The itch might just stand up to being properly scratched. After eighteen months, his foot was feeling much stronger. I was in recovery for a year trying to get back to professional football.’ The call never came so he embarked on his coaching badges instead. ‘I finished my contract with Middlesbrough and was trying to recover from an operation on my foot. ‘It wasn’t a straightforward retirement,’ he explains.
It’s an unlikely place to find Arca just two seasons after he left Middlesbrough. This is the EBAC Northern League Division Two, three levels below Barry Hayles and Chesham United. Having almost exclusively spent his playing days in the Premier League, Arca now patrols more humdrum territory. For the midfielder – who’s only thirty-four, still a perfectly respectable age for a pro – now plays for South Shields. It’s Arca for whom the ‘Hoo-lee-o!’ chants toll here at Mariners Park, a modest ground squeezed among industrial units in the hinterland between South Shields and Jarrow. Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough have all been more than partial to a little South American flair, the latter two having had their first teams illuminated by the skills of one particular Argentinian – Julio Arca. From the Robledo brothers in the stripes of Newcastle in the 1950s, via Claudio Marangoni, Mirandinha, Faustino Asprilla and Juninho – not to mention “The Fast Show’s” Julio Geordio – Spanish and Portuguese have been familiar sounds around the region’s grounds for decades. They love a South American here in the North-East. ‘SWANSONGS AND ENCORES IN NOVEMBER 2015’ – PART TWOĪfter the exploits of the evergreen Barry Hayles and Chesham United, along with the TV headline-makers of Salford City covered in our Waltham Abbey programme, today we travel north for this derby edition against Romford, whom we meet in the first of two games inside ten days – Bostik North League today – Essex Senior Cup Quarter-Final at Ship Lane on 10 January. It is out now from Yellow Jersey Press (£9.99) .uk. The Bottom Corner: Hope, Glory and Non-League Football by Nige Tassell.
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