In 2021, I tried to take advantage of the October international break to go to a game as a fan. No sooner had I booked trains and hotels, though, than it emerged Sunderland had accumulated enough Northern Ireland internationals for their League One game against Oxford to be called off. So I did the only reasonable thing you can do in the circumstances, got in touch with the doyen of the non-league scene in the north-east, Harry Pearson, and invited myself along to whichever game he was going to.
We ended up at Seaham Red Star v Ashington in Northern League Division One, the ninth tier of English football. I’ve no idea what the score was, although I know Ashington had Steve Harmison’s brother Ben playing at centre-back and an Alice-banded dribbler on the wing, the Pitman Grealish. But most striking was that everybody passed out from the back. The difference from 25 years earlier, when I’d worked the turnstiles at Whitley Bay, was barely credible. I mentioned it to Harry, who explained that it had become entirely normal: the Guardiolisation of English football was universal.
