AMWAT: My bin stinks

It really does. But I have to go out now so I'm just gonna put it outside and hope that does the trick. I already cleared the standing water in the sink. It happens that I've not washed up since Sunday, due to, well. Being lazy really. It's amazing how quickly a stench builds up isn't it.

Won't take much to clean again though. Some attention, a spot of bleach, and bosh-a-losh we're groovy-nosed again. Until the next time I forget to get it done.

All of which is a pretty tortured little metaphor for the fact that it really does look like things are finally falling to pieces at poor old Nantporth. Electricity cut off. Players leaving, unpaid. Pitch fucked where once it was awesome. Groundsman not paid, see.

Attention. Money. Whatever.

Some of my comrades have been going to the games. I understand it. I miss it. They want to watch football, not play politics. Most understand the regime is toxic, but some still see things through blue-tinted goggles. I understand that, too. It's hard not to.

Some have stayed away. I've stayed away, though it's easier given I don't currently live in the city. But still, there's something powerful missing in me now. It's kind of stinky instead.

Time to bleach away the pain, and to bleach away the foulness of the last year particularly.

Of course, we could have pre-empted this. But we were all sideswiped I think. The team, the club, was struggling. But we'd have found a way to battle through it, because we always had. More bad times than good always as a football supporter. Particularly at our level.

Because it's about community. First and foremost: communal hopes, dreams, working toward a common cause. Doing the best we can with what we have. Being ingenious and creative and walking to away games to raise money for a shelter behind a goal. (That same cash went to pay off a tax bill after - rumour again - someone shopped the club to HMRC about tax not being deductible on travel to work. That meant travel to training and games. That put a huge hole in the budget.) We were taken in by promises that new owners would, as priority, build that stand. Instead, Nantporth literally has a hole in the fence which hasn't, and probably won't, quickly be fixed.

So community = friends = players, fans, officials having a pint together after the game. This isn't fucking Real Madrid is it. And that's what saddens me the most, I think. The fact that there are people who believe that it is all about winning. Winning, winning, winning. A generation brought up on the disembodied head of Ray Winstone ghosting into view at half time, exhorting us to win, win, win, cause it's 7/4 on next goalscorer being Rio or Badgerino or Zlatford von Carpark. That football is about the games.

At the risk of sounding like Graham Taylor, a lovely man nearly ground down completely by it all, football really isn't about winning. A community is more than that. And a community club - a football club - is a facility for all. For those who want to watch games, sure, but also for the youngsters wanting to play sport, for the disabled and abled alike. A centre for health, physical and mental. Somewhere that non-financial concepts like belonging and having a go and learning and social skills are as important - more important - than Winning A Game Against Those Bastards.

A club does not belong to the people that have the most money. It doesn't rise and fall dependent on finance in any other way except for, probably, the league table. You can buy your way to on-field success, and you can spend money and get relegated. So be it. If you want to support a financial institution, how about we start a league of the richest people in our respective cities and towns, and have weekly get-togethers where bank statements and assets are exchanged. The one with the most wins.

That's the natural reduction of the financialisation of football.

But a club, a proper club, is about many other things. Inclusion, not delusion. Smiling, not necessarily winning. Sharing experiences. Sharing love. Sharing the intangible human condition, which cannot ever be bought, no matter how many people try and no matter how many times.

And therefore, when people talk of the current boycott by some of us, of a club that's long-left us, they are mistaken to couch it in terms like: yeah your six quid loss per week is hardly going to hurt the regime lad. It costs £400,000 a year to run a club, it's a drop in the ocean.

or: If you think you can do better, why don't you step up and pay for it all? Where's your money in all this?

When they talk like that, they miss a fundamental point about what football, and community, and I would venture life too, is about.

Res Ipsa Loquitur, as Hunter S. Thompson was fond of saying: the thing speaks for itself.

AMWAT: There was a game

And we lost.

And it is 'we', because despite everything including my own better judgement Bangor vs Caernarfon transcends even the filth of the moment.

The pitch looked like shit. I mean, embarrassing. That's what happens when you don't pay one of the greatest groundsmen you could ever get. That is beyond embarrassing. That borders on evil.

I tried not to watch it on telly, but I had to dip in and out.

Because it is 'we' isn't it.

There was a good crowd. Over 2k. It would have been more, probably. Many comrades were up in the pubs about half a mile away watching it on telly and no doubt trying to filter out the cheers floating up on the wind from the ground. Maybe the delayed sonics synched up with the pictures. I don't know. I didn't go, although I was torn. There were scuffles in the city. There were police escorts. There was real needle in the air. It was like real football again.

Imagine that one.

