don't tell me the score

I'm a Coleraine FC fan. I'm not obsessive - I don't have a CFC duvet and pillow set; I don't even have a season ticket. I simply go to a match or two each month and keep an eye on their scores and league position. I am the only one of my friends who ever pulls on the blue and white stripes to go shout at a bunch of footballers in the rain at the showgrounds - so I was more than a little surprised when a friend asked me if I fancied going to the game today. He is the least likely football fan on the planet - he had very recently gone and got himself engaged so I just assumed he was in a weakened mental state and, thinking this was not an occurrence likely to happen again, bit his arm off.

We set off - I in my retro 1960s CFC jersey with the big red number 6 on the back - he in a sports jacket (refusing to wear the blue and white striped scarf I brought specially.) It turns out we weren't just going for the match. A project involving local children and our resident world renowned artist, Ross Wilson, had culminated in a piece of art being unveiled at the showgrounds before the match. Lots of different agencies/organisations were involved. Coleraine Rural and Urban Network, Coleraine Borough Council, PSNI... sometimes I worry that things like this involve more committees and subcommittees than the young people they are actually designed to help. But that isn't to devalue this particular project - it actually involved young people in three areas of the town. Each group identified a sporting legend, three heros who embodied something special - positive role models. Each of the legends were to be immortalised in pieces of public art - which brings me to why I was turning up to the Coleraine Showgrounds, two hours too early for the match.

A group of young people had chosen Paul Gaston as the subject for their mural. Unless you're a Coleraine fan you may not know a lot about Gacky but for me, and apparently those young folk, he is a modern legend. He made his debut for Coleraine in 1989 and was still playing for them 600 games later in 2007. My personal favourite memory was watching him play in the cup final in 2003 - the year Coleraine took the Irish Cup home from Belfast. A player who embodied pride and loyalty for his club - a firm fan favourite if ever there was one.

Ross, I'm sure I've mentioned before. This wasn't his first connection to Coleraine FC. He was the artist who created the statue of Bertie Peacock which stands in the town centre. The man is steadily making his way through my list of footballing heroes. If I had my way he'd be creating murals of each of Coleraine's players from history. Take a look at the depressing corrugated metal wall at the back of the terrace in this photo. Imagine each section covered with a mural for Bertie Peacock, Des Dickson, Victor Hunter, Felix Healey... Can you imagine how inspiring it would be for the young people of our town - the disenfranchised, the disillusioned young people - to look up when they're at a soccer match to see themselves surrounded by role models who understood the concept of overcoming difficulties, learning from failures, striving to succeed and fulfil dreams? Even as I write this I can feel how twee it all is - and yet I want it to happen all the more.

So what do Coleraine football club do? They take this mural of a loyal servant to the club - someone who gave his heart and soul for the Coleraine fans - and they stick it on the end of a stand in the corner of the ground so people can only see it if they crane their necks round. It is a crying shame that they don't take more pride in someone who showed such pride in pulling on their colours every week for eighteen years. The people that run the club should maybe try to remember what it's like to be a fan again sometimes - I think that their lovely smart crested blazers and ties suppress the memory occasionally.

So onto the match. That's what I was there for - well that and to get the opportunity to have a chat and grab a photo of Gacky. I sat through the speeches - I endured the pleasantries - I forced down the finger food - all because I was going to watch the Coleraine v Portadown match from the posh boxes at the back of the stand. I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately my friend had got his calculations wrong and informed me that we were due to meet up with his sister and her family and that we were late. It was okay, I assured him, I didn't mind; it'd probably be a pretty dull match anyway. And off we went just before kick off. It felt odd leaving the stadium as everyone else was arriving but I didn't mind. It was only a football match...

It was only the football match of the year! Twice Coleraine came from behind before scoring in the closing moments to win 4 goals to 3. A match packed with goals (including one that travelled from within Coleraine's own half of the pitch), sendings off and all kinds of excitement. I could have been watching it from the posh boxes. Instead I left before it had even begun. I won't hold it against Dave though - he's getting married - that's punishment enough.

unfamiliar

It’s an odd thing, familiarity. You never know where you are with it.

