Stevenage Remembered

Only in Newcastle could the drawing of a league two side in the third round of the FA Cup draw an audible groan from a packed pub of the club’s supporters. Though the groans that accompanied the draw in a packed Players Bar after a 1-1 draw against Chelsea, were not of fear but of recognition- even when Newcastle had finally seen the back of Stevanage in a replay in 1997, there was the lingering suspicion that that wasn’t quite the end of the chapter.

It was different in 1997, otherworldly. Fifteenth in the Vauxhall Conference back then, manager Paul Fairclough described the draw itself as “a dream come true,” so one can only imagine that when he labelled the tied first game “fantastic” he was underplaying it. You need not make similar leaps of imagination to deduce that Kenny Dalglish was not telling the entire story when declaring that “[his] players were delighted” with the draw.

By which point, the story was already well advanced. It began almost the moment the draw was made, Stevenage out first, and their chairman Victor Green contacting Newcastle to sound out the prospect of staging the game at St. James’ Park- a common practise given the much larger capacities of the league grounds and the fact that in the cup, clubs share ticket receipts. However, Stevenage suddenly felt this option undesirable when Sky got in touch with the offer to screen the game, only on the condition it was staged at Broadhill Way. Newcastle seemed hesitant.

Keith 'Razor' who contributes to the Stevenage fanzine The Boradhall Way claims there is still some bitterness over Newcastle's apparant protests at the venue: "there was a definite feeling that, as the Premier League club, Newcastle were throwing their weight around," he said.

The narrative of the tie had been decided, Newcastle suddenly looked like spoilsports when carrying out the perfectly reasonable safety checks must clubs conduct before playing a fixture at a new ground, Stevenage and Green in particular happy to encourage the view they were being disrespectful. What was largely forgotten was Kenny Dalglish’s own history- he had been Liverpool manager on the day of the Hillsborough disaster- which surely validated any concerns he was harbouring about supporter safety. As ever with Dalglish, though, he done himself few favours- wishing “they lose their next ten games” at the end of a scrappy replay ended the tie on a particularly sour note.

Newcastle 3 Liverpool 1

Christmas is coming and, with it, Dickens’ famous tale. But what is it Liverpool look at when they study Newcastle United, the ghost of Christmas future?

The parallels between the two are starker than you may have thought. Just six years ago, these two teams were competing on the final day for the last Champions’ League spot. Liverpool won it and a year later had won the competition itself. Up until recently a firmly established top four side, their supporters were one of many that enjoyed the Schadenfreude of Newcastle’s relegation- “stayed on the tele,” they sang at Alan Shearer as the side he was temporarily in charge of surrendered meekly at Anfield in the series of meek surrenders that ended in their relegation.

Since then, a resurgence of sorts for Newcastle, though one that has been thrown in to severe doubt by the events of the week. Meanwhile, at Liverpool, the old hated owners have been replaced by new owners making discouraging, Scrooge like noises about the amount of money to spend on luxury, an experienced English manager is in but struggling to build a rapport with the fans and with this latest defeat surely his prospect of holding on to the job past Christmas look about as dead as Marley. The season will not end in relegation for Liverpool as it did for Newcastle, but this was a surrender which spoke to a tentativeness from some, a lack of interest from others and the similarities with the Newcastle team of big name under-performers that made the plunge two years ago will make for discomforting viewing on Merseyside.

Now they’ll know how Martin Skrtel and Sotirios Kyrgiakos feel at least. Utterly dominated from first minute to last by an Andy Carroll, Liverpool’s centre backs were cowered and ran over long before the end- Carroll’s goal may have been the perfect way to cap Newcastle’s win from their point of view but he was allowed the opportunity to shoot by a pair of centre backs who had dropped off criminally. To be generous, you may say they were egging him to shoot and backing their keeper, in reality they just seemed ragged and waiting on the final whistle.

Accompanied by the eye catching Barton- who scored the crucial second with a committed charge and finish at the Gallowgate End- and the industrious Tiote, Carroll tore in to Liverpool like Tiny Tim at a Christmas ham. His power and aerial ability is well documented, his poise and balance deserves some notice too. Last week West Brom were able to nullify him, a strong physical performance from Scharner proving there is some chinks in his armour, Liverpool never got close. It’s no wonder he’s been named by new manager Pardew as the one imperative not to lose in the Janurary transfer window. As Stephen Brown, a season ticket holder in the Gallowgate End put it: "Liverpool's defenders looked genuinely terrified. Even when Shearer played for us, I've never seen that before."

And what of Pardew? He would have been happy that the crowd at least seemed receptive of him, if not warm, and his gracious praise of Hughton afterwards will have went some way to appease doubts about his integrity in taking the job on: “Chris Hughton is very, very unfortunate not to be sitting here discussing this win but this game is not easy and it can be cruel. I had a similar situation at Southampton. To get a win like this has hopefully earned a tiny bit of respect for myself and the group and we can grow and make that respect a lot stronger. I think the win had everything to do with the attitude of the players and staff,” he said.

Who To Trust?

It seems sadly typical of Newcastle United that a trust of supporters who had set their sights on one day buying the club have found themselves beset by the same sort of lack of organisation and miscommunication that has characterised the club they one day aim to run. The Newcastle United Supporters Trust have been noticeable by their absence in the fall out from Chris Hughton’s sacking last week, leading many to question its current role as a viable supporters’ group, let alone its longer term ambitious to assume ownership of Newcastle United.

One problem with the Supporters’ Trust is its origins and its aims as it stands, neither of which were ever sold convincingly to Newcastle fans. The group actually began as a supporters’ group, but its formation, in the immediate wake of Kevin Keegan’s departure from St. James’ Park, made it, for all intents and purposes, a protest group. A protest group cannot comfortably fulfil the remit of a supporter’s group, which, by necessity, must have close links to the club. Steve Kell, who runs the Arsenal Supporters’ group, argues that “politicising these things is asking for trouble. The club don’t want to see an agenda.” A group that had been formed in sole and direct opposition to a move by the club was never going to establish a working relationship with that club, particularly one as communication phobic as Newcastle.
But for whatever reason, those pushing the idea of the Supporters’ Club seemed keen to elevate their role even before properly explaining to others what it was.

There early days were marked by a series of crass statements. When asked what they would like to say to perspective new owners they responded “we can be nice, or we can be your worst enemy”. Given that another of their early statements criticised the teenagers that had been interviewed on Sky Sports News in the wake of Keegan’s exit- in a statement that struck another confused note; are these teenagers not Newcastle fans deserving of representation too?- they seemed awfully keen themselves to speak on behalf of others without first seeking a consensus.

Then very little. The flurry of protests died down, and though there was a series of events, very little appeared to be being decided. Protests were not organised, opinions not sought. Members, who paid ten pounds to register, were sent next to nothing in the way of communication. There was a bewildering incident when their website printed dubious financial information about Ashley’s investment in the club. When asked to clarify their figures by a member via email there was no response, and the page was quickly removed.

Their objectives became even further muddled when the idea to buy the club was mooted-in reality, it should have stayed mooted, a long term objective rather than an immediate must. Instead the newly elected chairman dedicated all his time to what always looked a pipe dream. Further, this idea clouded its role as a supporters’ club, many accusing the now trust of being fretful of alienating perspective investment business partners by showing discontent with any element of Ashley’s ownership. Again, to look at Arsenal, the trust and supporters’ club are kept separate.

Looking from afar is one thing, more worrying for the NUST must be the amount of internal problems they are being forced to deal with. Bill Corcoron, a highly respected member of the board who was there for the club’s inception left recently, citing the trust’s lack of communication with its members:

“At a recent training event, ran by James Mathie of Supporters Direct, he advocated regular members meetings, publication of Board agenda and minutes and a humble, listening attitude from the Board to our members. I completely agree, but others seem determined to avoid members questions describing some members as "rabble rousers".
Which speaks to a trust ill at ease with a proportion of the people they purport to represent. Corcoron also makes mention of people “leaving the trust in droves”.

And if that didn’t tell the trust they were losing support, surely the most damning verdict came from a poster on the toontastic message board, who, in response to the question ‘what could be worse than having Mike Ashley running our football club?’ answered, ‘having NUST running it’.

Joey Barton's Trial Will Not Be Televisied

Despite the fact that nowadays any goal scored in the Premiership can probably be downloaded, viewed and set as a screensaver before the Goalkeeper has fished the ball out of the net, managers of the league’s lower ranked clubs still have a tendency to get wounded about what they perceive as their placing lower down the highlight footage pecking order- a placing where, never mind your own chances of staying awake to watch it, you’re going to first want to make sure your Sky Plus box has plenty of strong coffee along with it for the journey.

