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.

Wag Weekly...Elena Bonzanni

The internet consensus is in on Elena Bonzanni, the girlfriend of West Ham United’s Valon Behrami: we all like her. This should be viewed as the big deal that it undoubtedly is. This is in the internet, after all, where we don’t tend to agree much. And though things like pictures of pretty television star and model types are always going to prove less decisive than, say, Tony Blair’s evidence at the Iraq inquiry, when unanimity is achieved, it’s worth acclaiming.

“Better looking than your girlfriend” claims one website, which feels initially insulting, but, looking deeper, actually displays a rather touching faith in the seductive capabilities of their readers, a faith you can’t help but feel may be ever so slightly misplaced. “Smoking hot,” says another, sounding a bit like a character in a James Ellroy novel talking about a dame.

If you’re worried, incidentally, that the demographic that scans the internet for pictures of Wags is unrepresentative, consider the sage words of one blogger on the subject: “you would cut off your hands if she asked you to.” If she’s asking that of this particular demographic and they’re agreeing? Well- though one hesitates to put it quite like this- she must be doing something right.