Daniel Gray and Harry Pearson live on Friday

I believe there is free parking after 6pm close by too.

Harry is a long term Boro fan - in his latest book he talks about going to see Marske play, visiting South Bank, the site of Ayresome Park, visiting Jack Hatfield's in the 70s. He loves Northern League football. Often able to find a off beat topic of football or football supporting to write about for the When Saturday Comes or the Guardian.

Dan Gray looking at his profile is not just into football, but a bit of historical politics.

Teesside is a great home of the game of football. Here is an event right in the heart where it all begin with 2 Nationally well respected writers. A few yards from where William Gladstone addressed a crowd of industrial workers and their families in 1862 that there were at the birth of infant Hercules.
 
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Daniel Gray - latest book Extra Time -

A collection of lyrical sweet-nothings whispered to late goals, local radio commentators, referees falling over and 47 other reminders of why we love football.

Despite its flaws and excesses, modern football is still sprinkled with simple yet beguiling delights. In his previous book Saturday, 3pm, Daniel Gray captured many of them. Now he is back with a further 50 short essays of prose poetry dedicated to the game's charming, technicolour minutiae.

From club lottos to undeserved wins, and from pitch-invading animals to the roar after a minute's silence, Extra Time is another romantic celebration of football fandom and its shared joys, habits, eccentricities and peculiarities. It is a salute to keepers going forward for corners, match balls landing on stand roofs and goals scored in quick succession.

These chapters offer a gleeful antidote to disillusionment with modern football, VAR and all. They are reminders of why we care and justifications for our devotion. Each warmly evokes this sport's blessed capacity to offer escape and diversion. Let us share the delight once more.
 

The Farther Corner: A Sentimental Return to North-East Footballby
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.​

 
Going back to Base Camp for pre match - if anyone else fancies it.
Food, drink, good atmosphere.
Thanks again to Dan, Harry and everyone that made it such a good event last night.
 
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