The NUFC Wind Up Continues – fanx Mike fanx Alan

The first few games of this season I have been absolutely staggered that our magnificent support has dragged in gates of over 51,000 and 49,000. The reason being is that this is my first year that I’ve decided to jack games at St James’ Park. I know many people who have also decided to terminate their physical support. Most Newcastle fans of our generation tend to think that we are THE most loyal support there is anywhere in football in the entire globe. I certainly do. It’s extremely arrogant of us to many, but it’s also an absolute fact.

Second Division in 1984, BRITAIN’s third best supported club then. Lost Keegan, within four years, we’d lost three more of the best five footballers in the country in Waddle, Beardsley and Gascoigne. I think every support has a sort of genetic principle. Liverpool’s is to be cunts. Arsenal’s is to be boring people who should disappear to Twickenham. Newcastle United’s is to be the most pathetically loyal people in global sport. It is arrogant but it’s true. It was true in the 1940’s (World Record Average Gate while in DIVISION TWO!), it was true in the 1950’s, the desolate 70’s and 80’s, and despite winning absolutely fuck all in the 90’s, 00’s and the first half of the 2010’s we had England’s second largest gates….now ONLY third since Arsenal built their ground.

It’s sad as fuck. It hurts me it always will. The fact is we are no further forward. Our owner is now worth £4,000,000,000. Incredible. This summer he was entitled to a £200,000,000 pay out for him personally within his personal business. It’s HIS personally anyway the 4 billion, but no he’ll leave it there, he won’t use it to develop his football club. Since we were promoted to the Premier League in 2010, Newcastle have generally been in terms of income between 16th and 25th richest club in the entire globe. Now this is below what we should be achieving straight away but it’s still significant. Baring in mind in the period from 2007 to 2010, due to his own mistakes to start with, we grasped far more from player sales than we spent on player purchases.

Anyway I do apologise for my blatant lack of intellect, but I could write this a thousand different ways and my conclusion would always be MIKE ASHLEY IS A CUNT. He’s spent £6m on players in 4 years at a massive club while scraping his own funds back. A billionaire who legally was shown to be a liar by Kevin Keegan, and a fanbase that I deludedly think could easily be over a million. He’s a bastard who I hope walks the streets soon with ebola. I’ll also scorn Newcastle fans who forge the tiniest corner of respect for “Mike”.

I’m old enough to remember the Gordon McKeag era. McKeag was massively abused. I was 10 years of age, and jumped on a pathetic bandwagon. When you look back at 1988 McKeag was like Mother Theresa compared to this fat bastard. He was barely a personal millionaire himself. He took over from Stan Seymour, and when we look back at dealings like selling Gascoigne and Beardsley, we built a £4m Milburn Stand (because of Valley Parade), and people need to remember the £3.2m we raised on Gazza, Paul Stephenson and Neil McDonald was all reinvested in the side, all of it. Our fans started that 88/89 season in good spirits. John Robertson was the top scorer in Scotland, John Hendrie was rated highly, same with Cup winners Andy Thorn and Dave Beasant. It all fell to pieces and McKeag was massively hated. He would have received even worse abuse than Ashley looking back without 4 billion quid in his Lloyds TSB. McKeag should be disliked 00000.1% as much as this fat scum bag.

The club is on hold. Pardew is a fucking arsehole, his comments after the recent Crystal Palace game about the fans being partly responsible for the 96th minute equaliser because of their enthusiasm show him up for what he is. A disgrace. Imagine FFS/Hall doing to that to Robson/Keegan. The club is a joke. We needed a striker so badly it’s unreal, and every single one of our astonising fanbase knew it was never going to happen on that last day. We were completely obliterated by Hull City. “Mike I need a faakin striker.”….”weww you’ve spent firty seven miww sahn”, aye but he’s spent basically fuck all in terms of income and expenditure over four years. I love Newcastle I really do, I’ve watched far, far worse Newcastle teams than the current one, 1991 was a tragic side, but I’d have watched them in the Fourth Division.

I’ve watched Newcastle United since 1985, with a season ticket since 1991, and that game against Cardiff we won 3-0, last game of last season is the last time I go again whilst Fatty and that Cheeky Grey Haired Bastard have anything to do with us. I know loads of people who have finished it, and I hope we win every game we play, and hope everyone who has spent further money on these bastards gets value, but not me. We honestly could be AT LEAST as expensively valued as Tottenham but we’re being ran like Reggie Perrin ran his pathetic million quid company. Cheap, chatty and shit. The support who is still there, well they’re second to none. The likes of Everton would get 25,000 for this. The likes of Liverpool got 33,000 under Houllier for this.

There’s no support in the country like us, but he will continue to lose people if he doesn’t either sell us or absolutely change how he has ran us for nearly 8 years. It’s truly incredible that thousands of people haven’t given up, have shown loyalty, yet the club won’t sign a striker. John Hall had the amazing Les Ferdinand, did we need a striker? Possibly but it certainly wasn’t an imperitive like it is today. What did Keegan and Hall do? Broke the world transfer record for the greatest striker we’ve ever had, and even then still added one of South America’s most skillful 90’s strikers. This man is a twat. Anyone who supports him is a twat too. The type of bloke who got divorced, paid his wife a British record £50m in a divorce settlement and laughed about it. The type of bloke that went in Asper’s Casino in Newcastle lost £1.3m on the top table, and walked out laughing saying “hahaha oh weww faak it”, in other words a cunt.

GET OUT OF OUR CLUB YOU FAT COCKNEY BASTARD GET OUT OF OUR CLUB!!!!!

Newcastle and England

THE TOON

When I was young and first started going to the matches, our support was absolutely brilliant in the main. We had complete radgies supporting us, going to games, causing ruptions home and away, and we had some of the most knowledgeable supporters you will find anywhere in the world. That’s not an overstatement. However my earliest memories of football at St James’ in the mid to late 80’s heavily include blokes who would go to games for no other reason than to moan at our players, moan at McFaul, moan at the board, just naturally whingey bastards, or so it seemed then.

Sadly, I’m in my 30’s now and I’m exactly the same. It’s that long since I’ve had anything to smile about NUFC, that I have chucked it and I’m not going back. It’s depressing because I want to love Newcastle United again, but I just can’t. I hate Pardew, and I hate that fat cunt Ashley more than anything else football related ever. It’s got nothing to do with the fact, we are a mid-table club, which without we are, it’s to do with the fact I’ve been taken the piss out of for the last time.

We are in the process of spending around £30m on players of varying potential and ability. Why was this not being done in January, when we were losing Cabaye, and clearly starting to come off the rails? Money. Not because we or he hasn’t got the money to spend, we do and he has. It was purely and simply because financially with us all but sured of top 10, our financial and achievement objectives had been met. We were 5th mid December after 18 games. FIFTH. Then rumours started about Cabaye leaving. We had 20 games left. That fat bastard knew we had achieved our objective being 16 points clear of the lower half, so yeah get the money for Cabaye fuck the remaining games. As it turned out from, afer beating Man Utd, Palace and Stoke, our record to the end of the season was P20 W5 D1 L14. I don’t even need to say that is relegation form. It’s not just relegation form, it’s the form of a side who will come 20th. Yeah but it’s alright because we’ll achieve our season objective. WELL FUCK OFF!

Someone needs to tell this fat bastard football is a million times more than a business, and Newcastle United as much as any club is. I couldn’t give a monkeys if he signed Messi and Ronaldo, he is a fat cunt, and he has killed nearly everything to do with the club. He’s taken the piss out of every single Newcastle fan, and the ones who are prepared to keep on giving him money will continue to be taken the piss out of. He is a hermit a fat hermit, who doesn’t deserve a penny off any geordie. Newcastle United to me are on a life support machine till he goes. Newcastle United belong to him. Well they’re not Newcastle United anymore. We can all tag along with “support the team not the regime”, not me anymore, and it breaks my heart, but I’ve just lost my love and it’s purely down to him. In 2009 there was a 5 year plan. At the end of that 5 years we are in a far worse position than 5 years before he bought the club in 2002.

He’s such an ignorant twat, he won’t come out and speak to the public. He is the classic example of the child with the unloved upbringing, his fatha hated him, he had few friends allegedly and fair play to him for making his millions, but he is a cunt, he always will be and you couldn’t find anyone in this country including Abu Hamza, more distanced from the culture we have on Tyneside.

For the people who are going to games next season, I genuinely hope it’s a great season, I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t going to be in the pub watching and hoping we win, but that’s it for me till he dies or goes, he is everything the North East of England isn’t. For years people have said English football is purely about money, that is true of NUFC more than any other. We are a sick joke, the only club with the billionaire who everyone hates and refuses to spend his money the fat fuckin hermit.

ENGLAND AND THE WORLD CUP

In the North East of England, and definitely in places like Liverpool, there are an element of people who genuinely couldn’t care less about the English national team. I’m not one of them.

This summer for me summed up England in the last quarter century. People are adamant our football is ruined. The fact only 30% of players are English in our top division certainly doesn’t help the England squad, but are we really that bad?

The three games we played, and don’t get me wrong hardly anyone agrees with me (apart from the fuckwit that is Paul Merson), but I think England were the better side in all three games. Marginally, but the stats back it up too. More corners, more shots, more relevant possession. I hand on heart do not think we were shite. On paper looking at the results it is the worst tournament we were ever involved in, but we had no luck, and the truth of the matter people need to face up to is, we aren’t the best team, and the last time we were (if we were) it was because football was in its formative days in other countries i.e. before the first ever World Cup.

Why do English people expect the English national team to compete? Loads of reasons, but one of the main ones is we’re insular arrogant twats. Germany has a population of 80 odd million, ours is little over 50m with a large portion of immigrants coming from cultures where they’ve never produced top quality. Italy and France also have larger populations with a larger pool extending from their country in places like Algeria and USA where they just generally get players like Giuseppe Rossi for example. Why should someone born in New York, and raised in New York ever have got an Italian cap? I’m going off at a tangent, but apart from Terry Butcher and John Barnes (both raised here) tell me someone who wasn’t born in England who has turned out for us.

England shouldn’t expect anything. Mexico is equally as passionate about the world game as we are with over double our population. They have achieved absolutely fuck all in the World Cup ever. So my feeling is, yes we can try and improve, but there are football countries far far larger than us in size and population who haven’t been in the top 18 FIFA ranked sides non stop over the last 20 years like we have. Are we so arrogant that our fuckwit journalists regard everything other than last 8 in tournaments as abject failure?

The World Cup as a whole was brilliant. It made my summer, brilliant game after brilliant game. The best of my life time by a mile, but I repeat and I agree with Merson, England could’ve went to the last four. Holland are not a great side, they came THIRD! We can go on about being shit forever, the fact is we are not shit. We have players on their day who can compete with anyone. We’re not the best, we never were. Our football culture dictates we probably never will be. It was always the fastest league, always the “get stuck in” way of playing, always the club before country culture, so what do we want? We are not brilliant and we are not shite, we’re inbetween. We were unlucky, and no better and no worse than Italy and Uruguay who went in to the tournament ranked in the top 10 in the world.

