The Farther Corner: A Sentimental Return to North-East Football

by Harry Pearson

Widely regarded as one of the best football books ever written, The Far Corner was a vivid portrait of the sport in the north-east and of the people who bring such passion to it. Now, a generation later, Harry Pearson returns to the region to discover how much things have changed - and how much they have remained the same. 

In the mid-1990s, Kevin Keegan brought sporting romance and expectation of trophies to Newcastle, Sunderland moved the the Stadium of Light backed by a wealthy consortium, Middlesbrough signed one of the best Brazilians of the era and won their first major trophy - even little Darlington had a former safe-cracker turned kitchen magnate in charge, promising the world. The region even provided England's two key players in Euro 96 in Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne - the far corner seemed destined to become the centre of England's footballing world. But it never happened.

Using travels to and from matches in the 2018-19 season, The Farther Corner will explore the changes in north-east football and society over the past twenty-five years. Visiting new places and some familiar ones, catching the stories, the sentiment and the sound of the supporters, locating where football now sits in the life of a region that was once proud to be what John Arlott suggested was ‘The Hotbed of Soccer’, it will be about love and loss and the happiness to be found eating KitKats and joking about Bobby Mimms on cold February days in coal-scented northern air. The region may have been left behind in the Champions League stakes, but few would doubt the power of its beating heart. 
 

Genres: Football, Sports, Nonfiction, Soccer

330 pages, Paperback

Published September 2, 2021

Reviews

[Derek Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the late 80s if you walked into any bookshop looking for books on football you would be faced with a line of official histories and ghost written biographies. The fanzine movement was starting to have an impact as we entered the nineties as better written books were starting to appear covering different aspects of our national game and looking into different corners. In 1994 Harry Pearson launched 'The Far Corner' into the football world- a witty, well written and affectionate look at football in the North East at all levels told by way of games attended in the 93/94 season but so much more than a simple match diary. It was without doubt one of the best football books of its time and remains so.

25 years on and you can barely move for football books and blogs about struggling clubs, grassroots clubs and what it's like to follow perennial losers. It feels at times that the only people at non-league games these days are groundhoppers ticking the ground off and bloggers/authors writing their diary of a season in the lower reaches as they search for the spirit of the game whilst vaguely patronising the actual fans. It's become sports equivalent of poverty tourism functionally written up,

So it takes a brave man to step back into this pool but that's what Pearson has done. After 25 years where he has written about many things away from football and also continued to provide excellent football journalism mainly for The Guardian but also for When Saturday Comes (which is truly his spiritual home) he has stepped back into the football of the North East. This is a book born of a personal crisis as Pearson faces major mid-life changes. Travelling the grounds he reconnects with the range of football in the North East and clearly finds a comfort in the travels and the football. The people he meets and observes, the local and personal history and the football are all brought vividly to life. What sets Pearson apart from the myriad of other writers and bloggers is the quality of his writing, his turn of phrase and his descriptions of the grounds, the players and the fans all put him head and shoulders above the others.

It's a superb book and a suitable follow up to the original.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the past twenty-five years, football had changed beyond all recognition. In 1992, the twenty-two clubs that comprised the old first division resigned from the Football League en masse and, with the connivance of the Football Association, a body so spineless it had to be carried round in a bucket, set up the Premier League.

Twenty-five years ago Harry Pearson wrote The Far Corner, one of the best football books ever (I know, low bar). This is the sequel. Since the first book football has changed (see quote above). The North-East of England has changed. Harry's life has changed, and in ways disturbingly similar to mine. It struck a chord, and although I haven't taken up groundhopping as therapy, I have, by a strange set of circumstances, ended up supporting a non-league club. (Torquay United, I ask you). So my review may not be entirely objective.

