Football Art: Sir Bobby Robson and Newcastle United

"What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It's not the television contracts, get out clauses or the marketing departments or executive boxes. It's the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love." Sir Bobby Robson (1933 -2009)

Behind the malapropisms and mispronunciations -  "What can I say about Peter Shilton? Peter Shilton is Peter Shilton and he's been Peter Shilton since the year dot," said the man who in his five years as manager of Newcastle gave pre-match instructions to Kevin Dyer, regularly confused Shola Ameobi with Carl Cort, and occasionally addressed French international winger Laurent Robert as Lauren Baccall - Sir Bobby Robson never lost his instinctive grasp of what really mattered in football.  "He's been a winner all his life because he could see the bigger picture," thought Jose Mourinho, who donated a FIFA Balon D'Or World Coach of the Year award to the charity founded by his mentor. "It was a privilege to spend a year with him," said Pep Guardiola. "In my 23 years working in England," Sir Alex Ferguson once observed, "there is not a person I would put an inch above him."

 

The Sir Bobby Robson statue at the foot of the Gallowgate End steps.

The self-effacing miner's son from Langley Park played for and coached England, managed Ipswich Town to the FA and UEFA Cups, and won trophies with some of the biggest club sides in Holland, Portugal and Spain before returning to north-east England, where he'd started out as an electrician's apprentice in the County Durham coalfields.  A Newcastle fan all his life - "My father went to the 1932 Cup final and nine months later I was born" - he inherited a club rooted to the bottom of the table and led it to fourth, third and fifth-placed finishes in the Premier League, undeservedly falling to Chelsea in the last FA Cup semi-final to be played at the old Wembley Stadium and losing out to Marseille at the same stage of the 2003-04 UEFA Cup.

Tom Maley's bust in the Milburn Stand foyer

Sir Bobby's links to Newcastle United are commemorated by a bust inside the main reception at St James' Park - the starting point for stadium tours - a memorial garden and a three-metre tall bronze statue, unveiled in May before an audience of thousands of fans and ex-players. "It's a lovely statue - Sir Bobby all over," said Paul Gascoigne. "He was a great man and I’m proud to have known him.”  Sculpted by Tom Maley, whose earlier likeness of Jackie Milburn stands at the opposite side of the Gallowgate End, the statue shows Robson with his hands in suit pockets, right leg resting on a leather football and head turned towards the site of the old Newcastle Breweries, now a Sandman Signature Hotel and a Shark Club gastro bar.  Sir Bobby Robson 1933-2009 England reads the accompanying plaque.  "This is where his love of football began," Lady Elsie Robson recalled. "It feels fitting that we should be standing on the hill that Bob used to walk up with his father and brothers on a Saturday afternoon to watch Albert Stubbins and his other boyhood heroes...My husband's career took him all over the world, but he was always a Newcastle fan at heart. He loved this club and was very proud to be its manager."

The feeling, then and now, was mutual.

Dynamo Kyiv

My first visit to Kyiv was a daytrip in October 1997.  "The word Ukraine means borderland," the guide cheerlessly recited as we drove into the city. "Historically it was the breadbasket of Russia."  "Aye, man," somebody muttered, "but when are we getting to the bars?"  A Lada strained to overtake the coach, the passenger leaning out of the window to give us the finger.  The country's first McDonald's had just opened on Kreshchatyk and women in fur coats and posh frocks scoffed hamburgers and fries next to Newcastle fans in jeans and black and white tops. Outside, baboushkas in washed-out headscarves were offering household tat - dog-eared books, faded icons and threadbare blankets - for sale in gloomy concrete underpasses as we made our way towards the ground. Dynamo - Champions League semi-finalists the following year - were still a formidable side,  Rebrov and Shevchenko quickly putting them two goals ahead before a late, deflected double from the unlikely source of John Beresford's right boot shocked all but a tiny pocket of the 100,000 crowd into silence.  "You only wear leather jackets," taunted three hundred Geordies as the home fans drifted away and we bopped on the wooden benches. Not that it mattered in the end: Dynamo beat Barcelona by a combined score of seven goals to nil on their way to the quarter final; Newcastle, shorn of strikers by Alan Shearer's injury and Les Ferdinand's ill-timed sale, lost to PSV Eindhoven (twice) and Barcelona in their next three games.

Fifteen years on Kyiv is a very different city and Dynamo, sadly, a shadow of their former selves.  Rob Langham, one half of the ever wonderful The Two Unfortunates, picks up the tale. 

