The other David Platt

After a tough few days on the cobbles, we get a rest tonight because of the football: England’s first Euro 2020 qualifier at home to the Czech Republic.

With next year's European Championship coming 30 years after the 1990 World Cup (the first major tournament I can remember), I’ve been getting nostalgic about football recently. It’s been a welcome distraction from the British political system collapsing in on itself like the roof of a Weatherfield knicker factory.

My reminiscing has also been driven by this week’s brilliant ITV two-parter, ‘Harry's Heroes: The Full English’ which featured some absolute football legends from the ’90s, but unfortunately no David Platt (62 caps, 1989–1996).

Nevertheless, I have often wondered if Weatherfield’s hipster hairdresser and/or England’s magic midfielder have ever stopped to think about ‘the other David Platt’. 

Here are both David Platts in their England kits, back in the day:

Corrie’s David was born in December 1990, a few months after England’s heroic performance in Italia ’90. David was initially registered a Tilsley (I still don’t get that) but Martin Platt may have been playing the long game. In hospital, Martin joked to Gail that they should call him Gazza, so football was clearly on his mind.

Anyway, I enjoyed this scene on ITV3 the other week. It was originally broadcast on 1 November 1991, when Nicky was mad on football and Martin had arranged a trial with Ferndale Street under-11s. There is a nice David Platt reference:

Nicky was right – it wasn’t a header that the other David Platt scored in extra time against Belgium to clinch England’s place in the quarter-finals. It was a volley and what a fantastic goal it was:

David Platt (the footballer) was as clinical in front of goal as David Platt (the stylist) is with a pair of scissors. Happy memories and all thanks to Classic Coronation Street! 

We don’t get many real life footy references in Corrie these days but it is nice to see some Weatherfield County supporters on the street and Kirk as the club mascot, Buzzer the Bee.

And perhaps it was Nick’s playing career at Ferndale Street that secured Tommy Orpington's attendance at the ‘Trim Up North’ launch earlier this month.

The launch went OK in the end. But now that the roof has caved in, I can’t see Tommy O agreeing to be Brand Ambassador for that new range of Underworld pants. I reckon it’ll be a ‘Tommy NO!’ for Nick.

I hope England are better on the pitch tonight than Nick Tilsley is at table football. When will Tommy Orpington be called up to the squad? All together now... “He's fast! He's mean! He likes a fruit machine! He's Tommy O! He's Tommy O!”

By Martin Leay

Twitter @mpleay

Corrie Blogs @ bit.ly/corriemartin

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'Curly & Raquel' by the band Martha

Yesterday, ITV3 showed a significant episode of classic Corrie. Originally broadcast on 23 January 1991, it was the first appearance of Raquel Wolstenhulme played by national-treasure-in-waiting Sarah Lancashire. Introduced as “Mardy Raquel from the meat counter”, she had the dubious honour of being Miss Bettabuy 1991. 

They were very different times and Reg Holdsworth instructed his Assistant Manager, Norman Watts to talk Raquel into wearing a swimsuit to read out the winning ticket in Bettabuy's “grand trolley dash”. Her first line was shown today in an episode from 25 January 1991 when she announced it was number 986.

I can’t think of a better symbol for the juxtaposition between the glamorous and the mundane that Raquel would go on to embody with such melancholic beauty.

In celebration of Raquel's arrival on ITV3, I’d like to share an amazing song that I’ve only recently discovered. A mate of mine pointed it out to me after my recent blog on the young Curly Watts (which is still available folks, right here).

The track is  ‘Curly & Raquel’ and it’s by Martha. Not Ken Barlow’s fancy woman on the barge, but a socialist pop-punk band from County Durham.

Not that Martha but this Martha

They’ve released a couple of albums and the second, ‘Blisters in the Pit of My Heart’ - from 2016 - features the aforementioned song. Simply put, it’s marvellous.

The lyrics contain the following nostalgic Corrie references:

“All the stories that we tell,

Roy and Hayley, Curly and Raquel,

Romantic reference,

Come on, tell me what’s your preference?”

