The story of Neil Baldwin* is an astonishing and uplifting one. Born to devoted Stoke City supporters, Neil had learning difficulties and needed speech therapy. He has made light of this, and his lack of formal academic qualifications, to work tirelessly as a lay preacher, circus clown and for many years the Potters’ kit man. He has his own football team, Neil Baldwin FC, with players drawn from the student body of Keele University, of which he is an honorary graduate having given 50 years of voluntary service in welcoming new undergraduates. Football celebrities, notably Lou Macari but also including Kevin Keegan and Gary Lineker, have acclaimed or befriended him or both.
When Macari, then managing Stoke, made him the kit man, he said it was the best signing he had ever made, such was the positive effect of his humour on the squad. He played five minutes a sub in a testimonial for Gordon Cowans in 1993 and, most famously, inspired the film Marvellous, based on his life.
‘It says everything for Neil that Marvellous was ever made,’ wrote the Stoke Sentinel TV critic, John Woodhouse. ‘In times when TV is seduced by vacuity and celebrity, it doesn’t sound that promising a pitch. A drama, set in Newcastle [under-Lyme], about a man saddled with the tag of “learning difficulties” who reveals himself to be so much more? Good luck with that one. And yet here it is – primetime BBC2.’
The autobiography, Marvellous: Neil Baldwin – My Story, written with the help of Keele University alumni Malcolm Clarke (a recent Who are You? interviewee) and Francis Beckett, was published by John Blake in 2015.
When Andy Robinson*‘s ‘Who are You?’ interview was published before Sunderland played Andy’s club Burnley, we agreed he would also do the honours for the FA Cup game a week later. That game is almost upon us and Andy’s comments on the FA Cup, and what it means to him, will endear him to many readers just as did last week’s interview. As for the game at Turf Moor, Saturday, safe to say Andy enjoyed it more than us. He starts with his reflections on Burnley 4-1 SAFC – leading to his thoughts on this weekend’s match …
It is not often that a Who are You? interview is re-posted. On this occasion, 24 hours (23 actually) ahead of our home game against Liverpool, it seems a natural thing to do. Why? Well, it’s a good interview but that alone wouldn’t be enough. Nor would the fact that not all readers will have seen it first time around.
It is simple really. The juxtaposition of fixtures over the New Year period, two in three days, led us to publish the Liverpool WAY even before the Watford match had been played (albeit by only the home side since Sunderland didn’t turn up). Even without the latest injuries (Kone and Anichebe), this seemed a tough old game, the sort you go into after a fine away win against a side much lower down the table. That went wrong, of course, so we need heroics tomorrow. Watching Watford v Spurs gave an idea of the gulf between top and lower midtable, so we must expect the worst while hoping for the best when second top meets third bottom. You can still enter Guess the Score, by the way – just forget the Burnley part! …
Let us meet Andy Robinson*, our Burnley ‘Who are you?’ volunteer for both forthcoming games between us, at Turf Moor in the Premier League on Saturday and at our place in the FA Cup a week later. Andy, who says he hasn’t missed many home games in 30 years, loyally wants and predicts wins for his team in both games but, when you return for his follow-up thoughts on the cup match next week, has an interesting view on league vs cup. Here is his look ahead to Saturday’s crunch match at the bottom (note that his shopping list of players he’d be happy to take from Sunderland preceded news of the Jordan Pickford injury) …
Salut! Sunderland: Presumably you’d take defeat in the cup game provided you get three points a week earlier?
Andy Robinson: I’d sell a kidney for three points at the moment so yes.
Dale O’Donnell, impossibly young-looking (r), with ‘the greatest right back in Premier History’. Just to make Neville Cross, Monsieur Salut didn’t recognise him at first
It may be a long way to Tipperary but that’s the part of Ireland from where Dale O’Donnell* hails. And his heart lies at Old Trafford. Dale is the editor of Stretty News, which describes itself as ‘one of the most popular Manchester United related blogs in the history of man’. His passion is almost tangible and, while we may question the collective sense of humour breakdown (suffered by him, too) concerning that little Poznan dance at the Stadium of Light when City pipped them for the title, it is refreshing to encounter a United fan able to ‘enjoy these testing times’ …
For United, ‘testing times’ = not winning everything in sight
Mike Parkin*, co-presenter of the Watford FC podcast ‘From the Rookery End’ and the club’s blogger at ESPN, readily agreed to answer questions ahead of Saturday’s game at the Stadium of Light … he fears our luck may finally have run out
Ray Knight, Chopper Harris and, between them, an unidentified object. Our best guess is that such items are presented to your team if they win something
Monsieur Salut writes: Some people are welcome to return time and again to the ‘Who are You?’ hot seat and * Ray Knight is unquestionably one of them. His support for Chelsea can be seen as a rare flaw in the make-up of a witty, heart-in-right-place sort of fellow most of us would happily have a pint with. I love his description of Sunderland’s annual flirtation with relegation but suspect his scoreline prediction is unlikely to come true …
Salut! Sunderland: Top of the league, by three clear points and with the best goal difference. Is this going to be Chelsea’s season again?
