It is Saturday October 29th 1983…Once again, a John Anderson sliding tackle takes Man City’s Scottish left winger Jim Tolmie over the touchline and onto the cinder track. No wonder the victim looks concussed.
I had a season ticket in the old iron shed that was the West Stand in those days.
In the seats around me ‘Ando’ was known as ‘The Fridge’. Any winger daring to dribble up the left wing by the Leazes paddock was hit with the weight of a fridge – one of those American jobs with the big double doors.
Ando wasn’t bad going forward either; he had the build and power of a sprinter.
We also had Waddle, Beardsley and Keegan in attack and won 5-0 that day against Manchester City. Ando was our regular right back that promotion-winning season.
Time passes, thirty-one years later. It is Saturday January 17th 2015…
We’re trailing 0-1 and Southampton defender Florin Gardos is trying to clear the ball on the edge of his eighteen-yard box. He’s being ‘high-pressed’ by our French attacker Yoan Gouffran. As Gardos tries to hit the ball to safety, it ricochets off Gouffran’s shin and flies into the top of the Leazes net. A freak goal! The crowd goes nuts, as does Radio Newcastle’s Mick Lowes in the commentary box. And listening at home, I jump out my chair and run up and down twice (that old adrenalin rush again).
Sat next to Mick Lowes that day, was none other than John Anderson. And his reaction? Well, never mind Gouffran’s press or the joy of a surprise goal, his main concern was the defending. “Awful defending, he can’t be proud of that.” I remember feeling a bit deflated for Gouffran. And deflated at the end of the match too, because we lost 1-2. It was a tough season that year. Under John Carver, we finished fifteenth,
Time passes, eleven years later – it is season 2025-26…
I still listen to the Radio Newcastle match commentary, often in the car. Ando sits alongside Matthew Raisbeck, and it’s good craic. As befits a former professional footballer, Ando has a healthy scepticism about the modern game, especially on refs clamping down on any physical contact.
However, on a couple of issues, respectfully I don’t share his viewpoint.
For example, he makes regular comments on the ‘quality’ of the match. He speaks as if a neutral with no vested interest, only wishing for a sporting spectacle to honour the beautiful game in its own right. For me, if the match is poor and we scrape a 1-0 win, I am very entertained and satisfied. Of course, I love it when we win in style but I’d take dire games and solitary goal victories the whole season long.
And just like eleven years ago, Ando gets a little upset if the opposition fails to defend properly – “he can’t be proud of that”. I, on the other hand, am delighted if their defenders are the most inept, slow, dizzy and incapable bunch of misfits ever to run on a pitch – bring them on time and again please!
But then, I’m just a fan, while Ando is a paid-up, loyal member of ‘The Defenders’ Union’, to which he first paid his subs forty-odd years ago, when wingers at St James’ Park played in fear of ‘The Fridge’.
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