This morning I took a walk around a town I’ve lived beside for thirty odd years. I go through Coleraine at least seven or eight times every week. I would know my way around it blindfolded. I know all the shortcuts, all the best parking spots… my car can practically operate in auto pilot I know the place so well. Well, I know the place so well from behind a steering wheel. Other than the town centre, the parks, the area round the football ground and the university my experience of Coleraine is based on what I see while driving about. Today I took to my feet.

I was forced to. Much as I would love to say I just decided to take a long walk I cannot. I had to leave my, recently crashed into, car at the fire station to get some bodywork done (Who’d have thought that firemen moonlight as bodyshop workers? – that’s two months of a dreamboat calendar accounted for right there) Anyway, I was sans wheels in Coleraine with nothing to do while two men repaired my car between callouts – and so I walked.

And walked. I don’t think I’d ever been in Coleraine so early in the morning before. I’d certainly never walked through Coleraine so early in the morning. Snow had fallen overnight and the place looked so clean and unspoiled. It was almost beautiful. And time after time as I walked I saw new things – things I never knew existed. I used to be incredibly disparaging of a friend of mine who, although having lived there almost his entire life, didn’t really know his way around the town. Yet here I was – lost. For three hours I walked through areas I’d never been through, along alleyways I never knew existed, up stairs which ended I had no idea where. As I climbed (very gingerly) a steep hill and spotted an amazing old house, long abandoned and hidden from view of the road by new developments I had a startling feeling – a good startle.

I’ve never been married but I imagine it must be like that when you’ve lived with someone for years, you’re shared your life, your loves, your pains and your joys. You know each other so well that you barely need to utter a sentence to understand one another completely. Then one day you’re looking at your wife and she does something you’ve never seen her do before – It must be wonderful, after all that time together, to be reminded that there are still things to learn about each other and new experiences to be had. It has to be healthy for a relationship… unless of course the something new you see her doing is having an affair with your friend… that wouldn’t be healthy.

Of course it wasn’t all a morning of joy unbounded. I saw an old newsagent where I used to buy comics had been turned into a chip shop. I saw run down residential areas that seemed uncared for. But when I was standing on top of that hill, after seeing that house, I turned around and looked down across the horizontal profile of the town. Looking at those familiar buildings from a new perspective made it seem like an amazing place to be right now.

coleraine in the snow

supermarket sweep

There must be some sort of record for what I managed tonight.

After fiddling round with the camera I bought yesterday I decided that I should get some memory so I could actually take some photos. This realisation occurred quite suddenly (as my decisions are apt to do) and there and then I decided to go and buy some.

The problem being that it was fourteen minutes before closing time for the supermarkets in Coleraine.

In seconds I was in my car and on route to the nearest stop - Asda.

Those five miles seemed like an eternity as I overtook a multitude of tractors and learner drivers (always sticking to the speed limit of course) but I got there in good time and began searching the electronics section for Compactflash. Of course they keep the Compactflash in the seasonal goods section - where else would they keep them? They had cards but all on the small side.

So back in the car, across the Bann to Sainsbury's. They don't keep memory cards in their electronic section either; they keep them in those little miscellaneous bits at the end of aisles. They were sold out of CF so it was back in the car and across the Bann again to Tesco's.

They keep their memory cards in their electronic section - but they don't sell CF cards. They sell mulitiple sizes of multiple brands of every other format under the sun - but not a single Compactflash card.

So it was back in the car once more and across town to Asda again. Back through the electronics section, past the clothes on route to the seasonal goods. Behind the small cards I found a decent sized one that I was happy with, bought it and was out the door as they locked it behind me.

Four supermarkets in 14 minutes. Never again.

sportsman, statesman, gentleman

A statue was unveiled in Coleraine this afternoon. Created by Ross Wilson, it was of a local football player who died two years ago. Bertie Peacock played for Northern Ireland and Celtic, managing his country (and Colerine) in the 60s. He was a legend – but not in the way that ‘legend’ has come to be defined.

