Matty Long
Bio
Jack of all trades, master of watching movies. Also particularly fond of beer, pizza, watching football, country music, and travelling.
X: @eardstapa_
Achievements (1)
Stories (76/0)
Is It Ever Coming Home?
As the Euros kick off in Germany tonight, it reminds you that the English may have invented association football, but the rest of the world turned it into the beautiful game. And that has become all the more evident in our national team's history of disappointing near misses, terrible performances, and a country that became utterly disillusioned with their national sport at an international level.
By Matty Longabout a month ago in Cleats
'American Fiction' and the Academy
When I recently watched ‘American Fiction,’ I posted on X that I thought writer-director Cord Jefferson thoroughly deserved his Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, being a witty, well-acted, and biting satire. I also opined, however, that I’m not sure how its title character, Monk Ellison (a black writer, like Jefferson), would feel if he won the award for his own work.
By Matty Long4 months ago in Geeks
Turkish Delight. Top Story - March 2024.
Firstly, shout out to my girlfriend Hannah for pointing out that the pun-based title of this blog was definitely going to be “Turkish Delight,” thus giving me the idea for a brilliant pun-based title for this blog. Couldn’t have come up with one better myself.
By Matty Long4 months ago in Wander
Billy Graham’s Legacy
When Billy Graham’s last remaining sibling, Jean Ford, passed away recently, Ken Garfield, the former religion editor of the Charlotte Observer, called it the “end of an era.” Graham himself passed away in 2018, aged 99, and with the passing of Pat Robertson last year, we truly have probably seen the last of the big televangelists of the past.
By Matty Long4 months ago in The Swamp
A Different League
As I write this, both North East teams are in the footballing headlines here in the UK. Newcastle because they’ve just placed their Director of Football, Dan Ashworth, on gardening leave following his controversial announcement that he was interested in a move to Manchester United, and Sunderland because they have sacked their manager Michael Beale (below), after only 12 games in charge. Quite remarkably, his sacking means they have had 17 managers in 16 years. I read reports of both these stories in the morning paper, alongside an article by the brilliant sports journalist Daniel Storey which remarked, on the Ashworth story, that the excessive interest in a role such as his indicated how much football has changed in the last twenty years. The roles of directors, backroom staff etc are as important as the coaches and the players. Football is a multi-million pound business, and that, I suppose, was inevitable, but it has, or has certainly set out to, put a significant distance between true fans and their clubs.
By Matty Long5 months ago in Chapters
A Different League
I need not remind anyone of what happened in 2020 when the world turned upside down. Stuck in our homes, one hour of exercise a day, endless Zoom meetings, endless stress and inability to find income for countless working people, and no knowledge of what would happen next. It truly was a historical time period for all the wrong reasons, and I'm sure many will agree that we very much appear to be in a colossal hangover period from it.
By Matty Long5 months ago in Chapters
A Different League
I described Steve Bruce as a tragedy when the Newcastle takeover first looked to happen in 2020. Back then, I meant it as a sympathetic term; I genuinely did feel a bit sorry for him. But a lot has changed since then. When I surveyed Newcastle fans with the simple question "What do you think of Steve Bruce?" I received answers such as:
By Matty Long6 months ago in Chapters
A Different League
My research into sporting rivalries the world over isn’t great, and I’m sure many of you will point out many similar cases throughout both the UK and the world (the Old Firm for one), but Newcastle and Sunderland is one of those rivalries that massively transcends the football world. I believe it goes back to the English Civil War, where Royalist Newcastle had an advantage over parliamentary Sunderland. Some things never change. All my friends who don’t have any remote interest in football will still retch at the sound of a Mackem accent and are fully committed to the belief that it is a land of web-footed scum. But those people don’t have a platform to fuel their hatred, and I highly doubt are going into the streets to punch Mackems. Football, one might argue, provides that platform, but what does this rivalry look like in the world today, and is there something different to the North East derby than other derbies out there?
By Matty Long6 months ago in Chapters
A Different League. Top Story - January 2024.
I am a Newcastle United fan, through and through. I’ve never supported any other team, but there was a period in my life when I didn’t support any team, to be honest. I think as a kid the older I got I just lost interest when I realised I wasn’t actually very good at football (or any team sports, to be honest), and this just led to me to move away from watching it as well. I didn’t get back into it until about 2011/12ish, so you can’t accuse me of being a fan who suddenly regained interest post-takeover (mind I do remember some of those Pardew days quite fondly). No, I just started going to games again and it made me realise what football is really all about, especially in this city of Newcastle, which I also identify with very strongly despite not being your stereotypical Geordie. On the day my grandad offered me a spare ticket to my first game for years, it took about 5 seconds to remember everything beautiful about this game.
By Matty Long7 months ago in Chapters
The World According to Laurence Fox
I’ll level with you from the outset; I’ve never really liked Laurence Fox. Well, that’s a lie, as I always enjoyed his portrayal of Sgt Hathaway in Lewis. I wish he’d stuck to that sort of thing. Ever since his foray into politics with his car crash of an appearance on Question Time, he just hasn’t been my cup of tea. Which is interesting because he’s often put into a “camp” of sorts with people who I do have a lot of time for, i.e. those who believe in free speech, old-fashioned liberalism, challenging authorities/narratives, scepticism, disdain of all major political parties and how they’re so similar to each other etc. etc.
By Matty Long10 months ago in The Swamp
Is the “boyhood club” a myth?
Newcastle United won a multi record-breaking (8 different goalscorers) 8-0 at Sheffield United on Sunday. Two of the goals were scored by boyhood fans Sean Longstaff and Dan Burn. Another was scored by Anthony Gordon, who is fast-becoming a fan favourite among toon fans but is hated and despised by Everton fans, for the manner in which he left them, his own boyhood club. All this was also less than a week since Newcastle ended their 20 year Champions league absence with a visit to AC Milan at the San Siro, where the performance of Milan local boy, and former player, Sandro Tonali, was met with mixed reviews, after which he notably stated:
By Matty Long10 months ago in Cleats
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