Partially Deflated

Premiership Review (26th-27th Nov)

2011-11-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

Alan Parry thinks Stoke City are unfairly maligned. He said as much on Saturday morning during their match with Blackburn (who played in an away kit designed to resemble a yellow five-a-side bib, as teams of workmates and drinking friends across the nation noted the comparison, wounded). I suspect that a lot of Stoke City fans would have sympathy with that view. After all, what further evidence do they need of the nation’s disdain for them beside the fact that Alan Parry, very much Sky’s ‘bits and pieces’ man, is a regular at their televised fixtures? Not just Parry, either, they always seem to get one of the lesser spotted summarisers, the ones they seem to turn to only after several others have discovered, with dubious haste, arrangements they simply can’t break.

Don Goodman was the pundit. His crimes ranged from the minor if irritating old favourites- who, by now, doesn’t know that the ball touching an opposition player on its way through the striker is not enough to play the striker onside?- to the slightly more unusual: imploring Scott Dann to get forward near the end of the first forty five minutes rather seemed to suggest that he had forgotten altogether about the second half. I don’t think anybody who still considers the second half something of a staple will be accused of being a stick in the mud, even by Sky Sports. Yet, perhaps hopefully, Goodman seemed to believe that he could be outside with the heating warming the car up as soon as he’d said his goodbyes and remembered where he’d put his coat. And, yes, if somebody were to tell you they forgot entirely the second half from the Stoke/Blackburn game, you would hardly be surprised. But that’s five minutes to twenty four hours after it ended, not before it even starts. It’s no wonder Stoke fans think nobody likes them.

One of the reasons nobody likes them could be deduced from Parry’s reference to what is tactfully being known as “some towel business.” Stoke are fated to be being regarded as the type of club liable to get involved in some towel business. A few weeks ago Newcastle United, calling their bluff, had insisted on equal access to the towels, and this had led to Pulis scraping the service all together for both home and away players. As such, Rory Delap was forced to use his shirt to wipe the ball down before throwing it back in to touch. Parry noted that this was a practice unlikely to please the “laundry lady.” Back in the day, of course, the single laundry lady would most likely have been charged with seeing to both the towels and the shirts, and, as such, largely unmoved about which was being used to get rid of the dew and the errant grass on a Nike Total 90. Stoke, though, are learning that with European qualification, and with it the increased wash load, a rotatable and flexible squad of laundry ladies is a necessity.

There was controversy at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge. Alex Ferguson’s infantile bleating over a poor penalty call was thrown in to sharp perspective by Sunday’s awful news (*), and, at Stamford Bridge, John Terry was accused of inviting a booking, his fifth of the season, to ‘waste’ his suspension during Tuesday’s Carling Cup tie. Booked for dawdling with the ball at a throw in for what seemed like over a minute, several Chelsea fans have since defended their captain on account of that’s genuinely how slow and ponderous he is these days.

(* Nobody who watched Gary Speed stride through Newcastle United’s 2002-2003 Champions’ League campaign needs to be told what a good player he was. What shines through the tributes is how popular and liked he was off the pitch by pretty much everybody. I never met him, but a friend did in a service station only a month or so ago. Mr. Speed chatted amiably about football with him for about ten minutes- roughly ten minutes longer than I have ever managed to chat amiably about football with that particular friend. A small act of decency, warmth and politeness that Speed most likely never thought anything else about ever again, but a small testament, among much larger ones, to the type of human being he was. RIP.)

I 8 You 2

2011-08-31T02:36:00.000-07:00

Defending the performance of his team during their defeat at Manchester United on Sunday, Arsene Wenger stated his case thus: “That was not an 8-2 game.”

The implication was obvious: the game’s annals are littered with games of that very score-line and whatever we deduce ordinarily from it was, on this one, not the way to go.

Was he right? Here, we study the circumstances of some of the more famous 8-2 games and see what patterns emerge.

Real Madrid 2-Brazil 8

A little like the game on Sunday, Real Madrid could argue that a missed penalty in this one changed their fortunes. They perhaps had more reason to feel aggrieved about its non-conversion given that it was taken by their mate Gary as they were out the front paying the pizza bloke.