These coaches always deliver their complaints wryly and on the back of a victory, which means that Gary Linekar can smile caustically and wave it off, but it’s clearly not an accusation that the BBC would welcome, particularly at a time when their right to operate as a funded independent media outlet is being scrutinised by several people with their own dubious agenda. How odd then that on Sunday night, when covering Newcastle United’s victory over Liverpool, Match of the Day 2 would be so open about their new policy on isolating incidents from particular matches, declaring no intention to show them, yet still going right ahead and condemning the player involved with smug assuredness in their own pretend outrage.

“Vulgar,” Colin Murray labelled Joey Barton scratching his crotch in the direction of the player who had just completed a forty yard sprint to confront him for no reason whatsoever (I’ve just remembered, you weren’t allowed to see it- the player was Torres, using the opportunity to double the amount of yards he's sprinted since Roy Hodgson joined Liverpool). He delivered his critique with such withered pomposity that I had initially thought he was joking. He does that a lot, I’ve noticed, Colin Murray, trys to tell jokes. And though you can mostly tell when other people are telling jokes because they’re making you laugh, there’s never any such luck with Colin Murray. But then Lee Dixon joined in and it became clear that the pair of them were being serious. Watching them in po-faced synchronisation felt like the sense of humour bypass equivalent of the famed Arsenal offside trap.

Something of a novelty on MotD2, being serious, given that the general mood of tends to be one of strained joviality, one that relishes the ‘lighter side’ of the game in much the same manner as loud people at work relish being thought of as characters. It certainly marked a jarring turn of pace to see them turn so puritanical on us without so much as the chilled silence that tends to precede such dark changes in the room’s mood (silence never being MotD2’s strongpoint- its every resolution seems to be accompanied by its own jaunty soundtrack). And it was an uplifting moment indeed, not to mention a relief, when the show rediscovered its mojo and moved on to 2good 2bad, a signature feature which usually features an elderly gentleman at Craven Cottage taking his teeth out to eat a pie and much faked laughter from back in the studio.

This week, Sunderland fans are singing ‘One Mike Ashley’, and how everybody laughed. Nobody is going to get defensive about that. But I would argue that MotD2 choosing to celebrate the chant- leaving aside its Wildean wit a second, and leaving aside the national media’s tendency to ruffle Sunderland’s hair and laugh along with them whenever their fans taunt Newcastle for reasons that, were they pointed out, would only upset their fans- places them in a rather precarious position. Who is doing more damage to English football, the talented and tee-totalling English footballer who speaks eruditely and honestly, or the dishonest club owner doing his best to strip a club dry and take it for all it has? And if it’s the latter why choose to jokingly indulge the celebration of him alongside taking umbrage at the former’s own, at worst, jokey indulgences? It couldn’t be because that player is Joey Barton could it?

As Kriss Knights, who writes for The Mag and has published two books on Newcastle United, puts it: "People who don’t like him see Barton as the very epitome of what is wrong with modern footballers, which is crap because Barton has shown more public contempt for the spoiled and over-rated within his profession than any other player in the league. If he is the epitome of anything – it’s as a reflection of how the world has treated Newcastle United."

The FA are not punishing Barton (stunning on Saturday night, by the way, the point was made afterwards that it was a shame Gerrard wasn’t on the pitch as he would have been thoroughly shown up by the type of focused, disciplined, selfless and dynamic performance his ego hasn’t allowed from him in years), though they “will be writing to him to remind him of his responsibilities”. As NUFC.COM notes, “Doubtless that will come as a great disappointment to the BBC, in particular the odious Colin Murray.”

Newcastle United 1- 2 Blackburn Rovers

Typical Newcastle United, it’s been said by many following last night’s damp squib at home to Blackburn Rovers, a game which they deservedly lost 2-1. Ruddy typical, if you’re a kindly old man weary to this club’s trajectory; bastard bloody fucking typical, if you’re the young gentleman spitting your ire in to my ear on the metro journey home. But typical all the same.

Consider though, that the typical elements spoken of related to the team building the fans’ hopes up and then dashing them. And, yes, there was a hint of seen all this before as Blackburn scored their second goal from their only attack in the second half and our players looked at one another wearing the irritated expressions of somebody just in from work being informed it’s their turn to walk the dog. But to arrive at this slice of typicality, the fans’ hopes had to be raised in the first place, which they were via a stunning home win against Sunderland and an even more stunning win at The Emirates- neither of which, in performance or result, have exactly typified this club in recent years. The Arsenal result in fact was so impressive that it was marked by a strange feeling of regret that on my first ever visit to that stadium I have immediately rendered every subsequent visit as a let down, it being highly unlikely that we will ever go there again in my life time and pass them to death as we did in large spells on Sunday; it was the sheer antithesis of ‘typical’.

And it’s not as if that Arsenal game was a convoluted dream sequence. A bad result against Blackburn doesn’t scrub that result, nor does it suddenly make us a bad team. But it seems that in this frustrating, and at times outright bewildering, season of two steps forward, one step back our fans our taking the negatives to heart and being too quick to believe it’s the good results that are the confidence tricks.

And, yes, it’s hard to blame them for that when we play as poorly as we did last night. Too many players- Williamson, Simpson, Shola (not fit), Nolan- had terrible games, others like Tiote, Enrique and Collocini played nowhere near the level they’re capable of. Conceding the first goal to Blackburn- Tiote guilty of over confidence, or, if you have aspirations of teaching P.E to timid children, fannying about with the thing inside the box like a nugget- is a nightmare, to do it early in the game a death knell. Earlier in the day, I had insisted at Five a Side that I got to ‘be’ Tiote. My performance was the usual shambolic mixture of over earnest tackling, negligible ball control and dense stupidity. He improved in the second half, but in the first it seemed that rather than Cheick waiting for me to play at his level, he was attempting to meet me halfway.

It was freezing cold and, frankly, the biggest shock of the night was us scoring, Carroll ghosting in and heading it impressively back in to the corner from whence it came. As always, the overriding emotion of watching that man’s football team playing football is to dedicate thanks to a higher being (em, Mike Ashley, in this case) that that man is no longer managing our football club.

Newcastle 5- 1 Sunderland

There is a strange quirk of old friends: no matter how long they’ve been apart from one another, as soon as they’re back in company together they immediately regress to old speaking and behavioural patterns. It’s why when University friends meet up decades after graduation they immediately start shouting loudly about girls they both slept with in Freshers' week and punishing each other for drinking with their left hand, and lots of other zany things they would be embarrassed about doing in front of their new, adult friends- adult friends who, in some instances, don’t even know they were once part of the rugby society.

Despite their protestations to the contrary, I like to consider Sunderland a friend. Not a good one, as such, not one whose company you look to keep (when people ruminate on Newcastle's relegation a few years back I like to propose the theory that it was done simply because keeping up pretences with Sunderland, who had always before done- in the form of several relegations of their own- what they could to be gone out of our lives every other season, was becomming simply too tiring), but a companion of sorts, somebody to keep us company as everybody else jets around the place, sometimes not even paying attention at all to Newcastle United (unless we’re sacking our manager that week). As the ear splitting reception their team received as they switched sides before kick off will testify, we have missed them, as well, in a way. I only hope their substitutes and coaching staff realise this and have the good manners to return us the elastic bands that were playfully flicked in their direction as promptly as possible. And, as we’re friends, it was only natural they regressed to their normal behaviour when they’re with us and, as we’re Newcastle fans, it was highly amusing to remember that their normal behaviour when they’re with us is to be absolutely bloody awful.

Seriously. Sunderland came in to this game on the back of seven unbeaten games in a run that included Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool (the fixture list mixing it up and giving them a bit of an easy one there); they have, we were told by their fans, some good players, as one would hope they would do for the money they’ve spent. But they’re Sunderland, and we’re Newcastle United, and their belief in their team and the acknowledged weaknesses in our own was overpowered by these two simple truths. For all their bluster, they know and so do we. And that haunted look on Titus Bramble’s face as he got red carded, the one that seemed to flicker with just the briefest flick of recognition, that was because...well, that was because he always looks like that. But he probably knows it too.

Also, we have a better team. It’s easy to imagine that we wouldn’t, but I would take our centre backs over theirs, I would take Joey Barton over Jordan Henderson, Jonas and Malbranque are much of a muchness, Tiote will have Cattermole to play with, Carrol is better than Gyan and Kevin Nolan has now scored more goals this season from midfield than the amount of Sunderland fans that were left in the stadium to see his third one in this game. (Incidentally, any Sunderland complaints that they weren’t up for it on account of Henderson being the only Sunderland supporter in the team are surely tempered by the fact that this meant on ninety minutes that he was the only Sunderland supporter in the ground- their team weren’t the only spineless bottlers.) What’s that leave us? Bent? Yeah, we’ll have him- he could always get a run out in the cup games if he could learn to play in a team properly and not strop about the place looking like he’s forgotten his twitter password.