Liverpool Football Club

It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, there are good and bad people.  There’s very few cities in the world where you find people with as much pride in their area as you get in Newcastle upon Tyne.  I think without any bias geordies have as much local identity as any group of people in Britain.  However scouse pride is every bit as great, in their area and what they believe it means to be scouse.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being proud of where you’re from and to be fair Liverpool as a city has a far more decorated history than the vast majority of places.  It was once the second wealthiest city in the entire British Empire.  Some statemen that when you think we controlled 25% of the British Empire at one point.  The actual centre of Liverpool isn’t a bad place at all and has a whole host of listed buildings, so there’s nothing wrong with being proud of where you’re from.

On top of that the city has won 27 league titles, 18 for Liverpool, and remarkably 9 for Everton, and when you think London is more than eight times the size, has 14 football clubs, yet they’ve only won 19 between them all, then it really is some achievement.  It truly puts in to perspective the place that Merseyside bu hook or crook has developed for itself in football history.

I don’t want to come across as bigoted but scousers in my view are like no other on this island.  This piece isn’t specifically about Everton FC, or scousers specifically though, it’s about the most self absorbed club and group of supporters anywhere in Europe.  That club is Liverpool FC.

When you speak to a Liverpool fan at a match, you have a 50/50 chance of speaking to someone actually from the North West.  You go to Anfield and there’s often that many Chinese/French/Irish/Spanish/Japanese etc…. that you could quite easily believe you’re at Madam Tussaud’s rather than an actual sporting arena.  The amount of people getting their photo’s taken beside the Shankly Gates is incredible.  I’ve been there many times it’s always the same.  Their worldwide support is based on one thing.  Glory hunting.  The Liverpool Way has fed the imagination of foreigners around the world.  What is the “Liverpool Way”? 

Liverpool fans often try to claim they are the greatest supporters in the world.  In what way though?  In 2004 they were getting 35,000 regularly because they were only 5th.  In 2001 they were proclaiming Gerard Houllier with his three trophies as the greatest manager in the world.  Three years later with Gerard still recovering from a heart attack he was the most clueless manager they’d ever had since before Shankly.  Liverpool fans are everything I pray that we don’t turn out to be, if by some miracle we’re every successful.

Hillsborough was by far the most disasterous event in the history of British sport, I was only young and remember it like it was yesterday.  An awful way to go and the parents, friends and associates deserve every respect for fighting against police and government convenience lies to prove their innocence after 24 years.  Anyone with a heart can feel for the entire area given the sickening events.  However, Heysel was a completely different matter.  Whenever you mention Heysel to a Liverpool fan they get emotional, because they know they were in the wrong.  They were a disgrace.  Whether they like it or not Liverpool’s match going to support in Brussell’s that day cause the deaths of 38 Italians and 1 Belgian innocent football fan due to their shocking violence that evening.  An evening when Liverpool fans sent English football back 10 years.  You could say the actual football style didn’t remotely begin to improve for well over a decade because the only way the vast majority of our players could taste European football of any degree was leaving England to play for foreign clubs.  As ever though they take such conversations with distain.  “Ay lad all English teams were workin themselves in them days.”  A degree of truth in that possibly.  The bit that’s missing is that not one caused the death of any foreign supporters in any game let alone in an European final.  When Manchester United fans sing to them,”it’s never your fault, it’s never your fault, always the victims, it’s never your fault.”, it’s so poignant because it really is true.  You would think a club like them would learn from such an incredibly sickening behaviour.  Yet 23 years after Heysel and 18 years after Hillsborough, Liverpool fans without tickets at the 2007 final in Athens, ROBBED their own supporters of their tickets, then when many tried and failed to rob others, they steamed the gates and many hundreds of ticketless fans gained entry to the stadium.  Since 1985 to my knowledge, Manchester United many times, Chelsea, Arsenal, Middlesbrough and Fulham have all appeared in European finals without any incident at all.  Yet Liverpool’s first top end European final in 22 years sees the same insociable sickening behaviour.  You can’t just dismiss it as chance.  Why is it always the same club?  Why when they’re questioned about anything that you could lay criticism to them do they react like they’re the victims.

The entire country is aware what they are like.  You can’t just say “bastard scousers”, because to be fair, when have Everton fans done any of the following?  Heysel?  Throwing shit at young away fans at Anfield whenever they play Manchester United?  Athens?  Various stabbings?  That’s only scratching the surface too.  They are scum.  Whenever they’re told the truth neither, they get upset like the emotional arseholes they are.  They are the biggest embarrassment to English football in our countries history.  They are the most ridiculed, pitied, hated supporters in this country.  The reaction the other night confirmed it.  No one cares if Man Utd or Chelsea or Arsenal win the league, but not Liverpool.  The entire country rejoiced.  The victims got their day to be the victims once again against Crystal Palace, and I’m not ashamed to admit I cheered Crystal Palace’s equaliser like it was a Newcastle goal.  I’m not a hateful person, and nor are many millions who wish the worst for this club.  It’s not jealousy, I’d rather we win fuck all than be anything like that shower of shite, it’s absolute contempt for what they are.  I don’t like this line “all football fans are the same”.  It’s a load of bollocks, we’re nothing like them in any way, achievement wise, support profile wise, attitude wise, and thank fuck for that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sir Bobby Robson must turn in his grave at our classless manager

I remember beating Tottenham 3-1 about 2008 and the Spurs fans were singing, “aww ya do, aww ya do, aww ya do is faakin moan! aww ya do is faakin moan.”

A few other people have accused us of being whingers too in the past.  David Pleat, the former Tottenham manager disgraced in many papers for curb crawling, once said that Newcastle fans give the team an unfair advantage because we appeal for every decision we can even when it’s ridiculous, thus unfairly winning free kicks on a regular basis.  To be honest I think that was one of the best parts of our support 10 or 15 years ago.   We used to intimidate the opposition and referees.  I think that is a sign of positive whinging doing our best as supporters to help the team.  

Now our whinging is different.  We whinge because we are upset at every aspect surrounding the club.  It’s very easy to slate Ashley, he for me is one of the single biggest twats in the clubs history.  I don’t want to sound melodramatic but he honestly is.  He is a scumbag.  People keep saying he’s a smart businessman.  Newcastle United financially and any other way aren’t reaching half of their potential because of how the chairman has ran the club from top to bottom for nearly 7 years.  His “he’ll do”, “they’ll do”, “a little profit will do” attitudes are systematically producing apathy surrounding the club that I’ve personally never seen in three decades.   Enough about Ashley for now though, there’s only so many ways you can portray him as the anti-Christ, and believe me I’ve tried every single one ten times over.

Ashley is one thing.  He’s never going to change.  I think he’s the absolute epitome of a real life Gordon Gecho, who will never ever accept criticism, will do it his way, and will make life difficult for anyone who ever criticises him.  Pardew even once hinted at the fact that, “Mike sometimes doesn’t do things with the best interests of the football club at heart”.  In other words Mike can’t handle the situation that he is widely hated, and will do everything he can to make people aware of the fact that he is the all powerful, all conquering fifth richest British person in the UK.  What a cunt.  WHAT A CUNT.  Anyway that’s the last time I mention him.  

Before Pardew came in, I honestly think Hughton was doing a decent job, we were mid-table and doing alright.  I’d heard before we beat the mackems 5-1 Pardew was coming in as manager, we’d beaten Arsenal, West Ham and Sunderland in a fortnight and sadly for Chrissy his departure was only delayed by 6 weeks as a result.  That season we scored 41 goals at home, bettered only by champions Manchester United and 7 more than the third best home scorers Man City.  Not bad for a team who were in the Championship the previous season.  6-0 wins against Villa, 5-1 wins against the mackems, away wins at Arsenal, Everton and West Ham, but “Mike’s feeling was Chris didn’t quite have the experience”.  

I’m not saying Hughton is or was the world’s best manager, but his performance from August 2009 to December 2010 was worthy of at least 8 out of 10.  How he was treat was a disgrace, an absolute disgrace, a bloke with more dignity in his left toe than Ashley will ever produce in a lifetime.  Pardew came in and rightly the vast majority of people were up in arms.  He’d always been a smarmy embarrassing arsehole.   Yes the Pards/Wenger incident was funny in 2006 when West Ham got that last minute winner against Arsenal, but do you really want your manager being a common as fuck classless wanker, or having dignity, respect and intelligence?

The rest of the 2010/2011 season under Pardew saw some decent results, the 4-4 with Arsenal was great, the 5-0 against West Ham when Leon Best scored a hattrick was staggering, but that was it for me.  That season saw the last time we showed any attacking REAL attacking intent.

The 2011/2012 saw us come 5th, we made some absolutely brilliant buys, primarily down to Graham Carr.  Demba was excellent up front, Cabaye magnificent, even Jonas had a reasonably good season.  We were incredibly lucky in many games, our goal difference of +5 told a story when you consider Tottenham in 4th were +25, but by hook or by crook it was a canny season.  

Since then it’s been shit.  Every time we look like being a really decent side, we’ve put holes in the side without proper planning and replacements.  It was obvious Cabaye would be away, not even a thought of replacing him before the end of the season, “oh its OK we’re so far clear of 11th we’ll achieve our objectives this season.”.  I’ve never been a football manager of anything like that, other than my 5 a side team or a game of ChampMan back in the day on the computer winning the Premier League with Huddersfield Town, but I tell you what this idiot simply can not do, and that is get his side to play fluid football.  I’m all for managers playing it tight when it’s working.  George Graham won the title with Arsenal playing like that.  The problem with Pardew’s tactics are so blatantly obvious to football managerial novices like myself, but he does fuck all about it.  WE NEVER MOVE OFF THE BALL!!!  We just don’t run off the ball.  You can say well maybe we don’t have the players to do it, but even if that’s the case (and I don’t necessarily think it is), why do Newcastle United not sign players who can so at least our tactics can be more fluid than they are.

Why do journalists never ask him, why for 3 years he has insisted on playing tight, battling, defensive football, which is fine when it’s working but totally unacceptable when it’s not.  It’s fine coming out with all of the geordie myths like, “the geordies would rather lose 4-3 than win 1-0.”  That is total bollocks, but what if we’re going to go down, one thing that in my deluded mind that should be ingrained in the very fibre of the football club, is that we at least try and entertain over 50,000 mugs who waste money on this shower of shite every year.

I finally lost my patience with Pardew as a human being after we beat Chelsea 2-0 as it happens.  It was without doubt in my view the greatest Newcastle performance in his era as manager of the club, he’d been given nothing to spend for 12 months, when we really needed it, and he came out with the following, ““This win is for Mike Ashley. Trust me, he is a fan and I’m pleased for him.”

This win is for an owner who has on occasion even admitted doesn’t do things with the best interests of the club at heart.  Fucking classless arsehole.  You look at the dignity Sir Bobby Robson had as manager of the club, he wasn’t bothered about money, about his contract he just got on with it, and the best thing I can say about SBR was he did as much to brighten the name of Newcastle United worldwide as Keegan did.  We were a club to be proud of.  Now we have Pardew who goes around calling proven European managers “old cunts”, who sticks the nut on opposition players, and an owner who doesn’t give a fuck, it’s all about money.  Make no mistake about it, Pardew will receive a fortune for being in the top 10 with this new Premier League deal.  That’s why he’s content to come out with things like “that ones for Mike”, when we get a win despite “Mike” giving him fuck all to spend for the best part of two years.  It’s all about money, and it always will be.  Pardew will go along with it because he is a classless wanker, who will make money and try and enhance his reputation till a plastic southern club like Tottenham or Chelsea want him.  Fucking arsehole.  His time is up – 10 league games without scoring in the last 14, would see most managers of any reasonably sized club face massive pressure, but Pardew knows he’s alright because he’s achieved the top ten objective, he doesn’t give a fuck, and neither does Ashley as long as the Premier League money train is coming in to town, which it is.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 Clubs I hate

I’m not a pacifist, there’s loads of football clubs I just don’t like, either because of their players, their managers or more often than not their supporters.  As I’m in a shit mood and have an hour to kill I thought I’d write my top 10 cunt list, and the reasons why I hate them.

