Malcolm of Course You Can - Friday 29th July at Broadhurst Park

This Friday as part of our Rochdale friendly match celebrations, dedicated to the hundreds of amazing volunteers that makes our club so special, we are hosting a “Course You Can Malcolm’ inspired event taking place in the function room at Broadhurst Park at 7:30pm.

This Friday 29th July as part of our Rochdale friendly match celebrations, dedicated to the hundreds of amazing volunteers that makes our Club so special, we are hosting a “Course You Can Malcolm’ inspired event taking place in the function room at Broadhurst Park at 7:30pm.

It’s sure to be a belting night, it’s FREE TO ATTEND and anyone can come along. All we ask is that you enjoy yourselves and spend a few bob over the bar … after all it’s your club it’s going to.

If you’re familiar with CYCM, the piece below is bang on message. If you’re new to it, it may take a couple of paragraphs to understand what the hell they’re going on about.

Over to you Malcolmses……

In Homer’s epic ‘The Odyssey’, it takes enemy of Poseidon and all round faffer Odysseus ten years to make it home after the fall of Troy. While it’s not taken the Oddies quite that long to make it home after the fall of Bury (well, the last game FC played there, anyway), by the time Friday 29th July 2016 comes around, it’ll have taken two years, three months and nine days to make it back. Or to put it another way: 831 days of trying to make it to Ithaca. I mean Moston.

Made it we have though, and while it’s probably fair to say it’s been something of a slog in the intervening years since we took all the flags down, picked up cardboard Steve Spencer and skipped out of Starkies for the last time, we’re back, and ready to look forward instead of backwards. A bit like a tortoise, just not as ponderous, and minus a dock off shell on our back.



So what’s with all this MCYC malarkey about then? “Why aren’t you calling it CYCM like normal???? I hear you cry. Well, it’s still CYCM, but not quite. For a start it’s pre-season, and on a Friday night to boot, which means no football afterwards. A club night in the afternoon at night, if you will. Plus, some of the Oddies from the Bury era won’t be there. They haven’t died or owt like that, they either just won’t be able to make it or have moved on.

In true United fashion however, we’re using the night like a League/ Milk/Littlewoods/ Rumbelows/ Coca-Cola/ Worthington’s/ Carling/ Capital One Cup tie and blooding some of the youth, so along with the more experienced heads, we should be strong enough to see off Port Vale without the need for extra-time.

But what do you put on when you’ve got no football, a few extra hours to spare, and two years to catch up on? Just the same sort of stuff as we always do, but more of it, so read on to find out who’s going to be entertaining, educating and delighting you and your ears:



The Hummingbird Project: High Peak People Helping Refugees

First up we have Pam from the Hummingbird Project coming to speak to us about the good work they do. You may be unfamiliar with the Hummingbird Project, so let me fill you in (in a non-fighty manner, obv). In fact, rather than me filling you in, we’ll let them fill you in themselves (again, we’re not talking fighting here, so calm down). As Pam says:

“The Hummingbird project was set up by myself (Pamela Meade Lake) and Jo Gregory in order to raise awareness of the recent refugee crisis in Europe and beyond. We needed to do something practical to help people in need. We have harnessed the good will of people in the High Peak and South Manchester who help us to help refugees.

Our aim is to raise funds and collect donations to send much needed aid to refugee hot spots across Europe and Syria. We have sent aid to Syria, Macedonia, Lesvos, Leros, Chios, and Samos and to Athens. We support women and children in camps in Turkey and also have sent aid to Calais, Dunkirk and Paris.

We have great links with lots of other grass roots organisations and we work together to get what is needed to where it needs to be. Our cash donations have helped support Mums and babies breastfeeding in the camps in Macedonia, the Hellas Lifeguards, childrens activities in camps in Lesvos and to provide food for refugees Samos, and we have recently given funds to enable aid to get to Lebanon, a project we will be supporting this winter. We are ordinary people doing the best we can to help others. It is an amazing adventure and a privilege to be part of so much goodwill.???

If you’re wondering how you can help, then wonder no more, as we’ll be collecting donations on the night. Please pay close attention however, as they’ve asked we only collect the following specific items:

- Brand new underwear (those who think it’s acceptable to donate second-hand gruds need not apply)
- Clean bras in good condition
- Clean socks, again in good condition

Regardless of where your opinions lie on the political spectrum, this is about human beings stuck in a situation not of their own design, so anything the great city of immigration Manchester can do to help, we surely will.