Returning to the Xbox, and resolutely un-amused by the developments, they were further incensed by Brazil’s offer to ‘let them score’, which they deemed a huge insult. This was possibly on their mind when they spurned a glorious opening to level things, presented after uncharacteristic dalliance in the Brazilian backline, which the away team swore was down to temporarily switching their slice of pizza from left to right hand and nothing untoward.

Ill discipline crept in during a second half dominated by threats to abandon the game and a warning that they wouldn’t be pausing if Brazil needed to use the toilet, as they should have thought of that. A shameful evening in the club’s otherwise grand history was capped by a post match interview which centred solely on when they could expect to collect the money from everybody else for the pizza, not to mention the crate of larger they had all been happy to pilfer from.

Overly Keen Dad 8- His Bored Son 2

Making impressive use of the landing’s cramped surface, the home team raced in to an early lead against opponents who only began to settle in to game after a swapping of sides allowed them a better view in to the living room where the television had been left on as a condition of the game going ahead in the first place.

At times a cagey affair, the game sprung in to life during the thrilling period when six of the victor’s eight goals were scored, though some
were left wondering why the rule that dictated shots off the door handle counting double was only introduced after the feat was managed three times in five frantic second half minutes.

Marseille 8- Manchester United 2 (Monaco, 2011)

Despite being on the right end of it on Sunday, even Manchester United have fallen victim to this most famous of score-lines. You will remember the fall out and recriminations. Indeed, Fabien Barthez has not been spotted near a Manchester United shirt since appearing in
goal during this defeat. Admittedly, he hadn’t been spotted near one for the eight years previous to this defeat either. But the continued selection of David De Gea since the season started still feels like a very public snubbing for the Frenchman.

Frankie’s Brother’s and his Mates 2-8 Frankie and his Mates

As Frankie pointed out in his post match remarks, five-a-side only meant the amount of players on each side, not the amount of goals they
shared. And, as his brother countered, it didn’t mean that either, given the two players who had turned up ten minutes in and joined Frankie’s team on the basis that they didn’t know his brother that well.

Accrington F.C 8- 2 Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C

This is the earliest recorded 8-2 in English professional football, and, until Sunday, was also the most recent. The following day’s Times were surprisingly limited in their coverage of the game- contrast with the media’s reaction to the weekend’s events at Old Trafford- though that may have been due to the outbreak of hostilities. As the teams left the pitch at the end of the game, the word was already coming through of the fighting taking place in Cape Colony which was to spark the beginning of The Boer War.

Scunthorpe 1 2 Newcastle United

2011-08-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

Watching Newcastle United being described as ‘giants’ during a cup game against lower league opposition on Sky Sports is, I suspect, the closest most of us will ever get to being wolf whistled. Which is to say that any sleazy urges to be flattered are overwhelmed by the awareness of the proponents’ deeper-lying impure motives. As Alan Pardew pointed out during his pre match interview, the broadcasters wouldn’t have been there in the first place if they hadn’t sensed blood.

Our season in The Championship threw this tie in to further confusion, casting dubious light on Sky’s David & Goliath angle. We were actually beat at this ground in 2009, on a night when certain fans took exception to Kevin Nolan’s overegged celebration of an equalising goal. Funny old thing, football. If you had told some complaining that night that Nolan’s over zealousness would be replaced in two year’s time by a French Championship winning international they would most likely not have opined that we would miss desperately Nolan’s leadership and grit. Because that night we were opposed to that type of thing, we considered it ostentatious and put on and plain tacky. Fans often look at a result first and branch out their complaints from there and we’re a remarkably resourceful bunch when it comes to things about which to be unhappy. And none of the complaints or sources of unhappiness truly make sense until you conclude how little they actually matter.

I was broadly in favour of the Nolan sale, and opposed to the Barton one (insomuch as you could always justify his presence in the team- I found his supposedly anguished tweets on it during the last days hugely boring, and there’s a certain relief he’s taking his drama queen act elsewhere), but what arguing about both does is serve to ignore the wider issue, and I’m concerned pointless veneration of either will help assist the club in their campaign of lies and misinformation, when in reality any dispute between the parties is self serving and childish on all their parts and of no material benefit to us and what we need. Because the thing is, the club can claim, with some justice, to be in the right on the Barton issue. And as long as they have a moral high ground they will abuse it and use it to distract from something they can actually do something about while we all squabble with each other to no meaningful conclusion.

