More Silverware in the North East

The fixture list released yesterday and, with it, some exciting new for fans of Newcastle United. We will be there to see the Best Behaved Fans trophy (traditionally presented at the first home game of the following season) paraded. Good news for the winners, Sunderland, too: they could not have handpicked a finer opposition for a game in which to showcase the very best behaviour of the best behaved supporters in the land.

Consider last year’s derby and somebody from the home end running on the pitch and grappling with Steve Harper. An apology was given to Harper, who didn’t take any further action (possibly aware of what it may have meant for the Best Behaved Fans Trophy- like the Sage and the Tall Ships, this type of thing is a boon for the entire region), but none was offered to those in the away end, who were expected to accept the heightened hostility the incident both spoke to and perpetuated as just one of those things. Similar, in fact, to when Niall Quinn and Roy Keane both excused the violence of the Sunderland fans in 2008 on account of it being such a long time since poor little Sunderland had won a home derby: an attitude perfectly fitting with a club who have a turned a blind eye to a pitch invasion every single time Sunderland have scored against Newcastle at the Stadium of Light. Now, Sunderland would argue that that doesn’t equal all that many pitch invasions in total. And they would be right. But how many clubs are aware that a luxury of a team unable to score against yours is the type of thing you have to ring down to reception in advance to secure, or even ask for at the time of booking to avoid disappointment? A club as courteous as theirs really should be advertising these services more clearly.

Visually, the Harper incident was very similar to the Lennon at Hearts one, which you have probably seen on the news this week alongside the story that new hate legislation is being introduced to prevent incidents like it ever happening again in Scotland. Obviously you have to consider the Lennon incident in a wider and more complicated context of bigotry, and for that reason the two incidents are not directly comparable, but for one to be a contributory factor to a change of law, and for the other to be ignored completely when rewarding the fans of the club responsible (or the club of the fans responsible) for their good behaviour is, at best, a mite irresponsible.

Now Quinn is asking the fans what they think the club should do with the twenty grand they’ve won. Suggestion: use the twenty grand to fund a small purchase in a corner shop. It doesn’t matter what you’re buying, you’re really only in it for the change you get back. Now take that change, and distribute it to supporters entering the Stadium of Light on the 20th August, encouraging them to hurl it as gaily as possible in to the away end at any moment they feel appropriate- concession of goal, scoring of a goal, stoppage in play due to injury- any time they want to put the eyesight of a human being at risk, basically, because, as Quinn would tell you, it was a bit of pisser when we played in Europe and they didn’t.

Also, last thing, remind them to keep a bit of it back for any Newcastle substitutes appearing at the touchline. We’ve all been there and boy is your face red: you’ve used all your change hurling it indiscriminately at the away end and clean forgot to keep any back to aim at substitutes warming up in the second half. It happens but it shouldn't, and if you want to retain this award, behaviour like that isn’t going to fly.

What Newcastle United need to do in 2011/2012

The Daily Mirror recently asked fans of clubs in the Premier League to suggest the key areas to adress in preparation of the upcoming season for use on their website. This is one of the entries they decided not to use.

THE THREE KEY AREAS FOR MY CLUB TO IMPROVE IN ARE
1. All season long I’ve been grumbling about disruption from the back, citing its lack of imagination and penetrative effect. Alas, the lady two rows behind me with the family sixed bag of Starbursts refuses to take the hint, still yet to offer me even one of the green tangy ones that nobody really likes.

2. Official DVD releases. Who decides on these? For example, they were happy to bring out one showing our home game against Arsenal, despite the first half being about as much fun to watch as The Human Centipede. They should have replaced the first half with that game with a half from somewhere else, say the second one at West Ham where we actually played quite well. Such unseemly splicing may attract criticism from the DVD purists, but it would at least go down well with the Human Centipede crowd.

3. Ticket Office. I would hire some people to work there.

HOW I’D IMPROVE OUR DEFENCE
By blunting everybody else’s attack. Tell Dudley Campbell a as he gets ready in the tunnel before going out to not worry about what everybody else says about him, because we think he’s great. Ask Stephen Fletcher as he bears down on goal ‘what’s the point when we’re all going to be dead some day?’ Go round to Robin Van Persie’s the night before the match and just sit there for ages, ignoring his hints about the time of the last bus and the raised voice of his partner emanating from the kitchen when they’re in there loading up the coffee maker. Pull Andy Carroll’s hair. Pull Wayne Rooney’s hair.

HOW I’D IMPROVE OUR MIDFIELD
Most will have their own thoughts on who best to bring in to shore things up in the middle. The name I keep coming back to is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Admittedly, high kicking is liable to be punished by the fussier referees these days, and she would have to hand over any stakes to the fourth official before entering the field of play- or at least cover them up with a small plaster. In effect, I suppose, we wouldn’t be so much signing Buffy the Vampire Slayer as signing an ageing Sarah Michelle Geller. Still, it’s not like she’s in a position to turn the work down, and she has to be a better bet than Danny Guthrie.

HOW I’D IMPROVE OUR ATTACK
If the best form of defence is attack, than Newcastle United must currently have the worst defence in the country. He can do a job in the Championship but Leon Best does simply not have what it takes to makes the grade as a top class Premier League defender. Peter Lovenkrands has aged like wine- which is to say he only seems like a good idea if you’ve first got through lots of beer- and would be genuinely improved by a void, an absence of matter, which would at least be less likely to be caught offside to the detriment of promising attacks.

WHO WE NEED TO SACK AND/OR SELL IN THE SUMMER
The man who names the teams at the start of the match has to go; his work has been going progressively downhill since the nineties. He used to rouse himself to say names like Shearer and Ginola, and now it’s like his heart just isn’t in it. This year he started okay, I suppose, saying Andy Carroll’s name for a while, and then suddenly he stopped even doing that. He needs to start naming some genuinely international standard quality players; they can’t all have super injunctions.

WHO WE NEED TO BUY/HIRE OVER THE SUMMER

The people that make The Orange ads to remind people at St. James’ Park to keep their phones switched off. The problem with people texting at football isn’t their texting as such, it’s the innate curiosity that dictates that you must sneakily look over the texter’s shoulder to see what’s being written, distracting yourself from the match. And just as teams are most vulnerable to concession just after netting themselves, so you are most likely to miss a goal while in the process of reading about one that has just been scored. Of course then your only option becomes to continue staring at the mobile until the details of the next goal are typed. This is how people in 2011 watch a game on teletext.

HOW I’D IMPROVE THE MANAGER/COACHING STAFF
Bring in Michael Scott, recently departed of Scranton, in a consultancy role. Scott was the boss in the American version of The Office, which means that not only does he have crucial managerial experience, but he could help us be significantly better than the Ricky Gervais Newcastle United vehicle of the same name. Scott’s catchphrase is a chirping ‘that’s what she said!’ in response to the mildest of innuendo based provocation. And he’s likely to be as happy working with the lads sticking long ones in to the box as he is with those keeping it tight at the back.