A winter break in Kyiv? I’ll admit to puzzlement on the part of some of our friends at our decision to embark upon a 5 day expedition to the frozen steppe in November. The city’s charms are undoubtedly low key and even if the marvellously atmospheric Bessarabska market, quirky Mikhail Bulgakov museum, the grandeur of the city’s onion domes and moving, monolithic monuments to the Great Patriotic War all stoke plenty of interest, yet there were many who suspected the round ball lay behind our choice.

I’ll admit that Valeriy Lobanovskyi’s rebuilding projects provoked much of my fascination in the past. In particular, the 1986 Dynamo Kyiv team that cantered to victory over Atletico Madrid in the Cup Winners’ Cup Final in Lyon and the subsequent enlistment of the bulk of that vintage into the USSR squad for the Mexico World Cup. A 6-0 shellacking of a previously heralded Hungary as followed by Vasyl Rats angling in a screamer against France and I was hooked – I watched with regret as Ihor Belanov’s hat-trick proved to no avail as the Soviets inexplicably lost out in a ding dong second round battle with Belgium.

I had also been dimly aware of the 1970s generation too – led by Oleg Blokhin and victorious in another Euro showpiece against Ferencváros. Of course Lobanovksyi was to create another set of marvels in the nineties – Andriy Shevchenko and Serhiy Rebrov terrorising Euro defences and taking the club to a Champions League semi in 1999. Dynamo, in their pristine white kit and marvellously embroidered ‘D’ of a crest are nothing short of World Football’s most storied clubs.

Rob at the wrong stadium

The day leading up to a 5pm Sunday kick off for the derby match between Dynamo and Arsenal and had been punctuated by much debate as to whether sitting outside for two hours on a tingling Ukrainian night was a good idea or not. Egged on by the proprietor of this fine site, Michael Hudson, we vacillated and at many points, the prospect of decamping to a coy restaurant with a steaming plate of borshch held more appeal. But, in the end, with temperatures rising to a smidgeon above zero come Sunday afternoon and equipping ourselves with more layers than an Angel cake, we set out for the Dynamo stadium, perched atop a high bluff looking out across the Dnipro river and an arena we had been lucky enough to view on a self-guided walking tour of the city a couple of days before.

Having been diverted by the site of a man leading a pony down the steps of the Khreshchatyk underground station and fortifying ourselves with steaming cups of coffee, we leisurely sauntered towards the stadium – its grandiose gate depicting its most famous coach and providing a striking entrance. There was one snag, however, the tall floodlights jutting up into the East European sky were still unlit – and this but half an hour only before the scheduled kick off.

Hence a quick rethink before deciding that either the game wasn’t taking place at all or was to be staged at the massive new Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex, a conversion of an arena previously glorying in the monikers Trotsky Stadium and Republikansky Stadium and the building where Spain went on something a romp against Italy in the Euro 2012 final this past summer.

 Dynamo ultras' light show

Kyiv’s metro stations are as austere and as grand as others scattered across the former USSR and they also plunge to extraordinary depths – hence, the complicated journey to the national team’s home was no small matter. Negotiating the labyrinthine passages of the Palats Sportu station would have troubled Theseus and a heavy uniformed presence (albeit disappointingly not the ranks of army personnel one remembers from European cup ties behind the iron curtain in the 1980s) did little to help our radar. In the end, we indulged in that time honoured policy of following the scarves, emerging above ground and filtering through a series of alleyways before emerging in front of the shiny stadium.

Already past kick off, we perhaps conservatively ignored the attempts to local youth to foist cut price tickets upon us before purchasing two mid-priced seats from a booth handily staffed by an English-speaking helper.  At roughly a tenner, the prices were relatively cheap although perhaps not so much given the Ukrainian standard of living. However, places were on sale for as little as £2 or £3.

A quarter of an hour in and the game was still 0-0 – the stadium’s yellow and blue colour scheme clearly evident given the quarter full arena. Indeed, we were far from alone in our tardiness – many fans choosing to tarry with cigarettes or simply amble to their positions. Two set of ultras felt differently however – Dynamo’s tyros created a good noise to our right while an infinitesimally tiny bunch of Arsenal fans were letting off steam just ahead of us.

To say the attitude among the bulk of the support was diffident would be an understatement however and it soon became clear as to why, with Dynamo camped in their opponents’ half and showing an ease in possession one would expect of an XI that had contested a Champions League match with Paris St. Germain only a few days before. Peppered with Brazilians and Nigerians, Ideye Brown led the line in a modern 4-3-3 style formation with perhaps the diminutive South American, Dudu, still only 20 years of age, doing most to unlock the massed defence of the visitors.