So Barton’s gone. Thanks for playing well from the middle of August until the middle of February last season. Whatever. We need a striker. Failing that, we need Nicklas Bendtner. We created lots during this game; ignoring Gosling and taking it from Vuckic’s introduction, we have a midfield which is mobile and adroit and shrewd. But Best, hardworking and likeable but grossly limited, and Lovenkrands- lamentable- wasted each and every chance given them through timidly, bad decision making and that awful bit at the end of ninety minutes where Lovenkrands stood and watched a stinging low cross pass between him and the goalkeeper, presumably temporarily confused with a game
of heads and volleys where any goals hit from crosses played along the ground mean the goal scorer has to take over in goal.

The highlight was the kids. Vuckic simply oozes class, granite jawed and broad he looks straight out of one of our 1950s cup winning teams, and Sammi Ameobi is direct and purposeful and, weirdly, looks a bit brilliant. As much as everybody is L-O-Ling at the prospect of the surname Ameobi for another ten years, I can’t help but fear that’s wildly optimistic. In fact, that’s the nagging thought about the whippersnappers: for years Newcastle have produced pretty much nothing in terms of home grown, or at least home nurtured, stars. Now, when you can pretty much guarantee they’ll be gone to the highest bidder at the earliest possible junction, we apparently have an unending stream of the bastards.

On that note, with Manchester United surely considering their goalkeeping options, it can’t only be me hoping that Tim Krul managers to throw one in on Sunday against Fulham? Not to the detriment of the final result, obviously, but I have a feeling that the final nasty surprise of the transfer window is still to be unleashed upon us.

Theo's Restaurant Corner

2011-08-24T05:30:00.000-07:00

“At dinner the other night I was the oldest one”- Theo Walcott

I was joined at dinner by two colleagues. As much as the ambiance, the drink, and of course the food, I have long been of the belief that a good meal is defined by your company. Many times has a mediocre desert tray been rescued by lively discourse. This is not to say that a restaurant should be given an easy reviewing ride simply because of rewarding companionship. Instead their task has become a more nuanced one: they are now charged with ensuring that not only your own spirits, but also the spirits of your fellow diners, are kept in thorough and fine fettle. Put simply: we didn’t want any more tantrums from Emmanuel because they had ran out of Last Airbender toys in the Happy Meals.

When we arrived the staff were attentive and brisk; we hadn’t been sat down five minutes before a lady with an industrial mop told us we would have to get what we wanted ourselves and that the milkshake machine wasn’t working. We had been planning on sampling a few different milkshakes as the night went on and so, as Aaron removed his bib disappointedly, there was a gloomy feeling that the night had already been soured. Theirs more than mine, I must confess: in the back of my mind I was relieved that they wouldn’t be taking hands sticky with congealed sugar and syrup back to the car with them.

Beginning with a chicken nugget starter, finished in Barbeque sauce (once I got theirs open for them), there was a moment of high excitement when Emmanuel told us that he had one shaped exactly like a beak. As somebody who values presentation, I nevertheless wonder about such gimmickry. It may be an interesting quirk giving the diner “the full and visceral experience of eating a chicken”- as a staff member explained it while wiping up the juice spilt by Aaron- but novelty crutches like these lead me to wonder if the sanest path for the restaurant isn’t the one more commonly wandered. It didn’t end at the nuggets either. I was forced to complain when I found a hair in my coffee. As I pointed out to the staff, chickens don’t have hair, they have contour and down feathers.

Waiting on the main course, which Emmanuel has gone to the till to order on the condition of being timed, I reflected on our surroundings. Though the ceilings are high and the artwork- abstract and sparsely coloured drawings of Ronald McDonald and The Ham Burgular presumably on loan from the nearby Tate Modern- challenging, it’s a slightly cramped and less than relaxing venue for dining. The seating arrangements don’t help, with barely enough room for Aaron to swing backwards on his, and, in an era of fast food sushi and affordable dining for all, it feels almost like a throwback to the type of place one might have visited with friends during summers gone by way of a last resort. I mentioned my thoughts to Aaron and Emmanuel but they’d never heard of Wimpy.

