Our monthly Notts County column is back after a hiatus and now penned by Julian McDougall, formerly of the beloved Notts County fanzine The Pie and currently of the excellent When Saturday Comes magazine. Here he muses about the appointment of Martin Paterson and the nature of supporters in the “Lowry-esque’ setting of Meadow Lane...
I have a print of Lowry’s Going to the Match on my wall. It captures an idea of what football means which so many of us work hard to preserve, whilst the material reality of it moves ever farther away from what Lowry evokes (I refer readers to MK Dons, the Club World Cup and every single thing about Manchester United). These meanings are captured in the archives of football fanzines, in the pages of When Saturday Comes and in the writing of Daniel Gray, who, indeed ‘writes like Lowry paints’, according to BBC Radio.
The scene in the painting is familiar and reassuring if, like me, you are a consumer of Bovril at Meadow Lane in cold winters. The spectators are seemingly bracing themselves against the weather and they are moving purposely to the ground – apparently Bolton’s Burnden Park, portrayed in 1953. These figures are mostly men (and dogs), so this is a view of ‘collective lived experience’ that is exclusive and does not age well in this respect. But the warmth of the idea, the simplicity of ‘going to the match’, to invest in the ritual, means it is the ‘going to’ that is working hard.
The Lowry Gallery in Salford is currently curating an immersive 360 experience whereby visitors can enter the world of the artwork in “a creative exploration, in super-high resolution, of a painting that celebrates the excitement, anticipation, and ritual of going to a football match on a Saturday afternoon. From factory whistles to the excited chatter of an expectant crowd, this will be a glorious evocation of an experience shared by fans across the country”, says the exhibition’s website.
So, as we reflect on Notts’ ultimately disappointing 24-25 season and the changes ahead for the next, can we indulge in a thought experiment which might also shift the dial a little on how we think about the mythology of the collective identity that Lowry captured?
Consider what those weather-beaten match goers were thinking, approaching the ground, observing the rituals. The painting implies, intentionally or not, that they are simply ‘going’. All going, a shared endeavour – of course, this is the thing we want to preserve, the belonging, the tribe, the simplicity, the singular perspective – go to the match, be in the crowd, hope to win, drink beer, eat a pie, and, regardless of the outcome, repeat, again, and again. Many of us are like those figures. Walk from the station, into the Magpie Tap, talk about football, mostly, or only – an existential lens, ‘going to the match’, simply, purely even. We just keep going. And we love it.
We could map the timing of the art to the fortunes of Bolton and then imagine how the thoughts of Lowry’s figures might have been diverse and complex, rather than singular and shared. But instead... imagine if they were Notts fans during last season. Which of the characters in the painting would be on board with Football Radar, who was content with Maynard’s enduring faith in possession and ‘performance levels’. Which of them would desire a more pragmatic approach? Who was frustrated by recruitment in January? Who was starting to doubt the ability of Matty Palmer at this level, or the fitness of Jodie Jones?
It is hard to discern the ages of the fans in the painting, Lowry’s reduction to slender figures renders them generic, from our perspective now, with their coats and caps they all look older. But which of them, if this was Meadow Lane, would have seen the Sirrel or Warnock days? What did they think of Munto and Sven?
Reflecting on last season, we will savour another strong start and being top ‘early doors’, the plethora of McGoldrick ‘worldie’ goals, but we’ll put behind us the string of home defeats in the later stages. We had a short-lived return of hope when we beat Harrogate away to secure play-offs, We thought we might get that precious momentum back, but no. And then, the worst of it was the whole of both play-off games. It was just never happening, with the way we approached it.
And now, as we start the next chapter? It is fair to call the appointment of Martin Paterson underwhelming. But then, as we listen to the owners’ philosophy, again, before a ball is kicked, it all sounds so clear and compelling. But, this is Meadow Lane, Nottingham, an objectively “Lowry-esque’ setting. We crave another promotion, we yearn for these Danish brothers to convert their datafication into goals and points and cup runs. So, when we read “The Technical Board will develop a process to support the coaching team in making more effective in-game decisions. This will involve supplying a variety of data-led metrics, analysis and insights to the dugout in as near to real time as possible”.. think of what Lowry’s characters would make of all this.
The charm and resonance of ‘Going to the Match’ is to do with the comfort of the ritual and the endurance of that when life is so impermanent – but when we reflect on it, there is a strange paradox in this, as the routines we exercise as paying punters are so contrasting with the transient and intensely short-lived affiliations of players, coaches, owners. Case in point – at the time of writing, Luke Williams is working in customer care at Bristol Airport. This is actually a fact.
But the inconvenient truth of it, in terms of the mythology of the collective experience is this. The ritual may be shared, but the opinions and perspectives on the players, coach, tactics and, in this case, ‘metrics’ are not. And never were, surely? One cap wearing Lowry stick man wanted a coach with promotion experience, a man with his dog wanted us to break the bank to keep Didzy. Another trusts the process and thinks Maziar Kouhyar can link well with Ollie Norburn. Another still is pleased with the new focus on physicality as we were so lightweight and were hit by so many injuries last season. And, I am sure, some really do not care. They have seen it all, or it all passes them by. It is only a game, after all.
Whatever will come to pass, we can’t wait for it to start again. We are in the football league. We still have a wheelbarrow. We will still be going to the match.
If you'd like to read more of Julian's musings, visit The Pie Fanzine web archive
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