Think of legends in the modern era and names such as Beckham, Zidane, Ronaldo etc come to mind. These are men who have made a fortune out of the game, married famous, beautiful women (in the case of Vicky B that’s maybe a matter of opinion, I’ll maybe substitute famous and rich women in her case) and live their lives under the intense glare of media scrutiny. Modern “legends” often appear more often in the gossip sections of the tabloids than in the sports section. It could be suggested that they have sold their souls to the devil that is celebrity. I, of course, would never make such a sweeping judgement, but it could be suggested by others perhaps.

Perhaps the most famous local sporting legends, George Best and Alex Higgins, were undoubtedly amazing talents. They could be, irrefutably, described as geniuses in their respective fields. They could also have been described as having major flaws that, again, led them to appear outside the sports pages. We love them for what they were able to do, we loved them because they grew up in places we recognise, but we pity them for what they allowed to happen to themselves. We feel admiration for their rise to fame and we feel pity for their decline into infamy.

The concept of “legend” has certainly evolved through the ages. Which brings me back to Bertie; a man who doesn’t fit either of the previous definitions. He was a naturally gifted player who became an immensely respected leader who went on to leave a legacy to his profession through the founding of the Milk Cup, an international youth football tournament in Northern Ireland.

According to historical references (my dad and the maths teacher from across the corridor from my previous classroom) footballers in Peacock’s day were a different breed. They travelled on the bus to the matches, hung around for a drink with the fans in the local, got stick from their mates at work on Monday morning if they’d played badly at the weekend. They talk fondly of a time when the players of Coleraine football club were a local bunch – born and raised within a few miles of the ground. They lived among the fans – they were fans themselves. Now I know Peacock can’t claim to have been born and raised among the fans when he moved to Celtic – but I know the fans in Glasgow took him as one of their own and respected him as much as we did over here – of course it helped that he captained them to league and cup glory in his time there.

I didn’t know the man personally (The thing for which I most admire him, leading Coleraine to their only league title, took place three years before I was born) but I know enough people who consider him a close friend and who can think of no bad thing to say about the man to know that he was truly special. As far as I can tell he didn’t marry a super model, didn’t own a super car, didn’t get Christmas cards from film stars. Yet I’m glad they unveiled a statue of him in Coleraine. In the way that Joey Dunlop represented greatness in Ballymoney and was rightly remembered and honoured by the town, Bertie Peacock embodies qualities that the residents of Coleraine could do worse than to use as an example. Just look at the base of the statue for examples - sportsman, statesman, gentleman.

chestnuts roasting on an open fire and all that.

The only thing more predictable than christmas decorations going up even earlier each year is people phoning in to radio stations and writing blogs complaining about christmas decorations going up earlier each year. I was listening to one woman who was truly concerned that Christmas was going to cease to exist soon. She almost wept as she described how shops were filling their windows with Christmas goods and towns were putting up street lights all around her. I felt her pain as she predicted that the decorations would look wilted and dowdy by christmas day itself.

As I listened I watched as they erected and decorated the huge tree outside Coleraine Town Hall – no doubt donated by Norway or someone; I think someone should look into how the Norwegians’ affinity for giving away trees to all and sundry at this time of the year contributes to global warming. I turned and mentally visualised the poor woman slowly shaking her head in dismay as I spotted the Moore’s Christmas displays. I walked sadly away sipping my Christmas blend starbucks coffee in its smart red cardboard cup. Above me the stars shone brightly – don’t they know its not christmas (the lesser known Band Aid b-side.)

Which brings me to where I am now – listening to Diana Krall crooning seasonal jazz, watching one of my pupils drawing a Christmas tree on my whiteboard. It’s only November 15th! Do I worry that I am lessening the impact of the season itself – watering down yuletide? Hmm. No.

I love Christmas – it’s definitely in my top 5 times of the year. I love the feeling I get when I genuinely get caught up in the spirit of the season (usually in the ‘Inn’ on Christmas eve with a hot whiskey in my hand) Right now I’m willing to join in the hype in a heavily ironic way.