1 Sunderland

I don’t like mackems.  I worked there for years, absolute tramps.  It sounds bigoted, and there is too much bigotry in the world, but their accent is a disgrace to vocal chords.  They nearly all smoke and they exist to hate us.  There’s times I’ve watched games and wanted Sunderland to win because occasionally the baring of their result has influenced our league place, but I always feel guilty.  I don’t want “banter” with them, I want fuck all to do with Sunderland towny mackems.   It’s no exaggeration to say they hate Newcastle United, everything Newcastle upon Tyne is and geordies more than they love their own club and city.

2 Liverpool

There are times I hate them more than the mackems even. Was summed up by Steve McManaman (who is a grade A cunt) in the paper, saying Carroll would take longer to settle at Liverpool because there’s more pressure and they’re a club on a much higher level than Newcastle? Fucking what?  For starters you could play for Real Madrid and the pressure would be no greater than it is here. Even Souness the cunt said the pressure and focus on you managing Newcastle United is greater than he found it at Rangers and Liverpool, and they’re only on another level because they have a rich owner no other reason. 

They haven’t won the title for 24 years, and haven’t even come close to it, I just don’t get why they’re regarded as special. You could write a fucking book on why they’re cunts, two books even, and it’s not just the football club. It’s the attitude of scousers too, they’re not all twats, but I’ve met so many I’ve just wanted to smack, the ones who accentuate their horrible accents too, I’m honestly grimacing writing this about them. My dislike of Liverpool is significantly greater than my dislike of Everton and I don’t like them neither. 

3 Tottenham 

The most undeservedly mouthy fans of them all.  Patronise Newcastle no end, when the fact is our last 20 years has been better than their’s.  They couldn’t fill 36000 till Jol took over now they’re claiming to be the Real Madrid of the south.  Suck me clems.  Big support in London and Jerusalem, no where else.

4 Everton

Fucking tramps.  “Waaays ya tlophies??!?!” is all you get out of them when the fact is if you’re under 26 they’ve won one cup in your lifetime.  Absolute hovel of a place, and yet another club who’s fans are obsessed with us.  Mickey mouse club in my eyes with a spor of the support we have, never take any shit off these over-achieving paraffins.

5 Leeds

Got family who support Leeds so I know a lot about the club, been to Elland Road for loads of games which haven’t involved Newcastle.

Now I don’t want to get in to a big club debate. Newcastle don’t have the recent history to call themselves a big club, but in my opinion only three or four clubs do. What I will remember about Leeds this season is this comment from Allan Clarke.

Quote

He said: “Jermaine is doing a great job for Leeds, the fans love him, and he is already with the biggest club he’ll ever play for.

“Let’s face it, Leeds are far bigger than Newcastle, so Jermaine should stay at Elland Road and become a real hero there.”

It really is like comparing The Titanic to the Shields Ferry, the arrogant deluded bastard. They are a shit club in a city which isn’t even football orientated, and listening to the crack last week, something along the lines of Leeds were 15 points above Norwich five months ago, and now there’s been a 13 point swing. I don’t want to laugh at a teams misfortune, but they’ve lost too much momentum to think they’ll go up in the play offs, and I love it. I hope they stay in that league forever, a league smaller club Newcastle has never been in in its’ 118 year history I may add.  Shit club, shit fans. Pipe down and stay down. The funny thing is Bates was a great chairman in January 2010, and Grayson was the next Mourinho, these days Bates is seen as the anti-christ and Grayson their worst manage ever who should’ve been sacked earlier. 

6 Celtic 7 Rangers – see here… https://moderndaydoilum.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/rangers-and-celtic-two-of-the-biggest-clubs-in-eh-werruld-aye-right/

8 Aston Villa

I was in with them in the Holte End and every myth peddled about Newcastle was being spouted all around me, and every stereotype about brummies fulfilled. If we relegated anyone I would seriously hope we wouldn’t be so small time to make flags about a non rival team. Fucking what a set of wanks.

From now on I will take extra satisfaction in doing these small time wanks, they are nothing, they are nothing to me and most toon fans, but the sheer delight they took in our relegation will live long in the memory, the toon fans who were there were dignified and showed more class than what most supports would, but despite the pain of relegation, my pride in being geordie was magnified 10 fold in seeing the difference between us and them.

9 Barcelona

The global bumming they receive is beyond parallel, they’ve been marketed very very well over the last decade, well I don’t buy any of this UNICEF bollocks as anything other than a publicity stunt designed long term for their supporters to accept shirt sponsorship.  It’s a very cynical attitude to have but I’m not their biggest fan.  They extremely good PR, I can see through it.

10 Boro 

Hate us almost as much as the mackems do.  They want us to care but we don’t really.  Shit hole place like most of the places South of the Tyne in the North of England, and they soaked in jealousy of Newcastle and Newcastle United.  Common as fuck most of their fans.

Other special mentions for Nottingham Forest, Portsmouth, Fulham, any Italian club, Wolves and Man City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the point of Newcastle United?

When I was growing up as a bairn in the 80’s we expected to lose many of the games we played. The biggest hiding I saw Newcastle get was a 0-4 trouncing off Everton on Boxing Day 1986. That stayed the biggest home hiding I saw us get till Man Utd beat us 2-6 in 2003. The thing is with those two defeats, Man Utd had van Nistelrooy, Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Keane…all at their peak. Everton went on to be champions when they took the piss in 1986 with one of the greatest sides I’ve ever seen.

Liverpool last season obviously is the biggest home defeat that anyone under the age of 100 has ever seen at home for us. However, and I don’t want to go over the top, Saturday for me was worse than last season against them, and worse than against Liverpool too. I’ve seen us play Sunderland probably twenty times, I saw us lose 2-0 in the play offs to them, the two 2-1 games in 2000 and 2001, last seasons and now this season. The play off game was the most important obviously, but we were the better side, we didn’t deserve to lose 2-0. The two 2-1 games, we were the better side. Last season Sunderland had 4 shots, three of them absolute screamers, again a game that felt like a bit of a freak.

At the weekend though, I could see after 5 minutes what was going to happen. They were all over us and for the first time in my lifetime they absolutely deserved to pummel us. We were fucking shit! Now I’m not going to let the players get away with getting none of the abuse, they deserve it. Ashley however has outshone himself in the cunt stake and that takes some doing. Pardew moaned all season about the Europa League effecting our league form. That’s fine, but in a large percentage of the games he was only playing 4 and 5 first teamers anyway! You could tell against Aston Villa the first game after the window closed (a window where we signed no one), that it was going to be a shit season in 12/13. Having said that we didn’t lose anyone then and there was a deeply negative feeling that month which only got worse, and Pardew’s excuses got worse. This time we’ve lost our best player, in fact without sounding biased one of the very best midfielders in the entire league this season. Fine. Cabaye wanted to leave. He left with Laurent Blanc coming out with the following, “Yohan stressed to me he would not have left Newcastle if they were in the Champions League because he loved the club.” Even if we were spunking money, like Man City, there’s no guarantees we’d get in the Champions League, but Everton and Tottenham over the last 3 or 4 seasons have shown you don’t have to bankrupt yourself to float about 4th, 5th and 6th place.

Which leaves the question for me. What is the point in our existence? I don’t care what any fucker says, Newcastle United should be far far bigger than Everton with our vastly superior fanbase, and certainly being competitive with Tottenham every single season. What is the point in our existence? I’m 36 years of age and I absolutely adore the club the same as most people from Tyneside do. A League Cup or a FA Cup victory, would be the only trophy we’ve ever won in my lifetime, and I don’t care about how snobby clubs like Chelsea are to these trophies, to win one of them would be absolutely brilliant for us, it would get that 45 year monkey off our back, and there’s not one city in this country would appreciate it more. The guy who came to the fans meeting months ago, admitted the soul purpose of our club is to come top 10. He basically said the cups were an irrelevance. Well they can fuck off! I don’t want to portray myself as the clubs best fan, I’ve hardly been away for 3 or 4 years, but I’ve missed no more than 10 home games since the 80s, and for the first time ever I’m seriously considering jacking it. I don’t know what the point of Newcastle United is, other than something to clear the debt we owe a man who made £250m profits from his businesses last year.

He bought the club to have fun. If by having fun he means take the piss out of 1m Newcastle fans in the UK, he’s doing a magnificent job. Even his staunchest supporters, must be honest enough to admit, a proper contigency for Cabaye’s departure should have been sorted. The man is a CUNT, and in my view anyone that claims to support Newcastle who denies it, is a cunt too.

Anyway back to the game. Worst I’ve ever seen. The mackems battered us. They took the piss out of us like we did them for years. Shola should retire now with dignity, he was absolutely disgusting, but getting back to that Villa game last season, it was entirely the same approach. No signings, but this time losing our best player. That created a negative attitude around the city without losing anyone. I don’t know where we go from here, we could win our next two games, and everything will be “fixed” in some peoples eyes. It won’t though. It never will while Ashley owns us. Pardew has to toe the party line, but I think even he is getting fucked off with it. The amount of erms and ahs and no comments in that press conference was telling. We’re 8th top of the best league in the world, so looking at it like that, things don’t appear to be all that bad, but they are. The mackems are laughing their tits off at everything about our club, and so they should. Fair enough we’re a far bigger club, but their supporters could be looking forward to two cup finals this year, a manager who has progressed the club no end, whereas the rest of us at Newcastle can look in the mirror and just genuinely wonder what the point of existence is. For all Ashley’s faux pas in the last 7 years, we are far past the point of no return with him now.

Rangers and Celtic – two of the biggest clubs in “eh werruld”, aye right

I was brought up a catholic, but irrespective if you have faith in God, the Roman Catholic church has more to be embarrassed about than proud of. Did Jesus actually say “here look if you’re a priest you can’t shag anyone”? In England to be fair I don’t think there is much if any animosity between people who raised as catholics and people who were raised as protestants. In Scotland and Northern Ireland though it’s a different world.

I don’t think it’s possible to have a conversation with a Celtic fan without hearing the words “Cellik are waan ay eh biggest clubs in eh werruld.” Rangers fans were the same before they went bust and had to start again. Don’t get me wrong I love Glasgow, I’ve been there scores of times, it is without an absolutely brilliant city, full of heritage, character, people with genuine personality, where you know where you stand with people at all times. I like Glasgow. If Newcastle didn’t exist I’d seriously consider living there. You go up Buchanan Street and you are on in my view, not only one of the greatest streets in the United Kingdom, but one of the greatest streets in the western world, it’s beautiful. So while Glasgow has a reputation for being a right shithole, it’s a fantastic city, I’d encourage anyone to go, the centre is as good as Newcastle and I don’t say that about many places.

