Andy Potts
Bio
Community focused sports fan from Northeast England. Tends to root for the little guy. Look out for Talking Northeast, my new project coming soon.
Stories (173)
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Oh, yes it is!
When do you do it? Early December, get it out of the way, kickstart the season? Christmas Eve, a ritual distraction from last-minute madness? Maybe the weird, dateless days between Christmas and New Year, a brave bid to insert some structure into that invertebrate week?
By Andy Potts14 days ago in Families
Solstice
Flakes through sodium, Rakhmaninov on headphones, Holding the front page. In my teens, as an aspiring musician with a morning paper round, this time of year meant cold, dark mornings under the glare of old-school sodium lights (whatever happened to them?). Rakhmaninov's Vocalise always takes me back to those days, trudging across a snowy park with a bag full of newspapers. In the end, though, the papers had a greater influence on my career than the music: 30+ years on, I'm still working as a journalist!
By Andy Potts19 days ago in Poets
Breaking through barriers
It's World Girls’ Ice Hockey Weekend, the IIHF’s annual festival of the grassroots female game. Over the next few days, I’ll be helping put together coverage at IIHF.com. But before now, I wanted to look back to 2019 when I took my daughter, just past her third birthday, along to a local event for the first time.
By Andy Potts3 months ago in Unbalanced
Mercury rising. Top Story - October 2025.
It doesn’t feel like the Mercury Music Prize deserves all that much praise for finally lifting its gaze beyond the M25. Yes, it’s nice that the music industry is apparently aware that there’s more to life than London. But it’s taken 33 years to reach that far-from-groundbreaking conclusion.
By Andy Potts3 months ago in Beat
Gig review: Driven Serious
For a moment, it was like stepping back in time. The gothic church, the flicker of candlelight. The wind howling around the building as a band of music-lovers huddled for shelter against the storm. It all evoked a simpler age, an oral tradition, campfire tales.
By Andy Potts3 months ago in Beat
Going Back Brockens
Much of northeast England is celebrating industrial heritage this month, with the 200th anniversary of the world’s first railway line building up an impressive head of steam. Yet 2025 also represents 40 years since the bitter end of the miners’ strike and the subsequent unravelling of another proud tradition of working life.
By Andy Potts4 months ago in Art
You had to be there
This was the soundtrack to Sunday nights. At 6:30 pm, the lights dimmed inside Durham’s Riverside rink. The bass throbbed, an electronic ‘plink’ sent a shiver down the spine. Spotlights swirled, the melody kicked in, and the Wasps took to the ice.
By Andy Potts6 months ago in Writers
Bewitched by the underground
Here's an entry for Annie Kapur's 'Song of the Century' challenge. If you've read any Christopher Isherwood, you might catch a similar mood here (and, btw, Cabaret would be another great song for this challenge). It's incredible to think that it's already nearly 20 years since all this. And equally incredible that it's not even 20 years. Read on, and check out the link to Annie's challenge at the end.
By Andy Potts6 months ago in Writers
Mine's a pint: The Pele
Some days you could just murder a pint. And some days, you can storm a medieval fortification to get one. The Pele at Corbridge, once a mini-castle for the local vicar, is now one of Britain’s most unique micropubs. First built in 1315, the tower has centuries of history on tap; you can find stonework here dating back to Roman times, when the settlement of Corstopitum grew up near a bridge over the Tyne. It’s not hard to see how those pieces of history gave the village its name.
By Andy Potts7 months ago in Proof