As for the pupil… well, I think some of my energy saving convictions have finally started to wear off on him.

conspiracy theory - coleraine style

Is it an unfortunate mistake on the part of the organisers? Surely our esteemed goalie didn't misread the the dress-code on the invitation? I believe it is yet another conspiracy against Coleraine Football Club.

On the back page of today's News Letter there is a photo showing representatives from teams competing in the CIS Insurance cup this season. Now look closely and you will see that the player second on the left is not wearing his team's official kit. While everyone else is sporting their colours proudly Davy O'Hare has turned up in a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a coleraine polo shirt. It is obviously an attempt by the powers that be to stop Coleraine showing off their lovely new diadora strip, thus people won't be encouraged to buy it and Coleraine will continue to have money problems. Terrible state of affairs. Well we can all put it right - if each reader of this post goes out and buys a Coleraine shirt... then there'll be three more sold than would have been sold otherwise.

I'm just glad Coleraine are there at all (clubs colours or no.) It was this time last year that we'd started a season not knowing whether we'd be there the following week. I remember vividly the "last ever game." It was against local rivals (well, not really rivals) Portstewart. I can't describe how it feels watching a team, listening to their heart monitor get slower and slower and waiting for the end. We played Portstewart again two days ago and won 6-2. How times have changed. Anyway it gladened my heart to read the statement on Coleraine's website from the IFA saying they can find no reason why Coleraine should be excluded from the league this year. Onwards and upwards. And don't worry Davy, you may not be in kit like the rest of those posers but you look like you could take any of them in a fight.

coleraine - and the next big thing

I live near a little town that is in many ways like many other little towns in many western counties. We have our high street chain stores - our Burtons, our Argos, our HMV, our Boots, our Woolworths, our Dorothy Perkins, yadda yadda yadda. We also have our own independent stores such as Dixons of Coleraine, Moores of Coleraine, Bishops of Coleraine (all independents should have 'of Coleraine' in their name - it works well with the locals.)

We have several dodgy modern sculptures, all donated by other countries (trying to boast their own tourist industry by putting people of going to Northern Ireland.) We have our churches - by the dozen (Presbyterians, Free Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Anglican, Brethern, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Church of the Latter Day Saints, Seventh Day Adventists, Wiccan, Humanist, Coleraine Football Club) We have everything that the average provincial town needs to make it an average provincial town.

But what makes Coleraine special in my mind (well, one of the things) is the way it evolves not gradually, or even smoothly, but completely randomly and in great waves of whatever the latest trend is. What I mean is that Coleraine doesn't ever seem to have a good range of everything - it has complete overkill of one thing and when people start to realise there is too much competition in that particular business then everyone closes down and moves into the next trend. When I was very young it was hairdressers (now referred to as salons - I'm pretty sure there are no hairdressers anymore - just stylists... well except for Sean over on the Waterside but he'll soon clearout the shop and paint it mimimilist white with a plasma screen over the counter I'm sure) then it became shoe shops (Don't worry, Bishops (Coleraine's biggest employer of young Christian summer staff) still dominate that market), then it was card shops, then Jeans shops, then finally coffee shops. Cafe Capri, Riverside Cafe, Cuil Coffee, Ground Coffee, Dixons, Moores (Moores actually have not one but two coffee shops within their shop), Pepperz, Lily D's, Twenty Two, The Belfry, Bon Appetit, The Forum, and (of course) Starbucks can all be found within walking distance of the Diamond. And that is off the top of my head - there are more.

Don't get me wrong. I like a coffee as much as the next man. In fact the staff in Starbucks and Ground know me by name. I've taken to going to them time about so they don't think I'm an addict. Coleraine, however has less than 25,ooo residents. That's not huge. How can it support more than fifteen coffee shops? Especially since Ballymena (less than 30 miles away) probably has even more. I do my best to get round them all to support them but I can't help thinking that some of the smaller shops will have to close. What will they become? Well, whatever the next trend may be. Personally I'm hoping for more bike shops - I could do with one of them.