Their joy in the wake of our relegation? Premature. Their hubris about how much better they were than our collection of Championship plodders and has-beens? Misplaced. It was rubbed in their face in this game in the most sickening and unpalatable way imaginable- honestly, it must have been simply ghastly for them- and it’s tacky to gloat any further really. Some clubs make banners and hang them over the Tyne Bridge to demonstrate their joy in their rival’s failings, others prefer to do their talking on the pitch.

Still, nice to see they’re keeping well. If they ask, we’re busy right through until January. We can’t play them every week, more's the pity.

Weekend Review (23rd-24th October)

The Rooney chit chat accompanied us deep in to the weekend and one could usually establish any one commentator’s general view by studying their noun usage. At various points, Manchester United’s manager was a revered ‘Sir Alex Ferguson’, a familiar ‘Alex’, or a chummy ‘Fergie’. Rooney was usually a formal ‘Rooney’ though a few ventured towards a ‘Wayne’ delivered with just the right hint of detached concern, like they were discussing a child of their friend who has just dropped out of college. The coverage of the story has been excessive but by far the more irritating trend of the weekend was various phone in hosts adopting world weary tones and begging for a change of topic as they wanted to talk about something else, as if the option to instigate conversation about something else were one not open to them.

The pithiest comment came from the advertising boards placed around Stoke’s Britannia Stadium: “compromise is not an option,” they said (advertising Sky’s 3D service, and wisely stopping short of confirming that not wearing those glasses that make you look really silly is also not an option). You certainly don’t have to tell the Glazer family that, the particulars of Rooney’s new contract apparently stipulating the actual names of players he wants signed over the next few years. Though some solace for them probably came in the shape of the long distance phone call to Rooney’s home where most of this was sorted out, which they were probably sensible enough to leverage against the costs of his goal bonuses and cigarette expenses.

All the negative talk of Rooney seemed to centre on him being a bit of a baby. Which is not only to simplify the situation but also overlook how joyful it can be to see footballers act like big kids. Two great examples at the weekend: Van Der Vaart giving the ball landing at his feet inches from goal a giant wellying in a manner which would have, had their game against Everton been played without nets, led to an argument between striker and a goalkeeper angered at seeing it hit such an unnecessary distance about with whom the responsibility lay for its collection. You know like when the strikers in a rush to restart the game and rushes to pick up the ball before the goalkeeper does- the opposite of that. And Stoke’s Tuncay pretending not to notice Man United were planning a short corner in favour of hovering around the near post looking busy: a move he lifted directly out of my formative years’ playbook. Sorenson’s angered clip suggested he was taking the role of my unsettlingly aggressive P.E teacher- though at least he was gloved and most won’t still be appearing in marked anxiety dreams years down the line.

And there was a lot of talk about offside, because Ronaldo used one little known aspect of the rule to his advantage for Real Madrid, leading Andy Gray to decry ‘these so called laws’, in the process taking the usage of the phrase ‘so called’ to a point from which it’s hard to see it ever properly returning. At no point during that phase of Gray’s analysis should the term have ever been deemed active. Unless, of course, Andy would rather have us refer to the grounding principles that underpin every game of association football to the same code by something that rolls easier off the tongue. Last Monday night he demonstrated the key tenants of a bad challenge on Richard Keys’ shins, this week he was going in unreasonably hard on the English language. Keys, sensibly perhaps, thought better of tackling him on his point.

Newcastle United 6 (wooh...) Aston Villa 0

Football gives you this type of game four, maybe five, times a life time. When the performance exceeds your expectations is one thing, when everything falls for you another. You get both these things and you’re on to a winner. But rarely does football gift you such a delicious choice of opposition. There is only one club this game could have been any sweeter for having being played against and Sunderland at least had their reasons for revelling in our relegation.

Fifteen months ago we were traumatised at Villa Park as our downfall was confirmed; the loathing for every player and the people in charge just about matched by our loathing of the home fans who had taken it upon themselves to be the personification of the national sneers directed at our supporters. The most famed picture of that day is a witless banner aimed at our fans asking who our next messiah was going to be. Ooh, I don’t know lads, is Martin O Neil free? “We’ll meet again” got an airing too and they were right- though given how much they were looking forward to it, it seemed a bit odd to wander off without even saying goodbye with half an hour of this game left to play.

There was tremendous spite in the air at St. James’ Park yesterday. I have complained for years about how critical and picky our fans can be with our players arguing that if it were instead transferred to the opposition it could form the basis of a home crowd truly capable of being a genuine positive influence. Yesterday this happened and, not merely responsive, the players seemed complicit in it; never dirty, but mean and steely eyed, clearly as determined as we were to make a point.

And then you consider that, along with the team spirit and attitude being spot on, some of our players are really good. Jose Enrique, for example. Enrique is a player who doesn’t always do the easy thing in the dopey manner of the timid defender adept at conceding needless set pieces in awkward areas, or the elaborate thing is the manner of a lily livered ditherer too precious to put his foot through the ball, but always, always does the right thing. His decision making is as sharp as Paul the octopus’ and his timing so immaculate that were he writing this report he would surely have refrained from such a hackneyed and dated Paul the Octopus reference. I’m a bit in love with him.

Williamson looks the part- full of busy and strong in the tackle- and is forming a neat little partnership with Collocini, Perch was much improved from his poor game on Monday night and Smith, Barton and Nolan were superb. Even Xisco put a shift in when he came on. And there was Andy Carroll- he looks the real deal doesn’t he? Inventive and bright throughout, always working always looking for the ball, he took all three goals excellently. Emile Heskey’s mournful performance (wherein he came on and then fell over and then it was full time) seemed to be showcasing something about an international passing of the baton, one which could have utilised Richard Dunne as a conduit if only he’d managed to get within baton passing distance of our number nine at any point during the game.

As for Villa? Oh dear. Trouble ahead for them, they could even, if they’re not careful, do a Newcastle. Certainly if they hire Gareth Southgate or Bob Bradley as coach then problems loom. The motivation for the Southgate speculation- his time there as a player- is reasonable enough, the talk of Bradley- his shared nationality with their owner- less assured. If being American is the requisite, Lerner should have seen me if the after the fifth goal yesterday, running up and down the stairs collecting high fives like a good ‘un. I’d be grateful for the opportunity to give managing them a shot; you’re darn tootin’ we’ll bastard well meet again.

Weekend Review (First Day)

“They shouldn’t have too much trouble if they’re only playing Young Boys,” said Andy Gray over a visual trail for Spurs’ mid week Champions’ League qualifier, wisely eschewing the other obvious joke about the tie as already made by everybody on the internet, and in the process marking our theme for the day: youth, and the fading of it.

A new Sky Premiership season and Andy’s feeling his age. There were already hints being dropped with his bitter World Cup ruminations- holding midfielder players and the Jabulani bearing his wrath- and when he refused to get with Ian Darke’s down with the kids lingo about Joe Hart’s ‘showreel’, referring instead to a stuffily old fashioned ‘scrapbook’, it was apparent we weren’t going to be discussing Radio 1’s weekend in Ayia Napa or the new Iphone anytime soon with our co-commentator.

Accordingly the reminiscing began- Darke and Gray taking a wistful look back to their first Monday night together, not spent at the picture house or the local disco hall, but at Maine Road watching Andy Sinton snatch QPR’s goal in a 1-1 draw. People weren’t scared to be romantic in those days. After spending the summer being reminded by Sky on how important those Monday night fixtures were for the mood and well being of the nation it felt only right and proper to spend much of the weekend bathed in nostalgia. It certainly took me back- was it only February this year I watched Wigan beat Liverpool at the DW stadium on a Monday night? March actually.

Speaking of Wigan: away from self-aggrandisement, Sky’s story of the weekend was Blackpool, comprehensive winners at the DW stadium; or rather their story was Kian Kelly, young Blackpool fan pictured after the game celebrating on his dad’s shoulders. It was a nice image, but Sky wanted more so said child and father were packed up and delivered to Blackpool’s training ground where the child, with his older brother looking on, was presented with a ticket for Saturday’s match at Arsenal. Heart warming stuff for everybody but Kian’s older brother, who looked a bit miffed at not getting a ticket himself and though one done one’s best to enjoy the joy of young Kian, one could not help but imagine the tense scene about to take place during the car journey home. Sky may consider all of this feel good fluff now, but how long such bonhomie survives in the face of several anxious calls to their publicity department regarding the possibility of securing an additional child’s ticket for Saturday’s fixture remains to be seen.

