No gravy please, we are mackems | OneFootball

As some of my close friends in North Shields / on the coast already know, I have been writing a book for some time.

Today I thought I would share my plans with the loyal readers of The Mag.

I’m in contact with a publisher who seems to agree that my Newcastle United related memoirs and escapades could make a decent read.

My mate Paul Cannell, who is no stranger to controversial book releases himself, has been helping me put together the format for what I hope will be a witty and entertaining dossier of events spanning nearly 50 years.

Before any of my Ridges mates from the NME get a tad concerned, let me reassure them that no one is going to get shouted out or incriminated of dastardly doings from the past, so to speak.

There will still be plenty of tales of the unexpected, from the late 1970s and the 80s, but it will certainly not be one of them daft hooligan reads that used to be popular a few years ago.

I have tried to recall and recapture that ‘Teenage Kicks’ moment that I felt the first time I realised that Newcastle United were going to be one of the main parts of my life from then on.

Then later the pubs, the music and the banter, and how lifelong friendships were forged with jack the lads from other towns, the likes of Mick Willis from Ashington and ‘Big Stevie’ Grant from South Shields.

How we all felt as we then grew older and not too wiser.

Obviously a lot of my favourite players and matches feature, similarly to the way I write my articles on The Mag.

It wouldn’t be complete if I hadn’t have put my personal stamp on it. Of course I will be putting the sad and jealous mackems down in dispatches.

One of the titles that me and Paul have considered is “No gravy please, we are mackems.”

We both actually heard a bloke say this when we had Sunday lunch in Durham a few years ago and consequently couldn’t help bursting out laughing in disbelief.

With Cannell being a ‘mackem slayer’ in the 1970s, I know I have a good guide and mentor for my first excursion into the literary world.

Things are not completed quite yet and it will have to be edited I suppose, however, we are hoping to have the ball rolling in the not too distant future.