On Saturday, 30th July 2011 our new stadium finally opened with a friendly match against Spurs – fourteen years after we left the Goldstone Ground. Our club was saved and the beautiful and award-winning new stadium built thanks to a monumental effort by thousands of Seagulls fans: the future is secure, and every time I cycle the ten miles to Falmer and see the first curve of the stand with the Seagull crest as I push up the hill I think, in the words of the penultimate verse of ‘Goldstone Ghosts’ which can be read in the North Stand:
And one day, when our new home’s built, and we are storming back
A bunch of happy fans without a care
We’ll look back on our darkest hour and raise our glasses high
and say with satisfaction: we were there.
Yes, it’s called the American Express Community Stadium and it was built with money provided by local businessman and lifelong Albion fan Tony Bloom, who is now chairman. Yes, it’s all rather corporate these days, and I have retired from my 14 year stint as DJ and P.A. announcer and taken my place in the North Stand again. But if we hadn’t stood up and said ‘NO!’ in the Nineties, there wouldn’t have been a club to build a stadium for, and a future to look forward to. Our historian Tim Carder has enshrined the history of the Albion and the long campaign in our recently-opened museum next to Dick’s Bar, our supporters’ bar in the North Stand, named for former chairman Dick Knight. In that part of the stadium the spirit of the old Albion lives on for sure: personally, I actually think that under the glossy trappings it lives on everywhere.
We’ve got proper beer too. ‘Football fans don’t drink real ale, John!’ I was told by director and lager drinker Derek Chapman as I and my dear old departed friend and co-campaigner Roy Chuter pushed for the products of local brewers Harveys and Dark Star to be an essential part of the matchday offering in the stadium. ‘Football fans don’t drink real ale, John!’ echoed managing director Ken Brown, ‘but OK, we’ll give it a go…’
Steve Layfield, CAMRA member, cellarman of renown and Glastonwick stalwart, tells me that our stadium is now the biggest single real ale outlet in the country. Certainly Harvey’s would do well to build a pipe under the Downs to the stadium from their Lewes brewery, such is the volume consumed at every home game. There is a guest beer from their home town for the away fans too. And, yes, I got a public apology from two former Albion managing directors. Football fans DO drink real ale – we’ve proved that, and it’s time for loads more clubs to follow our lead. They’ll certainly sell more beer!
Sorry if you don’t like football. But I hope that you’ll agree that this chapter was about a lot more than just football. It’s certainly about a big part of my life. And it’s dedicated to Roy. We miss you mate.
SEAGULLS!
THIRTEEN
FINALE
And so we reach the end of the marathon! My admiration for those who write books for a living, full time, has grown hugely in the process - it’s been incredibly hard work and amazingly good fun. At my side throughout its creation, Robina has often lovingly, in a silly voice and with tongue in cheek, referred to this work as ‘The ADVENTURES of ME: stories about ME, for people who want to read about ME, written by ME’. Yes, she knows me better than I know myself: I’m aware that I can be a bit ebullient and over the top! I have intended this book to be as much social history as about me, however, and I hope that’s the way it comes across, but of course it’s about me: it is, quite literally, my life’s work.
I am angrier now than ever before at the state of the world. Given the massive inequalities and injustices being perpetrated all over it, there would be something wrong if I wasn’t, and I shall spend the rest of however long I’ve got left speaking out, as I have done up until now, supporting just causes and fighting for change. I was asked to stand as a candidate in the 2015 general election by both Class War and the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, which I take as a great honour and proof that the fire in my belly burns as strongly as ever. The result of this election left me seething, as I am sure it did you, both at the abject selfishness and/or downright gullibility 38% of the population demonstrated in their choice of vote, and at the electoral system which deemed that such a vote share gave an absolute parliamentary majority to a bunch of snooty, heartless bullies. But the result didn’t daunt me in the slightest: like I say, I’m even angrier now. We carry on!