This isn’t all they’ve been talking about in Blackpool. Over on the BBC, Robbie Savage continues his very hardest to be ‘straight talking’- mistaking, in the manner famed by various Big Brother contestants over the years, obnoxiousness for ‘just being honest’- and, after one argument with an aggrieved Blackpool fan, advised the caller he could go to the pub and tell all his friends he’d slagged off Robbie Savage. Suddenly his presence on the show seemed a little less inexplicable. I had thought that (the very good) Mark Champman’s confessing to a secret liking for Craig Bellamy after hearing an interview with him on BBC had been designed as a cryptic clue as to what was being done with Savage’s public image here- a sort of remoulding of a bombastic, much loathed figure in to a loveable roughish type in the manner of a Chris Evans or a Reggie Kray. Instead, he is on board to help one of the nation’s flagging industries- if the idea is that anybody who feels inclined to criticise ‘Sav’ after hearing him on 606 should invite their friends to the local club that evening to tell them about it, then the previously moribund pub trade will soon be booming again and notices of its demise premature- unlike similar notices about 606’s.

Rooooooooney....

Walking off the pitch at the end of England’s game against Algeria- a disappointingly drawn game in which he played particularly poorly- Wayne Rooney took the time to deliver a video message to the fans. You’ve probably heard about it; I imagine a few of the newspapers mentioned it.

“Nice to see your home fans boo you. That's what loyal support is” he said and, yeah, good shout, Wayne. I mean that literally, too. In a tournament where it had been previously assumed impossible to even hear oneself about the drone of the Vuvuzeleas, even his toughest critics would be forced to concede that getting your words heard by the 21.3 million people ITV report were watching on Friday night is some achievement, even taking into account how many of those 21.3 million would have already switched channels by the time of Wayne’s to camera piece so as to avoid bumping into James Corden.

Rooney has evidently put a lot of thought in to getting his message heard, which is to his credit. Would, though, that he put similar thought in to the crafting of the message itself. For one thing, ‘home fans’? Wayne, you’re playing in South Africa- it’s going on 6000 miles from ‘home’. Even when they talked of you being miles off the pace afterwards, I don’t think they meant that many miles. Secondly, it seems disappointing to be resorting to that horary old crutch, that peculiarly English comedy device, sarcasm, so early in the competition. It’s hard to imagine a Kaka or a Messi using such base wit when finding a camera at the end of a World Cup fixture- those lads seem more comfortable on the camera, more adroit and cavalier, always have a trick up the same sleeve Rooney probably keeps his written speech just in case he forgets anything- and even the French, not a team without their own problems at this tournament, have demonstrated a certain imagination in their insults that seemed beyond England’s brightest hope. Is this a problem with coaching? Should our lads be being taught to just get out there and enjoy their spittle leaden monologues from an early age, with less pressure on hitting marks and not treading on the feet of any ball boys in the vicinity handing out the energy drinks?

Further, to whom was the message addressed? His anger was visible and clearly meant for those in the stadium. But they couldn’t hear him. So presumably we were expected to relay his thoughts to them somehow, via, one can only conclude, people we know who’ve travelled out there. That’s going to put a strain on the old phone bill isn’t it? I suppose Wayne can be forgiven this oversight, given that he thought the game was being played at Wembley. But, even so, next time it would surely be easier for everybody were he to nip out during the second half and ask the people operating the P.A system if they wouldn’t mind squeezing his message in between the safety guidelines and the happy birthdays. It’s not like anybody would have missed him on the pitch and, as a bonus, he would have been able to extend his best wishes- and those of the rest of the squad- to the gaffer on his sixty fourth. But I suppose that way we’re back again to concerns regarding sarcasm and additional concerns, in this instance, of how well it translates.

And can I just make the suggestion that if our role in this exchange was the vital cog that transferred it from the speaker to its audience that he may want to consider his tone? Not shooting the messenger is a phrase usually only employed upon delivery of said message, something for the recipient to consider; the sender of the message usually needs no such advice with most realising that such an action would demonstrate, if nothing else, gross inefficiency.

He’s apologised for the statement, through the more stuffy method of a press release, which disappointed those among us who wanted the entire saga to play out, serial style, through a series of similarly shot post match reflections. He probably reasoned that the air time couldn’t take the strain of the narrative, which seems sensible given England’s performances thus far and how decent Slovenia look- one more thirty second slot was hardly likely to incorporate a proper storyline and character development. And such non development from Rooney would have felt, for the viewer, dramatically unsatisfying, no matter how symbolically apt.

FA Cup Final....Chelsea 1 0 Portsmouth

The FA Cup has taken some well documented hits over the years- low crowds, weakened teams, Andy Townsed- but Saturday’s final surely represented a breach of tradition too far. For one thing, there was incident. For another, there was the occasional deviation from the expected narrative. And, as a final capper this was a televised game involving Portsmouth without, unless I missed it, a big screen showcase moment for their loyalist and most attention seeking fan, ‘Mr Portsmouth’. Which has to count for something.

At this point it is fair to bring up 2006’s final between Liverpool and West Ham United, a similarly exciting fixture. Yet my extensive research shows that most don’t consider any finals played in that strange Cardiff era as officially ‘canon’, in the same way Star Wars fans baulk at the ret-conned suggestion that Greedo shot first, and all FA Cup games played there have been accordingly expunged from the record. Which makes the twelve hour journey I made on a toilet less coach to see Newcastle beaten there 4-1 by Manchester United in 2005 feel particularly galling, in retrospect.

An exciting final at Wembley, though? Surely not. And one involving Chelsea? Chelsea, who since 1970 and Leeds, have subjected us to so much Cup Final tedium that they may have well spent the time walking the steps to collect their medals telling us about this amazing dream they had last, right, and we were in it, right, only it wasn’t us, yeah, but they somehow knew it was us? Many were left scrambling around their sofas, their arm chairs and their other associated seating arrangements wondering how to cope.

It wasn’t all bad: there was that lull in the second half just after Chelsea scored, where it was probably safe to slip in a little nap. And, as ever a service for the truly discombobulated, ITV were doing their level best to undermine any entertainment.

It eventually reached levels akin to broadcasting farce when Drogba’s shot crashed off the inside of the bar and on the line. “That’s fifteen seconds it has taken big bad television to say ‘goal’” asserted Tydsley over inconclusive pictures. A hum and a Hah from Jim Belgin later and (Tydlesy): “or, thirty seconds to say no goal.” Synaptic readings by now going a haywire, Clive concluded that we should definitely have video and if it’s unclear- which this was- then the goal shouldn’t be given, which this one wasn’t. Chelsea’s forwards weren’t the only ones miscalculating their angles.

We were offered at halftime that old one about Chelsea being a “lick of paint” away from scoring, which is as almost, in incidents like this, as predictable a response as the calls for video replays. I am never quite certain about this ‘lick of paint’ reasoning. I have always imagined- you’ll correct me if I’m wrong- that the dimensions of the pitch linings are pretty firmly defined by the law book. And, if they aren’t, wouldn’t an extra lick of paint only add to the density of the line and not the width? And, either way, how would that have been to Chelsea advantage, when surely want they needed was a lick of paint subtracted? That’s not a job that’s going to be negotiated without a look through a yellow pages, and a grave warning from a man with a pencil in the side of his mouth that it may be easier to take the whole thing out and start again with a new one.

In a further step away from Cup tradition, there was no doubled over figure complaining of cramp. I always found that cramp added a certain dramatic fission to the end of the final, and it’s disappointing that modern fitness regimes being as they are, the clubs seem to have got a hold of it. Good for them, but I still maintain that my idea to prevent players being struck down with it as the game approaches the ninetieth minute by simply kicking off at ninety minutes and running the clock backwards was a good one.

Still, give and take, and as one tradition erodes, another emerges: John Terry became the seventh hundredth player or manager to complain of Wembley turf dissatisfaction, in the charming and grace filled manner for which he is renowned.

Congratulations to him and to Chelsea, and congratulations to Jim Belgin, who, when commenting that they now have a double “to add to their CV” became the first person in history to equivocate winning a league and cup domestic double with obtaining the Duke of Edinburgh award.

A-Z of Five-a-side football (Part 2).

Impact player- Somebody who turns up ten minutes into the game and makes an immediate impression on it, mainly because nobody is quite sure who he is or where he’s come from, and feel it easier and more polite to let him have an uncontested spell of possession to gauge which team he’s supposed to be playing on, rather than just asking him.

Jostle- A scrappy little passage of play down by the corner, with the ball ricocheting continually between attacker’s shin, defender’s shin and the board around the court, as all three grasp on to each other like doomed shipwreck victims clinging impotently to decking. The simple pass off the board to the keeper is an option largely unconsidered by most defenders- it may well be the most sensible thing to do, but it is also the most cowardly.

