Van Mildert Alumni Association

Author: Kenzie

  • Everyone seems to know the score: Memories of Euro 96 at Mildert

    Everyone seems to know the score: Memories of Euro 96 at Mildert

    I was lucky to be at Mildert in a golden area for football. I arrived in 1994 and by the time I left in summer 1998 there had been the rise of Fergie time at Man United, Blackburn winning the league and, of course, who can forget Bradford City’s promotion to the Championship in the 1996 playoffs after being 2-0 down in the first leg. (Ed – only you remember that!)

    Complementing those highlights (Ed – again only you think the Bantams were a highlight) was the pure brilliance of Euro 96, when the whole country, and college, got behind a competition in our back yard. Three of the games were just up the road in Newcastle, with the best free kick of the whole tournament coming from Hagi in a 3-1 defeat to France. In fact I was very lucky to get a last minute ticket to that game with a bunch of other Mildertians, and being at a game in the North East made it feel even more special as England progressed.

    In those days watching football at college was a strictly communal experience. The Premier League was on Sky and, with no other way of watching Sunday afternoon games, a group watch was the norm. The TV room, and it’s feed of live sport moved around over my four years, going from the top floor overlooking the lake and Tees lawn, before settling in the refurbished JCR. Communal viewing wasn’t just tournament football, you were just as likely to see a crowd for the latest Alan Partridge as for the big match.

    Euro 96 started with a bang on 8th June for England fans but unfortunately this clashed with another college sporting tradition, the annual trip to the test match. The coach load of Mildertians managed to intertwine watching England steamroll India at Edgbaston with updates on the big screens of the rather disappointing draw with Switzerland, falling to a late penalty at Wembley. However what laid in wait was a clash with Scotland in a few days time. This game was going to be a big deal, not just because of the auld enemy but because we had a new location to watch the game.

    The Ustinov room had been opened earlier in the academic year, primarily for conference use, but a forward-thinking Bursar​ had installed a projector, giant screen and surround sound speaker system. I’m not sure if food and drink was allowed in there, but it was a weekend and most people had a beer in hand by kick off. The chairs weren’t the most comfortable, but the crowd was large and in great spirit. The game was close and there was tension in the room thanks to a small but vocal crowd of Scots in one corner, led by the irrepressible George Patterson, then college Vice Principal. Shearer’s goal shortly after half time created a buoyant feeling amongst the majority, but the game turned on the missed Scottish penalty and Gascoigne’s ‘Dentist’s Chair’ goal within a minute of each other and left the English fans ecstatic.

    As the nation began to believe that football was coming home, excitement soared in college. Every second room in college had ‘Three Lions’ blasting out of the window, corridors were filled with watching the Euro Fantasy Football on the communal TV set and football shirts became more and more common in the dinner queue. However there was a problem looming!

    England’s crucial final group game, against the Dutch, was to be held at the exact same time as the final formal dinner of the academic year. The choice was stark, miss the chance to drink cheap wine and Woodman bitter (available from all good off licences called Sammy Sultanas at £2.99 for four cans) with your mates before you headed off for summer holidays, or watch England. Decisions were made and friendships tested and I made my own personal choice. I chose the formal, and it wasn’t a decision I came to regret.

    Imagine the scene: the hall was packed out with 250 students, celebrating the end of exams and anticipating adventures in sunnier climes. The Ustinov room was again the choice of venue for those watching the game for two reasons. Firstly, superstition is a powerful motivator with one win under the belt in the location but, secondly, for more practical reasons a bunch of spectators in the JCR, directly adjacent to the hall, just wasn’t practical.

    The college principal, Judy Turner, was in the middle of her end of year speech, when it happened. Judy is a slight, small and well spoken academic with an intense curiosity in all things learning. Football was not her go-to topic of conversation, it would be fair to say. She also had an accent and speech cadence very reminiscent of the late Queen Elizabeth, a fairly high pitched voice punctuated by pauses and moments of reflection. It would help enormously with the telling of this story if you read Judy’s quotes to yourself in the voice of QE2.

    As Judy was summing up her views on another successful year, standing at the high table with a microphone amplifying her shrill voice, it happened. It actually happened, England scored. At the precise moment the ball hit the back of the net about 20 people jumped up and cheered, revealing the radios and earphones that had been hidden on their person, in one synchronised leap! This was followed five seconds later by a sight I will never forget.

    On the reception balcony overlooking the hall appeared a mass of England fans, pints in hand shouting at the top of their voices, led by Jeremy Rampling. The delay was the precise time it had taken for the goal to be scored and for the mob to run from the Ustinov room to overlook the hall to celebrate. Judy took one look at the hall, one look at the cheering lads in reception and without missing a beat in her speech said, ‘I take it we have scored’ and then returned to the topic at hand about academic achievements in the Biology department. 

    This event was repeated three times, as England won 4-1, with precisely the same outcome each time. An immediate reaction from those with secreted radios, followed by a delayed arrival of drunker and drunker fans from the Ustinov room as every goal went in. To her credit Judy didn’t react to any of the outbreaks in the hall, which made it more and more absurd. Although she did say to me afterwards, “Kenzie, what is this song about ‘going home’ (sic) that they are singing about the football?” I didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble, as she never really had her finger on the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s.

    There were other communal football days in college, with France 98 a worthy successor, but Euro 96 was something special. It wasn’t just that we nearly won it, but because it was our tournament in our backyard. It was the first time we heard, sang and loved Three Lions. After the hooliganism of the 80s, football was cool again. However, the memory that will always stick with me about that tournament is the reaction in the dining hall on a muggy evening in June 1996.