Ray Knight: So far it has reminded me of Lewis Hamilton’s season – a good start, a dodgy patch then a long winning streak, though obviously I hope for the gold medal spot rather than the silver which young Lewis achieved this year. I used to work with his dad 30 years ago – a very nice chap, which is why, despite knowing nothing about F1, I do take an interest in his career.
Antonio, and such stand-out players as the three scorers at Man City – Costa, Hazard and Willian – may take the current limelight but who else has been crucial to this season’s form?
It would have to be N’golo Kante, our very own Duracell bunny. If the other three represent the Lord Mayor’s Show, then he is the one who sweeps up the horse droppings. Victor Moses has proved to be a revelation as well, having spent two seasons away on loan as the Special One did not seem to like him much. Nor did he like De Bruyne and Lukaku either, which leads me to wonder about the Special One’s specialness. Did you notice that last week, while we had Moses, Man Citeh had Jesus – you could call that a victory for the Old Testament.
Here’s one Jake made earlier: ‘as big an ask as they come’
Without further ado, this season’s top four in order even though the last time I asked, you wouldn’t go beyond predicting the winners of Northern Ireland’s NIFL Premiership and cup?
In 2004 I predicted that the next Chinese new year would be the year of the Camel. How so, my baffled friends asked me? Because the Premier League top five in 2005 at the end of the season would be Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Everton, Liverpool, I replied. And so it proved. And did I put a bet on it? Sadly no. For next year I predict it will be the year of Calm – Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City. Or maybe the year of the Clam. What do I know?
And the bottom three (in the Premier League, not that it isn’t heartening to see Portadown So Down)?
I’ll go for Swansea, Burnley and West Ham (and poxy Portadown as well).
You’ve shared your best and worst Chelsea moments before, but if you were able to attend only Premier games or only Champions League games, what – leaving aside the numerical difference – would you choose?
In my very first contribution to your esteemed site, I mentioned that we fans are driven as much by hate as by love. You think of the zebra-skinned ones as dearly as I think of Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man U. So can you imagine having to hate Sparta Prague, Paris SG, Bayern Munich or Barcelona? (Actually I can make a case for the last one). At the end of the day we are defined by our insularity and local rivalries, as proved by the Brexit vote.
And have you become blasé about the huge amounts of dosh sloshing around the upper echelons of football, or is it a cause for concern? Cuba’s more interested in baseball but I cannot think Fidel would have approved.
Having turned 65 back in April, to my delight the price of my season ticket was reduced by a whopping 53 per cent so I would rather have our oligarch than your transatlantic billionaire.
When the Premier League started it seemed that it would forever be Man Yoo versus the rest, so it has taken vast fortunes to break that monopoly, to the extent that all clubs now seem to be owned by billionaires/oligarchs/sheikhs to achieve a certain level of equality. The TV moguls know that the one of the main selling points of the Premier League is a certain amount of unpredictability, so what they don’t want is a copy of the Spanish League (only three clubs have a chance of winning it) the German League (one club), the French League (one club) or the Italian League (three clubs). I would argue that successful clubs have always been the richest – the Mears family that founded Chelsea back in 1905 were the oligarchs of their day. They founded a football club because they had a sports ground with no team to play in it.
Chelsea: still the club everyone wants to hate, or in danger of becoming more lovable if only the toerag and racist elements can be eradicated?
I read on the internet just the other day that according to some kind of survey Chelsea are currently the most hated Premier League club. But these may be the same people whose surveys confidently predicted that Hillary would now be choosing new curtains for the Oval Office.
But can you imagine being a supporter of Hartlepool?
Where is that? Is it a Caribbean tax haven or something? Ask me another one.
Sunderland: three wins in four (writing before this weekend’s clueless display at Swansea made it three in five) lifted us briefly from the bottom and seemed to give us a sporting chance of moving uptable. Were you surprised more by our wretched start or the recent mini-revival?
I hate to break this to you, but I see Sunderland’s wretched start and miraculous escape from relegation as part of the fabric of British society – they always happen every year, like the State Opening of Parliament, and judging by your pink away kit, both events are commemorated by people dressing up in ludicrous costumes.