Kick about- The strained period of bonding before the game, with players spraying the ball in all directions for an indeterminate amount of time, waiting for somebody to take the initiative and start working out teams. At this early stage, alpha male status is yours to grab. An assertive scooping of the ball, a firm ‘Right, come on then,’ and all that’s left is to bask in your newly found position of peer authority. How long this last depends on how you react to the first strong tackle put in on you- tearing up and complaining that “there’s no need for that; I thought we were meant to be a friends” will quickly see you relegated back into the pack.

Listlessness- Five minutes before the end, with the players waiting to come on after you huddled impatiently by the door, a marked lack of interest sweeps around the court, imparting itself upon everybody bar the most enthusiastic and tediously athletic types. Passes go misplaced, tackles are non-existent. Passes were going misplaced and tackles were non-existent in the previous fifty five minutes too, we should note. But at least then there was a genuine competitive spirit which meant those moments were genuinely frustrating. In the last five minutes all anybody can muster is a theatrical cluck of pretend irritation as the ball scampers away from them, and the odd sneaky glance at their watch. If there isn’t anybody outside waiting to come on next you are left with the horrifying prospect of playing on for appearance’s sake until somebody else suggests leaving. It’s like when the nurses don’t come round to inform you visiting times are over, and you have to pretend to have A) Not noticed, or B) Noticed, but been really pleased about it.

Membership- You will need one of these to book over the phone, as, in the past, several leisure centres have been forced into closure by rogue and membership card-less gangs of criminals scattering bookings across the nation’s five a side courts, which they then proceed to not honour. It’s actually what they eventually ended up getting Al Capone on.

Next goal the winner- A complete abnegation of all that has went before. Some have noted that in may be easier, going forward, to simply keep a mental track of the score, adjusting it accordingly as the game progresses. Like, you know, like they do in real football. But that would be all but impossible to referee in five a side, where players have been known to casually subtract a few goals from the opposition’s tally and carry them over to their own without blinking an eye or even mentioning it to anybody else.

Offside- This rule is naturally not applicable in five a side, just as it was never applicable to Arsenal when Thierry Henry played for them. But as many on the court try to emulate to Henry’s finishing, his footwork and, when they think nobody’s looking, his prowess with a palm, so others try to emulate the flailing defenders so often left in his wake, putting up their arms in a curious mix of desperation and haplessness, appealing for the enforcement of a rule that doesn’t even exist.

Post match analysis- This segment of the day can prove just as troublesome and divisive as the game itself. As disparate groups split- often, as testament to how little they know each other, with nothing more than a gruff ‘good game, lads’-, you will immediately be presented with the dilemma of wanting to bring up your best bits to friends but in as casual a way as possible. For their part, your friends will do everything in their power to not remember at all the time when you drifted inside the defender before unleashing an unstoppable thunderbolt into the top corner. But they will, happily, be capable of ably recalling the moment you trod on the ball with only the goalkeeper to beat. Such tricks of memory will lead to your post match pint being offset by dark, brooding introspection.

Newcastle United 2 Nottingham Forest 0

Some weeks ago two Newcastle United players- both of whom have represented England in the past- were heavily alleged to have been involved in a fight that left one of them with a broken jaw. An unsavoury incident and one which, knowing our football club, seemed perfectly capable of derailing our promotion chances- which given the two characters involved, and the stories emerging about both of them, was about as much concern as most could muster about the incident.

Faced with this dilemma, Chris Hughton, a man only managing Newcastle United himself because of a series of unsavoury and otherwise alleged incidents, responded with consideration and tact, refusing to answer questions on the subject, generally being professional and calm in the face of sneaky muck raking, the type of muck raking which, in the past, has seen our managers fall gormlessly into the hands of the press and their various agendas, and served to exacerbate the drama, leading to all manner of recriminations and raised voices and loud, slamming doors. So, well played Chris...

...Except, no, not according to everybody. Louise Taylor, of the Guardian and formally of the official Sunderland AFC magazine, has been taking tedious issue with our manager ever since, almost as if she has her own reasons for wishing to denigrate and undermine Newcastle United’s promotion push. Having watched the Sunderland game on Sunday- with Turner, Cana and Richardson putting an interesting spin on the concept of playing football, almost using it as an abstract concept and a starting point for something else completely- I simply can’t imagine what those reasons may be.

If her plan was to disrupt our players’ confidence and unity then her spiteful campaign was a hugely visible failure. As evidenced by the mass pile on that greeted our second goal- Enrique’s first ever for the club- our players only ever read the Guardian for Ben Goldacre’s science columns, and Polly Toynbee on a Tuesday. And the first, Ameobi’s spin and finish from just inside the area, was the result of a concentrated and composed seventy minutes of patient approach play- pass and move, give and go- that aligned with a vocal, passionate and fully united home crowd was always likely to yield something against a mobile and pretty, but ultimately toothless, Forest side.

Two wins needed, now, or we could be up by Saturday if Bristol City go and do us a favour. Danny Baker has been talking all season about the perils of declaring ‘nothing can go wrong now’ during football matches. So I won’t be doing that just yet. But considering what would have to go wrong to deny us promotion and that party on the last day at Loftus Road (I think, knowing how much us thick Geordies love one, the theme should be ‘messiahs’- I’ll be in the robes and thorns, being lectured by somebody dressed as Richards Dawkings), you would have to conclude that it’s all over bar the shouting and bar me being asked to leave the pub nearest Shepherd’s Bush for trying to perform a Cuban Cha Cha with a nearby pool cue.

Nobody expected this when we were getting beaten 6-1 at Orient in Pre Season. (Hey, serious question as I was avoiding the sports press at that time for obvious reasons: did anybody use punning Agatha Christie reference in the write ups of that game? Missed a trick if they didn’t.) And before the inevitable shit storm next season, we should take a second to recognise the job that Chris Hughton has done all season in the face of some incredible asks.

I did notice that, with the crowd signing his name on Monday, he gave it the full hands clasped together, arms raised salute in response. Compared to his reticent, almost forced, acknowledgement of the fans when he heard his name chanted earlier in the season, it felt like a nice moment for him and for us. And knowing how irked it would have left Louise Taylor made it feel all the nicer.

Wag Weekly...Kimberley Mills

Almost all of the online literature dedicated to her seems to regard Kimberley Mills as the only Wag yet to “cash in on her boyfriend’s fame.” Thought about logically for a moment, taking a second to estimate how many professional footballers there are in the country and how likely any of these players are likely to be celibate, this line is absolute nonsense. But one thing you learn reading these sites is how keen we are to damn Wags with feint, and often patronising, praise. For my part, I should probably point out that I think Mills has lovely hair. Very shiny.

Shy of publicity as she is, she has restricted her appearances to procedural ones- the Royal occasions it would have been impolite, and detrimental to the nation’s spirits, to have avoided. So, naturally, we were able to catch a glimpse of her on Nuts TV’s ‘Real Footballers’ Wives’. What I love best about that is the title of the show suggesting, as it seems to, that an overly cautious producer somewhere has done their best to ensure no confusion. Always nice when television types think to make the distinction between fiction and non-fiction for their viewers, and put it right up there in the opening credits.

She is engaged (possibly- nobody seems sure) to David Bently, widely regarded as a sort of rubbish version of David Beckham (even his name sounds vaguely like a store’s own brand knock off), which, since about 2007 and his move to L.A Galaxy, has made two of them.

The A-Z of 5-a-side Football (Part 1)

‘Aaaaaargh’: Noise of frustration made by a player who has just over hit a pass, or put a shot wide. Usually exclaimed by the player in the Barcelona Messi shirt, it is done to suggest that the previous passage of play was deeply uncharacteristic, and that his shirt doesn’t usually look this ironic.

‘Back’: With the ball at your feet, your natural inclination will be to take it on a bending run, leaving floundering defenders in your wake, and riffling it into the top corner. Teammates with a clearer view of how the game’s developing may suggest a more pragmatic approach: a humbling shifting of momentum and a dreary rolled pass backwards. The even more hurtful suggestion of ‘back to keeper’ is usually followed up with the base covering caveat ‘if you need it’. The subtext: you do.

Celebrating: Strictly forbidden in the five a side arena. The psychology of this works on a similar basis to the idea that suggests people will think you have done more sexually if you talk about it less. This should not be a new experience for you, and the proper way to acknowledge a goal is to trudge back with your eyes downward, periodically raising your head to display your unsmiling face. Some squinting is permissible, but not so much that it becomes excessive.

Defending: Easier to feign than attacking, and such is the chaotic pace of the game, sticking a lethargic foot out as an opposition player approaches you may actually see you emerge with possession. No sliding tackles allowed, as if you were planning on one anyway.

