British Halloween

The Winter Solstice at Stonehenge

The British have always been a fun-loving people with a desire to party at the drop of a hat. Culturally a farming society, for thousands of years, the agrarian calendar has been the driving force behind the rationale to drop everything, clear space in the barn and have a knees-up. The autumn harvest, the winter solstice, the onset of spring and the summer solstice were, and still are, reasons for celebration in Britain. However, when the Roman Christians administered the country, the British penchant for a damn good party, and the debauchery that no doubt went with it, did not go unnoticed and the religious authorities adopted the Pagan customs into their own calendar. Two reasons for this were an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the newly-conquered indigenous population of these windswept islands and also an attempt to temper the shenanigans that go hand in hand with any alcohol-fuelled rave.

Halloween, or Samhain, was one of those Pagan festivals. Samhain was halfway between the

Samhain Bonfire

autumn equinox, when the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west, and the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Celebrating the harvest and the onset of winter, the dark half of the year, Samhain allowed people to enjoy themselves after the hard work of bringing in the harvest, fetching the livestock down from the pastures and preparing themselves for the harsh weather to come. Bonfires were lit to cleanse the world and there was a widely held belief that the divide between the spirit world and the living blurred, allowing communication with the dead. Witnessing this, the early Christian authorities usurped this festival into their own calendar, calling it "All Hallows Eve", the day before "All Saints Day" when the lives of long dead "Saints" were/are celebrated (for other Christian hijacking of Pagan festivals, research Easter and Christmas).

The traditional Halloween party game of "Bobbing for Apples" was part of the Samhain festivities. It was believed that the first person to successfully take a bite out of a bobbing apple (apples floating in a barrel of water) would be the first to marry or find their sweetheart in the coming year. Similarly, when peeling an apple, the length of the peel achieved would signify how long that person would live. Variations on the theme would exist depending in what part of the country you lived, but the Samhain festival would essentially be the same. Most ancient cultures had a celebration to welcome the onset of winter and these have survived in one form or another to the present day, with Mexico's "Day of the Dead" being one of the most notable.



The sad aspect of Halloween for Britain is that the "Marketing Men", like the early Christians, have

hijacked the festival. When I was a child, carved swedes were the traditional British lantern, not pumpkins, and trick or treating was a bizarre activity seen in American films or Scooby Doo. Demanding money/treats by menaces (tricks) seemed like some sort of criminal activity of which any typical East End gangster would be proud. Now, due to the incessant need for supermarkets to wrest our hard-earned pay from our wallets with any excuse, their marketing people would have us believe that allowing gangs of fancy dress clad children to roam the streets, disturbing the elderly by banging on their doors and terrorising them if sweets are not forthcoming is a socially acceptable pastime. I am all for celebrating the festival that is now known as Halloween, but I prefer the British tradition rather than the American one that is being foisted on the rest of the world.

Mark Cooper's Swindon Town

Mark Cooper
Swindon Town's Manager

After the semi-final play-off defeat to Brentford, despite Aden Flint's superb equaliser (Aden Flint's Superb Equaliser), and with Kevin MacDonald deciding to quit his job as Swindon Town Manager for personal reasons, the whole sorry mess that unravelled at SN1 after Paolo Di Canio's tenure seemed to be coming to its inevitable conclusion. With the hysteria that surrounded the Italian and the refusal on most Swindon Town fans' part to see anything wrong with the management of the club so long as the team were winning on the pitch, and I include myself as one of those swept along by the Di Canio Circus (hindsight - a wonderful commodity with which to analyse past events), there was a sense of incredulity that Swindon Town could find itself in the position of having new owners and a caretaker manager at the helm at the start of the new season. In these rural parts of the country, the West Country instinct (we're Moonrakers after all) to be wary of the strange-sounding outsiders from down the M4 (Londoners) came to the fore when Jed McCrory, armed with the accent and vernacular of a barrow boy, headed up the consortium that saved the foremost team in Wiltshire from sliding into the administration mire that could have had fatal repercussions for professional football in Swindon.

Jed McCrory
Swindon Town Chairman

For his part Jed McCrory has proved his mettle and the improvements around the club, from the bricks and mortar projects in and around the stadium, to the improvements in purchasing online tickets, the matchday hospitality, etc. has shown that the Chairman is holding up his end in the bargain of his ambition for Swindon Town Football Club to be a truly sustainable business and community leader.


When, at the start of the current season, the club was left managerless, the quiet spoken and unassuming Mark Cooper took over the reins. The team that had almost achieved another Wembley visit had been dismantled and a team of youngsters, some homegrown, some borrowed from other clubs, and some signed at short notice were assembled to take on the rest of League 1. For a number of Swindon Town fans, their distrust of Mr. McCrory and the rest of the new board still to the fore, believed that relegation was on the cards and that the only way to avert such a disastrous end to the season was to appoint a "name", someone who had had extensive experience in football management and who could steer the Swindon ship on a course away from the rocks onto which it seemed to be heading. However, after a handful of games under his belt, Mark Cooper was awarded the role of Swindon Town Manager on a permanent basis. I would like to put on record that I supported his appointment. He had worked with Kevin MacDonald for the few months leading up to the end of last season and he knew the players that were left to him for the start of the new season. From these foundations, in my mind, the club was better off with Cooper in charge, as he could gently build on the work that had already been put into moulding a team for the assault on League 1 promotion. One question on the lips of all Swindon Town fans was what sort of football would be played by such young players, many of whom are short in stature?

Bert Head

"Bert's Babes"

Having experienced first hand the football played by the Ossie Ardiles and Glenn Hoddle Swindon Town teams of the early 1990's, the passing game that Mark Cooper has instilled into his charges bears comparison to those eras and is a breath of fresh air in a division of the football league that can suffer from the long ball game. However, being a child of the 1960's I missed one of the Swindon Town teams that is legend in this part of the West Country. "Bert's Babes" was a young Swindon Town team managed by Bert Head and included the likes of Rod Thomas, Ernie Hunt, Mike Summerbee, John Trollope and Don Rogers. Bert Head assembled a team of youngsters and drilled them in an almost military style, ensuring that his team was amongst the fittest in the league. (Link to "Six Days to Saturday" - Bert Head & Swindon Town) He achieved the first promotion in Swindon Town's history when the club was promoted to the then Division 2 at the end of the 1962/63 season. The foundations he put in place saw these youngsters go on to win the only domestic trophy Swindon Town has won when the club beat Arsenal 3 - 1 to lift the League Cup in 1969 under the stewardship of Danny Williams.

Yesterday's win versus Notts County (2 - 0) sees Swindon Town in a play-off position after a quarter of the season has passed. Plaudits are starting to come in from around the country regarding the team's style of play and, now that the players have gelled together, promotion this season can now be thought of as a very real possibility. Some of this can be attributed to the steadying hand of Jed McCrory who has put the club back on a stable footing. However, when the dust on this season has settled in May 2014, Mark Cooper can fly away to his summer holiday retreat, satisfied in the knowledge that his first season in the manager's hot seat has been a success, whatever position Swindon Town finish in League 1.  

  

Related articles.

• Football League column - Paolo Di Canio memory banished at Swindon Town