The story of a season (2018-19) following non-League football around the North-East made me laugh out loud several times a chapter, but also struck several poignant not to say serious notes. Football grounds are rarely in salubrious areas, and Pearson's honest descriptions of the howling wasteland left behind to rot after all the industry closed ought to make Labour politicians examine their consciences, in the unlikely event they have any. (They'll always vote for us, Pearson quotes one saying, they've got nowhere else to go. Thanks a lot, brothers, and up yours, too).

Amidst all this, though, there is strangely little mention of Middlesbrough's (Harry's team) brief glory years, and five cup finals, one of which they actually won, and none at all of Steve Gibson, their owner at the time, or Steve McClaren, their most (only) successful manager. I'd have liked to have known how Harry felt about all that. Maybe it was just too traumatic. Nobody watches Boro to enjoy themselves, after all.

[Ian Plenderleith · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This review was first published by Soccer America)

A couple of years back some old school friends from England came to visit me in Germany. We arranged to meet up in the fine city of Düsseldorf, and I was charged with the itinerary. Fortuna Düsseldorf was not at home that weekend, but its reserves were -- playing against SC Verl in the Regional League West. "Great," grumbled one of my friends over breakfast. "I knew we could rely on you for some crap fourth division soccer."

His tune had changed by the end of the day. We'd walked to the historic Paul-Janes Stadium through parts of the city mostly unseen by visitors. We ate sausage from an open-coal barbeque, drank freshly tapped draft beer, and fell into conversation with fans who were curious why a handful of middle-aged Brits were watching Fortuna Düsseldorf's second string on a wet March afternoon. The game ended 3-2 for the visitors (attendance: 139), with Düsseldorf defender Leander Goralski scoring a bizarre, lofted own goal (for which he immediately blamed his goalkeeper) to win the game for Verl. In short, there was plenty to talk about, and plenty to remember.

If Harry Pearson lived in Germany, it's the sort of ground he'd seek out on a freezing winter's night. He knows that every game tells its own story, no matter where it's played, no matter how good or bad the players are. In his native northeast England, each club -- be it Newcastle United in the Premier League or Heaton Stannington of the Ebac Northern League Division Two - has a history of boom and almost-bust. They've boasted gifted players who achieved great things, or notoriously failed due to a combination of circumstance and fallibility. Each weather-beaten ground, be it at Dunston, Esh Whinning or Seaham Red Star, is interwoven with the identity of an economically neglected region where the steel plants have been closed and the coal mines long since mothballed.

The Farther Corner is a sequel to Pearson's classic The Far Corner, first published in the mid-1990s. The formula was simple. The witty Pearson, heavily armed with analogies and one-liners, spent his weekends at the region's soccer stadiums braving vile weather and dubious food while casting his observational eye upon the spectators who, for whatever reason, chose to spend their Saturday afternoons watching or emoting to what many would concede is, in pure sporting terms, a poor excuse for entertainment. Each chapter represented a different game, a new venture into stoicism, despair and failure, and a thicker layer of sleet, fog or slanting rain. Some 25 years later, it's still cited by many as their all-time favorite soccer book.

Pearson acknowledges in his introduction to the follow-up that much has changed in that quarter of a century. "New all-seater stadiums were built, old ones improved and expanded beyond recognition," he writes in The Farther Corner. "Foreign stars flooded in. The quality of football improved as markedly as the grounds." Yet this new brand of soccer is "high maintenance. Games kicked off at whatever times the TV paymasters wanted, with no thought for how away fans might get home afterwards. What had once cost the same as a trip to the pictures was now more like a night at the opera." So The Farther Corner focuses even more than its predecessor on the lower end of the English game, on the clubs that have survived and continue the struggle in the face of financial odds that are perpetually stacked against them.

Nonetheless, while the major professional clubs in the region -- Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Sunderland -- have all struggled in spite of the extra millions at the game's top level, "non-League football in the North East experienced an unexpected renaissance." When you read Pearson, it's not hard to understand why. As well as the cheaper tickets and the convenience of the smaller crowds, the very character of non-League soccer in England is a lure for romantics, nostalgics and anyone with time to spare who feels at home in a soccer stadium.