Edge of the box: A starkly defined area of the court, players being forbidden from entering the box at the risk of conceding a penalty, or, judging by the desperate lengths some go to in order to avoid it, opening the gates of hell, letting loose the evil powers from within and becoming the subject of an oft regurgitated internet urban legend. Drawn as a semi circle, which means defenders have to make daintily curved runs around it, watching their steps like a shot putter and generally feeling a bit silly.

Five: The number of players meant to be on each side- a nice conceit but one usually thrown into turmoil when Spuggsy bring his little brother with him, and Jamie’s mates from last week show up again. Finding space becomes a problem, with angry 50-50 clashes breaking out all over the place, and that’s just queuing for a drink at the vending machine beforehand. The game itself is less a fast paced exercise in short passing and ball control, and more a mass of flailing limbs and sharp, elbowed points. Teammates tackle each other, strangers- referring to each other solely through generic terms like ‘mate’ and ‘bud’- find themselves paired up together in central defence. It’s as near an experience to playing for West Ham United you’re going to get for twenty five quid, a booking fee and a deposit. The fact that the game only lasts sixty minutes, and not ninety, means it’s the closest you’re going to get to storming out of Upton Park early too.

Goalkeeper: Outside of Nike’s Zoom T-7 indoor trainers, and a pair of ankle guards, the most desirable piece of equipment on the five a side court is a goalkeeper- you should probably be able to find a decent second hand one on Ebay- or, failing that, at Portsmouth- and it’s certainly a worthwhile investment. Sans Goalkeeper, your team will be forced to operate a hectically organised rolling system, each member taking it in stroppy turns to mind nets, only freed from responsibility on the concession of a goal. Such a system is pervious to corruption, of course, and every goal will be greeted with dark suspicion and accusatory glances from team mates not altogether convinced that you aren’t in devious cahoots with the opposition to limit your time on the centre provided crash mats.

Head Height: A rule designed to encourage ball control and fast play, although usually pettily used to punish a player who deflects the ball somewhere above the knee area. One problem with the head height rule is nobody is ever sure which head to use as the benchmark height, nor what would happen should the player selected choose to perform a cunning handstand with an opposition striker bearing down on goal. Appealing for enforcement of the rule is generally regarded as bad form and should be left to your team’s captain. (I.E, the member of your team who remembered to book the court this week.)

Wag Weekly....Yulia Arshavin

People not at work during the day for whatever reason- maybe they’re unemployed, or students or Liverpool’s Albert Riera- have two options to help them waste away the hours: Sky Sports News or double bills on the Paramount comedy channel. You can watch one, or the other, but to watch both would feel vaguely perverse. And as you’re all football fans, it seems likely that any reference to Dharma and Gregg- a show designed with the daytime television watcher in mind, almost hypnotic in its capability to generate a hollowed out self loathing in the soul of the viewer- would be largely lost on you. So you’re just going to have to take my word for it when I say that Mr and Mrs Arshavan are truly the Dharma and Greg of The footballer and their Wags world.

Andrei plays the Greg role, all straight laced and old fashioned conservatism, he is on record as saying that all women should be banned from driving “because they are too dangerous.” (As opposed, presumably, to professional footballers, whose collective road safety record is unblemished.) Yulie is Dharma: baggy clothing and sass, she thinks that the English are “too reserved.” Well, when the choice is that or being put out on loan at Bolton Wanderers or Mk Dons you can hardly blame us, dear. She also thinks the country is “dull,” and the food “sub-standard.” (In fairness, when I first read that quote I assumed she was talking about a ham and turkey six incher, all the salad and on traditional Italian white- so she might have a point on the issue of our unimaginative pallets.)

An avid blogger, Arshavin has since “prohibited his wife from talking about England.” It’s strange, because I remember watching his performance against Holland in 2008 and declaring him my favourite ever footballer- I handed over my season ticket renewal form at St. James’ Park later that week with a quip about hoping the money would be getting put towards signing him. (In a moment that has since proven symbolically, and horrifyingly, apt, the ticket office lady had never heard of him.) But technology has caught up with us once again, it seems, and just as they say you should never meet your heroes, nor it would appear, to be on the safe side, should you ever read their blog either.

P.Alace

To a generation of rap listeners P.Diddy is just an attention seeking irritant, one who cravenly latches on to more talented artists, appearing in their videos and peppering their songs with distracting ad-libs in a cheap bid to further his own profile and massage his own ego. But to others...no, come to think about it, he’s probably that to most generations of rap listeners. And some non-rap listeners too.

To this date his sole achievement is his close relationship with the late Notorious B.I.G. It’s certainly easy to see why the pair got along: Biggie was witty, verbose, multi-talented, and liked Versace sunglasses. Puffy, too, liked Versace sunglasses. Together, the pair were at the forefront of the mid nineties bling era-an era that stood largely true to the ‘two turntables and a mic’ ethos, but also threw in, for good measure, some diamond encrusted shiny suits, an indoor swimming pool and, more often than not, a remix featuring Jodeci.

To this sole achievement, could we be set to add another? Certainly, few could have expected Crystal Palace to find, so soon, an owner even more annoying than Simon Jordan.

His interest in the club, which was confirmed by his ‘people’ in the week, seemed to come as a surprise to many of the country’s sporting press, maybe shocked he was prepared to personally invest in something that is so obviously a lost cause. They were obviously unaware of his producing and marketing duties on the upcoming Joaquin Phoenix rap album. (“As yet unreleased,” notes Wikipedia, with a hearting air of optimism.) This is not a music mogul easily deterred by what others think, nor one cursed with overly sensitive critical facilities.

Besides which, was the Diddy/Palace alliance not forever destined, written even? Not written by the same team of ghostwriters that penned for Diddy such hits as ‘I'll Be Missing You’ (for my money- and, knowing Puffy, a large slice of my publishing and royalties too- the single worst song ever made) and the other one, That One with Usher in the Video. But, rather, written by the stars and the fates.

Consider: the year is 1995, and Puff, in attendance at that year’s Source award, is called out in everything but name by West coast music head, and owner of Death Row records, Suge Knight, sparking a bicoastal rivalry that will span over two years, ending in the tragically early demise of two of the industry’s brightest talents, 2pac and Biggie Smalls. At the same time, as part of a bit of a shake up to accommodate smaller numbers the following season, Palace become the fourth team to be relegated from that year’s Premiership. To paraphrase Chris Rock: Malcolm X got assassinated, 2pac and Biggie got shot, and Alan Smith got invited to leave Selhurst Park and pursue the recently vacated managerial spot at Wycombe Wanderers.

Some years later, and with the millennium approaching, Palace bring back Steve Coppell, who does a fine job in keeping the cash strapped club away from the reaches of further demotion. Meanwhile, over in New York, Diddy, along with his girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, is involved in an altercation in a night club, leading to a shooting for which his artist, Shyne, is eventually found guilty of instigating and sentenced to ten years in a maximum security penitentiary for. The trouble allegedly started when a club goer threw money at Puffy’s feet, in an ostentatious display of wealth- “we’ve all got money,” he is reported to have said.

You can’t help but feel, though, that the display would have been even more effective as a fiscally wasteful gesture had the club goer thought, as Palace had earlier in the year, to bring Terry Venables in as manager in a heavily publicised appointment. Though it’s probably fair to guess the point was to demonstrate that, no matter how much money any one of us may have, we’re all in a metaphorical gutter staring at the stars- and that’s not an argument the necessarily caters for the extra stresses brought about by administration and point deductions, nor the understandable concerns regarding Terry Venables and having to put with him.

Undeniable, though, surely, that the two were always, somehow, intrinsically and spiritually, linked. And now, fingers crossed, financially. What can Palace fans, and new manager Paul Hart, expect? We wait in hushed expectation. The first move will be to invite Diddy to join us in our hushed expectation, with the emphasis, ideally, very much on the ‘hushed’ bit.

Atrophied Success

When Middlesbrough supporters hold a big flag with an arrow pointing to Newcastle United supporters underneath the slogan ‘Trophy Virgins’, what, exactly, are they trying to imply? That neither I, nor any of my fellow supporters, have ever attempted to engage in the act of copulation with one? Well, frankly, I should hope not. You know, they do ask for those things back at the end of the year.

This is not to say that trophy presentations wouldn’t be spruced up if, instead of the traditional arms aloft pose, the winning captain was invited to engage with the trinket on a more intimate basis; the type of basis that is usually precipitated by two and half bottles of shared wine and concluded with a flimsy and perfunctory text correspondence. Even so, though, I’m not sure any majesty would be lent to Cup final day if Gary Lineker was forced to hand over to the presentations only after a clear NSFW warning. And I imagine those ribbons get everywhere. If this is a radical shape up to the handing out of silverware being proposed then I’m afraid I will have to be lending a dissenting voice.

