Brown-nosing Liverpool

There is an interesting item in the Independent’s diary page today that notes Gordon Brown has been on the receiving end of some criticism from Evertonians.

Brown apparently took the time out from running the country to make the point that Everton’s motto ‘Nil Satis Nisi Optimum’ (‘Nothing but the best is good enough’) does not correlate with the fact that the club have not won a trophy since 1995 and could be done under the Trade Descriptions Act.

Is this the same Rt. Hon. Brown who, on his first day as Prime Minister, declared that he would be following his school motto (‘I will try my utmost’) during his tenure as the Head of Government?

Maybe there is more to this than you would originally think. Perhaps our Supreme Leader is now allying himself to the red half of Liverpool?

After all, which football team is embroiled in financial crisis, is involved in an unfortunate relationship with Americans and now finds themselves on the verge of being taken over by their rivals after spending the past decade in a superior position?

Referee errors may cost Toffees

Alan Wiley may not have sunk to the depths of Mark Clattenburg or Graham Poll with his refereeing performance in the 0-0 draw with Blackburn Rovers, but the result may have a bearing on how the final months of the season shape up.

I watched open-mouthed as David Dunn, already on a yellow card, was given a bit of a telling off for the most obvious intentional hand ball you are ever likely to see, only for the midfielder to clear a Jagielka attempt off the line thirty seconds later.

Later in the game, yet another Andy Johnson penalty appeal was refused despite the fact that he was quite clearly kicked up in the air by Khizanishvili. It used to be that Johnson would protest the injustice towards the uninterested officials but now he now he shakes his head and carries on with the game, knowing it would take GBH for him to be awarded a penalty.

In the last five minutes Everton seemed to have found a winner when substitute James Vaughan appeared to play Johnson in who cleverly touched it past two defenders to then stroke it into an empty net. The linesman’s conclusion? Offside, despite the fact that there are three players ahead of Johnson when Vaughan touches it across. When Premier League linemen do not understand the rules of offside, there is little hope of improving the dire state of refereeing in English football.

Two draws and two clean sheets against two of our nearest competitors seems like good business over the last four days, but with the chasing pack closing in the games against Tottenham and Blackburn, which really should have been won, could come back to haunt Everton. Personally, I will be cheering on Ghana in their African Cup of Nations quarter final with Nigeria tomorrow – the return of Yakubu Aiyegbeni could not come sooner. Everton have gone three games without scoring but chances are being created. The predatory instinct of the Yak will hopefully mean Everton start to put some of the chances away as the Toffees battle to hold on to fourth place.

In praise of King Newt

 

Raise a glass today for Ken Livingstone, who appears to be leading the polls in the London mayoral contest, in a YouGov/ITV survey.

Despite being the subject of a vitirolic Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and coming under attack on a daily basis from the Evening Standard, Livingstone appears to be leading Boris Johnson by four points at 44%. This is perhaps surprising given the intensity of the smear campaign and the popularity of Johnson in the Tory party.

There is a simple explanation for Livingstone’s lead though: over the past eight years he has done a good job and remains the best candidate for London mayor.

The personal attacks on Livingstone from the Standard are amusing considering the chequered past of it’s favourite son. Darius Guppy, Boris’ old mucker who defrauded Lloyds to the tune of £1.8 million and who collaborated with the Tory candidate to beat up News of the World journalist Stuart Collier, remains a stain on his past. Petronella Wyatt, the daughter of the late Lord Wyatt, with whom Johnson had a four year affair whilst he was married with children, remains another. This is without mentioning the embarassing run-ins with Liverpool and Portsmouth, Jamie Oliver and Papua New Guinea (read here for more). No wonder he struggled to hold down a proper jobs in the Conservative party and was regularly forced to apologise by whoever was leader at the time.

To the general public he may be the clown who appears on quiz shows and rugby tackles Germans in charity football matches, but as the Compass group asserts, in reality he is little more than ‘Tebbit in clown’s clothing‘. His appeal to Londoners stretches as far as those residing in Kensington and Chelsea and people who only spend five days a week in the city and are back on the commute in the evening. He doesn’t represent London – just ask the 750,000 ‘picaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’ who make up 10% of the city’s population.