An expensive and often sterile day out at Premier League soccer is incomparable with the experience of sitting in a three-figure crowd and hearing what curmudgeonly pensioners ("stony-faced codgers") are shouting at the referees or the away team's bench. Or seeing the "bulbous, middle-aged man in a beige anorak, swirly, flapping tie and hank Marvin glasses" who feverishly commentates the game's events into a dead mobile phone, pretending to be a reporter. What are these games for, Pearson asks, "if not to offer a safe and soothing haven to the lost, the lonely and the bewildered?"

Almost in passing, the author tells us that he too suffered a personal breakdown in the intervening years, but that he found solace in the bedrock of the region's soccer to help keep him on the rails. "Hardship can push you two ways," he muses while walking around a deprived and crime-ridden part of Middlesbrough. "It can make you parsimonious, mean-spirited and greedy, or generous, careless of the things you have been denied. Life is a game you can't win; the best you can do is battle on and laugh in its face."

There is thankfully plenty to laugh about in this wise, funny and reflective book, spiced with historical context, diversionary anecdotes, and warmly related eavesdropping during a grey afternoon spent at, say, Ryton and Crawcrook Albion. A friend's wife tells Pearson, "Sometimes he wakes me up at night with his bloody chuckling. And I say, are you still laughing about that damned football match you went to with Harry?"

"And, of course," Pearson writes, "he is."

[Ipswichblade · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was only ever going to be 5 stars. The original The Far Corner is the best book written about football ever and the sequel is just superb. It’s like meeting up with an old friend and immediately falling into conversation. If you have any interest in football or the north east of England you will not go wrong with this book

[Jake Allingan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very enjoyable tour around non-league football in the North East, brought to life by the quality of Pearson’s writing and the wit displayed on most pages. Slightly repetitive in parts, with similar characters attending the various games Pearson described, but entertaining nonetheless.

[Joe O'Donnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Football used to be an escape from grim economic reality - now it is grim economic reality”. These plaintive words from a disconsolate Newcastle United fan, quoted in the opening chapter of “The Farther Corner”, have an added pathos with that club’s recent takeover by the Saudi Arabian government. This feeling that the modern top-level game is now completely adrift from the everyday lives of fans – that, to coin a phrase, “modern football is rubbish” - is a recurring background theme throughout “The Farther Corner”, Harry Pearson’s sequel to his classic history of football in the north-east of England, “The Far Corner”. But “The Farther Corner” is also about trying to find an alternative to the hyper-commercialism of the Premier League, mainly by reconnecting with the (almost entirely unglamorous) grassroots of the game.

We last joined Harry Pearson in the north-east during the mid-90s, a more optimistic age when Kevin Keegan’s thrilling Newcastle side were challenging for league titles, and Sunderland and Middlesbrough were flush with cash and resurgent. A quarter of a century later, it is fair to say that we find the North-East, both in an economic and in a football sense, on its arse. As Pearson writes, a “far corner of England that had always seemed separate now feels increasingly abandoned [and] disillusioned”.

While the north-east is a region that has repeatedly been kicked in the bollocks for nearly a half a century – a status that is inescapable in this book – it would a huge mistake to assume that “The Farther Corner” is somehow a gloomy affair. “The Farther Corner” essentially sees Pearson groundhopping around the Northern League during the 2018-2019 season, using his travels to various games as a starting point to explore the psyche of the north-east.

And what a psyche to explore. The great joy of “The Farther Corner” is in Harry Pearson recounting the characters, eccentrics, and weirdos he encounters at various non-league fixtures across the north-east of England. This is a world of spot-ball-competitions, overly garrulous Geordie barbers, half-time raffles with singularly unappealing prizes, and dodgy club chairmen with more than a passing acquaintance with the criminal underworld – all wonderfully drawn here by Pearson. Throughout “The Farther Corner”, Harry Pearson has a remarkable ear for the absurdly surreal terrace rant (such as the women supporter shouting abuse with a “voice like Edith Piaf gargling gravel”). And he has a masterful way with a simile, whether describing a rotund centre back as having “thighs that require a HGV license”, or his sketch of the deathless Durham Bus Station as being “as changeless as a Roy Keane stare ... like standing inside a chain-smoker’s lung”.