Parts of Glasgow have a life expectancy of 49. 98% of Africa has a higher life expectancy than that, so it’s a bizarre city full of contrasts. Scotland was largely speaking a staunchly presbyterian country prior to the potato famine in Ireland. Glasgow along with Liverpool were the main places these Irishmen settled to the extent that today, they’re the only major cities in the British Isles that have more catholics than protestants.

Enough of the bullshit pretending I’m an expert on Scottish and Irish sectarianism and history anyway. The fact is this. Their fans (not all) are fucking utter deluded plebs. The amount of times I’ve heard a jock say “Newcastle are a wee diddy team”. Well I’ll say something now, Newcastle United have more history and better support than Rangers or Celtic both now and historically. Winning 53 league titles in a league where the third biggest team in reality are no bigger than half of the third tier of English football is NOTHING. Celtic won the European Cup in 1967, and they should rightly be proud of that achievement, for me given who they are it is without doubt the greatest club achievement in the history of club football in Europe. A club from a country of 5 million people, and all eleven players were from within 30 miles of Glasgow. To me that is like Billy Hardy chinning Lennox Lewis. However, imagine if Newcastle United (Europe’s best supported club in the late 40s and early 50s http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn/england/aveeng1948.htm) played in a league where they had a 50/50 chance of winning the league every season. That means that since 1956 we’d have had probably played in the European Cup 30 times. Nottingham Forest (!?) played in it twice and won it twice! So it’s a fair assumption that on that basis we’d have won a few if our entry was so easy. Of course it’s all hypothetical, but don’t take any shit off them.

The “greatest supporters in eh werruld”, as they both like to be referred to historically in terms of support don’t hold a candle to us. 1978 was the first season from 1892 Celtic averaged more in a season than us, Rangers lagging behind most of the time too. The facts are out there. Celtic had NEVER averaged over 40,000 in its’ entire history till 1998. We should laugh at them when they try to be derogatory about us, Rangers are the same.

Compare the three cubs historically
http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attnclub/newu.htm
http://www.fitbastats.com/celtic/club_records_league_attendance.php
http://www.fitbastats.com/rangers/club_records_league_attendance.php

I remember speaking to one Celtic fan in London in 1999 who tried to tell me Henrik Larsson was one of the three best players in the world, and was “better than Shearer”, at the time Larsson had been at Celtic two years having been previously been in Feyenoord RESERVES. Granted he went to have a decent career, but it summed up how utterly deluded their support is.

 

In closing I hope they never come to the Premier League so we don’t have to put up with them singing Brits Out walking up Barrack Road before our game in 2007, when our reserves beat their first team 4-1, or causing 400 to be hospitalised like Rangers in 1969. An absolute bunch of tramps, and any geordie who holds either as a “second team”, need to have a word with themselves.

We have working class fans the same as any other, but I’m yet to meet a Newcastle fan as thick as this bloke at the end here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmGjiokfQ2A

The support Mike Ashley retains

When I’m writing these blogs sometimes I think “am I just repeating myself?”. There’s so much to say about the last 25 years though, there’s so much to say about the last 5 years never mind 25 years.

We were all young once, I still think of myself as young even though I’ve got 8 grey hairs, and I know for a fact many of our young support are tremendous. Since the Darlington incident in 2012, the club obviously made it more difficult for non-members/non-season ticket holders to get tickets. Yet still we can take 2,500 to North London on a Sunday afternoon with the game live on telly, two generations of fans old and young who haven’t seen one trophy of note. In general I couldn’t be more proud of our support. What the latest generation of kids, not just at Newcastle, but around the UK has brought though is an element of fans who have to take an alternative view. They have to. They believe having an alternative view to the norm, makes them appear more studious, more interesting and more cultured, that’s how I see it.

I never hated Freddy Shepherd like many did, but he did some utterly stupid things. No one can argue that he should have had no complaints that a majority of the support wanted him to leave. Up till 2004 though Newcastle weren’t losing vasts amount of money. In 2003 the club made more money than we did in 2012 which is remarkable when you think some of the bigger clubs have trebled their turnover in that period. In terms of income Shepherd had it right, certainly at that point. His treatment of Robson was poor, but people need to face facts about that. He was 73 years of age, he died five years later tragically. A lovely bloke who brought Newcastle back to the level where we should always be, but I don’t remember too many people up in arms about Shepherd’s desire to move on after 2 points from 4 games at the start of the 2004/2005 season. http://www.nufc.com in particular almost campaigned for Robson’s replacement, and it was never going to be easy because there was such a bond and love between support and manager, one thing is for certain though it did have to change at some point. How Shepherd did it was terrible, but the hypocrite toon fans who look back at that time as an abhorration on FFS time here have short memories. Very few people were vehemently vilifying Shepherd for searching for a new manager after that 4-2 defeat at Villa. Where Shepherd got it wrong were his further decisions over the next three years. I think when you look at how much Souness wasted, how he ripped apart a talented side and replaced it largely speaking with shite at a huge cost, that as much as anything put the club on a downward trajectory. People who support Ashley don’t want that seen, all they want people to hear is Shepherd would have led us to bankruptcy. Well. Bollocks.

The majority of the debt Ashley was left with was the mortgage on the stadium which would’ve been paid by 2016. Ashley decided to wipe all the debt which was over £100m. Fine. What sort of businessman spends £134m on a new toy without going through the clubs debts with a fine tooth comb then blames the previous leaders of the club on debts which weren’t clear? The sort of businessman who can do anything wrong yet will still have a minority of followers striving to be interesting and claiming to understand and respect his methods that’s who.

At the end of the day you can argue till the cows come home about Shepherd and Ashley, I can even understand the point of view that from 2004 to 2007 was a complete disaster, but one thing I will never accept is idiots who come out with statements like “the club would’ve went bankrupt”, it’s complete bollocks. THAT is the core argument that “Mike’s” supporters have.

In the grand scheme of things though it’s irrelevant to my point and to this post. The fact of the matter is Newcastle United have a very large fanbase, we have support all over the country, and in many places right around the world, but………in Britain there’s certainly not one club of our size where almost the entire heritage and meaning of the club is defined by the very city and local community in which it residex. Maybe I’m biased but I love geordies, having worked in other places, and known hundreds of people from other places, many other great people, I honestly wouldn’t swap geordies for the world. We are a hard working decent people who have historically stood up for ourselves when we’ve had to fight. We have stood united against regional bias and the callous denigration of our area many times, in my life time most notably about Margaret Thatcher’s decimation of many of our local towns like Consett, the end of industry largely speaking on Tyneside and Wearside. We have always collectively stood together, fought together as one against arsehole repression. The generation of Thatcher has produced people who work in offices, many people who basically are fannies, I should know I am one, it has produced an area which produces fuck all really. People are becoming more robotic every ten years, and it’ll get worse it’s the way society is evolving. As I said at the start this process is producing kids who strive for an alternative view as they have nothing funny or interesting to say. That may seem like an extreme view, but it certainly explains the fact that Mike Ashley retains support.

The nature of my piece here was basically brought about by this:

NUFCfans ‏@nufcfans 13h
Sports Direct continues to do well. £143m profit announced, up 14% on last year. Well done to Mike Ashley. #NUFC

Now for me you probably shouldn’t look at people as being “gods”. Kevin Keegan to me though is the very definition of everything that is good about the North East of England. His heritage is here, one of his relations died in one of the pits a century ago, very few people have understood our people and area better than him. Keegan took Newcastle from absolutely nothing and I mean nothing to being one of the most talked about clubs in the world. He wasn’t amazing tactically, he made the odd bad signing, he was very single minded and could be huffy, what he was though was everything I want Tyneside to stand for. He was bubbly, chirpy, cheeky, passionate, caring, positive, honest, driven THE ABSOLUTE EPITOME of Newcastle historically, culturally, absolutely everything.

He was given the job the second time, the night we played Stoke. It was a freezing night, we’d sold 20,000 tickets by 2pm that day, at 330pm he was appointed manager, by 8pm there was 40,000 people in the stadium. No other person in this country in my view could inspire a walk up of 20,000 people in four hours. It was brilliant. We’d been playing shite, yet an hour later we were 4-0 up. Keegan took a while to steady the boat, but by April we were rocking, we beat Tottenham 4-1 at WHL and there was a lot to be proud of.

That summer Keegan was treat like scum. He was given nothing he was promised, and an INDEPENDENT ARBITRATION PANEL granted him £2m compensation for constructive dismissal. Now for me that should be the end of any support Ashley ever gets, however since then he’s went from horrifically bad to worse. Where we are today is where we should be at the very least. I couldn’t care less if we won the Champions League though, I go back to what this area stands for, we might as well support Man Utd or Arsenal than give praise to a disgrace of a human being who has divided everything we’ve ever stood for. Keegan said recently he’ll always love Newcastle, but he can’t support a regime which stand for none of the values we do in the N.E. of England.

Mentioning his treatment of Keegan should be bad enough for anyone to stomach who truly understands this club, but there’s also:

• The failure of the present owner to conduct due diligence before purchasing the club
• The appointment of Dennis Wise as executive director (football)
• The treatment of figures such as Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer
• The appointment of Joe Kinnear as manager
• Relegation of a club who were Europe’s 10th richest 7 seasons prior
• The dismissal of Chris Hughton
• The renaming of St James’ Park
• The appointment of Joe Kinnear as director of football
• The sponsorship agreement with Wonga, the payday lenders
• The banning of three local newspapers

These are only scratching the surface as well, many of these decisions done as a wind up. There can be absolutely no other explanation for some of the decisions. Joe Kinnear. You don’t even need to expand on those two words. So anyway I may not be making myself perfectly clear that I don’t like Mike Ashley, but I honestly dont.

My main point is this. We should never live in a society where people all hold the same views. Life would be boring. Anyone who has the tinyest degree of respect for Mike Ashley, is a cunt. That is my point. If you’re not from the North East, I can understand to a degree that you don’t really grasp what he did to Keegan (what KK did for this area/what he means to this area) and all of his other faux pas and how bad they are, but for someone on twitter who with 41,000 followers and a degree of influence to come out with the following:

NUFCfans ‏@nufcfans 14h
Sports Direct continues to do well. £143m profit announced, up 14% on last year. Well done to Mike Ashley. #NUFC

Absolutely incredible. Just fuck off. Umar Farooq who is the twitter equivalent of Mike Ashley, a businessman without a clue about Newcastle United, without a clue about Tyneside, without a clue about the values geordies hold dear to them. Disgusting some of the support we have in 2013.

Were we the best supporters in the country 20 years ago? No doubt about it.

I think I’ve written 8 or 9 of these blog pieces now in two months, I’ve had 4,900 hits which means people either enjoy reading them out of curiosity or boredom, or they read in the same way its hard to take your eyes off a car crash sometimes. One of the criticisms I’ve had is I come across as patronising towards our younger generation of supporters. I don’t mean to be at all. It’s just I’m glad I was around at St James’ for 8 years before we got Premiership football. The football wasn’t better, it was more often than not shit. The reason I loved it in those days was I was completely proud of our support. I was only a kid, and it might be partially because when you’re young you’re more impressed by things, but I don’t think it’s that.

Every time we had a great player they were sold, and no one who was at the matches in those days could tell you what our aims were (similar to Mike Ashley’s NUFC now). The likes of McKeag and Seymour never used to come out with things like, “our ambition is to compete for the title”. Nottingham Forest would, and even then when they were regularly at top three side they didn’t have the income or anywhere near the support we had.

