In April 1976 the 18-year-old Garth Crooks played his first match as a Stoke City player barely one month from becoming a professional player at the club. Garth’s rise in the club was memorable for a number of reasons. He was one of the first black players at the club although Stoke City had recruited from the ethnic minorities in the past Frankie Soo of Chinese origin- the first ethnic minority to play for England and Roy Brown who played for the club in the past. Garth was one of the first Ladsanddads players a local initiative which meant to foster family and community relations during the 70s. Roy Brown’s brother Doug, himself the first black mayor of Stoke on Trent played a leading role in developing the organisation. Although Stoke lost Garth’s first game 1-0 to Coventry by the end of the season he had established himself in the team. He scored his first goal for the senior squad a few weeks later for the senior squad against Birmingham City.
As a family we have always taken an interest in Garth’s career. In fact it is part of Cawley legend that Garth substituted my brother Andrew when Andrew left the field with an eye injury when they were in Stoke St Peter’s Junior School team in the mid 60s. Later after we moved to Abbey Hulton Garth would often play in impromptu matches on a muddy piece of ground in Eaveswood Rd or on the pitches by the Suburban Club. Even at an early age he showed great talent, a friend of mine at St Teresa’s had the unenviable job of trying to mark him along with another player they failed miserably as Garth scored five goals that day. I was not surprised that Garth along with Russell Pointon, another regular at Eaveswood, went on into professional football clubs.
The preconceptions around black footballers in the mid 70s sounds from the vantage point of 2011 to be absurd. In the view of the Sentinel of April 76
" so many coloured footballers seem to lack the physical aggression in their make up for the English game".
Over the decades many black players have proved their capacity in getting stuck in such as Paul Ince, Patrick Vieira and in the case of Stoke City George Berry or more recently Abdoulaye Faye. I doubt particularly in the last named that he could be described as a " shrinking violet"
As for Garth Crooks, he scored 48 goals in 147 appearances for Stoke City. He became most famous following a high-profile transfer to Spurs in 1980. With Crooks leading the line, Spurs won two FA Cups. Garth is frequently credited as the first black player score in a FA Cup final for his equalising goal in a 3-2 win over Manchester City in the 1981 final.
He is now a very well known television pundit on BBC Sport.
Where Garth led in the 1970s followed others followed, but this was at a price. During his career, racist chants and banners were commonplace in the stands, and sometimes made monkey noises. In one instance at Anfield a spectator ran on to the pitch and handed him a bunch of bananas. By the end of the decade more black players were being introduced in the game including Neville Chamberlain at Port Vale. However the problem of racism in football was not fully eradicated until the 1990s.
A major political dilemma that faced Stoke City in the 70s was their relationship with teams in South Africa. Stanley Matthews had formed strong relationships with teams in the black townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg some years earlier. In 1975 Matthews organised a trip to Brazil for some of his black township team - dubbed Stan's Men.
Most of them had never left their Soweto home, but Matthews took them to train with the top Brazilian teams. They even got the chance to meet Pele. And prior to the 1975-6 season the club had undergone a tour of the apartheid-ravaged country. For many any contact with such a racist regime was beyond the pale.
The region was engaged in a fierce conflict between the supporters of apartheid regimes in South Africa and the then Rhodesia. Two men with Staffordshire connections were caught up in the violence. Andrew McKenzie whose brother was a farmer near Eccleshall was executed by firing squad in July 1976 following a show trial in the Angolan capital Luanda. McKenzie had been part of a group of mercenaries engaged in a particularly vicious civil war in the country. After his death his brother was concerned that the Angolan government demanded £1,900 for the return of the body. Leek born Mr N Tatton was killed in a land mine explosion in November 1976 whilst on duty with the South African security forces near Kanyemba.
I was Vice Chairman of the City Museum for a brief period in 1986 and the whole story in the Sentinel particularly bought to mind a very enjoyable few days I spent in Arnold’s company in July 1986. I was a fellow delegate to the Association of Museums conference in Aberdeen. I shared the long train journey with Arnold. He was a font of great stories and a few still stick in my mind.
The article touched on his war record and I can recall a story he told me of accompanying Churchill on a Middle East conference during the war. Arnold was a young army officer and it must be have been a daunting experience. It might have been the Casablanca conference in 1943. Arnold had to keep the great man amused. His job was to show Churchill films every evening. A favourite of the Prime Minster was " Lady Hamilton" starring Vivienne Leigh and Laurence Oliver as Nelson. He played the film every evening and Churchill invaribaly sipping a brandy was word perfect in the film by the time the destroyer got to its destination. He also told me that Churchill breakfasted on white wine and chicken legs. It makes you think that we were lead to victory by a great eccentric.
Arnold’s great ally in developing the Museum was Alderman Horace Barks who I was a little in awe of. He is also in need of greater comment. Horace was a great wag and Arnold told me a story of him informing the Mexican Ambassador that his flies were open at the opening of a major exhibition involving a Mexican artist.
The article concentrated on the reopening of the City Museum after a major overhaul in May 1981 by Prince Charles. The then Lord Mayor Les Sillitoe was fussing over his speech of welcome and thought that he would mention the "muriels" outside the Museum. Arnold corrected him " The word is mural, Lord Mayor. The day of the great event arrived and the day was a great success. It was helped in a major part by the soon to happen Royal Wedding and the crowds outside Bethesda St were calling for " Lady Di". The atmosphere got too much for Les as they walked down the ramp to the cheering crowds plucked on the sleeve of the Prince and blurted out " Have you seen out Muriel?"
The other reason to celebrate Arnold is the great list of achivement including a seminal work on English Saltglaze- the standard text on the subject. He was well known and respected throughout the national museum movement as the conference in Aberdeen proved.