Subtly but surely, this book demonstrates how football can be one of the most effective and direct routes for understanding a region and, in particular, its people. In “The Farther Corner”, Harry Pearson has achieved the almost impossible and written a marvellous sequel to one of the greatest football books of all-time. By focusing on the minutiae and oddball eccentricities of lower-level football, Pearson provides a hugely welcome antidote to the machinations of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund and all the other rotten elements of modern football.

[Katy Purvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatest index I've ever read

I adore the far corner, I have bought thousands of books in my lifetime, but have bought a copy of the far corner tens of times. I read it and instantly think of a friend I must lend it to, forget who that was, buy another copy, read and repeat for twenty odd years. I was so excited to see there was a sequel, I immediately bought a copy for my mum, who is similarly obsessed. I'm not exactly well off at the moment, and quite depressed so treated myself to a kindle copy that I couldn't really afford but decided it was equivalent to a prescription, and I can't lend it to someone and lose it. And it was exactly what I needed. My interest in football has declined since the nineties, but I was transported as usual due to the lovely observations, attention to detail, and genuine pride with lowered expectations of north east teams. And I was very happy to see my nw home team, Warrington town, mentioned, and I will try to visit them more often than I have recently. But yes, the index is brilliant, I especially liked the acknowledgement of the duplicate Mike Ashley simile, but properly laughed at thora hird entry, and many others. I have possibly contributed to Harry Pearson by purchasing multiple copies of two books , beyond supporting any other writer, living or dead, which is quite odd, but definitely proves endorsement

[Jane Lowes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original Far Corner is my favourite book of all time ( and that's quite a high bar). I've read it over and over, and loaned it out to so many people I've had to buy numerous replacement copies. I was eagerly anticipating this book like the return of an old friend. The first few chapters reduced me to tears of sadness and howls of laughter, and my relationship with this "old friend" was very quickly rekindled. This is a delightful book, however beneath the wit and the masterful characterful observations, I detect a sadness at what has happened to our game in the North East, in the decades since The Far Corner was written, a sadness which I share. It just isn't the same any more. I'd fallen out of love with football; this book has made me at least consider the possibility of a reconciliation. Thank you Harry.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this over a few months on short train journeys, because each chapter is independent and the humour is generally better enjoyed in short bursts, but this was much the same as his first book written about 25 years earlier, in style and execution.

The matches are therefore the running theme to the writing, rather than the main subject. Wisecracking passengers on trains and buses to the grounds, childhood reminiscences and observations on society in general make for entertaining chapters, in Pearson's usual style of comical similes and portraits of fellow fans. The German friend who chuckled at a lower league game years later was a highlight for me but perhaps it is just fresher in the memory.

As in The Far Corner there was football of all levels included, both in terms of matches and context, although there was less of the history of the Northern League which formed a considerable part of the first title. The teams themselves were given more coverage to compensate, but on the whole there was still a sociability to the writing and it was driven by the people. Again, perhaps this was more pronounced later on but there seemed to be much less description of the matches, possibly because it's not as entertaining as the distractions and stories.

Lots of authors have released books about a season of matches but this ranks above the majority, as it is much funnier if employing somewhat more of a creative license (there surely can't be this many comedy characters on buses in the North?). Despite being a rerun of his earlier book, it feels fresh and is a worthy rerun.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stormed through this after finished The Far Corner earlier. I was familiar with that book, but I'd never read this one. In fact I don't think I even knew it existed.