Despite all of this after the play off nonsense with the mackems, we’d reached an all time low. People in football seem to remember Jim Smith as some jovial old school Newcastle manager, the type of ee by gum type who would watch the 355 at York during half time with Bobby Saxton rather than giving team talks (true apparently). The fact is though, we were fuckin shiiiiiiiiiit. We truly were. He gave us the worst NUFC ever in my lifetime, 1990/1991, even last season was like 70s Brazil in comparison. Imagine going to the match expecting to lose to Notts County, that’s what we expected, and that’s what happened! I don’t know the exact figures but Smith took over in November 1988 and was sacked in April of 1991, I’m in no way exaggerating to say, he used 75 players in that time, probably signed 60 of them. Maybe I am exaggerating but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility. He signed every fucka. If everyone is honest it was shit from 1985 to 1992. 87/88 wasn’t even that good, we came 8th and people were rejoicing but it was such a pathetic league Nottingham Forest were second and they were shit too.

I tell you how wank we were generally between 1988 and 1992 in particular though, I honestly believed in my heart of hearts we weren’t as big a club as Sheffield Wednesday, Man City, West Ham, Villa, Nottingham Forest and I certainly didn’t think we were bigger than the mackems or Boro. Granted I didn’t appreciate our history like I do today, but all I’d seen till that point was total shite, with the odd Gazza/Beardsley inspired mid table classic. People of today’s era can’t truly and fully understand what Keegan did for NUFC without experiencing those years, which is why I consider people who choose to slate him over his last spell as scumbags.

Anyway Keegan came in after Ardiles, he won his first game 3-0 at home Bristol City in front of the first full house at home for ages. The next game was memorable for me, because our support was absolutely world class. We played Blackburn, and they’d already started spunking the money, Dalglish had been there three months, and it was my first visit to Ewood Park. They were top, we were 23rd, and Stevie Watson and Clarkie ran them ragged first half, and unbelievably we went 0-1 up, right in front of the most raucous away end in the history of football as far as I’m concerned. David Kelly miskicked it but it didn’t matter and the thousands of toon fans went mental. I looked at both sets of seats to our left and right down the touchline full of toon fans, on top of the 6,000 we had in the Darwen End, it really hit me what Keegan could do with Newcastle there and then. Why weren’t we big? Why not? Why couldn’t we compete? Our support was the best in the country and I’m not putting myself up for ridicule, no club in England can or could compete with the loyalty of our support, everyone knows it around the UK deep down, but plenty try to contest it. As it happened we lost 3-1 in the end, but we were robbed. That end was dangerously full, loudest away end I’ve ever known though. 6,000 toon fans in full cry WE’VE ALL SHAGGED YA WIFE SPEEDIE, SPEEDIE. I’ve never seen a footballer as visibly riled by a crowd like David Speedie was before or since that day. The cunt scored a hatrick as well. Speedie was always disliked but it turned up a notch or two that day as he nearly took Tommy Wright’s head off if memory isn’t playing tricks. He did the same thing to our keeper at St. Andrews, a year or so later. He milked the third in front of our support as bottles, pies and coins got lobbed at him with grown men offering the little twat on climbing the fence. He was very rattled by the ‘shagged your wife’ chant so don’t know if something was going on in the Speedie household? I was 13 or 14 at the time, and these are memories I’ll have with me forever, without sounding like a miserable 30 something twat, it’s not even 10% of what it was now. It’s how modern society has evolved.

(watch for the subtitles 6:20 about Speedie and turn the sound up)

The Derby game that season saw us staring relegation to Division Three squarely in the face. Seriously this game typified for me what being a toon fan is all about. Not a mackem accent in ear shot, not a tarquin to be seen, just 6,000 committed geordie toon fans, in unison in the face of adversity. I’ll never forget the nazi referee or his name.  BRIAN CODDINGTON (SHEFFIELD).  How the fuck was someone from Sheffield allowed to referee 25 miles away at Derby?  We had three sent off, plus Terry Mac sent to the stands, and honestly on a day when the toon fans were the best I’ve ever seen, we’ve been class many times, but on that day we were just fuckin out of this world, untouchable, we honestly murdered them with 9 men, we came back to 2-1 (watch how mental the toon fans go below), but once O’Brien went off as well that was it. What a day to be a toon fan though, we were deep in trouble, but I left the ground full of pride in Newcastle United, in David Kelly, in Peacock, in Keegan, and of all the fans. Sadly we will never see a day like this again in my view.

Anyway these were two of my favourite ever memories watching Newcastle United, we lost 4-1 and 3-1, I had pride in our support like this for years. We’ve still got a good support compared to most, but honest we had THE BEST SUPPORT IN THE WORLD, in those days. Genuinely as well. No club in football would be more deserving of a few decent trophies than we do, and I’d argue that with anyone.

One of the greatest days ever to be a toon fan

I was 11 years old in the summer of 1989, and my whole world revolved around Newcastle. Even at 11 I was mortified and quite depressed at how things had gone so terribly wrong since we’d sold Gazza just 12 months before. We were relegated, and as ever Newcastle were as ever THE National joke. We were a feeder club. We bought players off Portsmouth, Birmingham and Crewe, and we’d sell players to Liverpool, Tottenham and Everton. That was the way it was in 1989. We had no self respect at all as a club. The fans had seen years of false dawns, all of their players were being sold and for what? A new stand that probably wouldn’t be filled due to the numerous body blows the side was consistently taking by, a draconian board failing to appreciate what the fans wanted.

All through the summer there was a lot of talk of mass boycotts. People had just about had enough of McKeag and a hierarchy who had achieved nothing really since the mid 50’s. A group formed during the summer going under the name of USFC (United Supporters For Change), looking back they were nothing more than a few teenagers and early twenties lads who thought the best course of action was to boycott matches, thus forcing senior board members to resign, enabling Malcolm Dix, Hall and the Magpie Group to take us to the promised land. While ethically I appreciate why the USFC did this, as a young child my life wouldn’t be complete without a Saturday afternoon in the Gallowgate, and there was no way I was allowing my dad and my friends to follow suit.

On the playing side we basically finished the previous season, with a joke side. I remember we in essence didn’t have a striker, Anth Lormor and Steve Howey played up front in the final desperate act in a 2-0 defeat at Old Trafford. Mirandinha was still on the books, but he couldn’t be arsed towards the end, and he was shunted off to Portuguese side Belenenses, Smith didn’t like him at all, that much was obvious and the feeling was very much mutual.

On a brighter note a few of the summer arrivals, certainly proved to be decent value. Mick Quinn came in from Portsmouth for £680,000 (a big fee then), Mark McGhee crossed the border from Celtic, another Scot to join the club was young winger John Gallacher for a tiny fee, Kevin Dillon the experienced Birmingham schemer came in on a free and Smith made him club captain immediately, while Mark Stimson came North from Tottenham. Added to this we still retained a few decent players from the previous season, Bjorn Kristensen (Benny) for one, Kevin Scott, Brock was mediocre but was a decent passer, Andy Thorn was at the club, and in Tommy (the barman) Wright, we had a competent keeper, who loved the club from the word go..

The Second Division was looking extremely strong though aside from Newcastle. Newcastle had finished rock bottom of the First Division, and also relegated West Ham and Boro were well clear of us despite demotion. Leeds United, had done something that was almost unprecedented outside the top flight. They spent approaching £12m building what was to prove to be a brilliant side. Strachan, Sterland, Chapman, Vinny Jones, Chris Fairclough and John Hendrie, amongst others came in all with hefty fees on their heads, adding to a few magnificent young players, like David Batty who went on to play 39 games that season, and the effervescent Gary Speed. They weren’t the only decent side though, oh no. Sheffield United and Wolves both came up, from the Third Division, with feared striking partnerships. Wolves’ strikers were arguably the most potent in the division with Steve Bull, who became the clubs leading ever scorer, and Andy Mutch. Leicester had a reasonable side buoyed their inspirational captain Gary McAllister, and young impressive Arsenal loanee Kevin Campbell. Sunderland as much as I hate admitting it were one of the better sides, all in all it was a hugely competitive league. When you consider Reading won it in 2005/2006 with 112 points, it demonstrates how competitive the league was in the 89/90 season when 85 points was good enough to capture the title.

Leeds, who had been in almost terminal decline since their hugely controversial 1975 European Cup Final defeat to Bayern Munich, were installed as low as 6/4 to win the league, and when the fixture list came out the biggest two clubs in the division would lock horns at St James’ on the opening Saturday.

I remember my mates dad, a bloke who was like Francis Begbie but really funny too and likeable in a way despite being a foul mouthed, drunken, abusive, psychopath at times, he said there was no way he was allowing his son to go to the Leeds game. He recounted countless tales of serious violence with Leeds fans in the 70’s and 80’s and he tried his best to convince me not to go, “they’re animals, they’re not human, they smashed up The Magpie (on Barrack Road)….” His comments seemed to me even more poignant by the fact that it had been reported in the local press that after selling the 5,000 Leazes End tickets in a matter of hours, many hundreds of Leeds fans had obtained tickets for the Newcastle sections of the ground, and without being cynical, ticket sales were so slow it wouldn’t have surprised many if the club had unofficially sanctioned it.

Anyway this was the first season I was allowed to go on my own, although my dad came along a lot but against Leeds there was me and two of my mates, as we walked along Stawberry Place, we picked up our usual hot dog with onions, from this funny lookin bloke, with KEEGAN’S HOTDOGS, in big letters along the side of his little food trolley, we could see that estimates of a gate under 20,000 were going to be wide of the mark. That said there were scores of people in these USFC, telling us we were killing the club by going in, fuck them I thought at the time. So in we went handed over our £2 to the turnstile operator, straight up the Gallowgate steps turn right for a quick piss, in what was, for younger people reading who never had to put up with this, basically an open sewer, but I look back fondly on the Gallowgate bogs.

“We are Leeds, WEEEEEEEEEEE ARE LEEDS, WE ARE LEEDS, WE ARE LEEDS…” Pipe down you Yorkshire twats, but I tell you something they made some noise, we were very much on a low, after relegation, but we had Quinn and McGhee up front, so it while we were very much outsiders, it was like a trip in to the unknown. Anyway five new players, 99% of us had never heard of John Gallacher, but what a debut he had. I was 11 years of age, but even then I grasped the disgrace at what it was for Newcastle United to have a MACKEM captain. However, that’s exactly what Kevin Dillon was. A mackem. Captaining Newcastle!! A fuckin mackem. I wouldn’t care, but he was the slowest player I think we’ve ever had. Hopeless.

The lads I go to the match with now, were in Heaton Buffs, at the USFC (nothing to do with this shite yank fighting thing you see today) aka United Supporters For Change boycott rally. Apparently there were thousands there. Even so 25,000 piled in for what was one of the most memorable games I can ever remember. We were outsiders, and within 10 minutes went 1-0 up with a penalty awarded despite the fact the foul was outside the box. Mick Quinn stepped up comments of “he’ll never score this fat bastard” ringing in my ears from all around me, perfect penalty. 1-0. Within twenty minutes we were 1-2 down, one of the scorers was a mackem called Bobby Davison if I remember correctly, and the mouthy Leeds fans were in their element.

