Andy Potts
Bio
Community focused sports fan from Northeast England. Tends to root for the little guy. Look out for Talking Northeast, my new project coming soon.
Stories (87/0)
Hebburn Town's transformation
When Hebburn Town run out at Wembley on Monday in the FA Vase Final, it will be the latest memorable moment in a remarkable sporting turnaround. Less than five years ago, the Tyneside club was on the brink of collapse and the future seemed bleak.
By Andy Potts3 years ago in Cleats
Christmas with a conscience
The High Street is dead, right? A combination of COVID, online shopping and out-of-town retail parks has killed our town centres. It’s time to move on without waxing nostalgic over the days when granny did her shopping in a collection of local, specialist stores where she knew every shopkeeper by name.
By Andy Potts3 years ago in Journal
Falling from the heights
It used to be the highest football field in England. That’s the claim. The remote County Durham village of Wearhead, up in the North Pennines, was home to Wearhead United. For more than a century the team, resplendent in Red-and-White, competed on its memorably uneven pitch. The players rarely hit any great heights; this isn’t a tale of stirring cup runs and improbable title triumphs. But, at 1,017 feet above sea level, the team was proud of its geographical claim to fame.
By Andy Potts3 years ago in Cleats
How to make a future from the past
Looking through a fragmented window frame at a glorious view of the Browney Valley, it’s easy to see why Beaurepaire was built. Once this was a monastic manor house, a retreat for the monks at Durham Cathedral. Set in a vast hunting estate, it was a medieval resort: back to nature, a place to set aside the manuscripts and relax the discipline of the great monastery on the hill. On occasion, it was a place to entertain kings; at other times the idyll was shattered by conflict.
By Andy Potts3 years ago in Wander
Skating back
Ice hockey action returns to Britain this weekend after being frozen out for months due to the coronavirus pandemic. But with England back in lockdown and fans forbidden, the first steps are cautious as clubs look to find out whether playing behind closed doors is feasible.
By Andy Potts3 years ago in Unbalanced
Stirrings in Murton
In East Durham, football is escaping from its ‘black hole’. After seeing Saturday football in Shotton once again, another trip brought more Wearside League action, this time in Murton. Once a Northern League ground, Welfare Park suffered more than most from vandalism but even as the off-field facilities disappeared, it retained its impressively large playing surface. And, with Ryhope CW U23s playing there this season, it’s hosting games once again.
By Andy Potts4 years ago in Cleats
After the final whistle
For a football fan, there’s something irresistible about a stadium. Whether it’s the grandest of international arenas or the most primitive of fenced-off fields, the very grass seems to resonate with great goals and famous victories. No matter how modest the team, there’s always ‘that game’.
By Andy Potts4 years ago in Cleats
Not by banana bread alone ...
Step one: Take one kitchen, a little boy and his mother. Wait for a rainy afternoon when the weather is too bleak to go outside. Season with the detail that it’s 1980, kids’ TV runs for a couple of hours each day, and there’s a long time to fill between lunch and dinner. Start preparing some pastry.
By Andy Potts4 years ago in Feast
Junior Stars look to the future
Ice hockey in the Northeast has a proud history. Teams from Durham, Whitley Bay and Billingham were top-flight mainstays in the old Heineken League era, more recently Newcastle Vipers won an Elite League championship in 2006. Internationally renowned coaches Mike Babcock – a triple gold club member once of Whitley Warriors – and Jukka Jalonen – twice a world champion after coaching Newcastle Riverkings – are among the illustrious names to pass through. Even today, Whitley Bay provides talent for GB women, while Durham-born Ben O’Connor and Billingham’s Robert Dowd were among the key players in GB’s fairytale rise to the World Championship Elite Pool.
By Andy Potts4 years ago in Unbalanced
Football comes back to Shotton
One of the unexpected side-effects of the coronavirus lockdown has been a groundswell of support for our local communities. And, in Shotton Colliery, an old pit village in East Durham, it’s been a trigger for a new football club aiming to bring the game back to town after 15 years without a team in the Saturday leagues.
By Andy Potts4 years ago in Cleats