Whole string of domestic distractions mean my main writing project(s) have stalled almost entirely for several months and before the end of March I have another conference away from home. Just need to unload recent diary entries to have bandwidth to work.
[Ultimately this is another music review post, but for now …]
As well as my mother’s death over Christmas, and all her healthcare issues prior to that and dealing with her estate since, we’d also started a landscaping project in our small garden, to make it low-maintenance as well as more useful, almost there now, but still unfinished. Work to do. And in February I hit my 70th birthday, so as well as our usual vacation-week away – Sylvia and I have birthdays on consecutive days – my sons also took me away for a 70th celebratory weekend.
The vacation was ideal, 28/32C daytime temperatures, only one day with light rain, not enough to get wet, and with a sea-view in the penultimate northern resort town of Puerto Santiago on the west side of Tenerife, easy walking to the resorts, bars and restaurants of the resorts either side on the coastal path. Blue sea, blue skies and Atlantic rollers crashing brilliant sunlit white onto the black volcanic shoreline, the enormous volcanic sea-cliffs of Los Gigantes to the north of us and snow-topped El Teide as a backdrop. Lots of time to sit, relax and read. Except, thinking it was such an idyllic location, on the last two days we decided to recce further-afield, longer-term options for future years around Sylvia’s love of golf. Fantastic local public (bus) transport service, like the rest of Spain in our experience, but …. totally gridlocked roads, even their one and only “Autovia” motorway as we tried to navigate the popular but awful southern resorts around Los Christianos, Costa Adeje and Playa de las Americas. Maybe not. Lesson learned. Should’a stayed where we were. Oh and the post-EU / non-Schengen airport experience!
The celebratory weekend is a longer story. It was a mystery tour for me, organised by our sons, as I said, but exactly where and what a surprise until we got there.
As a family we have a strange history in football. Sylvia and I were football fans as kids in our northern & Scottish homes, but never supporters attending local team games – Liverpool’s Scottish contingent for Sylvia, Middlesbrough or Leeds (who were flying high in the 60’s) for me. And of course England / 1966 n’all that. Always had a soft spot for the Boro however, hosts of North Korea in 1966, and especially the period when Jack Charlton was manager in the early 70’s, when he was living in Guisborough and I was serving pints to him and some of his squad, where I worked evenings. Towards the end of when I was at Uni in London was the time Wimbledon FC joined the football league 4th tier and, along with several other northern students, we noticed how many northern teams were playing Wimbledon in the 4th tier that first couple of seasons – Hartlepool, Darlington, York, Halifax and more – and we started to watch them when they visited Wimbledon.
But we weren’t in south London, we were in Swindon. I said it was a longer story.
After Sylvia and I met and married, we lived where my work was based in Reading. Reading had a football team, but when we noticed at the start of one season – ’82 maybe? – we both fancied going to a game, we noticed Fulham were playing Chelsea and we set off the short trip back to London. In my first couple of years post-Uni, living and working in Reading, most of my social life had continued to revolve around the 70’s London pub-rock and punk music scene, so London had continued as home from home into the 80’s. Inevitably, as we discovered on the car radio on the drive in, the Fulham-Chelsea game was a sell-out, no tickets on the gate, so what to do? We continued to Wimbledon.
We never looked back, becoming home and away season ticket-holders. Small all terraced ground, small crowds, the supporter heckling and banter was direct with the players and management all within hearing distance, ‘Arry Bassett and the “Crazy Gang”. A game of human characters. And for 5 or 6 seasons, every season was either promotion or relegation. Indelible experience of Sheffield United vs Wimbledon penultimate end of season promotion decider, were we won, but they on the final day had a series of surprise results mean they also gained promotion. And many more, until they made it to the infamous FA Cup final against Liverpool in the same season they’d made it to the top tier. The first division was never quite as crap as the premiership, but the personal, human contact was lost so we gave up season tickets that season. They won that final, but the the small Wimbledon FC ticket allocation had ignored previous season ticket-support, and we couldn’t get tickets! We parted with supporting Wimbledon at that point. What a roller-coaster ride. Still had a soft spot, following their results and personnel changes, even as they moved as a franchise operation to Milton-Keynes (MK) Dons and as a phoenix version of Wimbledon AFC arose several years later not far from the original Plough Lane home.
Since Reading was home, we decided we should give Reading FC a chance, after all they (The Royals / 1871) were / still are the oldest original English football league team. Unlike Wimbledon, who’d been the naïve new kids on the block with a small supporter following, Reading had had a host of other teams as long-term regular local rivals, Oxford, Swindon, Brentford, Cardiff, Portsmouth to name a few. And, in those days, football support was dominated by the pre-match punch-up and running street battles. Not at all why we followed “the beautiful game”. I attended a few games with work colleagues, Sylvia and I attended more together at the original Elm Park ground, but the threat of violence on the terraced streets around the ground proved too intimidating, so we gave-up football, and had kids. In fact two of our worst experiences at Reading and Oxford had been while Sylvia was visibly pregnant with our first son Tom.