And:

“Weatherfield Mademoiselle,

Thinking back to Curly and Raquel,

On your arrival,

I can stick on the subtitles.”

It’s sort of part-homage and part-metaphor. The band gave a nice quote to DIY Mag when they explained:

“It is in essence a song that’s about love, but also being a weirdo – and we kind of looked at Coronation Street and pop culture in general because as we grow up that’s how we develop our conceptions of love… Coronation Street can be the most mundane, everyday s**t, and that’s sometimes really easy to relate to” ... “especially with Curly and Raquel because Curly was always a bit of a nerd and we really relate to that”.

The band even had a comic strip poster designed for sale on their 2015 tour. It was by Jack Fallows and was fantastic:

Without further ado, I implore you all to take four minutes to think back to Curly and Raquel with this gloriously vibrant slice of pop-punk (stream available below):

Another reason why I love this song is that the chorus nods to Billy Bragg - a major influence on the band - by lifting and adapting a couplet from ‘Greetings to the New Brunette’. He’s apparently a fan of the band. Nice!

The rest of Martha’s stuff is also worth checking out, but ‘Curly & Raquel’ will always be my favourite. It is every bit as enthralling as a trolley dash up and down the aisles of Weatherfield's finest supermarket.

By Martin Leay
Twitter @mpleay
Corrie Blogs @ bit.ly/corriemartin

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This Is Weatherfield ’90

Image photoshopped by Gary Wadsworth, a fantastic artist who draws beautifully at instagram.com/garyleeillustration 

Yesterday, ITV3 showed the last Coronation Street episode of 1990 - quite a year for Weatherfield and England as a whole.

Margaret Thatcher has just left Downing Street, John Major is Prime Minister and the country will soon be deep in recession.

Things are certainly bleak in Weatherfield. As noted by Alf Roberts, “nobody’s got any money” and Ken ends the year with a suicide attempt. This is Weatherfield ’90 and it makes a Shane Meadows miniseries look like Jackanory.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. The new houses have been completed on Coronation Street and Steph and Des Barnes are the new yuppies on the block, all young and flash. Oh, and Kev has lost his ’tache.

Manchester is a pretty cool place to be in 1990. Rave culture is in full swing and the local music scene has gone global. Manchester Vibes are In The Area.

It has been a joy to re-watch the Corrie of 1990. I turned eight that summer and I remember it fondly, mainly for the World Cup. I can remember certain storylines now and I have loved all the pop culture references and the Manchester zeitgeist.

Take the hallway of 7 Coronation Street, for example. At this point, Rita owns the house but Jenny Bradley has turned it into student digs. In 1990, a poster of one of my favourite Manchester bands, The Stone Roses, hangs next to the coat hooks.

The Roses were so hot in 1990 that a teenage Steve McDonald used them to woo Joanne Khan downtown: “there’s a brilliant record shop in town that sells records… you know”. Great chat, Steve: you’ve always had a way with the ladies!

The spirit of Madchester is captured magnificently in this scene in Jim’s Cafe, as a trio of ravers gather around the jukebox to listen to ‘Step On’ by Happy Mondays:

They’d probably just stumbled out of the Haçienda and they’re putting Percy Sugden off his cup of tea and toasted teacake. They’re twisting his melon, man!

To round it all off, this is wonderful. The McDonald lads are playing the fruity in the cafe and Steve’s wearing Joe Bloggs... a now defunct Manchester fashion label that was synonymous with the Madchester and acid house scenes. Playing in the background is ‘World in Motion’ by New Order, the official England song for Italia ’90:

It’s just a shame that this episode was broadcast on 6 July 1990; two days after England were beaten in the semi-final on penalties by West Germany.