And for all the talk of administration, of the regime taking the gate money and running, of all the spurious accusations going on from regime apologists: we lost.

And that still fucking burns.

Here's Stewart Lee.

And here are The Stooges.

A Man Without A Team: The Game That Might Not Be

Well, it's the day before the evening of the day. Sometimes music says it all, doesn't it?

There may not be a game in any case.

There's a strong rumour - maybe couched in wishful thinking - that the players haven't been paid for a month, and will refuse to turn up.

I suspect that's not gonna happen. Nonetheless, dreams don't always leave forever.

A new consignment of Bangor Comrades hats has already sold out. In way less than a week.

All profits are going to mental health charities again.

That's beautiful, isn't it.

I have no team: I do have a club.

There is still love out there.

Good vibes to all - and may the road rise to meet you.

The Return of the International Hitman

In 1994, Trifle wrote International Hitman, which sounds like this. It's a brilliant riff and a great song, and I used to love playing it.

So I thought I'd piss all over that heritage by updating the lyrics, as below. I forgot I'd done this until today. It's from Oct, 2017. A different world entirely. So before it's totally out of date here we are.

Tatty bye.

The Return of the International Hitman (2017)

Well

Make way

For the return of the International Hitman

Pay me in Bitcoin

On the Dark Web

I don’t care to know who you are

And you don’t wanna know me

Believe me

But I know you missed me

Yeah when the coin hits the wallet

You bought yourself a bullet

To do with as you please

I told you

Good and bad are just a blur

And aren’t you tired

Of the shit that still occurs

Around you?

I got conflicting jobs on here

To knock down the missile man in North Korea

Well he’s chubby and he’s goddamn weird

But he pays on time so I don’t need

To cut him off any time near

And he’s put one on the list himself

An orange motherfucker with demented mental health

It will be my pleasure to make that monster melt

He owes me bigly, boy. He’ll pay up first then fall down flat

That ain’t fake news

There won’t be any wall-building on the Rio Grande for that bad hombre

And do you think supplied the polonium to Putin?

He don’t need no motherfuckers disputin

Crooked to the bone, but straight-up shootin

Ain’t his style. It just don’t suit him.

Vlad ain’t so bad

Always got a rouble or three for a jobbing cleaner just like me

I’m the most honestest man you never never met

No matter who you vote for, you’re still at best their pet

You know by now they’re all just out to feather their own nest

There’s nothing to regret: you don’t take it, you won’t get

Politics? Showbiz? The same to me

25 years on and nothing’s changed

It’s eyes wide shut at Bildeberg

It’s eyes wide shut at Bildeberg

So seek me out and I’ll make it all burn

One by one

All the little scientists and refugees

But you’ll be runnin soon enough

Watch whose shoes you’re walkin in

You think you’re so different and special?

Just cause you’re born out of poverty

Clothed and fed and educated?

Boy, you don’t get no medal

For an accident of birth

I told you you don’t wanna know me

I am the darkness, I am the ghost in the cellar

Of your foulest nightmares

Your conscientious career-building is meaningless

You ain’t gonna outlive yourself

Think about it

These days I’m getting a lot of calls

From those who can’t bear to be.

Who can’t afford to see

Dignitas and go out gracefully

More and more are begging me

“Oh put a bullet in my motherfuckin head

Please, oh please, oh please.”

I don’t care for snivellers

Unless they cross my palm with silver

They can’t live in this world anymore

Ah but I’m too busy

Leaving fake reviews on Amazon paintings of

Paul Ross

I’m setting out the lyrics for the latest iteration

Of the International Hitman

You never met anyone colder

A quarter of a century older

No wiser, but much richer

Invested in fracking technology sister

Bought up Russian fuel companies cheap

Laundered it through football teams

That player you cheer? I own him

That replica shirt? Made from my petroleum

Kids in my Far East sweat shops stitched it for you

They work all night for scraps of food

And the best bit?

You know this.

And you’re still saving for next season’s brand new third kit

You want a CV? Check my LinkedIn baby

Send me a friend request. I don’t bite

Full list of past successes outlined on my site

Hey, get in touch: What’sApp me if you like

Check Instagram for the latest job pics

Check Facebook for my top ten mob hits

And some videos of my kittens high on catnip

I’m online all the time so find me

Or find someone who’s claiming to be me

Hey baby

I just thought

Maybe I’m Banksy

Who knows? Maybe you are too.

Ha!

I collect classic jazz records –

On 78 only -

I ain’t a monster.

You wanna come over for a quinoa burger?

Fully vegan guaranteed.

I stay in shape.

I do a good clean job

With no-one to answer to

A good, clean job

No-one!

