Sam Fender is a rare solution to the fight against toxic masculinity

Newcastle’s St James’ Park was a sea of black and white this weekend. But this time, flags were not waving for Eddie Howe’s Toon Army, but a 30-year-old lad from North Shields called Sam Fender, who by now, everyone – even Southerners – have heard of.

Fender is nothing short of a local hero. No other artist has the ability to galvanise a whole city into uniformed celebration like Fender does with Newcastle.

More importantly, though: he’s making boys cry.

In the crowd on Thursday’s opening night of the Seventeen Going Under hitmaker’s homecoming weekend, I rolled my eyes on seeing we had landed next to a group of teenage boys who were probably the most drunk they’d ever been.

There was no escape, as they flung themselves around, pissing on the ground to dodge the queues (which were 100,000x worse for women, by the way), and slobbering as they swayed.

Harmless kids, I knew, when I heard one tell the other off for swearing – ‘There’s kids here!’ – before, in classic Geordie style, a bald man informed them, ‘You are the kids!’ as a chuckle of appreciation spread to those nearby.