I hate Leeds they were averaging 10,000 in 1986, someone comes in with a bit of money and they think they’re the best supporters in the world. The same will happen when they’re promoted back to the Premier League this time too. The fact is for a city of 850,000 people with a catchment area arguably bigger than any other in Britain given the fact there’s only one team, they are a wank club. Never ever be taken in by their lies. They have places like Wakefield (bigger than Middlesbrough) on their doorstep and they still struggle to get 25,000 even in this era of football. A rugby town if ever there was one.

Anyway 1-2 down at half time, the next 45 minutes, to this day is easily in the top three I’ve ever seen as a toon fan, we ended up winning 5-2, Mick Quinn ended up with four goals, what an absolutely brilliant day to be a toon fan. As we all know the season ended in the most heartbreaking fashion for us, losing in the play offs to the mackems, Leeds won the league and within two years were the actual champions of England. However, this is still a cherished memory for the geordie flat top hair brigade of the era.

I’ll say no more and let you enjoy it here from 1 minute 18 onwards.

Pardew – The man who wrote the book on excuses

It’s been a good week for Newcastle, a brilliant week, and I suppose Pardew deserves some praise irrespective of how lucky we were second half against Tottenham. Even a draw would’ve been a canny result.

I wish he’d shut up about the effect Europe has on players though.

Lets have a look at the MASSIVE IMPACT Europe has had on other teams

Stoke City
10/11 (without European football) 46 points
11/12 (with European football) 45 points
12/13 (without European football) 41 points.

They did better league wise when they were in Europe.

Aston Villa
08/09 (without European football) 6th
09/10 (with European football) 6th
10/11 (with European football) 9th
11/12 (without European football) 16th

Their 2011/2012 season they finished 26 point worse off without European football than when they were in it.

Fulham
08/09 (without European football) 53 points
09/10 (with European football) 46 points
10/11 (without European football) 49 points
11/12 (with European football) 52 points
12/13 (without European football) 43 points

Actually NINE points worse off when they weren’t in Europe than when they were

Everton
06/07 (without European football) 58 points
07/08 (with European football) 65 points
08/09 (with European football) 63 points
09/10 (without European football) 61 points

Everton actually generated LESS points in the two seasons they were out of Europe, than the two seasons they were in it.

As Villas-Boas said, it’s a load of bollocks and a shit excuse. Squads should be big enough to deal with it, the fact Tottenham were better in the second half only emphasise his point. It’s a lazy excuse. You just need to look at 02/03 for us. http://nufc.com/html/2002-03fixtures.html 16 league games after Midweek European fixtures – P16 W14 D2 L0. If you look at the link I provided. We played the mackems 56 hours after playing in Kiev, and won. Played WBA four days after being in Italy and won and so on. I couldn’t agree more with Villas Boas, and the point becomes even more solid when you think in our case last season and certainly Tottenham’s case, in many of these games we were starting with 7 and 8 players who weren’t starting league games. Pardew should have a first class honours degree in excuses, and be doing lectures about them at Oxford University. Did Sir Bobby Robson moan? The thing is about the Champions League as well is you are more inclined to play your best side. How many times did we play our strongest eleven, especially in the early rounds? Some of the games there was no more than four first teamers last season.

We started last season (like we have this season) basically signing nobody, and there’s no way in the world he was happy with the situation. The only reason that fat bastard gave him money in the January is because it’s easier to spend £22m on players than lose £70m with the threat of relegation. I’ve got no respect for Pardew, none at all. Fair enough it’s nigh on impossible for him to say “yeah I’ll be honest, Mike is a fat faakin caant”, but “that ones for Mike”, fuck off man. I’ll never ever respect him, he should fuck off and take Max Clifford’s job. The Europa League is a massive excuse. He thinks ahead Pardew he really does. If we come 5th, 6th or 7th this season, “it’s great to av this magnificent claab and these suppowtuss who I regard as the best in the wewwd, back where they belong plyyin European footboww”. On the other hand if we come 8th, 9th, 10th etc…”weww in saam wise its a massive relief, we aww saw what that Europah League dahn to us the avva season”. Don’t ever be fooled be him, he has excuses ready made for situations that haven’t even happened yet, I’m not even talking about the potential of European football.

People can argue we had a big injury crisis last season.  Was that purely down to the Europa League?  Chelsea have played probably 40 or 50 Champions League games in the last three seasons.  Do they moan about injury crises?  In 2000/2001 we had no Europe and we were so thin because of injuries we were playing with Kevin Gallagher on his own up front at the finish.  As I said Pardew has done well this week, truly magnificent results to be proud of, but what he needs to do is pipe down, and get this club where it should be back in European football.

I love our SCHIZOPHRENIC club

I love our SCHIZOPHRENIC club

Well if ever a two week period summed up Newcastle United it was 27th October to 10th November 2013. Just staggering. Our history is littered with such periods. One that everyone over the age of 20 will remember is of course beating Man Utd 5-0, then the next week having one shot on goal at LEICESTER CITY and losing 2-0. In my very early days at the match (1987) we beat Arsenal away and Man Utd at home in a four day period, then the next week lost 0-3 at home to Charlton a game that sticks in the memory for me because it was the first time I’d saw Newcastle fans invade the pitch and snap the cross bar. There have been many other contrasting 2-4 week periods throughout the time I’ve supported the club. It’s quite staggering reading some of these.

1986/87
April 14 Arsenal 0 Newcastle 1
April 18 Newcastle 2 Man Utd 1
May 2 Newcastle 0 Charlton 3

1988/89
October 8 Liverpool 1 Newcastle 2 – best Liverpool team I can ever remember
October 15 Newcastle 0 Coventry 3

1992/1993
We won our first ELEVEN games including victories over the other three teams who finished in the top four and lost this once in a lifetime record at home to GRIMSBY TOWN

1993/1994
April 16 Liverpool 0 Newcastle 2 – our last league win at Anfield
April 27 Newcastle 3 Aston Villa 1 – Villa were a very good side then
April 30 Sheffield United 2 Newcastle 0 – one of the poorest long ball merchant sides I can remember

1996/1997
October 20 Newcastle 5 Man Utd 0
October 26 Leicester 2 Newcastle 0

1997/1998
September 13 Newcastle 1 Wimbledon 3
September 17 Newcastle 3 Barcelona 2

2001/2002
September 8 Boro 1 Newcastle 4
September 15 Newcastle 4 Man Utd 3
September 23 West Ham 3 Newcastle 0 (West Ham were shit)

There have been loads of examples like the above, but I think when you think about all of the circumstances, I genuinely believe (certainly results wise) this last fortnight is up there, or maybe is even thee most mental 14 days we’ve had in our recent history. Look at it written down.

2013/2014
October 27 Sunderland 2 Newcastle 1
November 2 Newcastle 2 Chelsea 0
November 10 Tottenham 0 Newcastle 1

Unfuckingbelievable even by our standards. You shouldn’t get to your 30’s and still let a football club effect your mood. The defeat to the mackems really did effect mine though and many others. The two lads I’ve went to the match with over the last 6 or 7 years are basically 48 year old radgies who are “faces”. One thing they are though is ultra loyal, and without sounding like a mug that’s how I view myself too, and always have. I remember being at St James’ against Oxford just before we got rid of McKeag and there were 10,004 people there.

The game against the mackems for me, was the straw that broke the camels back. The three of us were at the match against Chelsea and we all said that was our finish, never coming back after the end of the season, I tried to sell my ticket for 15 and 20 quid I was that fucked off. By 230 we were cuddling and kissing like Julian Clary and Dale Winton. That was one thing, deservedly beating one of the best squads in Europe, but to go to London, keep a clean sheet against not just a good side, but a club who’s supporters are the unjustly mouthiest most deluded cunts in the modern day game, well for me this has been the best 8 days in Newcastle’s recent history. People write things to exaggerate, but honestly I think it’s without doubt our best week since we came back to the Premier League, and probably for 10 years prior to that too. We beat the mackems 5-1 and Arsenal the next week a few years ago, but you have to put this in context. We’ve beaten two sides there who spent nearly £200m between them in the summer, both are good enough to win the league, we spent fuck all, and the best two players on the pitch Mike Williamson and Tim Krul cost £1.5m between them.

Absolutely magnificent. I don’t really want to end todays blog entry on a negative, but I will state the obvious. We have some absolute mugs in our support for loads of different reasons. We have people who think having more twitter followers makes them more important. We have supporters who think they’re like Harry The fucking Dog with their big man persona. I could write a book alone about how many arseholes support this club in 2013, luckily they are slightly outnumbered by people who give me pride in our fanbase, but these absolute knackers coming out with statements like “well we were lucky, sort it out Pardew”, here just fuck off. If you can’t enjoy beating Chelsea and Tottenham in the space of eight days that you have to find reason to pick fault, one thing you are is an arsehole who should do an open university course on a Saturday and fuck off and leave people who are thrilled to bits at what our team have achieved in the last eight days, to toast our brave brilliant lads.

At the end of the day football is about ups and downs, enjoy the ups, because there are plenty of downs. I love Newcastle, because the only predictable thing about us is we will continue to be unpredictable. Imagine supporting a boring club like Aston Villa or Everton, there’s no comparison, give me the highs and lows any day over the mundane mediocrity which seems to envelop most clubs. We’re just as likely to lose 0-4 to Norwich now that’s the nature of the beast, but who gives a fuck we’re the toon, we’re interesting, and we love them.

A disgrace of a club

Cowardly.  I might write something happy one day.  Having said that though, my blog is about Newcastle United and football, so I doubt it.  I’m no different to anyone who supports the club today, hungover, suffering, of course it’s only a game, but losing to them when you care so passionately about the club is very difficult to take.

Before the game Pardew said,  “One of the things on my agenda to prove is that we will be putting out a very similar team to that one. The same players are available, Remy is the only change.

“We were tired from that Benfica quarter-final – no doubt about that in my mind but that needs to be proved because if we get beat again, I ain’t got that argument this time.”

Yet we did get beat Alan and this is what you said afterwards, “I didn’t think it was a free kick for their second goal.”  No more excuses.  Look at facts not excuses, we lost to the team who have had the worst start of any football club in the history of the Premier League, a team what had scored 5 and conceded 21 in the first eight games.  Pardew is a disgrace and so are all of the players.  It’s very easy to get all Billy Britain about it, but the vast majority of our players are cowards.  Or they certainly were yesterday.  Sissoko is 6ft3 and built like Patrick Vieira, yet he is a mouse, he truly is.  He should be bullying midfields with his frame but he has all the heart of a coward.  You can say the same about the rest too.  We started that game yesterday and the players didn’t even seem to know what formation we were playing.  Ben Arfa was supposed to be in the middle yet he was dropping deep so every attack it looked like we had no centre forward.  It tells you how utterly shit we were that I think most toon fans welcomed the fact that Shola came on.  “Get in here comes Shola!!”  If that sentence doesn’t define the embarrassment we are and were, then I don’t know what does.