Livingstone has undoubtedly made mistakes, and some of the accusations brought up by Martin Bright’s Dispatches programme should be answered and investigated in full. However, he has proven over eight years to be an effective and charismatic leader of London, which under his tutelage, has established itself as the world’s leading city. Crime has been cut and there are record numbers of police officers. He has boldly introduced iniatives in public transport, the environment and affordable housing and taken tough political decisions, such as publicly standing up for Sir Ian Blair in the wake of the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting. He has spent his political life working for London, with his two terms as Mayor, his 14 year spell as MP for Brent East and as leader of the Greater London Council in the 1980s. He should be allowed to continue to excel as leader without the distraction of personal attacks from Boris, the television personality and sometimes politican.

Following the campaign, I keep recalling the episode of the Simpsons when Homer runs for the office of Sanitation Commisioner. Homer is elected after a smear campaign on the incumbent and is elected on the back of a series of unfulfillable promises. When it all goes predictably tits up, Ray Patterson (voiced by Steve ‘why are you not funny anymore?‘ Martin) declines the offer to return to the job telling the Springfieldians to ‘wallow in the mess they made’.

Disappointed but optimistic

If last night was a disappointment, it is only a sign of how far we have come.

Five years ago Evertonians would have been ecstatic at reaching a Carling Cup semi-final, never mind sitting in fourth place in the league and looking good in Europe but Moyes has given Toffees the license to dream beyond mid-table consolidation.

Everton are not in a false position in the league but their results against the teams immediately above them have demonstrated the massive gulf in quality that exists in the Premiership.

Some before the game suggested that if ever there was a chance to end the Chelsea hoodoo (it’s now eight years since we beat them), it would be in the semi-final at Goodison. They were missing Terry, Lampard, Essien, Mikel and Drogba and were apparently not the force they were under Mourinho.

In reality, they came up against a supposedly makeshift side that had a centre half who probably cost more than the entire Everton team combined. They were resilient in defence and exhilarating when they counter attacked, swarming forward like bees in those hideous illuminous shirts. They are probably the best team to play at Goodison this year but when they can dip into the market for an emergency £15m striker, it’s the very least you would expect. Avram Grant was meant to be a regressive step and yet Chelsea look a much more convincing side even if the ’sexy football’ that was promised has not quite arrived.

Everton have hit the glass ceiling in fourth place as they struggle to make the leap towards the elite and the regular Champions League football that entails. Foreign investment would be the obvious solution given that all of the clubs challenging at the top are owned by foreign billionaires but there is no guarentee that this will work as evidenced across the park with Statler and Waldorf at Anfield.

 

‘The fans are revolting!’
‘Yeah, we knew that already’

Everton’s best bet is to stick by David Moyes and to stick by Bill Kenwright who although he has had criticism, has allowed Moyes to build a challenging football team within the club’s meagre budgets.

My only hope is that last night will not make our talented nucleus of players believe that winning trophies is now beyond us. Rome was not built in one Carling Cup campaign. We’re getting closer.

Everton’s Euro crackers ready to spoil Manchester United’s party (Sportingo)

The way things are going for Everton at the minute, they couldn’t lose even if they wanted to.

David Moyes elected to pick a second-string team for the apparently meaningless final fixture against AZ Alkmaar yet still finished the game 3-2 winners.

(Read more at Sportingo.com)

Everton head for new heights, but could they have done it without Lee Carsley? (Sportingo)

Everton’s winter revival continued with a 3-0 win over Fulham as the Toffees took their recent record of 10 games without defeat. For David Moyes, it seems everything is now falling into place. Yakubu, the £11.25m striker who did not enjoy the happiest of starts to his Goodison career, scored a ‘perfect’ hat-trick (one each with his left, right and head) to add to his tally of eight goals this season.

(Read more at Sportingo.com)

Everton make their point at Pompey

(match report written for Portsmouth vs Everton, 1 Dec 2007)

After the events of the last week, it was no surprise that the interest in Everton’s fixture against Portsmouth on Saturday was not the Toffee’s impressive recent form.

Harry Redknapp’s arrest on Thursday by the City of London police as part of their investigation into allegations of corruption in football ensured the spotlight was on the Pompey manager and his team but with Everton continuing their now eight match unbeaten run, that will do just fine.

There was little of the sparkling attacking football that both teams have shown in recent fixtures as two sides in direct competition for European places cancelled each other out, but considering Portsmouth’s unbeaten home record and ten match unbeaten run it will go down as another successful weekend for David Moyes’ side.