Ideye ended up netting twice with international centre back Yevhen Khacheridi and Oleh Husyev scoring the others, all of which came in the last few minutes of each half. The experienced Husyev in particular was in fine form raiding down the right, showing a tendency to graft which the much heralded Andriy Yarmolenko failed to match. After his introduction from the bench Yarmolenko missed a sitter and his slow progress along with that of another previous wunderkind Artem Milevskiy, absent here perhaps highlights some of the problems besetting Ukrainian football.

For the break-up of the Soviet Union has led to a severe lack of competition for a club like Kyiv, previously honed on a half century diet of intense encounters  with the Moscow clubs and other former giants such as the Georgians of Dynamo Tblisi. This victory was a cakewalk and, Shakhtar Donetsk apart, the Ukrainian Premier League is suffering from a lack of serious quality.

The glittering surroundings featuring electronic entry gates, the lack of home based players and the casual approach of many of the playing staff are a far cry from the discipline – and mystique ­­– of the Lobanovskyi years. Before, a victory in Kyiv, even for the most storied of western European giants, would be unheard of. Now, Paris St. Germain can come and chalk up the most functional of victories. Shakhtar are formidable of course – but their oligarch owner Rinat Akhmetov’s millions serve nothing but to reinforce the continued importance of the oligarch model. A European Football Weekend in Kyiv is still a treat but I wish I’d been there in 1985.

You can read much more from Rob here.

Ground 217: Zimbru Stadium, Chişinău

Rohan Ricketts' move to Dacia Chișinău was always likely to be one of the shortest and strangest footballing episodes of summer 2010.  "Moldova was just horrendous," the ex-Arsenal, Spurs and Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder recalled after leaving for the German fourth division. "I had players take things from my room. (They) smoked in the changing rooms and drank four or five bottles of beer before games.  I was sitting in on meetings about match-fixing.  It was strange but almost amusing."

Founded in 1999 and champions of Moldova twelve years and a bit of alleged intimidation of officials later, Dacia are the capital's upstart football team, dislodging FC Zimbru, title winners in eight of the Divizia Naţională's first nine seasons, as the only threat to Sheriff Tiraspol's ongoing strangehold over the domestic game. Bankrolled by Gabriel Stati, occasional fugitive and eldest son of the country's richest man, the Yellow Wolves share Zimbru's eponymous stadium, twenty minutes on trolley bus 22 from the corner of Strada Ismail and Bulevardu Ștefan cel Mare, home to a branch of the ubiquitous Andy's Pizza, a glass-fronted casino, a half-finished apartment block with black bin liners fluttering in the space reserved for windows, and a nightclub with a plastic giraffe surrounding the door. Small wonder Ricketts spent so much time in his hotel.

Some mumbled Russian and thirty lei gets us seats on the halfway line. "Shit! A quid fifty and we've already missed a goal," Tom jokes as the fifteen Iskra Stal fans finish celebrating their team's second minute opener. "Don't worry, there'll be more," says Mikey as Dacia's Evgheni Matiughin fumbles at a tame shot.  While Moldova's national stadium is a far cry from the last game of  football I saw - Red House Farm Juniors vs Cullercoats in the Northern Alliance Division Two - a turgid first-half means the gap in quality isn't always so apparent. "This is the worst game I've ever seen," Mikey moans after quarter of an hour.  "Try watching Spurs," says Lisa.  "It's brilliant you can smoke here," chips in Tom. "Is there a bar do you reckon?" Dacia, beaten 1-0 by Sheriff in their previous league game,  muster a hardcore support of just over fifty people and no more than a handful of attempts to equalise until the visiting keeper kicks a clearance against Cairo de Andrade's back and then tops the first mistake by letting the Brazilian forward's shot trickle under his hand.

"What kind of place is this?" asks Mikey. "They don't have pies.  They don't even have beer."  "There's that bread thing," suggests Tom, his tone less convincing than the first-half display of goalkeeping.  As the second half begins the only thing on anybody's stomach is the belly laugh which greets Denis Ilescu when he calls for a header, misses the ball completely, slips on his front and ends up chesting the ball out for a throw-in. "He was on-loan at Anzhi Makhachkala," Tom says, scrolling through Wikipedia on his phone. "Imagine him and Eto'o in the same team."