This may sound bitter but I still think Sunderland are shit, and I think they have an outstanding chance of being relegated, yet a club with 1 point in 8 games, who’s confidence was supposed to be shot out fought so called superior players.  I’m sorry but it’s not acceptable.  We’ve all been ridiculously loyal to Pardew, but in my view he should lose his job.  0-3 to Sunderland, 0-6 to Liverpool and 1-2 to Sunderland in the space of 6 months would see any manager sacked, other than an arselicking mouth piece who is the only manager in football who states once a week “the fan av to understand we can’t compete wiv the big boys”, just fuck off you greyed haired cunt.  Five years ago we were generating more money than Borussia Dortmund, of course we can compete but we won’t and never will while our owner doesn’t give a fuck and our manager is a feeble coward who won’t stand up to him.  The whole club stinks was than at any point since 1985 which is when I started supporting the club.  McKeag was hugely unpopular but he didn’t have anything like the personal fortune this fat cunt has.  “Newcastle aint getting any more of my money” a man who’s business made £300m profit in the last financial year.  Fat bastard.  We need more British players, or we need players who aren’t going to wave the white flag at the tiniest point where we need to display grit and passion.

 

Mackems and Sunderland AFC

Mackems and Sunderland AFC

I worked in Sunderland for nearly four years so I know how the mackem brain works. Now I’m not arrogant or bigoted enough to deny there are some canny mackems. There definitely are, even though they are in short supply. The main problem mackems have as a collective group of people is their obsession with Newcastle upon Tyne and for most of them Newcastle United as well. We have arseholes on our side it’s undeniable, but with Sunderland it is borderline unbelievable. I used to work with this bloke who we’ll call Jim Scott (his initials are JS). He was from a place called Ryhope, THE most boring cunt I’ve ever known, never had a wife or a girlfriend in all of his life, so at 48 year old he fucked off to some far flung Asian country, and came back with a 4ft11 wife who couldn’t speak a word of English. Now for me that is my abiding memory of working there. He summed the vast majority of them up, he came out with this once, “Suuuunlun is a more important playuss than Newwwwcassul”, “aye how’s that John?”, “well there TWO UNDRUD AND EYUTEA thousand pea-pul in Sunlun, and there’s oahnley two undred un sixtea in Newwwwwwwwcassul.” That was his argument. At the time the City of Sunderland had a slightly bigger population than Newcastle upon Tyne, so it was a more important better known place nationally. Ironically enough they can’t even say that now, but to feel so inferior to come out with something like that is just staggering, and he was too thick to see it. The biggest problem Sunderland will ever and has ever had as a place, is Newcastle, and their inability to just get on with it and make the best of what they have without envy.

Everton fans are often called bitter blues because of the fact that the red dippers claim, the blue ones are more obsessed with Liverpool failing than their own team doing well. Personally I think that’s a load of bollocks. However, I can say with sincerity a significant majority of Sunderland fans are happier when we fail big time, than when their own team do well. This picture confirms it for me.

Look at that picture. That is 10 seconds after their tannoy bloke has told them Newcastle have been relegated in 2009. Look at them, when have you ever seen a mackem end celebrate so hysterically (other than when they score against us). It’s FUCKIN PATHETIC YOU SAD MACKEM CUNTS! Look at the old fella, so happy he looks like he’s going to start crying. Probably been bullied for having a shit accent while pilfering one of our jobs on the Tyne in the 80’s no doubt. The only surprising thing about this picture is the fact there is a genuinely good looking mackem lass stood there near the front. Probably from South Tyneside to be fair. Me personally, although I pity mackems I never want them to go down because I’d rather play Sunderland at St James’ Park once a year than your Fulham’s or Wigan’s.

I remember when Paul Bracewell signed for us from Sunderland in 1992, on the Tyne Tees evening news they were interviewing Sunderland fans, this fat ginger bloke came out with “e’s went from beegur cloob tiv a smarla cloob.”. The bloke had a straight face as well. The mackems often use 1992 as being “the year Keygun cayum and the mag re-lized that ‘ad a footbarll cloob”. You’ll often see mackems saying Newcastle United founded 1992. That’s all fine but the fact is in the previous 12 years, Newcastle were better supported in eleven of them, so if Newcastle were founded in 1992, have Sunderland yet to be founded? Sunderland’s largest average gate between 1982 and 1996 was 21,000. Our largest average gate between 1982 and 1989 was 29,810 in 1984. From that era their gates went up from 21,000 ave (at best) to 47,000 in 2002, difference of 26,000 whereas wors went from a high of 30,000 to 52,000 in 2001, a difference of 22,000. So Sunderland found more new fans than we did you cliched mackem doilums. On top of that we didn’t have to send letters to schools in mackem heartlands like Hexham, Berwick and Amble inviting 7,000 school kids every week for a quid.

There should be something done about their accent as well. It’s a big place Sunderland, nearly 1% of England’s population is a mackem, yet successful mackems are few and far between. Kate Adie is probably the most famous in the last 100 years. The fact is no one has a good chance of making it big with a mackem mentality/accent. That is a fact. I’m not saying it to be controversial neither. It truly is Loserville. It has the lowest life expectancy in Western Europe as a city over 250,000, it’s an embarrassment on human nature. Something should be done, because they should grow up with the same chances as everyone else but they’re drawn in to a world of depression, mediocrity and ill health.

My main point is this. Sunderland as a City is the biggest failure of a place in Europe, in America on a much large scale Detroit is the same, and apparently they have the same crime/alcohol/drug problems the mackems have. It’s a downtrodden hovel with the lowest life expectancy in the UK, where 80% of its’ population smoke, where its’ Champs Elysee is Fawcett Street (pictured above with it’s Harrods aka Wilkinsons) and it’s no better than Shields Road without even taking the piss.

It’s not our fault mackems are backward, it’s not our fault their city is a shithole (even though the ones who admit it is a shithole blame us), it’s not our fault their football club have been in the top 10 only three times in the last 63 years. The only way I can ever see the City of Sunderland improving, and in particular the football club, is if they stop obsessing about us. Sunderland should be a biggish club. How many clubs in the country have a better/bigger support than the mackems? Eight? Nine max. Yet they fail every season and I can’t help feel for a club who have only played FOUR European games ever, they are held back because of the toon. Newcastle United are a failure in that there are so many reasons why we should be challenging for trophies every single season, yet we don’t, so we fail. That is one thing, but the very essence of Sunderland, the true height of their supports ambition is to be better than we are. They can deny it but it’s true. How depressing it must be when the absolute ceiling of your ambitions is to be better than a failure. They can deny everything I’ve written but they know every word of it is true and so does any geordie who’s had the misfortune to spend as long as I did there.

For people who have never been to Sunderland, a few pictures illustrating what a fabulous city they are missing just 11 miles down the road.  Would you be jealous?  

Divide and Conquer

I wrote this back in May, little did I know that we’d spend nothing in the following three months although it was pretty predictable.  Well done to all those fans who went on the march yesterday, it might achieve nothing but at least some people are doing something.  I’d say support for Ashley was about 50% when I wrote this, it’s no more than 10% now and anyone who does support him is a dickhead.

 

I’m sick of football, I’m sick of Newcastle United.  I’ve been going to games since 1985.  We were no great shakes then even, however my first game was against Liverpool and we did actually win, but don’t let that fool you, we were as shite as ever.  My current mood may be attributable to the two most horrific home games I’ve ever seen.  Two in a row.  I’m not saying that to be controversial, the last two home games are the most horrific we’ve ever seen.  I’ve seen us lose 4-1 at home to Wolves, I’ve seen us humbled off Bristol Rovers at St James’ Park, but the cowardly showing and horrendous results against two teams many of us detest more than any other, are the worst anyone in their 30’s, maybe even mid 40’s have EVER seen.

 

My feelings about how frustrated I am about football and Newcastle United run far deeper than that though.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d never stop going, because like many others, I’m a mug.  When you fall in love with Newcastle United, it never leaves you, you take them warts and all, and the two biggest warts we have with any connection to the club are Alan Pardew and Mike Ashley.  

 

We’re told with great regularity that “we can’t compete with the big boys on an even level footing”.  Granted when you look at the turnovers of the clubs in the Premier League, Pardew and “Mike” may have a point.  What I want to know is in simple terms, why were we far richer than say Tottenham before Ashley came in, and now they generate far more than us.

 

2012 figures

 

1. Man Utd £320m 

2. Chelsea £261m

3. Arsenal £235m

4. Man City £231m

5. Liverpool £188m

6. Tottenham £144m

7. Newcastle £93m

8. Everton £80m

 

Now this was for the 2011/2012 season, in 1998 this was the status quo (worldwide).

 

1. Manchester United, England – £87.9m 

2. Real Madrid, Spain – £72.2m 

3. Bayern Munich, Germany – £65.2m 

4. Juventus, Italy – £55.3m 

5. Newcastle United, England – £49.2m 

6. Barcelona, Spain – £48.57m 

7. AC Milan, Italy – £48.55m 

8. Internazionale, Italy – £48.2m 

 

Startling figures.  We all know Newcastle are a big club, but our stature as a club in 1998 dictated that we had income in excess of Barcelona, a club who could put an argument up for being the world’s biggest now.

 

Seven years ago we were generating £30m per season more than Tottenham, now with a stadium attracting 16,000 less every week they generate £51m more than us.  Absolutely startling figures.  The fact is this Newcastle United made more as a business in 2002 than we did in 2012.  Manchester United’s income has trebled in that timeframe.  I’m no financial wizard but that is a disgrace.  There are lots of people to blame.

 

My feeling is this, Newcastle United commercially are being ran like Reggie Perrin’s empire.  We’re cheap and chatty, commercially we are a disaster.  He basically has got a casino manager to run what was without doubt one of the biggest clubs in Britain a decade ago.  

 

Shepherd got lots of things wrong, we certainly couldn’t sustain the expenditure we had, but commercially Newcastle WERE “one of the big boys”, we’re not now because we’re downgraded, we’re told to think small, because we are small.  We’re not Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City so pipe down toon fans.   This message has been drummed in to Pardew from that fat bastard from his first day on December 8th 2010.  He comes out with it at least once a month.  No other club in football has a manager who comes out with this with such great regularity.  Pardew is a mouthpiece for Ashley and if we stay up we’ll have to get used to him because they won’t find a front man like him.  Newcastle United is a hindrance for Ashley, if he could get every penny he put in back now with a little profit, he’d take it.  

 

I’m sick of being told that we can’t expect to compete with the “big 6”.  This season has been a disaster waiting to happen.  If we had Daniel Levy as chairman I have absolutely no doubt we’d be a far wealthier bigger club.

 

The financial side is killing football as a whole, and FFP will make absolutely no difference.  Look at Manchester City.  Before they were bought out they were generating the same revenues as Sunderland, now they’re the 7th richest club in the world.  But are they?  It appears that they are, but people are already finding ways around FFP.  Their sponsorship with Etihad is worth £400m.  Etihad are their owners.  Chelsea have Abramovic.  So fair enough we can’t compete with those two clubs, but why can’t we compete with Tottenham and Liverpool when we did for years?  No one has been able to give me a proper answer.  Mike Ashley is the scourge of this club, he doesn’t care about where we finish as long as we make a profit.  

 

You have idiot Newcastle fans who he has sucked in, who would gladly have a turnover of £93m with £3m profit, than a turnover of £160m with £0m profit.  We’re under valued by the hierarchy of this club, we’re told to think small, expect small, view ourselves as small.  It will never ever change as long as Ashley has control of the club.  He took over the club in 2007 “to have some fun”, since then we’ve come in the top 10 once, been patronised with alarming regularity, been lied to, been ridiculed, been forced to listen to a chirpy southerner coming out with remarkably stupid blatant lies like “on me first day ‘ere I put some petrol in me car, and there was a 50 year old bloke, in full Newcastle kit including socks”, I’ve lived here my whole life and never seen that, all of these reasons are why I’m utterly fucked off with Newcastle United.  I was when we came 5th, I hate the fact that they’ve divided and conquered and people accept that we can’t compete.  

