I have a friend (my oldest friend) who calls himself “BIGLANKYGEORDIE” (though he isn’t really a Geordie), and as I fear for his safety if I use his real name, I shall reluctantly call him that too. For as long as I can remember, “BIGLANKYGEORDIE”, has combined passionate loyalty to his heritage, with a fantasist’s ideal of what that heritage actually is. Maybe this time he has gone too far. The online shrine he has built for his imaginary “Tees TOON Army” (”Army” no less!), with comments like “after all Middlesbrough is nothing more than a Toon suburb”, is nothing less than blasphemous.
…there is only one really big team in the North-East. And just because you live in Middlesbrough doesnt mean you have to support a band of smoggie no-hopers. No, there is a better way, and it’s just 50 miles up the A19. Middlesbrough is a small town in Yorkshire. A very polluted, small town in Yorkshire. Meanwhile, Newcastle is the ultimate football metropolis, the buzzing Barcelona of Britain. Lively, stylish, independent-minded and a long way from the capital city… Oh, and you can breathe the air without a gas mask!
And on it goes. (Sigh)
Now, don’t get me wrong. Anyone raised in Middlesbrough knows it’s crap. Quite possibly the crappiest town in the UK. And anyone born and bred there will happily admit it to you. They may even take a perverse kind of pride in the fact. But if there is one thing the good burghers of Middlesbrough are loyal to, it’s their home team: THE BORO. That is all they have after all. Even I, effete child of immigrants and dilettante exile, with normally no interest in sports WHATSOEVER, will grudgingly admit loyalty to the home team. I can even be persuaded to go and watch them getting beaten from time to time. Though the people of Middlesbrough can be a tad bitter, there is a kind of camaraderie (and even good humour) in the shittiness. In the midst of all the crime and pollution and health problems and general grimness there is one shining beacon of hope: there is a Lion by the Riverside and though he might be a bit mangy, he’s ours.
I fear my friend may have invited a tidal wave of abuse.
LINK TO “TEES TOON ARMY”
