...and the REST
• Philip Wilson on DRINKING As you are probably all well aware, many non-League footballers have something of a reputation for being able to consume vast amounts of alcohol without falling over. This reputation is one that has been shared by several Barrow sides over the years. The story goes that a few years ago, the Barrow team coach was on its way home from Burton when it passed a brewery blazing with lights. The coach driver was aware of this additional talent of our lads and so he took it upon himself to point out this fascinating sight to the players who were too preoccupied with their card games and Whitney Houston cassettes to notice… "Look lads," he needled. "It don't matter how much of it you drink, they can always make it faster!" "Yeah," came a voice from the back. "But we got the ß@$*@®¶$ working overtime!" Issue 016 - April 1993
• Chris Armstrong says SHOW RACISM THE RED CARD! In order to supplement my pitiful income as a freelance writer for Give 'Em Beans! I produce a local non-League radio programme in the West Yorkshire area (and very good it is too. Ed.), reporting on teams such as Bradford PA, Guiseley and Farsley Celtic. For a recent broadcast I interviewed a local government officer about an initiative he was promoting in local schools. Called 'Show Racism the Red Card', the project is an extension of the national Kick Racism Out campaign. The interview turned out to be fairly brief and didn't take much editing in the studio afterwards. The guy was pretty straightforward - this is Yorkshire after all - and his project is undeniably worthy. And I thought the title of the scheme was more or less self-explanatory, but now I'm beginning to wonder. I was very disappointed to hear a Worksop supporter complaining about racist comments at Holker St earlier in the season. I know the so-called Barrow fan who made those offensive remarks was ejected from the ground and this prompt action by the club can only be applauded. But racist comments are not unknown on the Popular Side. When challenging offenders I have felt intimidated, but usually the hostility begins to diminish as I feel the backing of the silent majority around me grow. So I felt it could only be right to campaign against racist comments using a snappy slogan like show racism the red card to get people's attention. But events a couple of weeks ago at Bower Fold, home of Stalybridge Celtic, have made me wonder. Celtic were playing Guiseley in a UniBond Premier fixture which was pretty uneventful until the 70th minute. Then as Guiseley attacked, their forward, Simon Parke, was the target for some rather unpleasant racial invective. Parke took the law into his own hands and did a Cantona, attempting to strike the offending and offensive lout. As with Cantona, it wasn't the best response, but given the lack of action by those in authority, probably understandable given the circumstances. The referee showed Parke the red card and prepared to continue the game. But the players had other ideas and refused until the abusive prat had been dealt with. After a few minutes of chaos, during which Parke was booed off the pitch by the home crowd, the offending lout was escorted from the ground by two Stalybridge stewards and the acting chairman of the club. He has subsequently been banned for life from the Bower Fold. What leaves a sour taste in the mouth, though, is that Simon Parke was the victim of racism, a criminal offence, yet he was sent off and subsequently served a one match ban which took him past the transfer deadline at a time when he was having trials with Cambridge United. There's no way of knowing whether his sending off had any influence over his dream move to full time professionalism, but it certainly can't have helped. I don't blame Stalybridge Celtic. You can't expect clubs to legislate for some mindless moron intent on causing problems. But surely the football authorities have a duty to ensure that the victims of racism don't suffer twice. A lot of people are working very hard to identify the true transgressors and show them red card. But, please, don't victimise the victims in the process. Issue 045 - May 2000
• Armand A Legge launches SOUTHERN MEDIA SCUMBAG ß@$*@®¶ WATCH 'The dour back-to-backs and no-hope schools of Barrow-in-Furness may mean shitsville to some, red in tooth and claw with casual cruelty, racism and abuse...' So began a preview of the recent BBC2 television series 'Nature Boy' in the Guardian's 'The Guide' published on February 12. Now just a minute... are we talking about this Barrow-in-Furness, or is there another one somewhere I haven't heard of? 'Red in tooth and claw with casual racism?' Hardly. There are very few ethnic minorities in the town, for a start. And that's more through geographical accident than anything else, certainly not because a townful of in-bred white supremacists drove them away! As for 'dour back-to-backs and no-hope schools', Barrow is probably a good deal better off than a great many industrial towns and cities across the country. Sure, it has its fair share of terraced houses, but what's so bad about that? At least we escaped the blight of 1960s high rise apartment blocks that have scarred so many towns and cities. And finally, the town in the first episode of 'Nature Boy' was never actually identified as Barrow at all. Yes, it was filmed here, but that's a completely different thing altogether. 'London's Burning' is filmed in London, but the media don't think it its permanently going up in flames, do they? So what exactly we have done to provoke this sort of attack from the alleged enlightened liberals of the Guardian, I can't be sure. The sort of nonsense that were it directed at Moss Side or Toxteth would incur the wrath of the Racial Equality Commission. Anyway, the good thing to come out of this is its inspired us to create a series of 'Southern Media Scumbag ß@$*@®¶ Watch' dedicated to seeking out the insulting and/or patronising about either non-League football in general, or the town of Barrow in particular. If we were to run this piece retrospectively then it would be number five, previous examples of Southern Media Scumbag ß@$*@®¶ ry we may or may not have alluded to in Beans! being the following... The tw*ts from whichever agency dreamt up that milk advert where the young lad says 'Accrington Stanley, who are they?' The c*nts from FHM magazine who visited Barrow and then visited their so-called insights into the town on us in an article about a year or so ago. The pudenda from Granada Tonight who did that stupid Ashley Hoskin/ Phil Collins lookalike thing as an angle to preview Barrow's FA Cup tie against Wigan Athletic in 1995. The m*ng*b*gs from another ad agency who thought it was hilarious to have an animated monster rampage across a town devouring its buildings only to be stopped when offered a packet of sweets that were 'tastier than Barrow-in-Furness bus station.' (The Ed put this one in to fill up space. AAL. Actually, I quite liked it, but we'll let it pass as the team who did this obviously never did their research - there certainly wasn't a Barrow-in-Furness bus station then, and there isn't one now. There was the old bus depot, but that's a completely different entity. So in this case poor research qualifies these guys as SMSB's). So if you come across any more of this sort of drivel anywhere, send it off to us and we'll expose it for the crap it most certainly is! Issue 045 - May 2000