Redknapp was considered to be one of the major candidates for the vacant England job and while his chances may be reduced by his association with the ongoing investigation, he has built a very competent football team on the south coast.

At times the flair of Niko Kranjar and the excellent Sulley Muntari threatened to overwhelm Everton, but the Toffees were excellent defensively with the partnership of Joseph Yobo and Joleon Lescott providing an effective barrier to Portsmouth’s forays forward.

Last week it was the Everton attack who earned the plaudits as they plundered seven goals past Sunderland, but the impressive rearguard on Saturday showing suggests Everton are a team with balance and quality all over the pitch.

There have been doubts over whether Lescott and Yobo could play together without an experienced head like Alan Stubbs to organise the defence but with each game the pair seem to develop more of an understanding.

Lescott has struggled for form since his early season goalscoring exploits, but leading the back four at Fratton Park he showed the quality that lead to his call up by McClaren to the national team.

Vociferously backed by a home crowd determined to show their support to their beleaguered manager, it was Portsmouth who dominated the first half with Sulley Muntari constantly finding himself with the space around the Everton box to try his luck with long range efforts.

The Ghana international also came close with two free-kicks, the first evading Papa Boupa Diop head for a likely goal and the second crashing off the top of the cross bar as the first half drew to a close.

Tim Cahill’s return to the Everton midfield has been successful and borne six goals from seven starts but the side of his game that means he commits needless fouls remains a weakness in tight away fixtures such as these.

With a lenient referee and home backing, his niggling style can work to the team’s advantage, but his rash tackle on Muntari on 30 minutes meant a booking from Peter Walton and diminished his impact on the game.

Steven Pienaar too was booked for a challenge on the lively Kranjar and was lucky to stay on the pitch after several frustrated fouls.

After a half of Portsmouth dominance, Andrew Johnson’s introduction after 52 minutes gave Everton the impetus to go and make a stake for the points and Leon Osman should have done better when he failed to control in the box with only David James to beat.

There were not enough superlatives to shower the performance of Mikel Arteta last week but he was largely anonymous on an afternoon where the midfield seemed to struggle, with only the hard-working Lee Carsley shining in the Everton quintet.

However, James had to be on his guard on the hour when Arteta’s free-kick was saved comfortably.

An altercation between Sol Campbell and the substitute Victor Anichebe threatened to liven the game up but the situation was defused without the referee having to book any players.

In the frantic final minutes, Portsmouth almost clinched the win when Kranjar’s drive was parried by Tim Howard, but Joleon Lescott slid in to put the ball out for a corner when Kanu seemed certain to pounce.

Another point on the road for Everton against a good side as they enter the busy Christmas period bodes well for the rest of the season, but the Toffees will need to recreate the attacking form they displayed last week if they are to continue their climb up the table towards the European places.

Arteta leads Everton to seventh heaven

(match report written for Everton vs Sunderland, 25 Nov 2007)

Sunderland manager Roy Keane had spoken in the pre match build-up that Everton, with it’s policy of allowing the manager time to build a squad and bring through young players, were a model of what he wanted to achieve in the North East.
On Saturday’s display his side may be a million miles away from the breathtaking attacking football that graced Goodison Park, but for Moyes, his five year plan is beginning to bear fruit.
This was perhaps Moyes best performance since he took over the job in 2002, and there is now an undoubted attacking prowess to complement the already steady defensive play that have become a hallmark of his sides.
Now seven games unbeaten in all competitions, Everton look full of confidence and appear to have goalscorers in every area of the pitch.
Three midfielders were amongst the goals but it was the virtuoso attacking performance from Mikel Arteta that caught the eye.
Arteta, who did not score but came close on several occasions, was at the centre of everything that Everton did and each flick, stepover and finely measured pass was met by wild acclaim from the crowd.
The Spaniard moved this week to deny reports of him signing for Athletico Madrid in the January transfer window and while that is encouraging news for Evertonians, it’s still obvious that without him, they would be a shadow of the team they are threatening to become.

