All you old timers on this board know, as Ive said in the past, that I post this article twice a year. Well here we go, no apologies to people who take umbridge. Black and whiters use the dictionary for UMBRIDGE. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// At 1.30 this afternoon, about one million people in Tyne and Wear and an additional million more from the North-East's diaspora, will watch and listen to what they consider to be the most important match of the season. Yet, to the rest of the watching world, the outcome will be observed with indifference. The Tyne-Wear derby may be perceived by the uninitiated as parochial and unsophisticated, but like the world's greatest derbies it has a historical conflict as its bedrock. And if anything, as a basis for a rivalry, the Sunderland-Newcastle derby is the most legitimate conflict anywhere. Some of the great derbies are based on issues that are trite and irrational. The historical class difference, for example, between the Milan clubs - Milan traditionally unionist and working-class, Inter upper-class and conservative - is now moot, given the chairmanship of the right-wing Silvio Berlusconi at Milan. Their historical reason for difference has dissipated, as it arguably has for Juventus-Torino, Real Madrid-Atletico, and Panathinaikos-Olympiakos. The Celtic-Rangers rivalry has been written about extensively, and needs no elaboration. Other than to say that if football can act as a metaphor for international and jingoistic warfare, then the Old Firm is the most articulate. But the Tyne-Wear derby wins in its secular and concise regional conflict. It does, after all, predate football by 226 years. It is a conflict that has divided two cities, 12 miles apart, for more than three centuries. In the epoch before the 1600s, King Charles I had consistently awarded the East of England Coal Trade Rights (try to contain your excitement) to Newcastle's traders, which rendered the Wearside coal merchants redundant. People died because of it. Coal and ships were Sunderland's raison d'etre. But when, in 1642, the English Civil War started, and Newcastle, with good reason, supported the Crown, Sunderland, because of the trading inequalities, sided with Cromwell's Parliamentarians, and the division began. It became a conflict between Sunderland's socialist republicanism, against Newcastle's loyalist self-interest. A purposeful enmity if ever there was one. Unlike rivalries between other clubs, the differences between Newcastle and Sunderland date back to fighting based on the necessity to live and feed one's children, and benefit one's city. The political differences between the two culminated with the battle of Boldon Hill. A loyalist army from Newcastle and County Durham gathered to fight an anti-monarchist Sunderland and Scottish army at a field equidistant between the two towns. The joint Scottish and Sunderland army won - and Newcastle was colonised by the Scottish. It was subsequently used as a Republican military base for the rest of war. And while this is a lucid basis for two cities hating each other, it has, like every other modern-day derby, developed profoundly irrational manifestations. It has been noted that some Newcastle fans refuse to buy bacon, because of its 'red-and-white appearance' - the pinnacle, regardless of any jovial flippancy, of irrational behaviour. Likewise the past Mackem boycott of a particular breakfast cereal, because of the Newcastle-orientated marketing of its brand, is silly beyond words. However, these are benign occurrences. In March 2000, more than 70 Sunderland and Newcastle hooligans took part in some of the worst football-related violence ever seen in Britain. It was not even a match day. What the police called 'usually respectable men and fathers' had decided to meet in mutual territory with their enemies, to fight with knives, bats and bricks. Sunderland fans boarded a ferry towards Tyneside, found the awaiting 'army', and fought. One man was left permanently brain-damaged. Dozens of people were arrested, and years upon years of prison-time was sentenced. The continuation of tension involves a new sense of injustice. For well over a decade, Sunderland's population has bemoaned that they have been paying their local taxes to finance both the Newcastle Metro and airport. A perceived bias towards Tyneside in the regional and national media further compounds a feeling of inequality. It seems that history is repeating itself for the people of Sunderland, albeit in a less livelihood-threatening sort of way. Perhaps a more trivial, city-image sort of way. But this makes little sense. Let's just hope that despite the hijacking of the game by the corporate class, and the working-class ostracising that comes with it, there remain terraces from which Mackems and Geordies can vent their invariably abusive opinions of each other without violence and civil war. Why Mackems and Geordies? The derivations are uncertain, but both have theories based in historical political allegiances. 'Geordie' because of Tyneside's staunch support of the Hanoverian King George II during the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion - 'Geordie' is a common diminutive of 'George'; and Mackem because of Wearside's accommodation of the Scottish 'Blue Mac' army during the civil war. It is more likely, however, that the origins stem from aspects of the shipbuilding and coalmining industries. The Tyneside coalminers preferred George Stephenson's 'Geordie' safety lamp over the more widely used Humphry Davy lamp. And it has been accepted almost universally that Mackem is derived from the phrase Mak(e)'em and Tak(e)'em, coined by Tyneside shipbuilders to insult their counterparts on the River Wear, who would build the ships and have them taken away by the richer classes.
Very interesting read. Was aware of some of the facts but the bits at the beginning were news to me. Cheers Bill
Newcastle are a bunch of thieving ****s. The NE where there where pits (ie Sunderland County Durham and Northumberland not Newcastle) as a whole are Geordies not just the black and white scum on the tyne.
Yeah I knew it went back hundreds of years, but not the exact cause, Glad we don't kill each other anymore lol
If you enjoy reading about the history of your forfathers, the book is an excellent read, its not written as a one sided viewpoint. It gives all the plusses and negatives from both sides os the story. no doubt people will read into it what they like. but I found it to be well researched and informative, and accepted what the man had written. so if you go on Amazon, its possible to get a second hand one for a few quid, alternatively, ask your local library to get it for you on loan.
To prove that intelligence ends at scumville and that thick barcodes such as you struggle without pictures to help you read. PS - just alittle hint for you sombrero. Umbridge is not just outside Cambridge. Good read Bill.
Glad you approve and I purposely left out any words you might have struggled with, so as not to over tax your feeble and utterly weak mind.
You have issues pal Are you going to continue writing that ****e every time one of the lads posts something. We couldn't give a **** about you's, and especially you! It isn't the first time you have wrote that, but please, make it the last you unsociable bellend
Hmmm........ interesting. I wonder why the Sunderland supporters I was sat next two at the marina in Hartlepool were singing "we hate Geordies"?
The Geordie/Mackem thing is something which materialised in the 1970's..So many of the younger Sunderland will not remember that anyone north of Peterlee and South of Berwick were classed as Geordies...
I was always called a geordie, meself. But then I was born in South Shields. Only found out about the term "sand-dancer" a few years back. Proud to be called a mackem now...
I blame the failing education system in Sunderland. I've heard Ofsted are planning to stop assessing the schools. They think its pointless and the chief inspector commented recently that there is too much inbreeding which just results in mong kids, making progress impossible.
