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Opinion

Football, Fashion and Music are intertwined

1 year ago
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Growing up in the Seventies and Eighties, meant my formative years were moulded as much by the politics of the era as by fashion / clothing, gigs and the football matches I managed to go to.

So, last weekend we sign a blonde haired scouser for 40+ million.

No idea about his views on politics, fashion and music. I trust Eddie in the knowledge that everything he has done so far has been absolutely spot on and I’m sure checks would have been made, but I cannot help myself from looking back to those days when me and my mates were Gordon’s age, where record signings were hundreds of thousands.

Yes, I know times have changed and we are in a new era, but football culture is built on history. The fact that our great club has not won a domestic trophy for some sixty eight years is hard to believe (bring on that League Cup final).

There are countless books and documentaries on TV that chronicle this development of youth culture, fashion and football through the seventies and eighties and in particular the football casuals on the terraces seem to be the most represented.

However, in the eighties I would drink and party in London with lads from Newcastle. Nightclubs, gigs and football. They were art students but solid working class lads who loved their football and Newcastle United.

A short while back I took my daughter to her first away game at Crystal Palace and I pointed out to her the Homesdale End Ultras with their flags and drum. The football culture evolving again. That part of the ground housed the away support in open terracing in the days of Football casuals.

Me and my art student mates would meet up and pay in and stand on the terracing at away games in London. One cold mid week winter game (I struggle to remember who the opposition were) we did just that, met up for drinks and paid to stand on open terracing. Dressed, not in casual wear like many around us, but being art students in identikit second hand 501s from Kensington Market, Redwing Engineer boots, shaved heads, Fred Perrys and Carhart workwear. Each of us trying to outcool each other in the fashion stakes.

One of the lads has the nickname Sheeps Heed due to his blonde curly hair and refusal to join us in our uniformity of haircut fashion. As it is a cold evening Sheeps Heed pulls out a woolly hat that is a strange new stretchy material. He puts it on and it looks like some alien c.ndom on his head, much to the amusement of everyone around us, to the point where people are chanting at him and laughing at his ridiculous fashion sense, but being the Sheeps Heed he refuses to take it off (top lad). He even shouts back in defiance.

Some thirty plus years ago now, but it still makes me laugh how we dressed and thought we were cutting edge, to the soundtracks of Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys etc. The Rave scene had not arrived just yet.

First time I saw Anthony Gordon I thought about my mate Sheeps Heed, as he looked just like him at twenty one years old.

Sheeps Heed was an aggressive and at times, rude, nasty young man, who relentlessly took the mick out of people, even complete strangers. He was though entertaining and a good laugh in his own way.

Having not seen much of Anthony Gordon, I’m looking forward to seeing him play, but hopefully he will not have the same fashion sense as my old mate Sheeps Heed.

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