Oh well, that was England in 1990 and that was Weatherfield in 1990. There were euphoric highs followed by crashing lows. To quote the current female Prime Minister in the middle of a leadership crisis, NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

By Martin Leay

Twitter @mpleay

Corrie Blogs @ bit.ly/corriemartin

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Why is my beloved Corrie copying Eastenders? asks Fern Britton

The article to the left was written recently by the TV presenter and longstanding Corrie fan Fern Britton. I wanted to share it here because her views chime with those expressed widely on this Blog over the past few months and especially this week. In my view, Fern hits the nail right on the head; Corrie just isn’t Corrie anymore. If you click on the image to enlarge it and then zoom in, the article should be legible. It's worth a read.

I've been writing for the Coronation Street Blog for four years now and I have always tried to apply the principle that if I can't blog something nice, then I shouldn't blog anything at all. That probably explains why I haven't written much recently!

However, watching Weatherfield’s vicar turn up at Church on Monday evening - not to take communion, but to take heroin - was the final straw for me and I had to speak out about the direction of travel my favourite soap is going in. It's the wrong direction. 

It's not that I’m squeamish about a smack storyline - I’ve read a lot of Irvine Welsh! It’s just that this kind of thing doesn’t belong in Coronation Street. I'm also OK with dark drama but not six times a week after a hard day at work.

I have always said that I love Corrie because it is gripping drama juxtaposed by the very best of Northern wit. Sadly, that genuine warmth and humour that Coronation Street has always done so well is currently in short supply.

What a contrast to the Classic Coronation Street episodes being broadcast on ITV3. The episodes on at the moment date from 1987/88 and are an absolute joy to watch. They also bring into sharp focus just how far Corrie has strayed from its original charm and everything that we love about the show - the believable human relationships, the humour, and the reflection of real life that Fern Britton talks about in her article.

On Wednesday, ITV3 showed the episode in which Hilda Ogden left the street. I was only five when Mrs O departed and so it's been fantastic to see her on screen, albeit at the end of her run. The scriptwriters certainly don't make 'em like Hilda anymore.

A few hours later, over on ITV1, we saw Billy the Vicar score some more horse and throw up in his kitchen. Oh, and Bethany glassed some bloke with a beer bottle. Nevermind 'Eastenders' - both are scenes lifted directly from 'Trainspotting'. In a couple of weeks' time, we're going to have the David Platt storyline and that's hardly going to lift the mood!

Fern Britton mentions Mary Taylor, Roy Cropper and Ken Barlow as examples of characters with "that heart we love". Mary hasn't been seen much of late, Roy has disappeared and Ken is little more than a bit-part player these days. It's all looking a bit bleak. If he were still with us today, I'm not sure that Tony Warren would recognise what his beloved Corrie has become. 

What do we reckon guys - is there a way out of the darkness? There must be, right?!! I hope so.

By Martin Leay, on Twitter @mpleay

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ITV to air classic Coronation Street episodes

Viewers are to be transported back to Weatherfield past

No, this isn't an April Fools joke. ITV really are digging through the archives and bringing classic episodes of Coronation Street to your screens. Two archive episodes of the soap will air daily on ITV3.

The last time fans got the chance to see old episodes was in 2004, shortly before the former Granada Plus channel ceased to exist. From 1996 onwards they showed eighteen years worth of episodes that originally aired from 1976 to 1994.

Sadly for us die-hard fans it doesn't look like ITV3 will be airing the eps chronologically, with the first episode and second episode seeming to be from different time periods. Edit: Looking at further listings it appears that they will indeed be airing chronologically from January 1986.

See episode one at 14:45pm on Monday 2nd October.

Episode two directly afterwards at 15:15pm.

Mike Baldwin will be central to episodes

The two episodes will be repeated the following morning from 6am and two further episodes will air that afternoon in the same time-slot, continuing in the same manner throughout the week.

DigitalSpy are reporting that the episodes are from 1986, but we'll soon see. I really don't care otherwise, because this fan for one is very happy. I love an old episode, even though I'm already struggling to keep up with the 2017 eps!

You can follow me on Twitter @MichaelAdamsUk

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