The Nigerian striker Yakubu has endured a rocky start to his career at Everton but he has now found his goalscoring touch with five in the Premiership for his new club.
Many baulked at the fee paid out for the player when he arrived from Middlesborough but his prolific nature in front of goal is now beginning to show.
He got the first of the afternoon on 12 minutes when his shot took a deflection off Danny Higginbotham into the roof of the net.
Five minutes later and it was two when Arteta flicked a ball in from the edge of the box for Phil Neville who teed it for Tim Cahill. Cahill, holding off two defenders, duly poked it into the bottom corner past Craig Gordon.
Cahill’s return to the side after a metatarsal injury has seen the Australian midfielder score six goals in six starts.
His constant threat in the penalty area has seen him being used as a second striker and with his constant harrying and an eye for a goal, it is a tactic that is paying out for Everton.
Another recent star has been the on-loan winger Steven Pienaar.
His vision put in Nuno Valente on 43 minutes, who then played it back in for the charging South African and without a second thought blasted it into the top corner.
Some of Everton’s goals on Saturday were gifted by the generous Sunderland defence (the hapless Paul McShane was in a particularly philanthropic mood) but this was attacking football at it’s very best.
Despite the exploits of their defence, Sunderland were beginning to grow in confidence in attack with striker Kenwyne Jones making life difficult for the Everton back four but it was Dwight Yorke, playing in midfield, who gave the Black Cats a foothold in the game on the stroke of half-time.
The former Manchester United striker couldn’t miss from 12 yards after Tim Howard parried after saving two Sunderland attempts.

Tim Cahill increased the Everton lead on the hour when he controlled a Joseph Yobo pass, took it past the defender and slotted it into the bottom corner.
Cue the patented corner flag boxing celebration and much kissing of the badge.
Yakubu doubled his tally to make it 5-1 ten minutes later when Arteta got away from his marker from a corner to play a ball into the six yard box where the £11m striker was waiting to finish.
Sunderland fans could only look on in horror as Tim Cahill and Yakubu, both with two goals to their name, were swapped for another fearsome double act in Victor Anichebe and the returning Andy Johnson and it didn’t take long for either to make their mark.
Johnson, in his first appearance after undergoing ankle surgery, scored with what was probably his first touch as he deftly took down a Neville long ball and dinked it over the onrushing Gordon with ten minutes left.
With the Goodison crowd baying for more after Anichebe was denied a penalty, the impetus fell to the excellent Leon Osman to cap the goalscoring off and finally give the overworked scoreboard updater a well deserved tea break.
Osman, who is about to sign a new contract, received the ball just inside the Sunderland area and raced on, jinking past two defenders before slotting it into the bottom right corner of the goal.
Moyes, who joked pre-match that he was ‘focused on coaching and managing his team’ in a jibe at rival Rafa Benitez, described the performance as the team’s best since he became manager.
“Some of our football was fantastic and our passing and movement was just outstanding,” he said. “It is how I have been hoping to get an Everton team playing and I hope we see Everton playing that was more often – hopefully it’s the first of many. Some of our football was fantastic and our passing and movement was just outstanding.”

Meeting Maggie May

Liverpool’s maritime history has left the city with a rich folk music legacy, and perhaps most famous amongst the old sea shanties is ‘Maggie May’. Telling the story of a Victorian prostitute who is sent on the prison boat to Van Diemen’s Land in Tasmania, it has become something of an informal anthem of the city and adorns the name of cafés, inspired musicals and even appears as a brief John Lennon led interlude on the Beatles’ album ‘Let It Be’. The origins of the song and whether ‘dirty robbing no good Maggie May’ even existed at all have been hotly debated topics in recent years but one local film-maker believes that he has finally cracked the mystery.

John Gannon has been researching the beginnings of the song for the past year and he has discovered that not only did Maggie May exist, but that she was a young teenage girl who stood at only 4ft 11 inches tall. The results of his findings will help form the basis of a six part series that he has been commissioned to write currently titled ‘Nelly Ray’.

“The song has been around for a very long time, but it’s impossible to say when it started exactly because so many different versions exist. It began as a foc’sle song and it was used to warn other sailors in other ports that when they came to Liverpool to avoid this Maggie May as she would rob from you. It’s never been known whether or not this was just a traditional standard thing or a representation of life as a prostitute in Victorian Liverpool but through looking into this I’ve managed to discover that she was real and she was only a teenage girl.”

The earliest version of the song appears in the diary of Charles Picknell, a sailor on the convict ship ‘Kains’ which sailed to Van Diemens Land in 1830 and protagonist is ‘Nelly Ray’ rather than Maggie. There are no mentions of a Maggie May on the books but John’s ardous research through court records and transport lists meant that he discovered that a Mary Ann Ray, or ‘Nelly Ray’, travelled to Liverpool as a nine year old girl in 1832 from the village of Magheraberg, County Down with John Ray, a married man from the same town who was her original ‘pimp’. She was born Mary Ann Clark and from many hours searching through census records discovered that she was brought to the city as an orphan and left to work the dirty rat-infested streets of one of the most dangerous ports in the world.