Crafty buggers, they may simply have been trading on that old schoolyard trick of saying the word ‘virgin’ and waiting to see who squirmed first. Certainly, my first response on seeing the banner was to go over, again, the night when my sister’s friend- who was well fit but who left for London with her family the next day meaning that neither I nor anybody else would ever see her again- came in to my bedroom in the middle of the night and we must have been at it for at least eight hours, and she was gasping and everything and then she let me touch her boobs and I’ve definitely done it now, so just shut up about it right?

An effective form of banter, to be sure: evoking childhood trauma (or in my case, evoking memories of saucy first time romps with the friends of my sister), in the hope of psyching us out. Next time we meet- will we ever again?- they should devise something around the theme of suspicious wet patches and that time we called the teacher ‘mam’.

What they surely can not have been suggesting, contrary to what has been claimed by some unkind souls, is that Newcastle United have never won a trophy. We have won far more than most clubs, and most of those clubs have won far more than Middlesbrough. They have won precisely one, a League Cup following a 2004 victory against Bolton Wanderers. You’ll have heard the stories from elderly relatives, I’m sure: the flat caps, the urchins smiling toothily, the almost full stadium. You can probably access the Pathe newsreel coverage at the National museum of football. In some circles, it’s still referred to as ‘The Joseph Desire Job final’. Usually, clarification is sought from the other parties in the conversation as to what ‘The Joseph Desire Job final’ is in reference to. But once that administrative matter is smoothed, the reminiscing begins and just as anybody of a certain age can remember where they were when Kennedy was killed, so too can we all remember what we were watching on the other side when Middlesbrough won the league cup.

One Middlesbrough final I did watch was their 2006 Uefa Cup one against Sevillia. I even missed The Apprentice so I could catch the last twelve, goal packed, minutes. I remember being disappointed as I like to see all the North East clubs doing well- even the ones from outside the North East. But, hey, guys, nobody’s judging. They’re difficult, those ones, aren’t they, the European ones? Only the truly top clubs achieve anything in those, the likes of AC Milan and Newcastle United.

Things to do in summer when you're dropped...

After a disappointing display against Egypt, one which met the visible disapproval of coach Fabio Capello, Arsenal’s Theo Walcott may be concerned that this summer, far from the coming of age narrative he had planned to be involved with in South Africa, will, in fact, be a bit of a washout spent bumming around the house. But the youngsters today have so many more options than we did when we weren’t selected to play for our country at the highest possible level at that age- and instead spent our summers idly frolicking with chums long in to the night, before going home and downloading the new Green Day and Eminem albums from Napster- and Theo has all manner of activities to be keeping himself busy with as the days get longer and the nights shorter.

Cinema pass

Of course, it’s not unknown for kids on their six weeks to bypass payment at the cinema all together and obtain access to films by making stealthy use of the life sized cardboard cut outs of Twilight characters and an elderly relative who works there taking tickets. Or, otherwise, taking advantage of the scraggly haired college student who works there taking tickets and probably regards the issue of people sneaking into cinema showings as he regards everything else in the world, with a sort of detached amusement (something which probably helps make that little torch he has to carry around with him a bit more bearable) and acts to counter in the same way he acts to do anything, with slouched inertia.

Kids that download films illegally off the internet and watch them alone in a darkened room are part of a thrilling media revolution and no doubt feted by their parents as technological whizz kids; kids that show cunning and adventure and go to see a film the way the director intended it to be seen are ‘antisocial’. What this says about society’s media consumption habits and eagerness to label is up for debate, but it seems a fair bet that neither group particularly enjoyed Avatar.

Sneaking in would be a bit of a stretch for Theo, who would, in keeping with his display last Wednesday, probably end up gormlessly running head down in to the popcorn stand. There’s also the risk of being spotted- unless the people doing the doors are the type of fair-weather football types that only watch world cups, then he should be fine. Regardless though, the price of a cinema mega pass should not represent too much of a problem, especially if his parents, as many do, up his pocket money in keeping with the additional spare time he finds himself with over the summer. Tenner a month, jobs a good ‘un and you’re laughing. Unless you take advantage of the offer to go and watch the new Will Farrell film, obviously, in which case you’re sitting in a stone faced silence punctured only by the occasional low groan of disgust. But the point stands.

Reminder: you will need to present your I.D before each showing, and notes from your parents or highly internationally acclaimed football coaches are not considered valid.

Go travelling

The gap year option, as favoured by many rich students who use the time spent travelling not taking advantage of drunk girls at full moon parties and attempting to eat their own face after taking some dodgy acid, trying to ‘find themselves’.

For Theo, this shouldn’t prove too hard a task, he’d be best advised to start by looking around the nearest substitute bench. Don’t forget though who’ll be looking for him: Theo himself, armed with his legendary lack of positional skill and general directionless. It seems that the young whip has unwittingly stumbled into something of an existential quandary relating to the nature of self. An unwitting stumble that will probably, like most of his unwitting stumbles tend to, see him surrender possession before looking peeved and more than a little hurt.

Music festivals

U2 are headlining this year’s Glastonbury which is a bit of a shame, obviously, but should also ensure tickets are a little easier to come by on Ebay, once people do the mathematics needed to deduce how irrational it is to want to see U2 in the face of being forced to plough around muddy marshland in dignity-stripping footwear and times that by the possibility of bumping in to Edith Bowman.

One thing the World Cup does have over music festivals, outside of its lack of Edith Bowman, is the bottled water situation: there won’t be the queues to get a bottle that there traditionally are at Glastonbury, and it’s most likely free, as opposed to ludicrously expensive. This has been subtlety branded over the years, like the rain and the paucity of toilet facilities, as ‘all part of the experience’, when, in actuality, crass corporate exploitation would appear to be the anathema of what the music festival experience should be. Theo can take heart in his right to reply: he can write a letter to NME which will draw a sarcastic and one line response from a smug ponce with a stupid haircut who spent the entire festival backstage sharing complimentary champagne and an air conditioner with Florence and the Machine.

Score against Burnley

Because it is hard, isn’t it, football. Except, crucially, when you’re playing against Burnley in which case it tends to become very, very easy. Arsenal ususally like to engage themselves in quasi-glamorous pre season 'occasions', extensively sponsored tournaments with portentous names and trophies handed out at the end of it to captains doing their best to look thrilled. But this year perhaps they can make an exception and give Burnley a few games in the name of Theo’s confidence and general all round mood? Failing that, maybe they can politely ask Barcelona or Ajax if they wouldn’t mind stepping aside and letting Brian Laws’ men having a crack at the ‘Emirates Tournament’ this year. Note: It might be an idea to run this idea past Sky or whichever station has provisionally agreed to televise it this year.

Newcastle United 4 Coventry City 1/ Newcastle United 3 Preston North End 0

It was pointed out on NUFC.Com the day after the Coventry City game that the four one win after going a goal behind scarily mirrored a game against the same club eleven years ago, which we won four one after going a goal behind. Even the times of the goals were similar, some falling within a minute of each other (not counting the interceding eleven years of course, but you know what I mean, even if I’m rapidly losing track myself).

It all, depending how deeply one elects to think about these things- or any other thing involving Coventry City- seemed to say something ultimately defeating about the nature of football, sport, and life itself. If it’s all as pointlessly cyclical as this, if everything begins and ends to a unchanged effect played to a largely unmoved landscape, then why do we bother? We can’t even get a pie and cup of coffee at half time at St. James’ Park without lots of ethically anguished handwringing (although wringing would probably mark a nice change for our hands, given their usual role in the half time pie exchange is to be covered painfully in an intemperate and runny mince type substance, before being held under a cold tap until the second half begins) and it’s not as if anybody seems to enjoy going. Spiritual awakenings have as much power to diminish as they do illuminate, of course, they do as much to strip away possibly as they do to enhance it. For, for one thing to be universally true, lots of other, sometimes more juicy, things- often things that involve cute, earthily earnest girls with frizzy hair and encouragingly liberal views on group sex- have to be untrue. It’s all pointless, all of it and, even if it wasn’t, it would still revolve around Coventry City. Nice.

At least we won though. 4-1! I like Wayne Routledge: he’s bombastic, and quick. He was dropped for the Preston game on Saturday, a game I’ve crudely squeezed into this piece in a manner which gives the misleading idea that they were somehow thematically linked, but is, in fact, a nod to my lack of things to say about both games, really. Once again, the opponents were just terrible, lacking wit and flair, which is fair enough and expected, but also stomach and lustre. Once again, we weren’t much better, but done enough to have a comfortable victory secured long
before the end. I am still not sure if I’m enjoying this season or not.