• Handsome Dick Brown on SUMMER SOCCER Even at my most enthusiastic I've never come to terms with football in the summer. It just doesn't seem right if you aren't freezing to death. I always hate the season to end but it never seems right when it starts. Maybe I'm just an awkward sod. Now if you are really sharp, you might point out that you get some good weather at the end of the season in April and May. That's true, but by then you've earned it. God would never have given us football scarves if football was meant to be played in the summer. Even worse than the good weather, there is no league table! Of course we all start off with high hopes. But until a league table appears, we don't know if we are pushing for the title or struggling heroically to stay up. It's all so trivial. But never mind, the new season is now upon us. In a few weeks I will see my first league table of the season. Where will the lads be? Where will they be at the end? Despite the cup runs in recent years, for me this is what it is all about. I have heard people say that it's better if we never win the Conference and return to our rightful place in the Football League. That way we have a chance of getting to Wembley every year. Bollocks! I have a dream... I have a dream that at the end of the season, we will be back where we belong on the football coupon. I have a dream that next season I will be able to watch Barrow against Hartlepool on a wet and windy night at Holker St. I have a dream that we get through to the third round of the FA Cup and get drawn against... Wake me up when it gets muddy. Issue 004 - September 1990
• Philip Wilson on TAME TALK Do I not like Team Talk. But for years, with one or two short-lived exceptions, it has been the only magazine devoted to the non-League scene that is regularly and easily available. So every month I buy it and every month I wish I hadn't. Why? Because Tame Talk is a classic missed opportunity. In terms of both style and content it could be so much better. Take their editorial 'policy', for example. Now of course they are entitled to express whatever opinion they like. But the trouble is that, more often than not, they don't. While the chances of Tame Talk publishing a controversial article are infinitely less remote than those of Lady Olga Maitland saying something that isn't either mendacious, cruel or stupid, you would still get very good odds against either happening within the next hundred years or so. So instead of anything approaching insight into the pros and cons of any of the big issues facing non-League soccer today: for example, the funding of the game, the structure of the pyramid, and particularly, the by now annual fiasco over ground grading and promotion to the Conference, we get a few platitudes at best, and a complete side stepping of the issues at worst. Indeed I think the closest Tame Talk has ever come to an unpopular opinion was that of the former editor Steve Whitney's oft-repeated view of fanzines. He didn't - and presumably still doesn't - approve of them. Or more specifically he doesn't approve of their "unprovoked attacks of hard working, unpaid and devoted club officials" (or words to that effect), conveniently choosing to ignore the fact that there is much more to fanzines than this. By tarring them all with the same brush of scurrilous irresponsibility, one wonders if he believes fans have the right to criticise at all. This is rich coming from a man who is, after all the editor of what can in many ways be seen as simply a mega-fanzine itself. I wouldn't be the first to criticise the fact that most of the pages in Tame Talk are made up with submissions from unpaid contributors rather than professional staffers. And what is it these unpaid contributors usually contribute? Groundhopping, groundhopping and more groundhopping. Articles of the 'Didn't we have a luvverly time the day we went to Bangor/Bracknell/Barking' variety. This of course, is the other big flaw in Tame Talk's content as it goes hand in hand with the cosy editorial policy to perpetuate the myth that everything in the non-League garden is rosy. Yet these are just the main points. I could mention all the magazine's other annoying little features like the undeniable Southern bias or Tony Williams' determination to mention Yeovil given the slightest excuse. So much for content, what of the style? Well imagine for a second that you're a supporter of any League club browsing through the soccer magazines in WH Smith, when you pick up a copy of Tame Talk. One glance at its dull layout, worse typefaces and numerous typographical errors isn't going to do anything to dispel your view that the non-League game appeals only to train spotters, strange weedy obsessive sorts in anoraks and other assorted marginal types. My point is that not only is Tame Talk a magazine by soft headed groundhoppers for soft headed groundhoppers, what's worse is that it looks like one too. Despite recent advances in publishing technology the format has hardly changed from when the magazine was known as Non-League Football years ago. So why is it still thriving after all this time? It's the old London Evening Standard syndrome again. People know it's crap but they buy it because it's all there is. As a result it becomes so well established that any attempt to introduce a competitor fails because it can't get a foothold in the market. So until someone tries again, I'm afraid it's Tame Talk - take it or leave it. I know what I'll be doing from now on. Issue 020 - August 1994