  • Things Could Only Get Better: Mildert Memories of the 1997 General Election

    Things Could Only Get Better: Mildert Memories of the 1997 General Election

    A long-standing Conservative government beset with scandal, challenged by a resurgent Labour Party led by a centrist leader. But it’s not 2024. It’s 1997, I’m a student at Mildert and things could only get better…

    1997 was the most culturally and historically important year in the decade, the summer bookended by this seismic general election and the death of Princess Diana.

    A 1st May election did not work well for students, as it fell bang in the revision period. The JCR and DSU ran poster campaigns and held meetings (social media was still a decade away), encouraging students to register to vote either at home or in Durham, according to where their votes would count the most.

    On polling day, the anticipation in college was huge, fueled by the 6 week campaign
    and a palpable sense of change. To get as many students as possible voting, the JCR hired a mini bus and ran a regular service to the polling station at Neville’s Cross. The then JCR President, Ben Tomlinsson (known as Cheesy) was the driver for the day, and was acting out every ‘On The Buses’ catchphrase and 1980s coach driver trope to entertain passengers on the short hop to vote.

    The rest of the day was focused on revision for my finals. However, at dinner time the mood in college started to change. The conversation was ‘Are you going to watch it all tonight?’ and ‘Do you think it will be a landslide?’. After a few more hours of work, we congregated in the bar from 9pm.

    In those days TVs weren’t in every room, and most people relied on the large screen in the JCR for most major events such as England games, comedy shows and news. At 10pm, the polls closed and a large group congregated in the JCR to watch the exit poll on the BBC. There was shock and celebration when the exit polls revealed a swing of over 10% and a forecasted Labour landslide. Most people retired to the bar to wait for the real results to be declared.

    As more and more beer was consumed, more and more people said they would stay up all night. It felt like an unmissable moment. As last orders were being called at the bar, the first result came in from Sunderland. Jonty Alone, Mildert’s uber-political DSU Rep, ran into the bar shouting “It’s a 13% swing. It’s gonna be a wipeout”. This was the most excited I’d seen Jonty since he photocopied Paul Phillips’ notes from a year of skipped lectures and scraped a 2:2.

    Corridor watch parties were hastily organised. In those days people would sit out in the corridor surrounding a TV, like an old folks home watching Antiques Roadshow on a Sunday evening. My corridor had a decent TV that was rolled out and placed against the wall as seats and beanbags fanned out in a semi-circle around it.

    People moved to and fro through the night, but as the Tories kept tumbling the sense of shock was immense. My personal favourite was still being up for Portillo at 3am, his smug face was a sight for very tired eyes. There were also other surreal moments that evening, such as Tom Hunt watching his father lose his job live on TV. Tom didn’t seem too bothered so neither were we, and his dad soon ended up in the Lords anyway.

    The next morning was exciting. It genuinely felt like there was change in the air, both in Durham and across the country. Whether or not the Blair and Brown governments delivered on this hope is a matter of opinion, but the whole evening still rides high in my Mildert memories. It’s a shame the students this year will be unable to watch in college due to the election being called in the summer holidays.

  • Popping Down to the Virtual Mildert Bar

    Popping Down to the Virtual Mildert Bar

    I’ve been back to Mildert bar on several occasions over the twenty three years since I graduated, usually for a drunken reunion or a quick nosey when heading up the A1. I have probably clocked up ten visits, almost one every two years since 1998. That, I think from my group of Mildertian friends, isn’t too shabby a record. However, in the last 5 weeks I’ve been back seven times.

    Yes, you read it correctly. In the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic I’ve managed to clock up circa 20 hours drinking and chatting in Mildert bar with fellow alumni. Of course, this isn’t breaking any of the lockdown rules by travelling northwards but it is in fact the ‘Virtual’ Mildert Bar.

    Whether it is Google Hangouts, Zoom or any other video conferencing platform, Mildert Bar has returned with a big bang into my life. A couple of times a week I’m hanging out like it was 1996 with close friends and people I haven’t seen since the heady days of Blur vs Oasis, and can I tell you it has been wonderful!

    At a time when the world is a challenge and the news is 24-hour doom and gloom it has been brilliant to get away from it all and talk ‘shite’ for three hours about anything and everything. It’s been great hearing what people are now doing, what their families are like and often what they look like as a small child comes running into shot calling for mummy. I daren’t say to many Mildertian’s children that the last time I saw your dad he was vomiting into a grate outside the Dunn Cow post-graduation.

    The talk, as you would imagine, defaults to our time at college pretty quickly. Do you remember the first Kazu, your first ‘laking’, the recycling of sausages into every dish imaginable in the kitchens and the high pitched Geordie banter of the amazing cleaning staff.  These memories are quickly enriched by people thrusting 25-year-old, slightly faded, photographs to their laptop camera so that we can relive the horror of Indie haircuts, drunken formals and liaisons we’d rather forget. Thank god that camera phones had not been invented in the 90’s or else the evidence would have been far more plentiful.

    There are alumni scattered all around the world and on the calls I’ve conversed with Mancs living in California, Stoke City fans in Saxony, expats in NYC and Geordies in the Caymans. The latter is purely for work opportunities and nothing to do with tax implications I’ve been told to say in case any alumni work for HMRC.

    What has amazed me was that a time of restricted social interaction many of my friends first thoughts were to spend the time and reach out to people they haven’t spoken to in years. It shows a lot about the community spirit, love and general bunch of top drawer people Mildert produces, and still produces to this day.

    I’ve enclosed a few screenshots of some of the sessions I’ve been involved in to seen if you can spot anyone you know. However please share some more with the Alumni if you have any of your virtual meet ups, or indeed future meet ups if this inspires you. We’d love to keep a record of the virtual bar and share with everyone in the Alumni at a later date.

    James Mackenzie, VMC 1994 -98