Written covering the 2018-19 season it is set in a very changed football world than The Far Corner and, it turns out, a very changed world for Harry Pearson. He seems to have had a tough time of it for a period.

This book also is more focused on non-League football than The Far Corner was, which I liked. We hear enough of the higher levels of the pyramid these days. It is also an opportunity to tell stories about clubs and players we are unfamiliar with.

It is, in most respects, similarly structured and written as The Far Corner but there's an almost elegiac air to it that isn't in the first book. Pearson is now in his 50s and - as mentioned - has been through a lot and I think that is reflected a little in the tone of the book. As a man in my 50s myself some of his comments rang very true. This one in particular clanged a few bells:

"That, I realised, was one of the problems of being a middle-aged man – you constantly found yourself unable to choose which of a multitude of trivial matters you should be getting angry about. It made my blood boil, I can tell you."

I feel I've missed Pearson's writing. I might have to dip into some of his other books. Some of which I have read before, some of which I hadn't.

[Rauno Villberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't even watch football and I especially don't watch whatever-tier UK football, so why would I read this? I've lost control of my life.
Well, no: not everything has to make total sense.
I liked the author's book on Belgian cycling, especially the prose, so I came looking for more of that and got it in spades. Very enjoyable, if you can enjoy descriptions of depressing rundown small town life.
And - to borrow a phrase from the great Spin Cycle podcast - a whole lot of "guys naming dudes".

"It was an uneventful game. The teams played with all the urgency of a schoolboy walking to double physics. But that was fine. We had come not for wild entertainment, but mild diversion - we were standing around out of doors in the sunshine and society was allowing us to pass it off as doing something. It was like fishing without the maggots."

A special mention to what has to be the funmiest index section I've ever encountered in a book, fully earning that fifth star. To give a few examples, just from the A-s:
"Aplomb: Correct usage in a football scenario of, p. 91"
"A-Team, The: Coaching staff likened to (though no suggestion of which might be Faceman), p. 79"
"Attenborough, Lord David: Woman on bus to Walker swearily denies being, p. 136"
Glorious.

[Grant S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twenty five odd years ago I read and enjoyed the predecessor to this book, 'The Far Corner.'
So looking for a light hearted read I spotted this in my local 'Waterstones' and dived in.
It follows the same format of the first book, a writer follows a season of non league football through various matches in the North East of England.
It's generally light hearted and paints pictures of the various characters, supporters and players past and present that he encounters on his travels.
There's also plenty of social comment on the lack of employment and loss of industry in this working class area.
Harry is also dealing with a personal mid life crisis, a marriage that's failed and dwindling journalism work. These factors tinge the writing with a certain melancholy and longing for a lost past.
An enjoyable history of unheralded football clubs in the North East.

[Kevin Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun ramble around the non-league scene of North-East England - and, more enlighteningly, through the region in general. It can get a bit samey at times - it's effectively 23 accounts of going to a match, with brief team histories and notes on famous former players followed by a report of the games, and this limitation of range means it doesn't necessarily match the author's columns in When Saturday Comes, for example. But Pearson's writing and people-watching skills - the latter of which he'll no doubt say is easy at these games, being much of the attraction of going - make this still an enjoyable read.

It probably teeters between a 3* and a 4*, but the index at the back is brilliantly unique and tips the balance. "Ban, European - Almost extended by Shildon goalkeeper bum-crack incident", "Reed, Lou - Summarises daytime walk in Middlesbrough", or "Now, You're Not In London - As explanation of epic shitness of North-East public transport" - what's not to like?!

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Harry's book from thirty years ago, THE FAR CORNER, this is a great read for all the same reasons - it's sentimental, as stated, in love with a part of the country that not a lot of people know, let alone grow to like, and it gets under the skin of the region via its author's visit to a number of non-league football matches. Capturing the gallows humour, the ennui, the often brutal honesty and the sad realisation that football - for a long time one of the northeast's great exports - is at last a dwindling force. Essential reading, especially for those of us - like me - who have moved on and need the occasional shot in the arm of what we are missing.