Black Lives Matter

You can’t have failed to notice there has been news story after news story of innocent black people losing their lives at the hands of police in America, especially the last few years or so. It’s 2016, yet this sort of thing still happens, and happens with alarming regularity.

The Black Lives Movement, which started in the US in response to all the killings, is now growing in size in the UK, where recently thousands marched in Manchester in solidarity. We’re made up that we’ll have a speaker from the movement coming to talk to us, so this is deffo something not to be missed.

Selina Todd

It’s a real coup (not the Labour party sort, the good sort) to have Selina come and speak for us. Award winning author of Young Women, Work and Family in England, 1918-50, and The People: the Rise and Fall of the Working Class, 1910-2010, Selina is also Professor of Modern History at Oxford University.

If all that wasn’t enough, she also recently spoke at the Durham Miners’ Gala, where 120,000 people attended. We’re not expecting quite that many to come through the doors on Friday, but those who are there will be in for a treat.

Angry Bear

Some people say love is a language. For the Bear, aggro is the only language he understands. After spending the summer laughing at England’s showing against Russia (We’ll leave you to decide if that’s the on-pitch or off-pitch displays) he’s ready to take the Main Stand bar like he used to take the Kippax, except this time he’ll be dishing out poetic verse instead of slaps. He’s not sweet, nor is he tender, but you’ll like his poetry, and if you’re a Malcs regular, he’ll look a bit familiar…..

Hedz Jellmo

The evening’s live music is provided by Hedz Jellmo. As well as being the aforementioned Angry Bear’s favouritist band ever, they describe themselves as an “Experimental Manchester based-band playing dubby Manc soul with a sting kinda stuff???.

While they say that about themselves, Tim Birch of City Life describes their sound as “Sumptuous drums and bass. A bluesy-jazzy atmosphere tingles like pollen around a live’ drum kit sound. The vocal delivery slides between Georgie Fame and that codger from the Stereo MCs (who looked like Edvard Munk’s The Scream, incarnate.)……..Elsewhere, a ‘blunted’ hip-hop sound …….slowing to a trip hop finale???. You’d be simultaneously a fool and an idiot to miss out the return of live music to FC, and you’d be even more of a fool and an idiot to miss out on Hedz Jellmo. Make sure you don’t.

DJs

As if we weren’t spoiling you all enough, we’re also going to be treating you to tunes from long time Malcolms heads Pace and Andy Brennan. Ensuring it’s a proper family affair, Pace is also bringing his cousin Lee along to join in the collective spinning of the wheels of steel, so in essence we’ve got ourselves a DJ ménage a trois. Saucy? No. Musically excellent? Definitely.

We’ll also have a variety of gifts and donations that we’re going to raffle and maybe even put up as a prize in a quiz. It might be Rochdale related with them being our opponents on the Saturday, or it might just be given to the first person who agrees with me that the Aldi in Market Street is a lot bigger than the one on Great Ancoats Street.

My girlfriend reckons they’re practically the same size, so if I can’t use Malcolms as a way of resolving a domestic spat, what can I use it for? Anyway…. at the time of writing we’ve also not decided if there’ll be food or not (expect an update as soon as), but obviously the bar’ll be open. The name might be slightly different, but it is still Malcolms after all…….

Of course, not everything in life can be perfect, and if there’s one blot on the night it’s this: we have to face up to the lamentable loss of Stu From The Bay’s market stall. In its 2014 heyday, it sold everything from woolie hats, to books, to fanzines and programmes.

The real draw as we all know though, was Stu’s never-to-be-bettered and oft talked about plastic fanzine holders. Designed both to catch the eye at the perfect angle and to offer a practicality other plastic holders could only dream of, their ability to allow punters the chance to pick up a fanzine with consummate ease was unrivaled.

There may or may not be a minute’s silence on the night, but either way we won’t forget the life changing plastic holders which are currently gathering dust in a Colwyn Bay loft. As for Stu though, the barmy bugger is actually cutting short his holiday in Cornwall to enjoy the night (seriously), so if you see him, once you’ve given him a funny look, buy him a pint for his own personal Odyssey from Truro to Moston.

So that, in a rather long and wordy nutshell, is the first Malcolms of Moston. Doors open at 7:30pm but please try and get down early, what with us having a busy, busy night for you. As always entrance is free, but spend freely at the bar; after all, it’s your club the money’s going to.

Malcolm Course You Can, 2016: You’d be tertulia stupid to miss it.

Friday 29th July Doors at 7.30pm – Free to attend
Malcolm of Course You Can
Broadhurst Park,
Lightbowne Road, Moston,
Manchester M40 0FJ