My feelings about politics are in sharp contrast to my happy personal situation. As I hope my story has shown, I have had and am having a very fulfilling life, with the love of a wonderful wife and loads of good friends, and I am fully aware of how fortunate I am to have been able to earn my living doing what I love for nearly 35 years. I’m still reaching new audiences: Robina and I have just been to the Shetland Islands for the first time and I’m always looking for new places to play and countries to visit. I’ve just recorded a new spoken word CD ‘Live at the Greys’ to coincide with the publication of the book, which has been proof read - thanks again to Robina – and is now off to be published by Cherry Red (sponsors of AFC Wimbledon and a host of minor football leagues, I’m happy to say, so we are linked by a love of grass roots football as well as by my early history as Attila). It will be officially launched at the Magna Carta Festival in Lincoln in September 2015, around the 35th anniversary of my first gig, and then I’ll be charging all over the country and further afield on a massive tour performing and reading from it. A book launch tour which will, in fact, last as long as I do, hopefully for many years to come – this is the book of my life, and will be on sale at every gig I do for the rest of it.
With Cherry Red’s help, I shall soon be concentrating on the next stage: inviting the thousands of people on my social media sites to get hold of a copy and spread the word and selling it through the web and as many bookshops as are interested. Everyone will be doing their best to get it some conventional media publicity: if you’ve read this far and enjoyed it, please tell your mates. Most people who hear about me do so literally via world of mouth – or, more usually these days, finger of keyboard. If the cultural opinion-formers of the day come beating a path to our door asking me to appear on their programmes and in the columns of their newspapers after ‘Arguments Yard’ is published I’ll happily do so – but if they don’t, I won’t be surprised or losing any sleep. After all these years I know where I stand! My views and attitudes don’t fit in the bland, corporate mainstream media of today: I know that, and I’ll take whatever happens on my stubborn, stubbly chin. With a smile of defiance radiating out immediately above it, a host of people rooting for me, and a great big world wide web for them to spread the word in.
I’ll finish, as I started, with some words for fellow poets, writers, musicians.
I’m constantly meeting talented people with great ideas who haven’t yet got the DIY message and are waiting for other people to ‘discover’ them and do things for them. If the corporate media embrace you - as long as you can stay true to yourself, go for it. As I’ve pointed out already, I’m no DIY purist: the Clash signed to CBS and their first album is my favourite record of all time. But if they do and you can’t, or if they don’t: don’t be disheartened, do it yourself. In the 80s all we had was a phone and a fax machine: now you’ve quite literally got the world at your fingertips. There’s no excuse not to, and it’s a bloody sight more fun than working in a bank, isn’t it, Billy?
Writing this, I’m thinking of my friend Louise Distras, a bold, sharp, talented, committed punk singer-songwriter from the new generation, determined to get her message across, fired up, working hard, giving her all. Go for it, Louise. You’re brilliant. And there are many more like you on the DIY road: good luck to each and every one. At my Glastonwick festival, and at my gigs up and down the country, I have always tried my hardest to support and encourage new and up and coming performers, and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
Now I’m signing off – and off down the pub for a celebratory pint. And an argument, maybe: wouldn’t be the first t
ime.
Keep the faith and cheers for reading!
Attila, May 2015.
FOURTEEN
A STING IN THE TAIL
So that was that, right? You’ve signed off, Attila. What’s all this about? I had indeed signed off. The final pre-production checks were just about to get underway. But in a truly poetic coincidence, almost the very day I finished this book I came face to face with the fundamentals of life, and given that this is my autobiography I very much wanted to include that experience here, along with a rather silly poem and a very serious message.