Adama Guira, a Burkina Faso international who played six times for Djurgårdens, ambles menacingly around midfield as the home side belatedly start to impose themselves. Ghenadie Orbu heads them into the lead, a third goal takes a deflection off a defender and the fourth - a free-kick which curls over the wall and through the keeper's hands -  is scored by Nicolae Josan, voted best midfielder in the Russian first division when he played alongside Ilescu at Anzhi. It's eleven o'clock when we get back to the city centre, the giraffe nightclub is closed for a private party and Andy's kicks us out after the second beer.  A small crowd of people are buying cans at a street corner kiosk, a car bumps on to the pavement blasting Gangnam Style through the windows and the neighbourhood dogs settle down for the night on piles of rotting leaves.  "It's a bit like Skegness," says Tom, "but about a hundred times worse."

Date:  October 6th 2012
Admission: £1.50

• The Moldovan league starts its winter hiatus this weekend, returning on March 3rd for a final thirteen rounds. Sheriff host second-placed Dacia at the Sheriff Stadium on Sunday March 10th. 

It was nuts. The players were welcoming but smoked in the changing room and drank four or five bottles of beer before games.
“I was sitting in on meetings about match-fixing. It was strange but almost amusing.


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3830527/.html#ixzz2DJK9X8aY

It was nuts. The players were welcoming but smoked in the changing room and drank four or five bottles of beer before games.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3830527/.html#ixzz2DJJzMGui

It was nuts. The players were welcoming but smoked in the changing room and drank four or five bottles of beer before games.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3830527/.html#ixzz2DJJzMGui

Ground 215: Langdale Centre, Wallsend Town

Football and Wallsend go together like Liverpool and missed chances or Munich and beer.  Almost seventy players, six full internationals, one Champions League winner and two of Newcastle United's current first team squad can count Wallsend Boys Club among their footballing alma mater, its Station Road cantera launching professional careers with the same kind of frequency that Swan Hunter once did ships. "I'll remain indebted to it forever," Peter Beardsley told the Daily Telegraph the year he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame. "It was a special time. It’s played a huge part in my life and what I’ve done," remembers Birmingham City boss Lee Clark. "If we hadn’t had Station Road, who knows what we might have got ourselves into."

Wallsend was a thriving place in the mid-1970s.  The Swan Hunter shipyards were expanding along both banks of the Tyne, employing 11,500 people. Ray Hankin, schooled on Station Road, reached an FA Cup semi final with Burnley while a local amateur football club made minor headlines of its own, Wallsend Town defeating Annan Athletic and Sheffield FC to reach the last 16 of the FA Vase.  In 1979 Brian Lisle's team beat Vase holders Newcastle Blue Star and Hartlepool United Reserves to first place in the Wearside League and knocked three-time Northern League champions Ferryhill Athletic out of the FA Cup.  The title would turn out be the club's high-water mark: disbanded twice, it was eventually reformed by Alan James and Dave Grandini  in 1998, dropping to the foot of the Northern Alliance after an ill-fated couple of seasons in the second-tier of the Wearside League. A merger with Wallsend United promised an upturn in fortune but progress on the pitch was hampered by half a decade of vandalism off it. "Any money we were getting from sponsorship was being spent on repairs," Grandini told the Newcastle Evening Chronicle last year as his side on the brink of back-to-back promotions and the club's first top-flight campaign since 1986.  "Everytime we went down to the club something was wrong.

Promoted behind Amble United, an opening day draw at Walker Central preceded a half-time wash-out at home to Heaton Stannington, last season's Premier Division champions and the third of Town's victims in the FA Vase run of 1975. There are nineteen people at the Langdale Centre - still twelve more than turned out to see the club play Evenwood Town in the preliminary round of the 1981-82 FA Cup - to see the visit of Killingworth Sporting, Northumberland Benevolent Bowl holders but beatable in the league. Within three minutes Grandini's side are one ahead, Dekka Graham drifting right before looping up a cross which Paul Gordon dispatches unopposed. "You'd been warned," grumbles Sporting boss Davy Taylor from the sideline. Gordon's second goal is even easier, a backpass spinning away from ex-Hartlepool United keeper Liam Mooney and the striker jogging the ball into the vacant net.  In between, Killingworth's Michael Bowman hits two shots into Rikki Donaldson's midriff and is forced off with a torn hamstring, the visitors' chances disappearing along with him. "We've been atrocious," Taylor says at half time, "the worst I've seen us play."