Although the age of consent at the time was 12 years old, Maggie found herself constantly in trouble with the police although as referenced in the song, this was as much for her tendency to steal from her customers and anywhere else she could than for her exploits on the streets. The line in one version of the song about ’skinned so many tailors’ refers to the practice among prostitutes to steal silk and then pawn it at ‘Kelly’s pawnshop, number 9′.

“From court records I’ve found that she was indicted twice for theft and was then sent to Van Diemen’s land, which was the penal colony in Tasmania,” he says. “She was sent at the age of 18 to an even stranger but just as dangerous environment and for me her story of struggle is an immensely interesting film.”

According to the record sheet, her second indictment was for the theft of one watch, one purse, one snuff box, one pocket book and one handkerchief belonging to Richard Chrutchley whilst he was receiving her services and she was only caught after running into a policeman coming on-duty in her escape.

The tragic tale of Maggie May is set against the backdrop of Victorian Liverpool, then in the midst of the industrial revolution boom. The colour and the drama of the overcrowded, filthy streets provides a fascinating setting for the story.

“There is an undoubted romanticism about the place although you definitely wouldn’t want to live there. I want to make the film as accurate to the times as I possibly can and putting it into a visual sense I can hopefully give it the context to give a true glimpse of the people, circumstance and times. There are characters who appear in the story such as priests and doctors who try to give a sense of narrative but who Maggie may not have necessarily crossed paths with. I think one of the most important things to remember about Liverpool is that it has never had a trade. All of these towns around the North West had their own trades but our business was humping things from one ship and putting it on to another, and it’s the main reason why prostitution was rife with the endless stream of sailors getting off one boat and getting on the other. The Scotland Road area was rife with brothels, which were typically rooms run by older women who lived with the girls. It was quite rare for a girl to have a outsider male ‘pimp’ in the way that we understand the term now, but by the time she was put on the prison ship she had the branding of twelve different owners.”

John is also using his research to write a book, explaining that sometimes a drama sometimes has to bend the truth in the name of artistic license. “I didn’t want to make a documentary because when you watch a documentary you usually come out thinking ‘oh, that was interesting’, but I want to make a movie that people will appeal to them emotionally. Movies need to spark a reaction in someone, something that may have been lying dormant for their whole life, but which touches them by end. When you write for an audience, you have to think of them en masse but also as one person and I try and think to myself ‘How do I reach this one person?’”

Film writers often feel that characters become extensions of themselves by the time they have finished writing and John is no exception. He talks about the young Maggie May with parental affection and having spent many long days researching and writing scripts he feels undoubted empathy towards the other characters that he has created. “As a father myself, I feel very protective towards Maggie May. To think that she was only a little girl, and she was little, left to fend on the streets on her own and having to steal and prostitute herself for money is tragic and it’s a miracle she lasted so long. She must have been a little star to have lasted so long in what was a very dangerous place and then to be sent to Tasmania as well.”

John is currently in the process of selling the script to the Australian television company ABC and for his next project he wants to concentrate on her new life in Tasmania. “After her 136 day trip to Hobart on the other side of the world, she lived until she was about 65 and from what I’ve found she marries, has children and constantly finds herself in trouble with the authorities once again. She eventually died in Launceston Invalid Depot of ’senility’. Australia’s history is all about the ships of convicts that came from Britain so I hope that they will be interested in the next part of the film as well.”

John’s background as a writer has taken many forms, from script-writer for BBC Radio 4 comedy programme ‘Weekending’ to magazine articles on crime stories for an array of magazines. His first big break, to his ‘eternal shame’, was a poem that was used in the children’s TV programme ‘Rainbow’. Titled ‘Tea for Two’ and telling the story of a monster who visits a child he met on holiday for a cup of tea, it’s a million miles from Victorian Liverpool but gave him his first shot at writing as a full time career. After a succesful Masters degree for Creative Writing, he has written a variety of well received work, including a script that won the Lynda la Plante award for ‘Best Script’ in 2006. Like many local writers before him, he has found his own home city to be a fascinating canvass to work on.