 

I hate the fact so called long term fans have forgiven him for his abhorrent treatment of Kevin Keegan.  I will never accept them, if we won the Champions League I wouldn’t accept them, they’re vermin and the day he sells up, and takes Llambias somewhere else they can show “how narrrsty they can be”, will be one of great delight for me.

England my England

For whatever reason, I believe a situation exists with the UK, and in particular with England, that doesn’t really have any true comparison in the world.  You’re not supposed to be proud of your nationality.  Maybe it is getting better these days, but even the Union Jack among many, is associated with racism and fascism.  It’s fucking pathetic!  The Scots, The Welsh, The Northern Irish, they can all escape from it to a degree with their own local national pride in their small countries.  When it comes to England it’s a completely different matter.

We are the most apologetic nation on earth.  In America kids start school and every day they sing “The Star Sprangled Banner” in other words their national anthem.  They’re almost forced to sing it.  In this country you get the impression that if our government imposed a similar policy, in encouraging pride in our nationality, that they’d be accused of being far right politicians with borderline racist tendencies.  I have one word for these type of people, well two actually.  FUCK OFF!  I’m a white British citizen, I respect all cultures, and no white person in England is better or worse than any other person of a different creed or colour.  Surely though if you want to be part of this country, you should take great pride in the achievements of the country in which you were born.  I’m quite proud of the fact that racism is far less prevalent in this country. than it is in virtually every country in the world.  It’s a magnificent thing we take for granted here, that racists are exposed and dealt with, and are made to feel ostracised from society.  In other countries you are judged on your colour not here.

Being British, being English to me, is something I am very proud of.  I don’t need to list our global achievements on the world, everything from inventions, to saving the world in world wars, to my favourite one of the lot creating football.  I’m immensely proud of being English.  We’ve had dark points in our history where we haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory, what country hasn’t, but these are heavily outweighed by our outstanding achievements in almost any field you care to mention.

So why does the media, society and indeed the national persona make it so difficult to be proud of being English?  It’s such a difficult thing to answer, I think you could write a book on the reasons why, but what it is is a NATIONAL SHAME.  I for one am proud to be geordie, proud to be British, and fucking definitely proud to be English.

I am jealous of other countries though.  In Holland in Euro 2000, everyone and I mean everyone was decked in orange, they were so proud of their little country, with their magnificent football team, and their unique culture.  I was quite jealous.  Here if England have a half decent team you get a few cars flying flags during tournaments, but as soon as we get knocked out, it’s “fuck them too many cockneys/geordies/bindippers/mancs *depending on where you’re from* in the team.”

You saw the Poles last night.  How proud they were of being Polish, a country which has been invaded more times than Katie Price’s fanny, where their economy is so average half their population end up looking for work in other countries.  They’re proud, but we’re not allowed to be.

I think people these try to be alternative.  “Fuck England I don’t care they’re overpaid arseholes.” A fair point to be fair, but are we the only country in the world with overpaid arseholes?  At the end of the day, they represent our magnificent country, where people are so fucking afraid of upsetting others, we’re not even allowed to focus on the brilliant things we’ve got here, and our global impact, instead we’re supposed to whinge about what cunts we are while everyone else in Europe gladly joins in.

I for one, am thrilled to bits England qualified for the World Cup Finals, we’re not going to win it, but we have a manager (toon fan too) who is a decent bloke, who is creating a new team with decent young unassuming kids, and old campaigners who we can be proud of. The likes of Phil Jagielka, he plays for a mickey mouse club, he’s probably on £30,000 a week as opposed to his predecessor John Terry who’s on five times more, and he’s there for his love of the country and the honour of playing for the national team.  I was proud of England last night, we’re not Spain, we’re not even Holland, but we’ve got a good bunch of lads again, who will do their best over there and may surprise a few.  Anyway look around the world, compare your countries achievements with any other country you care to, if you’re still in a mood of being a cool kid who doesn’t care how your country does, then you’re no better than those scouse arseholes who chant “we’re not English we are scouse.”

Well done Woy, well done younguns, you’ve restored some pride in our national team.

Different Types of Toon Fan

As a kid in the 80’s it seemed there was two types of toon fan. Your old flat cap type standing in the Paddock and sitting in the East Stand, and your hardcore radgie who was either mental or wanted to be mental. It’s completely different now and the Sky generation changed everything, some might say divided sections of the support.

What type of toon fan are you?

There’s so many different types of football fan out there, you only need to see your twitter timeline to see that.

I’ve broken them down in to a few categories

Miserable old types

“Ah remimba when ye wo stood on the Leazes, was great on them cold days, yed feel a rolled up programme on ye leg, and someone pissing on ya trousers to keep ye warm. Great days.” This type is generally quite loyal, but is convinced they’ll die not seeing the toon win another trophy. Usually incredibly knowledgeable too.

Fanboys

Now don’t get me wrong not everyone in that 18 to 30 bracket is like this but there are many who are. They’re the type who use Newcastle United as a focus of their social function, as opposed to someone who uses it because they’re obsessive about football and the club, although this type would never admit that. There isn’t anything actually wrong with that. However, this type in my view are a product of the Sky generation of football fan. They’re the type who has had Toon tops with 69 WOR LASS written on the back, the type that has owned a jesters hat, the type that loves telling everyone they had 10 pints before their 9am train/bus to an away game, and how 12 hours later they’d drunk themselves sober because they’re such an amazing geordie ambassador. In my experience the same people couldn’t tell you why Gordon McKeag was such an arsehole, why in real terms Freddy Shepherd failed, where Newcastle signed Carl Serrant from, but they can tell you they’ve missed 2 away games in 5 years and they’ve been pissed at every single one. Nothing wrong with these types but they are numerous and they largely didn’t exist pre 1992 in my opinion.

Staggering Lasses

I’m just coming out of my early 30’s now, so I can remember being a small child at St James’ in the last 80’s. I’d say maybe one in every hundred people at the lass was a woman. Although many blokes would have those days back tomorrow, the match, particularly the terraces were not a place for the vast majority of young ladies. Even promotions women walking past the Gallowgate around the pitch were subjected to chants of “get ya tits out for the lads”. One of the few good things about the Premier League explosion, is there are no restrictions for women now, they can feel safe from lairy gobby men, they can feel comfortable that they’re not going to sit next to some sexist pig commenting on their breasts. Well as long as you don’t sit next to the 51 year old BNP voter that I do. Anyway I know women these days who are FAR MORE PASSIONATE, FAR MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE than most blokes, who’s love of the club has nothing to do with the stereotypical ogling of good looking footballers, and more to do with shouting abuse at the ever so good looking Steven Taylor, because he’s playing the opposition onside every time the ball comes forward. Possibly this type of fan is the most welcome addition to St James’ Park since 1992.

This is the type of lass I’m on about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4FkXzRtVp8 at 6:46 you can tell how deeply gutted she is.

Lasses who are divvies

These are the type who get to 25 and still have photographs of Yohan Cabaye on their walls, can give you a list of the best 10 arses in the Barclaye Premier League, and having been to 100 games couldn’t describe the offside rule with any great conviction. They’re also the type who turn out with half a tonne of make up on. We all have these types sitting beside us. One lass said to me she had a brilliant night the day we lost 0-3 to the mackems. Well I’m sorry the rules are we lose at home, you’re miserable, we lose at home to the mackems you’re miserable for a week, you suffer the biggest home defeat to the mackems in your lifetime, you’re miserable in a football context till the next time we beat them.

New Age Herberts

To say new age might be a bit misleading. I know people older than me who fall in to this category but they’re particularly prevelent amongst people in their twenties. They are the type who regardless of the subject almost always hold the alternative view from the norm. A typical new age Herbert will have a degree, be a right condescending fucker, be absolutely shit at football, and uses social media and their social life in general as some sort of 6th form debating chamber where the task is to defend the indefensible. Plucking figures from the air in my experience 80% of these types have respect to some degree for Mike Ashley, and are generally arseholes. Again the majority of these are products of the Sky generation.

Out Of Towners – Good

I’ve met many who’s passion for Newcastle United far outshines many life long Tyneside based supporters. I never slag Man Utd for having out of town fans, we have them ourselves, it’s pretty easy to see why someone would follow Man Utd, kids want to be associated with success. Newcastle have never had any real success in most of our lifetimes, yet we still have many thousands of people with no connection to the area who forge a deep love for the club. They’re certainly not gloryseekers, and if you’re from Salisbury, Cumbria, Northern Ireland, Richmond, well you don’t really have a club by geographical means, so you choose, and I know plenty who eat, sleep and drink Newcastle United, and what I like about them is many of them find geordie people as one of the most attractive things about the toon as a whole.

Out Of Towners – Bad

See http://www.twitter.com/nufcfans

Then you have the rest, which I feel are your hardcore of toon fans, the type who were there at our lowest point, the type who stagger you with their knowledge, the type you want to have a pint with, the type that make you proud of supporting Newcastle, and luckily there are many thousands of these.

We used to be the best support in the country, we’ve fallen victim as everyone else has to modern day football, all seater stadia and the generally plastic experience it has become in comparison to 20 years ago, no club in football is exempt from this, and even today we’re a far better bunch than most.

Twitter isn’t all that bad

I had a facebook, but I felt inhibited by what I could write. Can I say I hate mackems, given there’s 2 or 3 mackems in my family? Can I swear like a trooper knowing people who saw me in nappies are there ready and waiting to be appalled by what a foul mouthed human being I have become? Can I write borderline bigoted statements, which absolutely are intended to cause people to think and convey my honest views irrespective of offending people? Do I really have 500 friends? Do I really want people I hardly knew at school when I was 12, and what I can remember of them they were divvies anyway, following me? Well it’s no, no, no, no, no, for me.  You stay in touch with people from the past who you want to anyway without sharing your thoughts with people who you haven’t seen for years. The best thing I can think of about facebook is, it’s a way to share baby pics with people you vaguely know. If that’s a cynical view of facebook, well I’m sorry. It’s shit. *is in Osbourne’s with Stacey Smith and Gemma Davis* who gives a fuck? *7 people like this* 7 mugs more like aye.

Twitter on the other hand allows you to speak your mind, it allows you to say things some of us might think but are unable to say in public (not me like). There’s less inhibition with twitter. I got it in 2010, and I’m not the type of person who is short of pals and acquaintances and prior to getting it I’d have thought how sad it was meeting “someone off the internet”, but you meet some in person and they’re fucking brilliant, and a lot more like you than some of your mates. Nearly everyone I follow likes football, but even then I follow such a wide range of people that it rarely gets boring. There’s so many different types of people on twitter and you see their real side, or what they want to portray as their real side in a way that’s nigh on impossible on facebook. It’s so easy to see right through people and make your own assumptions about people you hardly know, and in a strange way that is one of the appealing things about twitter. Anyway this is a piss poor start to my blog, which will mainly be about football, particularly those arseholes at NE1 4ST, but these blogs are here to get things off your chest, to share your thoughts, some might say it’s egotistical, it probably is, but in 100 years time if I have great great great grandkids they can look and say fuck me what wierd ancestors we have.

So anyway my point is Facebook is shit, and twitter can be alright.