[James Fountain · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific follow-up to The Far Corner, Harry Pearson’s marvellous second book on (mostly) north-east English football is a further joy to read. His observations and cracking anecdotes of the local people are wonderful to read if you are from the north east, living away and a little homesick as I am. The two books make you proud to have been brought up in the region, and to have known some of the brilliant people who live there and their unique brand of craic. Pearson captures all of this with wonderful skill.

[Felix · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining journey around the non league sides and footballing history of the north-east. A melancholic air throughout as Pearson surveys the decline of the region both economically and as a footballer producing hotbed.

I'm a fan of Pearson's writing in WSC and his witticisms and amusing turns of phrase are evident here. Perhaps a little repetitive to truly elevate and after an excellent introductory chapter I was perhaps expecting a little more social political examination but this remains an amusing and enlightening, well drawn account of the region.

[Gareth Manuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably more a 7/10. It's warm hearted, with good spirit and good humour. Anyone whom been or involved in a live football game can appreciate it. Although I enjoyed the general football analysis, it was definitely hindered by my lack of interest in non league football, but that's more a criticism of myself than the book. It is somewhat repetitive, if kept alive by how well its written

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been a regular at my local non-league club these past few seasons I enjoyed this book even more. Harry Pearson gets to the heart of football with fascinating insights into history of the players and clubs, coupled with entertaining match reports. Plus you can't beat his pen portraits of football fans. Genuine laugh out loud moments make for a great read.

[Alexander Bancroft · Rating 4 out of 5]

A conversational read of individual matches across the lower leagues of north east football. Loads of metaphors, some evocative and others falling flat. An endearing author’s relationship to football and how it helped him through challenging times in his life. One for football fans, but may not be for those who don’t have a passion for it.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as the first book twenty five years ago but, then again, not much is.

Delves a bit too much into the actual football (shock, horror... it's a football book!) rather than the people around it which made the first book a rip roaringly funny book, but the core of what made the first one of my favourite football books are all still there.

[Chris Webber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, it is sentimental and funny. But it also has a hard, realistic view about the state of the region and our football. It’s different to the first, 1994, version because we are different. So, moments of sadness amid the general bonhomie and smiles of recognition.

[Graemeoswald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A better sequel?

Marvellous. The index at the back is worth the price of the book on its own. Must go back and reread the far corner which I thought was the best book ever written about Football until I read this...

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Difficult to explain how good this account of Pearson’s visits to various northern non-league grounds during the 2018-19 season is. Much credit must be given to his engaging style and eye for an unusual detail. I laughed out loud frequently and enjoyed this book immensely.

[PAUL · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought The Far Corner was a masterpiece, and this is even better. Harry Pearson is a serious football man and has superb knowledge of his subject but he's also a very funny guy and every page is full of biting wit and brilliant anecdotes.

Highly recommended.

[Michael Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny season of North East football

Harry Pearson describes the heroic pilgrimage through the Northern League that captures the humour and character of the North East. Very funny and still enough detail to comprehend the delights of non league football.

[Kemill · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting journey around the history of the north east and it's various football clubs. Told with a humour and warmth that belies the devastation of the closure of various industries that once populated the landscape and a distinct lack of investment. A good read.

[Jamie Emerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable and regularly funny, The Farther Corner is admittedly a bit of a retread of Pearson’s The Far Corner from the mid 90s. At times Pearson’s similes get a bit repetitive too, but the book has enough charm, jokes and pathos to overcome the slight feeling of Deja vu.

[Matthew Turnbull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it...inspired to watch some local league football

[Fritzov · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not read the first book and I am usually a sucker for books about football, but i never got really into this one. 2 stars only.

[Gordon Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable read. HP has a very pleasant way of story telling
The characters he meets instantly come to life, and he makes you wish you very travelling with him.