Once both Tom and Robbie were 5 and 6 and became interested in football, we joined a local youth club where I ran one age group of two teams and got heavily involved in organising club events. Robbie was never quite as into it as the rest of us, but between us we had coaching badges and two qualified referees. (Tom carried that on into his own family life and teaching career, but that would be a digression too far.) The point is, the local football club comprised mostly Reading supporters. We even accompanied a coach-trip to a Wembley play-off final with them, but we could never bring ourselves to become active supporters at that point.
Then Glen Hoddle, hero of Spurs, England and Chelsea, became player manager at Swindon, arch rivals of Reading, just down the M4. So we started following Swindon. He and the team he coached were a joy to watch – proper football – a small club too, though never as small and personal as Wimbledon. Crowd behaviours were changing and clubs like Reading had invested in new out of town stadiums, so the level of claustrophobic violent intimidation had mostly gone. It was fun to go with family and kids to the football again. So we did for 4 or 5 seasons.
That is until Hoddle moved-on, and John Gorman got the Robins to a Wembley final, which we attended, but the impersonal scale of top tier football turned-us off again. Hey, in the meantime Reading had a long-term stable, prudent, owner-chairman in John Madejski, a new stadium and they were regularly yo-yoing between 2nd, 3rd (and 4th tiers). As the boys became independent teenagers with (stage & musical and) other interests of their own, Sylvia and I became Reading FC season-ticket holders, founding members of their “STAR” supporters trust, and serious home and away followers. One particular cherished memory of a warm summer’s day at Tranmere Rovers towards the end of a season without particular promotion or relegation excitement, when John Madejski’s black roller pulled-up alongside the pub garden we were all drinking in, he came inside, bought everyone a pint, chatted with many, thanked us all. All round good guy who sadly had to sell the club later to finance their greater ambitions. Many memories, until, ironically, they gained promotion to the Premiership, the boys went off to Uni and we moved with my work to the USA via Australia.
It remained fun to watch the squad we’d seen beat Brentford to gain promotion on the last day of one season, on international TV channels in the US the next. Murty (Saltburn lad) vs Ronaldo. We’ve followed the careers of him and other heroes of Brentford like Jamie Cureton, Adie Viveash and Phil Parkinson to this day. And in fact we’ve continued our love of intimate small-scale football as season ticket holders at Marske United FC our downsized retirement home back home for me. (if you’ve not, do read The Far Corner by Harry Pearson).
Can you see where we are yet?
At Swindon vs MK Dons, top of tier 3 promotion battle. For old times’ sake, even a next generation Bodin on the pitch. Actually quite a good game, Swindon lost (4 in a row, but won last night). Reading, Swindon and MK Dons (and Boro) all in promotion / play-off hopeful places as I type.
Anyway, the centre of Swindon isn’t the most glamorous place to spend a celebration weekend, but Robbie had sorted out a music pub within walking distance of the hotel and football ground. The Victoria (Vic) on Victoria Road, Swindon. What a great place, layout, size, set-up and sound, mixing and acoustics, for intimate band performances.
Friday night two sets from the Dylegans. None too promising advance description – skiffle / country / folk – for a covers band. Excellent stand-up bass, and great front man on acoustic guitar, strong vocals and superb harmonica. Lead guitarist contributed much more rock and roll / rockabilly vibe to the overall sound on a white hollow-body Gibson (335?) and, despite a stand-in / unwell drummer, did I mention the great sound system and mixing desk crew. Meant a great range of covers, very competent and entertaining. Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side, the Hendrix arranged version of Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower to name a couple amidst the skiffle (Cumberland Gap?) and early rock & country (Folsom Prison?) standards. [Robbie and I once drove the Cumberland Gap, when we lived near Nashville, another digression too far.]
Saturday, 3 original bands with all-girl Moxie Dolls headlining.
First up Ursa Way, a bit Arctic Monkeys style, a little rough and inexperienced(?) but engaging and competent. We enjoyed them. Told ’em so. They seemed surprised and happy.
Up next Girls Night Out, a bit more Marmite. Very much built around the front guy’s character – see Marmite – and plenty of fans / friends with Moxie Dolls. I’d have had more of the female keyboard player in the mix than the second guitar, but it turns out it was her first date playing with them, and in fact she was on keyboards with the headliners. They were definitely “entertaining by design”, whatever you might label their style or genre.
And finally, the Moxie Dolls:
Moxie Dolls actually blew us away. Seemed like a relatively recent formation from previous projects(?), disappointingly short original set-list prepared, but excellent all round. The lead singer and lead / only guitar, a superstar in the making and carried the whole sound, performance and aesthetic. Maybe a bit limited tone of singing voice the only criticism, but assured and VERY impressive. And great underpinning of the ambient melodies and riffs from the keyboard. Drummer and bass very sound and very tight, great synchronisation on the dropped beats and so on. Bassist in particular, unlikely looking in her role, but apparently the master of ceremonies organising the band behind its creative leader, and clearly having a lot of fun doing it. Left us wanting more. Need to hear their songs more, very promising for future gigs. See them if you can.
[Not to be confused with other acts of the same name. They only seem to exist on Insta and TikTok.]
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