Killingworth respond to their manager's call for "graft" but a few heavy tackles and some inconsistent officiating raise hackles on both sides.  Graham is booked for taking a shot after he's flagged offside and responds by calling the referee a "baldy fucking radgie". His teammates bundle him towards the dugouts, where he throws his top to the grass before heading off across the playground. "It's only a daft game of football," his response to the inevitable red card. John Amos scores a late goal for Killingworth, heading in a near-post corner with half the Wallsend team marking the back. As Sporting push for an equaliser, a mistimed challenge on Gordon sees the forward respond with an elbow and leaves the home side to play out the remaining seconds with only nine men. The referee leaves the pitch surrounded by irate Wallsend players. "Disgrace, isn't it?" says one fan to another.

Admission: Free
Date: August 11th 2012

• Like its ships, Wallsend's footballers were once a global commodity.  Curtis Booth, a forward with Wallsend Elm Villa and Newcastle United, coached in Erfurt, Istanbul and Paris between the wars.  Billy Wright won 15 caps for New Zealand while Shaun Lowther played alongside Ray Hankin and Peter Beardsley at Vancouver Whitecaps and later helped Canada qualify for the 1986 World Cup. 

Ground 214: Oxford Centre, Longbenton

"Voy wawm" said the dustman
one bright August morning - 
But that was in Longbenton
under the trees

He was Northumbrian, he'd never known
horizons shimmering in the sun

Michael Roberts, 'Hymn to the Sun'.

August 11th, the closing afternoon of the men's Olympic football programme and the opening one of the 2012-13 Northern Football Alliance.  Amid the red-brick municipal estates of Longbenton, better known as the home of Findus Crispy Pancakes and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the footballing temperatures have rarely been as high since a teenage Peter Beardsley went from sweeping factory floors to captaining Newcastle United, winning two league titles with Liverpool and turning out for England in 59 internationals and two World Cups.

Formed as recently as 2008 - among the most traumatic years for those who followed Beardsley into the Three Lions shirt -  Longbenton Football Club have since gone through three different sponsors, one enforced name change and three sets of home colours, last season's pink shirts now ditched in favour of Dundee United orange with black shorts and arms. Third place in last season's Tyneside Amateur League Division Two - 11 wins from 18 games holding off the challenge of Heaton Rifles and Lindisfarne Athletic - was enough to see the Bulls promoted behind champions Winlaton Queens Head, David Short scoring 17 times in the league and netting 33 in just 35 games overall. Keith Thompson's side made the final of the Selcray Bowl too, beating first division Blyth Isabella in the semi before losing 3-1 to West Jesmond after a man-of-the-match performance from ex-Longbenton goalkeeper Chris Saunders.  Better news was to follow, the Northern Football Alliance's June AGM seeing the club join Isabella and High Howdon Social Club in stepping up to Level 13 of the national football pyramid. "A massive success both on and off the pitch," Thompson says.

At £1,200 a year, chairman and former coach Tony Short is currently the club's only sponsor, with Wednesday night training sessions taking place on the municipal pitches at Paddy Freeman's Park. But both 31-year-old Short and last season's player of the year, midfielder Anthony Peel, are back for the new season while David McDonald and young keeper Tom Kindley - a substitute in the 2010 FA Vase Final, when he was briefly on Sunderland's radar - have been snapped up over the summer from Northern League Whitley Bay.

The Bulls kick off the new season at home, Alnwick Town Reserves the first Step 9 visitors to the Oxford Centre Stadium. North Northumberland League title winners in 2010-11, the black and whites could do no better than twelfth in the first attempt to get out of the Northern Alliance's basement division. "The game's here to be won," Thompson tells his starting eleven as Alnwick tap the ball around their half of the pitch and substitutes laze face down on a touchline sealed off with orange rope.  There are eight other spectators as the game begins with competing shouts of "Howay, get stuck straight in." 

 It's an orange shirt that almost gets in first, a quick counter upfield ends with Anth Brown, a teenage striker signed from Tynemouth Under-18s, playing in Short, who sidefoots straight at the oncoming goalkeeper. "Should have scored there, son," a home fan mutters under his breath. With Ben Keenan guiding and cajoling up front, Alnwick put the home defence under pressure before another breakaway sees Longbenton's Robbie Woods slide the ball inches past the post. "Keep yer shape! Two banks of four!" barks the visiting coach. Keenan almost stabs in past goalkeeper Martin Dixon and sends a left-footed volley a couple of metres wide. "Rules of attrition," he says as a forward ball is just cut out. "Nine times out of ten for that one time."

