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 (178)
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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 Potts5 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 Potts5 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 Potts5 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 Potts5 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 Potts5 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 Potts5 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 Potts5 years ago in Cleats
Hope in East Durham's 'Black Hole'
This story was originally published on Groundhoppers.blog in November 2018. Two years later, happily, both Shotton and Murton have Saturday football back at their grounds. Shotton Colliery FC, newly formed for the 2020/21 campaign, plays in Wearside League Division 2, one level below a reborn Horden CW. Among their opponents, Ryhope CW U23s have moved into Murton's ground. Peterlee is still home to the local rugby club.
By Andy Potts5 years ago in Cleats
Reinventing the High Street
There are bright spots on the High Street – if you know where to look for them. While the old certainties are disappearing, local producers are taking the chance to boost their presence. And Discovering Durham, in the Prince Bishops Centre, is at the heart of that process.
By Andy Potts6 years ago in Journal
Ploughing on
Sheffield is a city steeped in football history – and part of that heritage has been preserved against the odds. The Plough Inn, overlooking the historic Sandygate ground in the western suburbs of the South Yorkshire city, was scheduled for demolition. Even the local planning officers supported a scheme that would have seen the 19th-century watering hole levelled and replaced by housing. However, the city council rejected the proposal, in no small part due to the pub’s place in the birth of the beautiful game.
By Andy Potts6 years ago in Cleats