I have no idea why Routlege was dropped, incidentally, perhaps he was ‘carrying a knock’. This is a big no-no, of course, and, like wedding rings and other superfluous objects, any knocks would have to be properly covered in bandages or, even better, handed to the fourth official before the game. It meant we had Guthrie in the right midfield role, except we didn’t because he kept drifting in, leaving a huge gap, to Simpson’s visible frustration. Best and Carroll together is a disaster, they run with the smooth collaborative fission of 2pac and Biggie, and spent much of the afternoon bickering like a failing couple. Carroll may get better, Best absolutely will not, and we’ve been had again. Signed him from Coventry City, you say? Spooky.

Wag Weekly...Rebecca Ellison

Rebecca and Rio were married in the summer of last year. Nothing flash, just your standard two storey glass Great Room, the usual covered up barbequed area with swim up bar, and the positively run of the mill four thousand foot outdoor ‘entertainment square’. Weddings being weddings, and the British being the British, it seems a safe bet that there was still somebody in attendance who wanted to grumble about the buffet.

The wedding cemented a seven year relationship, during which time the couple have had two children, both of whom they named after the actor Larenz Tate. They didn’t name both children Larenz Tate, which may have leant a little too hard into obsession, but rather created a hybrid of the two names, assigning one each to both children. Which is fine, you imagine, whenever the kids are together- as long as they remember to introduce themselves in the right order- but a perhaps less effective tribute whenever they are separate from one another, where it could quite easily become a hassle to have to explain again.

Tate, as anybody who has just searched his name on IMDB knows, played O-Dog in Menace to Society, hardly a suitable role model for the new England captain. But then, it could be argued that the new England captain is hardly a suitable role model for O-Dog out of Menace to Society. We’re none of us perfect. And what’s to say that it wasn’t, in fact, Tate’s memorable turn as ‘Basketball Team Captain’ in one episode of ‘The Wonder Years’ that spawned the Ferdinands’ fandom? (Pretty memorable episode, that one, it also featured Screech out of ‘Saved by the Bell’. Where, we wonder, would the Ferdinand offspring have been left had their parents’ affections been swayed the way of Dustin Diamond? Engaged in an almighty rock, paper, scissors contest to see who got the moniker ‘Diamond’ would be my guess.)

Alan Green is away....

“I wasn’t here last week,” said Alan Green on Saturday night’s 606 show. “I was in California,” he went on.


Monday
Flying is a pain. Look, I know for most people it’s a treat, and good luck to those people. Lord knows they put up with enough. But I’m expected to do this first class, often a couple of times a month. It’s ridiculous that we’re stuck with such outmoded forms of transportation. There needs to be a serious think about using the technology available to create something quicker, something which necessitates fewer lacklustre browses through the in flight magazine- something teleportable that can be forgotten about until we need it. I don’t buy this argument that says we’d be robbing something from travelling if we done this: the technology would only be available to the people that need it most, me and other football commentators.

Tuesday
The glorious Californian sun glistens and in the distance the city hums busily. Laid out poolside, a slight breeze brushing pleasingly against my hair, I notice a small group of children, smiling and laughing and playing football with a beach ball, as their parents watch on smiling lovingly. Eventually quietly asked to leave by the nearby bar staff after loudly decrying the standard of football on show- honestly, it was amateurish.
Spend the afternoon at Disneyland. ‘Where your fantasies come true’? There are the ones having fantasies if they think I’ll be going back there. Joke.

Wednesday
Missing football. Keen to get updates but stuck with newspapers weeks out of date (one of which carries a report from that farcical Liverpool/Reading cup time- honestly, how can we have any respect for a competition that allows thing like that to happen? It must be time to scrap the whole thing). Obviously in the days of twitter feeds and Mike Ingham’s facebook status updates, obtaining results and bite sized summaries of games is a comparatively simple one. But I have my role as amusingly out of touch technophobe to maintain: somebody who, if presented with an Ipad tablet, is going to ask if it works best dissolved or swallowed whole, and who thinks apps are something that were devalued in Sven Goran Eriksson's time as England manager. And lots of other amusing misunderstandings sweetly indulged by the 606 producers. (Apart from on matters of video replays, of course, where I suddenly become Johnathan bloody Ive- you know the referees I’ve spoken to want the help, and if it’s there to give them it, why not give them it?)

My wife suggests the BBC football blog, and I reply, with a touch of vexed exasperation, that I thought they only had those in Ireland, and besides I haven’t brought my wellies, before grumbling a little under my breath. She rolls her eyes and accuses me of being a stick in the mud. “That’ll happen if you forget your wellies,” I reply. Happy with that.

Thursday
Ring home. The usual holiday stuff: weather, how everybody is, a twenty minute conversational derailment centred on Liverpool’s recent upturn in form and where it leaves Raffa Benitez and the American owners. Eventually rush through the call to avoid running into the traffic and the weekend news round up.

Friday
Spend the morning at Paramount Studios. Bit of a set-to with the tour operator when he suggests this is the place where dreams come true. I point out that, in fact, my dreams- nor, I would guess, the dreams of others on the tour- tend not to involve cramped buses crawling anticlimactically around artificial New York landmarks, as an aspiring or otherwise failed actor witters on about Audrey Hepburn and Bing Crosby. When he accuses me of unhelpful literalness, I suggest he does me a favour, utilising a jabbing and beligerant overuse of the term ‘mate’. Eventually escorted off the lot but not before a quick scan of the others on the tour. Their embarrassed faces and reluctance to look me in the eye speaks volumes- it’s not just me that feels this way.

Saturday
Flight home. I’m reminded of the old saying that the best holiday is a holiday from one’s self. Nonsense. Utter garbage.

Burnt Bridges

As per the weekend hype for both subjects, I tried to follow the John Terry coverage in 3D. Promised a fully immersive experience, I have to admit to being ever so slightly disappointed. Sure, some of the sharper allegations had me ducking as if they were heading my way, and some of the rougher and more difficult to believe edges were smoothed out. And at one point I felt close enough to actually put out a hand and touch some of the more copiously exchanged bodily fluids. But, as ever, it’s wearing the glasses that’s the problem, making you feel, as they do, ever slightly stupid- which, of course, needn’t necessarily be the illusion you hope it is if you’re reading the Sunday tabloids. Nope, it’ll never catch on- which, I don’t know, may prove reassuring for any one of the parties involved.

You would have to ask them, really, though doing this alone possibly wouldn’t be enough to ensure you a straight answer. “Terry scores the winner- you couldn’t make it up” said one Radio 5 commentator on Saturday. Well, no, evidentially you couldn’t, not with the lads he has on retainer. Say what you like about his leadership qualities, his personal choices, and how vigorously he can clap his hands and say ‘come on’ at corners, but when it comes to highly paid lawyers, Terry truly has a team worthy of England captain.

The captain issue has been brought up again, which was thrilling for us that so enjoyed the original debate. Cor, took you back didn’t it? The discourse, the expert opinion, the lingering questions pertaining to what exactly it is the captain’s role actually is outside of organising the whip round for the driver on away trips. There is not another country in the world as dopily captivated by such a non subject, and when some chump in the News of the World commented that it is “one of the most sought after roles in world football” I would have been convinced he was speaking ironically if only irony were a quality in the armour of your average News of the World journalist.

What the captaincy issue did do was shift the story uncomfortably into the realm of ‘public interest’, which enabled the papers to treat it as an ‘issue’ and not as the tacky exercise in underwear drawer rifling it actually was. One of the girls interviewed about her past with Terry donated some of her fee to the Haiti earthquake fund, which was perfectly decent of her. But it also served to highlight just how squalid and petty a story this was. It’s hard to imagine that Tony Blair wasn’t grateful for the distraction too. As ever, you’re with the press on the topic of free speech. It’s just a shame that it has to be this press.

Nobody came out of this well, really, and how impressed were we supposed to be, incidentally, that Terry put in a performance at Burnley? I know it was supposed to say something about his fortitude, but from this distance it also seemed to say something about a charmless lack of remorse. His tough guy stare after scoring, for example. What point did he imagine had been proved? Unless it was one about the value of having a man on the post at corners- which seems unlikely- I fear he may misinterpreted some concerns, which were never really based on his ability to find space in the opposition penalty area and power in a header.

Oh, it’s all very embarrassing this isn’t it? Even the nice-ish elements in the story leave a disquieting taste. The ‘Team Bridge’ t-shirts may have seemed like a supportive gesture to one of the wronged parties, but the wording as taken from the Jordan and Peter Andre relationship is telling: real life human emotion reduced to tawdry catchphrases, and childish ganging up and point scoring. Is there a dignity defying public gesture that Carlos Tevez- who has a bit of history with Terry of course, (probably not in that sense, though I'm yet to study all the coverage)- is immune to? Never mind awkwardly scheduled International fixtures, in the interest of always having his full quota of strikers available, Roberto Mancini wants to be grateful they’ve scrapped Celebrity Big Brother after this year’s run.