Is there a single player from our squad who you feel would be fit to warm your bench?
I’ll cheerfully take your goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, thank you.
Any other thoughts on Sunderland – the club, the fans, David Moyes, even the old Durham coalfield on top of which – OK, just a bit of it – our stadium stands?
Maybe I will visit your ground one day, as soon as I can find a thick enough overcoat to brave the North Sea gales that I am told are part of the local charm. A special weapon you ought to develop is David Moyes’s scowl, looking as he does when prowling the touchline, like the very last person you would want to meet on a Saturday night in Sauchiehall Street. Get someone to wind him a bit more and you might get the linesmen and fourth officials more willing to consider the Sunderland point of view when confronted with controversial incidents.
Jake gets arty and captures Moyes in the scary mood Ray recommends
Can I just say the finest answer given in the Who are You? series was yours. Q: How did you persuade Peter Reid to buy Gareth Hall?
A: Peter Reid was under the impression that it was a property deal – he’d been told that Gareth Hall was in fact an old Mormon church behind Sloane Square that, with the right amount of investment could be turned into a highly profitable concert venue.
So go on: who is Chelsea’s more-Gareth-than-Gareth Hall, the worst you’ve seen in blue?
On our post-match journeys home Sid [David ‘Sid’ Millward, nicknamed after his bandleading uncle and an occasional visitor to these pages – Ed] and I soon tired of “Pick your best or favourite Chelsea eleven” games in favour of “Our worst Chelsea XI”, a much more entertaining pastime, and always the first name on my sheet was David Mitchell, allegedly an Australian international bought by Bobby Campbell, on the recommendation of his son. His name should rank alongside that of Ali Dia, formerly of Southampton and Blyth Spartans, with regards to footballing skills.
By the way, Gareth Hall has since been renamed Cadogan Hall, and is a very successful concert venue, where I saw John Mayall perform a couple of years ago.
Diving: a dead issue because every club had divers and other kinds of cheats (see the appalling Snodgrass dive above), or still worth hammering away at?
The only way to do anything about it is to highlight it on Match of the Day, and give points for artistic impression. It would give the “Should Diego Costa have been sent off” correspondent something else to do.
Best ref, worst ref (Premier League, not the Guildford & Woking Alliance)?
The best referee is the one you don’t notice so I can never remember their names. Today’s ref, Jasper Carrott lookalike, Mike Dean often has me frothing at the mouth. For the Champions League, no-one can surpass Tom Hennings Ovrebo from Norway, who denied us a place in the 2009 Champions’ League final. For him, I was prepared to do severe damage to the Norwegian embassy on the night in question, if only I knew where it was.
Will you be at our game? I know its pointless asking for a score prediction!
Sorry, I still don’t have that thick overcoat. I predict a 9-0 victory for Sunderland, with Borini, van Aanholt and Djilobodji each getting a hat trick against their old team. By the way thanks for not pooping Drogba’s leaving party in 2015.
Jake: ‘check out this season’s previous Who are You? interviews at this link
* Ray Knight on himself: I am still a railwayman at Kings Cross, now 65 and expecting to retire soon. I am lucky in the sense that, having worked for British Rail, I will retain my travel concessions after I cease working, unlike the poor sods who work in today’s new, exciting, entrepreneurial, privatised railway, who will not. That will leave me plenty of time and wherewithal while I still have my marbles, to attend away matches at such exotic locations as Roker Park, Ayresome Park, the Dell and Highbury.
Ray Knight: ‘an old railwayman in Munich, on that glorious CL Final evening in 2012. As I said to my wife, it was the happiest…..errrr I mean, the second happiest day of my life’
Monsieur Salut writes: Tim Burke* has Millwall connections and should perhaps be wearing a ‘you all hate us, we don’t care’ T-shirt. Instead, he fell in love with the Foxes after moving to Leicester and much of the footballing world fell in love with his adopted team in May. It was a season he enjoyed for a reason never experienced by a Sunderland supporter who was not alive in 1936. This season? Tim’s happy, even if tongue in cheek, to avoid the drop . Great attitude and great replies – and maybe he can take heart from Sunderland’s history; we won the FA Cup in the season following our last top flight title …
Gareth Roberts, left, with Eric Meijer, who achieved cult status among Liverpool fans despite being at Anfield for only a short time
Gareth Roberts*, editor of the ‘leading independent voice on Liverpool FC’, The Anfield Wrap, comes up with a scoreline prediction none of us will thank him for. But he also answers our questions with an informed and informative manner, defending Jurgen Klopp in his spats with the media, acclaiming the two Jordans, doubting Mignolet’s Anfield future and, naturally, going for Liverpool to win the title …
