One of the calm survivors of the “britpop era” happens to be the Bluetones. They are still going, having had their biggest hits in the 1995 – 1998 era, when British Guitar music and young bands were at the core of music popularity. Now the kids wouldn’t even have heard of Mark Morriss, or even…
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Ash are one of my favourite bands of all time, not just because they are Northern Irish I hasten to add, because their songs are intelligent, emotional and I can relate to them. Back in early 1996 I first heard them interviewed on Radio Ulster around the time of the “Goldfinger” single and 1977 album…
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The Day We Did Colchester….Crossing into Essex was just something that had to be done by the SOENISC. We had held many meetings in the south of England during our first year of existence, but these were mainly in the south west (Bournemouth, Weymouth, Torquay, Southampton) or as random as Cowes, on the Isle of…
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“Life is a time machine” – Oasis. In October 2008, I was in Slovenia for the first time. I have already posted a few times on here about Ljubljana, Bled and also my journey from Italy’s Trieste over the border to Slovenia. This blog post details the football match Slovenia v. Severna Irska (Northern Ireland),…
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It was June 2008 and I was looking for a new seasonal job, to accompany my quite temporary and inconsistent (and with hindsight, non-contractual, casual) job in the bars and retail points in the Pavilion Theatre in Bournemouth (and also in the BIC), and because I wanted to do something different, yet again. By chance…
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IT was a basic, happy existence supporting an Irish League team. My team is Glentoran, and I have supported them all my life. The Glens are one of the “Belfast Big Two” (along with rivals Linfield) and are one of the most successful Irish football clubs of all time, and the second most successful Northern…
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This is a truly SPECIAL PLACE. It just happens to be The Giants Causeway on the North Antrim Coast, in my home country and birthplace of Northern Ireland. It is a world famous tourist spot, and a place of uncommercial, natural, real beauty. Its name is simply The Giants Causeway. If you have never heard…
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When life gets this good, you have to pinch yourself sometimes to check its real. Looking back (only 6 months or so ago…) this memory will linger long forever in my memory. In many ways, my obsession for football and lunacy reached a peak in Bled, Slovenia. A peak which would have been a good…
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