Daily Mirror
23 August 1979
Story: Ken Tossel
Picture: Tom Buist

These four 16-year-old punk rockers might look dejected. But soon they may find it difficult to live down to the name of their group . . . The Rejected.

For they performed a song they wrote – about the plight of jobless teenagers like themselves in their home town of Sunderland – on a BBC-2 documentary last week.

And now three recording companies are interested in the boys who “seem to be able to speak for their generation.”

Singer Mark “Watty” Whatcott, unemployed since he left school in June, said yesterday:

“We called ourselves The Rejected because that was how we felt.”

Guitarists Tony Sidney and Mick Crawford are also on the dole, while drummer Jeff Page is a £25-a-week tyre fitter. So they all agreed: “This is great news!”