 "Plenty of positives from that half," begins the away team talk as Thompson rouses his team and assistant manager Paul Charlton, once on the books of Crystal Palace and Gateshead, takes a break from running the line to have a cigarette. Minutes after the restart, Alnwick's left winger miskicks when through on goal and Hutchins spanks the follow up into a garden. Longbenton are more clinical: man-of-the-match Brown running clear of his marker and redirecting a through ball into the corner of the net with an hour played. Alnwick respond through the wily Keenan, his first shot turned away by Dixon and a second rebounding off the post, but with Peel, easily the most skilful player on either side, controlling the pace in midfield it takes four good saves from the visiting keeper to stop Longbenton running away with the game.  Charlton passes on the flag with ten minutes remaining but hardly breaks sweat in the centre of defence as the home side play out their first ever victory in the Northern Football Alliance. With Peel and Brown in the side, it won't be their last.

Admission: Free
Date: 11th August 2012

• It's a ten-minute walk from the metro platform at Four Lane Ends to pitchside at the Oxford Centre. Exit the station, cross Benton Road and turn right, walking downhill until you reach the grass roundabout at the junction with West Farm Avenue. Turn left here and the Oxford Centre is directly opposite The Charnwood pub. There's parking next to the pitch, while the neighbouring Boulevard Shopping Centre has a Booze Buster, Greggs, Betfred and side-by-side takeaways. 

• Newcastle United's Darsley Park training complex and the neighbouring Whitley Park, home ground of Northern League side West Allotment Celtic, are both within walking distance of Four Lane Ends Metro. Nearby, Team Northumbria and Newcastle United Women's Football Club play at Northumbria University's Coach Lane Campus, which is visible from the Newcastle University-owned Longbenton Sports Ground. 

Ground 213: Stade Pourcin, Etoile Sportive Fréjusienne

What, to paraphrase John Cleese, did the Romans ever do for Fréjus and Saint-Raphaël? Well, for starters there was sanitation, education, fresh water and wine, provided for the veteran troops of Julius Caesar's Eighth Legion. Augustus later crammed its harbour with what remained of Antony and Cleopatra's fleet after the naval rout at Actium, the undisputed match of 31BC.  Gnaeus Julius Agricola, future consul and governor of the bad lands of Britannia, grew up on the Fréjus side of the bay, Saint-Raphaël, founded as a beach resort for retired soldiers, taking on the genteel part of Bournemouth to Fréjus' raucous, battle-scarred Pompey.

The roles were reversed as soon as football hit the south of France, Stage Raphaëlois lifting six Riviera Championships in the seven seasons preceding the Great War. In 1912 a line-up including Wallace, Rushford, Baird, MacLaren and Victor Bentall-Sergeant captured a national title in Paris's Stade Colombes, beating defending champs Stade Helvétique de Marseille, Lyon and Tourcoing - hometown of Yohan Cabaye - before seeing off local favourites French Sports Association 2-1 after extra-time in the final. Semi-finalists in the 1927 and 1929 Coupe de France, Stage's time in the sun ended in 1932 when their application to take part in the first professional French Associaton Football League was rejected, leaving the amateurs in the shade of AS Cannes and OGC Nice.  It was another six years before Etoile Sportive Fréjusienne started out on the opposite bank of the River Pédégal, reaching the minor heights of a fourth division title in 1991 and later developing the likes of Anthony Modeste, the Nice striker who spent part of last season on loan at Blackburn Rovers, former Newcastle United, Portsmouth and Stoke City midfield carthorse Amdy Faye and Adil Rami, the Lille double winner last seen lumbering around the heart of Laurent Blanc's Euro 2012 side in a manner reminiscent of England's own John Terry after ten pints of lager, a chicken madras and a heavy night with 'er next door.

The queue for beer and suspect baguettes.

Seventy-odd years of mutual insignificance later, the neighbouring clubs decided to pool forces in June 2009. "Times have changed. The rivalry between the two cities are of another age," said George Ginesta, deputy mayor of St. Raphael, announcing the formation of Étoile Fréjus Saint-Raphaël. After finishing eighth and sixth in their first two seasons, Étoile have dropped to midtable in the Championnat National, the third-tier of French football, ahead of the final home game of the season at the 3,000 capacity Stade Pourcin, which, despite the promise of entry gratuite taped to the ticket office windows, is less than a third full for the visit from second from bottom Besançon. "What else do people do on a Friday night in the Cote d'Azur?" asks Bolton fan Mark, one of fifteen newly-qualified teachers I'm training here for a month, as he bites through a three-euro baguette. Allowing for its slightly dubious pinky-brown filling, the food proves a much bigger bargain than the beer - €2.50 for a half pint - we spend most of the first half repeatedly queuing up for.