“The city in the 1800s was such an interesting place, when it was at it’s peak as a world city and a great port. I’ve always wanted to see what the city looked like then and through the story of Maggie I’ll hopefully be able to give viewers what it was really like then.”

Shack attack

SHACK REVIEW, OCT 26, CARLING ACADEMY

Decisions, decisions. Friday night in Liverpool and the gig going crowd are spoilt for choice. Over at the Mountford Hall, it’s Ian Brown who despite not having a reason to show his face in public since the Stone Roses disbanded is still selling out arenas up and down the country. Over at the Cavern Club at a fiver a ticket, we have Echo and the Bunnymen. The billing at the other fringe venues is populated by a plethora of skinny-jeaned hopefuls who make up for their lack of songs with haircuts. For the purist though we have Shack, touring their ‘greatest hits’ album on home turf at the Carling Academy.

Shack’s history is one that is more suited to a novel than a review and is often so outlandish that anyone proposing a biopic would be laughed out of town on the grounds that it is too unrealistic. Rising from the ashes of the 1980s band The Pale Fountains, lead singer Mick Head and his brother John formed Shack. Their second album Waterpistol was lost in a studio fire and when an original copy was found in a glove compartment of a hire car in Los Angeles the band had split and were without a record label. Mick fell deep into the throes of drug addiction but along with John recorded the Magical World of the Strands, a string laden collection of poignant songs which received widespread critical acclaim but never threatened to trouble the charts. Shack re-formed to release Waterpistol after an off-chance meeting with a French label owner and then followed it up with HMS Fable. Mick’s wizened face appeared on the front cover of the NME with the strapline ‘This is our greatest living songwriter. Recognise him?’. Everything seemed to be set for glory, but with Mick’s addiction to heroin worsening, the promise the album brought had begun to fade away. The band had once again stolen defeat from the jaws of victory. However, ‘Here’s Tom With The Weather’ and last year’s ‘On the Corner of Miles and Gil’ sealed a succesful comeback, with the last album released by Noel Gallagher’s label ‘Sour Mash’.

The evening’s entertainment begins in the basement of HMV on Bold Street at five o’clock, where a crowd of around 200 have gathered for the ‘in-store’ appearance. After a rapturous welcome when the band appear from round the back of some world music CD racks, they start into a note perfect ‘Neighbours’ from Waterpistol and everything is going well. Two songs later, and in true Shack fashion, it looks like it might be a long evening ahead. Mick, perhaps ‘tired and emotional’ and affected slightly by the dedication of a song to his daughter, is forgetting the words of songs he’s performed every night for the last two weeks. The assembled crowd continue to look on in admiration but while the rest of the band are singing his lyrics Mick slumps over his guitar, still strumming but staring at the floor. The four song set is concluded by an apology and Mick dropping his guitar onto the ground.

It’s 9:30, and the Carling Academy is packed and full of expectation and when they break into the 1990 single ‘I Know You Well’ and it’s like the HMV performance never happened. They play with verve, confidence and a swagger that allows their majestic pop songs to shine through. Mick is back at his charismatic best, leading the band through perfect renditions of Comedy, Pull Together and a rousing Streets of Kenny, his ode to scoring heroin in Liverpool 7. John, a talented songsmith in his own right, chips in with Butterfly, Cornish Town and Miles Apart. Each song, new and old, is met with ecstatic acclaim, with the brothers offering embarrassed thanks in return. The outstanding highlight is the Love flavoured Meant To Be with it’s baroque inspired middle 8 usually lead by horns. Their absence on stage tonight is filled by the crowd, who joyously sing along the part instead. With that, the band are off the stage but are lured back on by the crowd continuing to sing along for minutes afterwards. A solo rendition of ‘Daniella’, perhaps the most autobiographical song in Mick’s canon, has the entire audience in total silence but the roof is almost lifted off for the show closer, a pulsating cover of Love’s ‘A House Is Not A Motel’. The Head brothers may have once toured with Arthur Lee as his backing band but this version is as good as anything their hero recorded.

The lights go up, Mick bids farewell with “I do love yers all, yer know” and the band disappear into the night with the crowd buzzing behind them. After all these years, these four middle aged greying men still have more talent, more showmanship and more songs than most bands that are critically feted and publicly popular. Why they remain ignored will stay as one of music’s great mysteries but as long as they keep delivering shows like this, none of the audience there on Friday night will mind.

(original pictures used)