I’ve always been blessed with pretty good health. Loads of cycling keeps me fit, I don’t smoke and apart from a bit of high blood pressure, a cycle-related broken leg and a football-related torn hamstring I’ve been pretty fortunate through the years. But in the early months of 2015 I’d been having some pains and weird feelings down below, and at my second visit to the doctor blood was detected in my urine and I was sent off for tests. Kidneys, fine: huge sigh of relief. Prostate fine too: another one. Then I was told I needed to have a flexible cystoscopy. Do you know what a flexible cystoscopy is? I certainly didn’t. But I soon found out. A camera was going to be sent up my knob to have a look at my bladder. I’d be able to see it on a big screen in front of me, if I wanted to. (If I wanted to? I’d never missed seeing one of my TV appearances, and wasn’t going to start now.)
I’m used to people taking pictures of me, but it has always tended to be an essentially external experience. Given the very small space the camera was going to have to go through, I did hope they weren’t intending to send an entire outside broadcast unit up there, complete with sound crew and the ubiquitous fluffy mic. Dr Bong answered my questions calmly and reassuringly, some anaesthetic was shoved up my helmet, a wire was inserted into the very heart of my being and, amidst considerable discomfort, the show began on the big screen.
First a voyage up a little tunnel. ‘That’s your urethra.’ (With deference to Kraftwerk, I nicknamed the camera the Trans Urethra Express.) And then into a wide, cavernous space, pinkish in colour. ‘Here’s your bladder. Those holes lead to your kidneys.’
Pink expanses. So that’s what my bladder looks like. Hang on a minute, what’s that? A horrid-looking, dark, veiny eruption. Then another. And another, and another. They aren’t supposed to be there. I know that. Bloody hell…
‘We’d better get some pictures of those’ said Dr. Bong.
I went into that clinic for reassurance, and came out with an extremely sore willy and the news that I may well have bladder cancer. I needed an operation: the Trans Urethra Express had to return as soon as possible, equipped with a ray gun to zap the tumours and a bucket to bring some samples out for biopsy – and I was booked in for an abdominal CT scan to find out if the nasties in my bladder had spread anywhere else. My whole world turned upside down, and it was only by sheer effort of will and with Robina’s fantastic support that I managed to turn it the right way up again.
I’m 57, I thought. I’m not 20 any more. I’ve travelled all over the world, done nearly everything I have ever wanted to do and just finished my autobiography. And whatever happens, whatever I am told, I am a strong, confident person and will fight this to the bitter end. I want to live…!
I pissed razor blades for a few days. I had the abdominal scan the day after the f***ing Tories had ‘won’ the election with their 38%: the wonderful care I was receiving made me even more passionate about the NHS and angry at the bastards cutting its funding in order to fund weapons of mass destruction. I then had to wait for the results: everyone says the waiting is the worst part, and everyone is right. But at the very least I knew that I had gone to the doctor as soon as I felt something was wrong: fear of waiting for the news is one of the main reasons why people leave seeking a diagnosis until it’s too late. I was booked in for my operation on May 11th, 2015, and it was while waiting in pre-surgical reception that day that I received the news that my CT scans were normal.
‘At least one bit of you is!’ said Robina with a huge sigh of relief.
The operation, called a TURBT (transurethral resection of a bladder tumour) went well, and I was discharged that evening, sore but in good spirits. Then another awful wait, pissing not just razor blades but sulphuric acid as well, followed by the biopsy results. Superficial, low grade skin cancer in my bladder, thoroughly zapped. Another Trans Urethra Express in four months’ time, just to check all is well, and as long as it is, once a year from then on. Caught early – hopefully, the end of the matter, though of course one can never be sure. But I sure hope so.
I have one message for you all, especially for blokes of a certain age who tend to get embarrassed about such things. If you’re feeling strange around there, don’t put it off – get your knob out for the doc. In general, if you’re worried about your health, get yourself looked at. You owe it to yourselves, and to our wonderful and under-resourced NHS.
And, of course, I’ve written a poem. I hope that it quite literally saves lives: the first knob poem to do so.
Now I really am checking out. Take care, and hope to see you at a gig somewhere.