The home side start slowly, caught flat-footed in defence as Charly Vuillemot puts the relegation battlers into a sixth-minute lead. Nottingham Forest Academy graduate Victor Hernandez soon levels from the penalty spot, local boy Eyemen Henaini adding a quickfire second to give Étoile a twelfth-minute lead.  While eight hundred fans applaud the six-seater press box is empty and there isn't a TV camera in sight. "There's something cool about knowing no-one will ever see those goals again," grins Huddersfield supporter Ben through a mouthful of Kronenbourg. Galvanised by the double success, Étoile pour forward, smashing one shot against the crossbar and tapping another straight at the last defender after keeper Willy Maeyens is left stranded in the Besançon goal. "It should be about 9-1 here," says Ben.  The final scoreline could have been "a tad heavier", reflects Étoile's official match report later, with Gallic understatement. Substitute Laurent Maquet finally puts the game to bed with his second goal of the season on seventy minutes, the ex-Cannes and Charleroi midfielder slamming a first-time effort right-footed into the corner of Mayens' net.  A soft penalty reduces the deficit in the final minute of normal time, Lakdar Boussaha beating Wilfried Bulgare after the slightest of touches sees Youssouf Ahamadi fall poleaxed to the ground, but when Mayens strays upfield for an injury time corner Jordi Delclos easily outpaces the sole remaining defender, passing the ball into an empty net for the game's sixth and final goal.  We head back to Saint-Raphaël's seafront for red wine and cocktails, lights twinkling along the bay and palm fronds swaying gently in the Mediterranean breeze. "Not a bad night, all things considered," thinks Mark. "Better than watching Bolton anyway."

Admission: Free (normal price €10 for the covered seats in the tribune and half price for the open terraces of the populaires)
Date: May 11th 2012

•  The son of an English mother and French father, Victor Bentall-Sergeant had already won one national championship in 1907 with Racing Club de France.  He played five times for France between 1907 and 1913, including a 12-0 defeat to England at QPR's Park Royal Ground in March 1908. Another French international, Joseph Kaucsar, a Hungarian immigrant and Saint-Raphaël garage owner, played for Stage between 1925 and 1931, making 15 appearances for Les Bleus. Kaucsar's second cap, in May 1931, came as part of the first French side to defeat England.

• Kaucsar wasn't the last mechanic turned international footballer to appear in the colours of Saint-Raphaël. In 1996, Dado Pršo played eighteen times for the club after deciding to give up professional football in the wake of a disappointing spell at FC Rouen. Fixing cars in the morning before training in the afternoon, Pršo was eventually signed by AS Monaco after impressing in a friendly played between the two teams. 

•  Built in 1947, the Stade Eugene Pourcin stands on the edge of Fréjus town centre. The stadium was renamed after one of the 421 vicitims of the Malpasset Dam Disaster in December 1959. Open on three sides, the repairs to the main stand were paid for by Real Madrid, the former club of French international defender Louis Hon, who'd wound down his playing days at Saint-Raphaël three years previously. Hon later managed Lyon, Celta Vigo, Racing Santander and Real Betis.
  

Ground 212: Ford Quarry, Sunderland West End

All things considered, it's been quite an opening ten months for Sunderland West End. A suspected outbreak of Legionnaires' disease caused the abandonment of one game, eleven league wins in a row were followed by four defeats in five, one star player is out for the season, another - the leading scorer - moved up a league and two divisions after fourteen goals in sixteen games. And all that before you  even get started on the 3-0 cup semi-final defeat the very same week their joint-manager quit the club after six years in charge.

Pennywell's Jolly Potters had won three Wearside Combination titles in a row when they were grafted onto Wearside League strugglers Houghton Town - themselves a former former pub side  - at the end of last season. The combined team took Town's league place, playing daylight games at the council-owned Ford Quarry complex in Sunderland and their floodlit fixtures back in Houghton-le-Spring.  West End and Prudhoe Town have jumped from the bottom three in 2011 to seventh and twelfth, scoring 134 goals and conceding 133 in the 61 league games they've played this season.  The reverse fixture ended in a 3-3 draw and Prudhoe's Chris Winn is on 31 goals after scoring twice in the 4-3 midweek defeat to leaders Ryhope Colliery.  The only things more certain than goalmouth action in this game are a player telling the referee he's "fucking joking" and a lone man turning up with a dog. Bingo to both in the opening ten minutes.

