calamitous.  But the more I envisaged it this way, the worse it got. I seemed to be forever spotting new grey and as a result, forever plucking. In turn, my worry grew more. I didn’t want to be old!

In the end a combination of being unable to keep up with their growth and a gradual acceptance that I couldn’t win helped me relax. Nowadays I’m comfortable with it and in actual fact, this metamorphosis has slowed. I only really have a small patch of grey and white on my chest and the rest, perhaps due to my more relaxed attitude, has remained resolutely black. So while I have I kind of Cruella de Ville look going on with my chest, it’s not up there with the belly in terms of how it dominates my life. In terms of my body image and my ‘dad bod’, it’s OK.

The final area that concerns me more and more with my middle age is what it’s doing to my skin. Specifically, my face. I’m getting wrinkles. Not loads. I don’t yet look like I’m made of leather, but there are definite wrinkles and again it’s a concern. Vanity plays its part here. I think it’s widely accepted that men age better than women in general and they’re certainly not judged by how they look as they get older in anything like the way that women are. But I can’t shake the worry of wrinkles. I don’t see that wrinkles may make me look more dignified, full of character or interesting; I just see age catching up with me.

I’ve tried to combat this particular body image worry for years. I’ve used moisturiser for some time now in order to keep my skin looking at the very least acceptable. But even that is a balancing act. While vanity tugs at me urgently to look after my skin and not worry about what people might think should they find out about me using moisturiser, some misguided sense of masculinity tells me I’m committing some kind of crime against manhood. You see, where I’m from – and my dad and many uncles will back me up on this, once they’ve gotten over the shock of my skincare revelation – men don’t put cream on their face. And all joking aside, I think I’m from an era where lots of my peers probably don’t see it as normal either. And thus, although I use moisturiser to try and keep age at bay at bit, I don’t use it anywhere near enough for fear that I might just turn into a girl or something!

As someone who’s regularly been told that he doesn’t look his age, actual middle age has come as quite a shock and body image, something that’s always been quite an issue for me, has crept more and more into my thinking. I’m not prepared to accept my fate though. The idea of a ‘dad bod’ is fine, but let it happen to someone else’s dad. The belly can wait, as can the moobs and I’ll keep kidding myself that people – not just women, but people, after all I’m a modern man – are checking out my pert little behind. I don’t think I mind being objectified (or at least telling myself I’m being objectified), but I’m damned if I’m not going to fight middle age all the way!