The article in the Sentinel pointed out that Arnold was a working class man who was dedicated to the Potteries.In a time when Directors of City Councils departments who seem to adopt a here today, gone tomorrow approach this is as refreshing as it is rare.
I can still recall what she looked like after a gap of over 50 years. She was about 60 but looked older. I supposed she was to use an old fashioned word a crone. She always wore a red mac, given as a gift by my Mother, and bootees with a zip down the middle of them. Leastways that is my memory of her. It was a very lined face with slate grey drab looking hair and a long nose. It was an intense face of constant toil and hardship. I don’t think that she was a frequent dealer in merriment or smiles. I think that I remembered a wart at the corner of the mouth but I may be wrong. It was a face and a personality that most children would have run away from screaming "witch" but I did not see it like that. I guess that she had stories and memories to pass on and I was a willing recipient. I was, as a child , very respectful to older people
Unemployment in the country reached a high of 2.5 million in the 1930s. In 1932 20% of the work force in Leek were without work. Townspeople pulled together to fund a centre in Shoobridge St for the unemployed many veterans of the First War
Unemployment dogged North Staffordshire right up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The soldiers who embarked for Europe, my father amongst them, had reason to fear the poverty of the 1930s and wanted to ensure that there families never had to endure it again. That postwar consensus has been betrayed by politicians.
September 2011 and unemployment is again at 2.5 million. This figure overlooks those who want to work, which pushes the figure up to 4.5 million. Locally 1200 people are workless. There are about 450,000 vacancies nationally. In other words 10 jobless people chasing every job. The number of young people without work is around 1 million. We see evidence of the desperate search for work in Leek when 200 people apply for 2 vacancies in Argos or over 700 for work at Pointons.
In short the world that the Normandy veterans fought to escape from has returned and is now handicapping the lives of many in the town.
I have been following the argument that has raged in the Post and Times about the roundabout. I was struck by one comment that the removal of a piece of traffic management would be an insult to the war dead. In my opinion this is wrong. The greater insult is to see a return to the world of poverty and unemployment they expended their blood and sweat to escape. Cllr Hart poised the question whether it was to be jobs or roundabout. The veterans of both world wars given their experiences would not hesitate to give an answer.
I was thinking of the sad fate of the miners recently on a visit to Caverswall. In the churchyard lie the bones of three distant ancestors killed in the Mossfield Mining disaster in 1889. Mossfield Colliery- long gone- was situated at Adderley Green. Charles, Thomas and Samuel Sherwin three brothers who were to pay with their lives because profit motives, a s the inquiry later revealed, outweighed safety considerations. The youngest Sam was 13 his body was recovered from under his dead pit pony. In the disaster, caused by an explosion, 64 men and boys were killed, as were 16 ponies. It is said that the family used the compensation money to start up a bakery in Werrington. Another story states that a pair of the dead brother’s clogs was attached to the grave in Caverswall. They were not the first or last Sherwin's- my mothers maiden name- to die in a pit.
My great, great, great grandfather Thomas Sherwin was killed in a gunpowder explosion in one of the pits that existed on Wetley Moor in October 1840. And the last was a relative killed nearly a hundred years later at Hanley Deep Pit.
A local newspaper reported on the community response.
.
"bodies were laid side by side on fresh straw to be identified and claimed by relatives. Day wore on into night but the crowd still remained and miners from other collieries were now standing by. A religious service was held near the mouth of the shaft. Mothers, fathers, wives, friends, neighbours, spectators and sightseers all stood bareheaded."
A similar scene was played out outside Gleision Colliery last week to tragically restore the poetic judgement that there is blood on the coal.
You may ask what is this to do with Leek? I would answer everything because we have all been changed by 9/11. Locals who have fought in the subsequent wars. I was recently talking to a mother who son was badly injured in a mine explosion in Helmand province. There were the polarising debates over Iraq in 2003. Many people, myself included, went to the largest rally in London that February. Other consequences have been an increase in distrust of Muslims. Stoke has seen an arson attack on a mosque and a general feeling of uncertainty has increased.
What is to be done? At the time I recalled a quote from the American monk Thomas Merton. Ten years after it serves as the only response to fanaticism.
"The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with a red hot iron. I have to pick up the incandescent metal and burn my own hand while burning the other person. Hate itself is the seed of death in my own heart while it seeks death of another. Love is the seed of life in my own heart while it seeks the good of another.".
Plastic as a substance has been around for about a hundred years and the qualities that have made it so successful its durability and versatility also makes it deadly for wildlife.
Tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals and turtles are killed every year in the marine environment as they often mistake plastic bags for food. Its also been known to damage farm animals.
Plastic bags, once ingested, cannot be digested or passed by an animal so it stays in the gut. Plastic in an animal's gut can prevent food digestion and can lead to a very slow and painful death.
Plastic does not biodegrade because it is a combination of elements extracted from crude oil then re mixed up by men in white coats. Because these combinations are man made they are unknown to nature.
Plastic never really disappears. In effect it lasts forever.
A number of countries are taking measures to restrict the use of plastic bags.
.
Ireland has instituted a steep tax on plastics. According to the country’s Ministry of Environment, use fell by 90 percent as a result, and the tax money that was generated funded a greatly expanded recycling program throughout the country.
Larger economies have joined the cause. French and Italian legislators imposed a ban on all non-biodegradable plastic bags, to go into effect in 2010.
I feel that the UK should equally move in the direction of a ban.
At the current rate of environmental depredation it is likely that humankind will become extinct in the next few hundred years. It would be pathetic if the plastic bag is the proof for any future custodians of the planet of our existence.