The other spectator has come by bike, propped against the metal railing while he reluctantly does ballboy duties every time Prudhoe's four substitutes miss their shot at the empty goal.  Boof! "Cheers mate." Boof! "I told you I wasn't a forward." No walking after stray balls for me.  I head towards the nearest solid surface as the two teams emerge from the clubhouse, nine home fans and a referee assessor - wielding a clipboard and stylishly attired in slacks and an Air Asia jacket - following in their wake.

Dave Keithley has West End's first shot on target, drags a second wide and watches Gavin Dorward toepoke straight at the keeper with the midfielder clean through on goal.  The main action at the other end is the referee ordering Chris Winn off the field to change out of his undershorts. "Darker colour than the rest of your kit," he explains. "What do you want, me testicles hanging out? Give yer head a shake."  Winn, alone up front, finds tucking balls away a bit more difficult back out on the pitch, scooping over the bar when a blocked clearance falls straight to his feet.  Despite the scare it's West End who go closest, Michael Wharton's low shot fingertipped around the metal post by Prudhoe's Mark Fish. "Tighter, you've gotta get tighter," rages the away team's coach, a Steve Kean lookalike only five times more manic and dressed in a bright orange top. "You're not staying with the runners."  Fish scuffs a kick straight to Keithley, who's too surprised to do anything but prod it straight back. "Unlucky but it's gone. A mistake but it's gone. We move on and it's gone," clap the Prudhoe bench.  Within thirty seconds Nathan Burrell smacks a dipping free kick that Neal Bussey just about nudges onto the bar.

The first chance of the second half falls to West End, the next three to Prudhoe.  Under pressure, a home defender hooks the ball clear towards Wharton, who swerves a rocket from thirty yards out past Fish's left hand. "Helluva goal," clap two home fans who've been sitting in their car with the engine running since the start of half-time.  Keithley adds a quick second, sliding the ball under the keeper after a defensive mistake, and Prudhoe heads drop like Andy Carroll's transfer value. "You're feeling sorry for yourselves," shouts the manager. "We're feeling sorry for ourselves," repeats Nathan Burrell, now pushed up front in support of Winn. Prudhoe rally late on and have a goalbound effort hacked off the line, but with Brad Forster shackling Winn West End comfortably hold on, their eighteenth win of the season lifting them sixth in the table ahead of Darlington Cleveland Bridge.

Admission: Free (there was nobody to collect the usual £2 entry)
Date: April 7th 2012

• The club's proximity to Sunderland's Nissan plant isn't its only tenuous link to Japan. Born in Houghton-le-Spring in 1957, Tony Henry made 441 appearances for Manchester City, Bolton, Oldham, Stoke  and Shrewsbury Town before playing two seasons for Mazda (now J1 side Sanfrecce Hiroshima) in the semi-professional Japan Soccer League.

Tommy Thompson, an England international forward who scored over 200 goals in 443 games for Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Preston, Stoke and Barrow, was born on the outskirts of Houghton in 1928.  A next door neighbour of Sir Tom Finney during his six years at Deepdale, he scored 34 league goals in a single season as North End finished England's third best side in 1957-58.

•  The first Sunderland West End club finished bottom of the table in 1892-93, the Wearside League's inaugural season.  Goalkeeper Tom Naisby went from West End to Sunderland and later played three seasons in for Leeds United, proving himself  "a top class custodian."  Another former West Ender, George Scott, played over 200 times for Clapton Orient and saw action with the 17th Middlesex - the Footballers' Battalion - during the Great War, dying of wounds received at the Battle of the Somme. 

• The nearest Metro station to Ford Quarry is South Hyton, at the end of the line which runs between from the Airport and Newcastle and Sunderland city centres.  Turn left out of the station and follow the hill up Hylton Bank, passing Pennywell Comrades Social Club and a betting kiosk, before turning left into Hylton Road at the top of the street.  St Luke's Road is the first left after St Anne's RC School, Nissan's wind turbines a few hundred metres away on the other side of the A19.  Take the unsigned left turn immediately after Maplewood School, directly opposite a bus stop and black CCTV tower.  The clubhouse car park is the first gate on your right.