Cheering myself up, back in 2011 I learnt to dive and things seemed rather less like the world was cracked into several burning pieces

This was fun. I miss it.

A Man Without A Team: It's a New Year! Hooray!

16th Jan, 2019 and I'm skint. I mean. Not Skint as in the sense of two-days-til-Giro skint. Not picking-cigarettes-off-the-pavement skint. But - I've got about a tenner in my pocket. I mean. Payday's only four days away isn't it. It's not too bad. I have electricity, gas, a home, all that.

Even so. Transfer window's not going well for me. I was hoping to sign a few bits and bobs of shopping, like BOB milk and maybe some oven chips. But I'm forced to stick with my current squad of UHT emergency milk and, well. Lunch a la iffits today. (If it's in the fridge, it's lunch. Ho fucking ho.)

As for footy - I dream about it. I dream about going back to Farrar Road and watching games. Literally waking up in that split-second thinking, ah great, can't wait. But then the crushing realisation that it's never going to happen again.

Last night's premonition was this: City will lose 1-0 at home to Holyhead, and will have two goals disallowed by dodgy refereeing. I will watch from outside the ground cos of the boycott. And the pitch will look like shit.

It was all very real, and all very strange, and all very disappointingly banal. That's the scariest thing, I think.

In 'real' life, or what purports to stand in for it at this present, confused, crap-eating moment, the former club are preparing for a Welsh Cup tie against Caernarfon in a couple of weeks. A plum draw, objectively, under proper circumstances. But it's at home, so:

* The fans are divided. Many are going, because, fuck, you can't be outnumbered by the Cofis can you? I completely empathise with this point of view. Even in a NWCFA Cup Final about five years ago when they beat our Under 19s on pens, it hurt to see them win. And even though our Under 19s could have easily won it against their best team, it still hurt.

* Many fans are going to descend on Bangor from far and wide to watch the game, sing their hearts out, drink and be together. But they're not going to watch it at Nantporth. Nope. The evening game will see about 100? 200? 50? watch it live in local pubs less than a mile from the actual event. Think about it. That is mental isn't it. But I completely agree with this and were it not for the fact I'm working, I think I'd be there too. Insanity.

For the first time ever - and I mean, since organised, FA-coded football started in the 1860s - the Cofis are in a higher league than Bangor. Not because they're better on the pitch. They did earn their promotion, on the pitch, but let's not forget that City finished second in 2017-18, and reached the Welsh Cup semi-final, and were looking at Europe and the Irn Bru Cup, until this happened.

And that hurts most of all. I am a man without a team. And I'm getting fucking sad and sick of it.

P.S. - I've realised that this season I have actually been following a team, kind of, specifically on the way to and from work on the bus. They're not even a real team, and the broadcasts are often on the edge of stereotype and too-clever derivative tropes, but nonetheless it's hours spent with footy that I've gone back to for my fix.

If you want to know what that minuscule and somewhat unsatisfying pleasure really feels like to someone trying their best to get by without a team, this is it. Selah.

Trotters up, folks.

13.04 EDIT: Apparently a secretary is coming in to replace the one leaving (the one who started all this mess); and a director has resigned 'for personal reasons'.

To which I say:

Two decades since... and how does it feel?

20 years ago I wrote this track and recorded it in Bangor University.

Lidamotes

The players on it are awesome:

Vocals: Betsan Williams
Guitars: Dave Taylor
Cello: Huw McGregor
Drum/bass programming: Gary Stubbs
Intro performer: Bronwen Price

It was ostensibly for a college project and therefore the live parts were recorded in Bangor University Studio in early 1999. Huw and me were on the postgrad course together - and he brought his cello (aka 'the orchestra in the box') to proceedings. What a beautiful job he did, too.

When I walked into the studio though, I saw he had also brought a good friend of his to check out the recording and generally geek out about ribbon mics. I said hello and didn't think much of it at the time. I was kinda stressed about the session (but with performers of that calibre I had no reason to be, of course).

A year and a half later, I had just started my university course at LIPA, feeling very out of place, out of depth and out of space. Coming down the corridor, just by the bogs, was a familiar figure. I swallowed my nerves a little there too. It was time to try and get to grips with this new adventure in Liverpool.

"Hi," I ventured. The chap smiled. He was a big chap. You'd be intimidated, but he had a completely open face and gentle vibe. It's hard to describe.
"Hello again," he said.
"You're Huw's mate, aren't you," I asked.
He nodded and held out his hand.

I smiled and shook it willingly. Maybe I had found a friend?

"My name's Jon," he said.

My life was never the same. RIP my brother.