Annual escape committee returns to land of Scotch pies (From The Northern Echo)

Annual escape committee returns to land of Scotch pies

9:38am Tuesday 2nd June 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

FAIR play to the Germans, they gave us the wonderful word schadenfreude, a masterpiece of economy which the English more loosely translate as “taking pleasure at others’ misfortunes”.

Never may schadenfreude so greatly have been in evidence as over the last nine days, since Newcastle United were relegated and Sunderland exulted inexorably.

Cyberspace is saturated, message boards mowed out.

It continued, alas, when the FA Cup Final Escape Committee (and Scotch Pie Fest) held its annual outing, Livingston United v Dunbar, last Saturday.

Smugs’ game four of the company were Sunderland season ticket holders. They reprised their favourite lines, they laughed out loud at anyone in a black and white shirt, they sang Down Town (which may need no explanation) and, to the tune of Ruby Tuesday, a song beginning “Goodbye, Geordie Nation.”

“Nation”, it probably also goes without saying, rhymed with “relegation.” Apart from that, this was a great Escape Committee.

It had been the rainy season, 16 Northern League games postponed before the end of August, and it turned into the monsoon season.

This was the final whistle, an annual event since the mayday May day in 1999 when a few of us baled out over the border – to Dunbar, almost coincidentally – in order to avoid the excesses surrounding to supposed showpiece.

It was an occasion, the 1999 column supposed, for those for whom the FA Cup was just not their hype.

Back then it was a conscious effort, even in Scotland, to avoid all contact with it. Now, though Mr Martin Haworth spotted Chelsea and Everton mannequins in JJB Sports in Edinburgh, no one else seems much to care, either.

The Cup has been tarnished; it overflows no longer.

SOME of the newer escapees had brought picnics, including pork and black pudding pie from Chittock’s, in Bishop Auckland. Though it rather defeated the object, they were very good pies.

Mr Paul Dobson had found a book on Darlington station and could hardly be parted from it. It was something about The Terminator. “The Terminator by Thomas Hardy,” said Paul, his mobile phone periodically flashing up a photograph of Cecil Irwin, Sunderland’s right back in the 1960s.

“A signed photograph,”

said Paul, before regressing to another chorus of Down Town.

Most of them travel on the same Sunderland supporters’ bus, walk the same streets looking for suitable pubs. Mr Ronnie McDonald recalled an occasion in Ipswich when they’d been guided three miles to get to a pub that originally had only been 100 yards away.

In Edinburgh, we walked a fair way, only to find that the pub in question had been knocked down.

Since it was a lads’ outing (the magnificent Mrs Denise Haworth having been granted honorary membership for the day) conversation turned to manly matters like the names of the Bash Street Kids and of the Woodentops’ dog, which appears to have been Spotty all along.

Since it was an old lads’ outing, someone not only suggested that an old dosser in Edinburgh reminded him of Arthur Haynes but that the planned 2.30 kick-off reminded him of the joke about the Chinese dentist.

Mr Peter Sixsmith, for whom it was the 179th match of the season – a figure which doesn’t include his regular rugby league – essayed his impressions of Billy Bunter, or rather of Gerald Campion. That’s the sort of day it was.

LIVINGSTON is a new town between Edinburgh and Glasgow, widely and erroneously believed to have been named after Dr David Livingstone, who discovered the Victoria Falls and met a feller called Stanley whilst out there.

Locals are said to know it as Roundabout City, a place in which much of the housing is of the same colour as Messrs Scott’s porridge oats though – again to be fair – anywhere looks better on so glorious a day.

On Saturday, Livingston looked two-tone. Grey and green.

The club’s Wikipedia entry, which appears a little out of date, speaks of their “poor” recent form. Sixer had discovered that they’d gained just seven points all season, the natural sympathy for the underdog diminished somewhat by the realisation that they played in black and white stripes.

Congenitally unable to support anyone so hued, the Sunderland contingent formed an ad hoc branch of the Dunbar supporters club.

The ground’s called Station Park, and thus a mile from the station. There were no floodlights, no seats, and a uniquely disgusting gents’ toilet that may once have been a Boer War pill box and which made the Wikipedia entry appear up-to-date by comparison. There were seven of us; we damn near doubled the crowd.

AS usual in Scotland, the teams appeared entirely to comprise named Wee Man or Big Man. Mr Dobson, known to friends as Sobs, wondered why they didn’t have a Middle-Sized Man for the sake of greater clarity.

The referee was dressed head to toe in yellow, so vivid that he resembled a character from Banana Splits. He proved to be Italian, which may explain why so much Anglo-Saxon was lost in the translation.

Assailed by an avalanche of imprecation from the Livingston dugout, the ref – a cross between Carlos Luigi Collina and a giant canary – waved like the Pope delivering an Easter blessing.

As they do in Sunday league games in Co Durham, the “club” linesman leaned against the fence, in conversation with passers by. When Collina turned his back, they simply added to the imprecation.

At half-time it was goalless and largely soulless, both teams having passed the ball with the pinpoint precision of an arthritic Aberdonian tossing the caber. Things threatened to become yet worse when the Scotch pies ran out. Mrs Haworth ahead in the lower-case queue, then justified her temporary manhood by giving up her pie to her friend.

Like they used to do fifty years ago, a little lad walked around the ground with the lucky raffle number chalked on a board. The winner received £4, the price of admission.

With ten minutes to go, the black and whites went a goal down – “Nowt new there,” chorused the Mackems – but, thus roused, equalised with a header shortly afterwards.

It was in the final minute, so greatly offside that an appeal may still be under consideration to the European Court of Human Rights, that the home number five lobbed the goalkeeper from 25 years, removed his shirt, whirled it dervishly around his head and, not having a crowd to whom to throw it, sent it ecstatically into orbit.

Collina sidled towards him, apparently uncertain of his next move, yellow belly or banana split decision. “Aa’m only showing off ma muscles, ref,” pleaded the seven-point centre half.

Collina smiled as if selling a kid a Cornetto, kept his book in his pocket, got it absolutely right.

Fifteen seconds later he blew for time. In temperatures of 75 degrees but with never a thought for Wembley, the monsoon had at least a happy ending.

OR at least it had for most of us. John Dawson, king of the groundhoppers, rings on Monday morning. “Do you fancy Blairgowrie on Saturday?” he says. Told that the Northern League annual meeting carries a three-line whip, he reveals that they’ve also found a Scottish match on Saturday week. That’s not possible, either. John’s visiting Darlington. Unable to find a football match anywhere, he wanders off with mixed feelings to Feethams, and to the unaccustomed cricket.

And finally...

THE first footballer born outside Eire to represent the Republic of Ireland (Backtrack, May 30) was Shay Brennan of Manchester United.

Today, back to the FA Cup final. Alf Hutchinson in Darlington invites readers – preferably without consulting the reference books – to name the two clubs which have appeared in finals in each of the three centuries in which the competition has been held.

Following a nostalgic trip up the north Northumberland coast, the column returns on Saturday.