CANDID CAMERA
(An Ode to Flexible Cystoscopy)
I know I sometimes can be
A loud-mouthed, stroppy prat
I know I’m a control freak
(And a bossy one at that)
My wife says when I’m eating
I am a total slob -
I’m still not sure that I deserved
A camera up my knob.
The poor thing shrivelled up in fear
Till it was hardly there
A tiny little pimple
In a nest of pubic hair
The camera made its entrance
The pain cut like a knife
And then I saw my bladder
For the first time in my life.
I’m glad that it went up there
Though sad at what it found
And it can come back anytime
To help me stay around
So three cheers for the NHS
And to that camera crew -
And if you’re feeling odd down there
You get it checked out too.
TOP TEN GIGS & FESTIVALS SO FAR
Galaxy Theatre, Auckland, 1991
Annandale Hotel, Sydney, 1993
Schokoladen, East Berlin (with Barnstormer) 2001-2015
25th Anniversary Gig, Komedia, Brighton 2005
Rivoli, Toronto, 1989
Glastonbury, 1983 – 2015 (every year there has been one)
East Germany (Summer Song Festival/Political Song Festival & Tour) 1986-1990
Vancouver Folk Festival, 1989-2005 (sporadically)
Glastonwick, 1996-2015 (every year of course!)
Beautiful Days, Devon, 2010
TOP TEN ALBUMS
THE CLASH – The Clash
T.REX – Electric Warrior
JOHN CALE – Paris 1919
DOCTORS OF MADNESS – Late Night Movies, All Night Brainstorms
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - The Velvet Underground & Nico
DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS – Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
CULTURE – Two Sevens Clash
RANCID - And Out Come The Wolves
NEWTOWN NEUROTICS – Beggars Can Be Choosers
JACQUES BREL – Les Marquises
THREE NOTABLE ARGUMENTS NOT MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE (right wing journalist, former editor of the Sunday Telegraph) on Radio 4’s ‘Midweek’, sometime in the 90s
BERNARD INGHAM, Thatcher’s former press officer, on a TV discussion programme, ditto
The one I’d have had with BOB GELDOF if they’d let me near him, Melbourne, 1993
FIVE SORTS OF PEOPLE I CAN’T STAND
Wealthy right wingers who whine about how working class their background is
Poor right wingers - Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Patronising poetry snobs
&
nbsp; The contemptable plutocrats on and off the pitch who are wrecking modern football and society in general
Racists and fascists (that includes the religious sort)
DISCOGRAPHY
All UK releases except where stated
SOLO
1981 Phasing Out Capitalism cassette (No Wonder)
1982 Rough, Raw and Ranting EP with Seething Wells (Radical Wallpaper)
1982 Cocktails EP (Cherry Red)
1983 Ranting at the Nation LP (Cherry Red)
1984 Sawdust and Empire LP (Anagram)
1984 Radio Rap! EP (Cherry Red)
1984 Livingstone Rap! EP (Cherry Red Ken)
1987 Libyan Students from Hell! LP (Plastic Head)
1988 Scornflakes LP/cassette (Probe Plus)
1990 (Canada) Live at the Rivoli LP/cassette (Festival)
1991 Donkey’s Years CD/LP/cassette (Musidisc)
1992 (Germany) This Is Free Europe CD/LP/single (Terz)
1993 (Australia) 668-Neighbour of the Beast CD/cassette (Larrikin)
1993 (Germany) Live auf St.Pauli CD (Terz)
1993 Attila the Stockbroker’s Greatest Hits cassette (Roundhead)
1999 Poems Ancient & Modern CD (Roundhead/Mad Butcher)
1999 The Pen & The Sword CD (Roundhead/Mad Butcher)
2003 Live in Belfast CD (Roundhead)
2005 Tom Hark (We Want Falmer) EP - with Seagulls Ska (Skint)
2007 (Norway) Spirit of Revolution vinyl EP with Patrik Fitzgerald (Crispin Glover)
2007 (Norway) Live In Norway CD (Crispin Glover)
ARGUMENTS YARD Page 39