As the Big Macs and Fish Fillets arrived, the table has subdued a little and we ate our meals in thoughtful silence, a silence only punctured by Aaron’s occasional claims that Emmanuel got more fries than him. The mellow mood suited the dish, even if I did get more to chew on from the fish than from the conversation.

Over After Eight McFlurrys things picked up slightly, the previous lull presumably being missed bedtimes based and nothing to do with the sogginess of the fries. (They hadn’t been prepared wrongly- Aaron had spilt his juice again.) Chatting about this and that as one does waiting for the bill, it suddenly occurred that the last time we saw a member of staff was sometime before Aaron began on that mega random thing he had watched on the tele the night before, roughly forty five minutes earlier. Furthermore, the mops had been stored away, the lights switched off and, most damningly of all, both doors bolted shut. In the distance, as we peered out the window, smoke rose from the heels of the departing staff. It wasn’t the ideal circumstances in which to enjoy a desert.

Still. It’s not all bad. I’m looking forward to sampling the pancakes and Mcmuffins

Sunderland & Howard Webb 0 1 Newcastle United

2011-08-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

Things Sunderland fans will say this week and how you should reply.

We battered you in the first half.
You were perhaps more fluid than us in the first half and this, coupled with a home crowd who initially seemed up for it, probably made it feel as though we were creaking under pressure. I imagine this feeling was enhanced if you were actually in the stadium. Funny old places to watch games of football, stadiums- particularly if you’re not used to them. In the cold light of day, though, you created very little. In many ways your team gave a performance which reflected your support’s during the summer time: all bluster and energy, little substance. Certainly, you failed to capitalise on Larsson’s cheating, and as the half went on it was clear your team had ran out of ideas which neatly complemented our intelligent game plan. You seem a bright enough young fellow, even if this conversation did begin with you asking me which is the metro stop with all the trains in it, and I trust you won’t be swallowing your manager’s nonsense about “dominance”

We never heard a peep from your fans until you scored (they always try this one).
Can I first propose a realignment of priorities? Trying to gain an upper hand on an intangible and wholly subjective concept like a singing contest when others are attempting to analyse the game of football that has taken place is a little like judging an X Factor contestant on the quality of their back stage keepie-ups. Secondly, have you considered that, what with sound waves and acoustics and the person next to you tapping away on their annoyingly loud mobile phone keys, the Newcastle fans may have made a peep to which you were not immediately privy, given you were sat at the other end of the stadium surrounded by forty five thousand Sunderland fans? I was happy to eventually defer to you on your other argument - and yes, looking again, you’re right to say the colour of the cornflakes in your beard matches your tie- but I’m afraid I can’t let this one go unchallenged.

We have more class.
This, as I’m sure you’re aware deep down, is a laughable argument (and I don’t say that to imply anything about you personally, you strike me as the type that could get quite paranoid about that type of thing). On Saturday your fans cheered the award of a corner kick when Larsson got away with cheating, and then applauded Phil Bardsley off for attempting to break a better player’s leg. Meanwhile, study our captain’s reaction to the non-award of the penalty: a puffed out cheek, a call for calm, and an immediate intent to get back on with the game. As far as I can see this entire class idea comes from the fact that Niall Quinn talks in a soft Irish lilt during press appearances.

You just handled the occasion better.
Indeed we did: the occasion being a football match.

What hurts is that the Mags were so awful and still beat us. (They always try this one too.)
As a Sunderland supporter you are in the fortunate position of having seen your team defeated by Newcastle United teams of all shapes and sizes. With that has came a keenness to cast an eye on our relative weaknesses compared to years past. The problem with this is that- yes, don’t worry, I’ll tell you when it’s your stop- for all your post match arguments about our failings remain consistent, so too does the outcome of the match. This leaves any rumination from you on our team ring exceedingly hollow. Besides which, the best performance I’ve ever seen from Sunderland against Newcastle- the 3-2 in 2005- came from one of the country’s worst ever teams, which goes to show such judgements are pointless and mere distractions.

I’m glad- that result will paper over the cracks.

Well being that enough cracks papered over in a manner which leads to three points should see us safe from relegation, I fear Newcastle fans are rather stuck for a few years with papered over cracks. Still, as papered over cracks go it was a bit of a superb one, you have to admit. Lines about cracks being papered over is an attempt to not treat the derby game as an end, retroactively pretending to view it as a means. After months of giddy hysteria about the prospect of what you were going to do to us now you have added genuine class like Wes Brown and Craig Gardner to your squad, this is very poor, cowardly even, backtracking. Don’t try similar at the station- you’ll put someone’s eye out with your holdall.

Newcastle United 0 0 Arsenal

2011-08-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

The problem with attempting to defend Joey Barton these days is that by the time you try to he’s already done it for himself on Twitter. There was certainly some dissatisfaction on Sky’s ghastly Sunday Supplement shout-a-thon about Barton’s medium of choice, with the argument that him stating his case on Twitter only allows for messages of “140 characters or fewer” put forward. And there we were again, at the dawn of a new season, with that oft-preached lament about modern football and its lack of characters.

There’s no doubting that, aside from a character limit that allows only double the amount of words one would ordinarily expect to hear from a footballer in a post match interview, Joseph’s online activities have been the cause of some concern over summer: I was as disappointed as anybody to discover he follows Piers Morgan. Apart from that, though, his Twitter stuff is largely harmless (does anybody believe he and the owners wouldn't have eventually found some way to clash over his new contract without Twitter- using mesenger pigeons if necessary?). And, like Eric Cantona taking a sip of water to conceal his laughter during a crucial bit in his ‘seagulls follow the trawler’ press conference, pompous journalists who can’t work out that he is clearly taking the piss with the Orwell and Nietzsche quotes are succeeding only in making themselves look stupid.

Over the weekend, he got in to an argument on there with Jack Wilshere. The fact that Wilshere (whom Barton has in the past showered with fulsome praise) instigated the argument was largely lost on everybody, which is odd. If somebody with a recent history of drinking to excess is picking fights with a teetotaller on Saturday night, one would ordinarily expect the doorman to remove to former, not chastise the latter. (The comparison of the British press and the nation’s bouncers is not a spurious one- anybody who has ever been a subject of Pubwatch will tell you that they both posses pretty nifty surveillance equipment.) Yet here the roles seemed confused in the mind of the media. Strange.

As for Saturday on the pitch? He’s probably explained already, but, for the record: there is a huge difference between diving following non-existent contact to unfairly alter the course of the game and going to ground softly to alert the referee to a genuine offence, and though the latter is dubious practice, it is understandable when the officials have previously missed a malicious stamp on the back of your leg, and certainly not comparable with the first example of genuine cheating. There is nothing people feel as smug about as pointing out supposed hypocrisory in others, which might explain why so many people rush to do it when it isn’t actually appparant in the contrasting words and actions of their subject, but in drawing attention to Gervinho’s red card offence, Barton was not cheating or conning anybody: he was aiding a referee who had displayed myopia in a previous incident. Barton- and Taylor’s- reaction is irrelevant: Gervinho was a goner anyway. And if not, if the referee is basing his calls on the reaction and behaviour of the players, then he is not doing his job correctly, and that’s nothing to do with Joey Barton.

But enough of that nonsense, what of the debutants? Ba was unlucky to get taken off before Ameobi, Cabaye struggled to impose in a game clearly not made for him, Obertan showed some promising flashes, and in my new seat in the East Stand I was immense. Obviously, pre-match nerves had been marked (I had began my previous tenure, in the Gallowgate End at the start of the 09/10 season, by attempting small talk about the new design of the metro tickets to blank embarrsment and from there never really recovered), but I put them to one side and gave a masterful display in close control- not correcting the gentleman behind me when he mistook Ameobi for Ba- and enterprising flank play- running quickly down the stairs to see the replay of the Barton/Gervinho incident and reporting straight back.

An impressive start, but nobody is getting carried away. It’s easy to get plaudits against Arsenal; will I be as well received on a cold Wednesday night in December against West Bromich Albion when the shirt lettering is frazzled and the stairways are slippery? It’s a long season and the real challenges still lie ahead.

(Incidentally, the Arsenal fans that ended their day screaming for their manager to “spend some money” had begun it by telling the home fans that they “pay [our] benefits.” There’s symmetry there, I think, and both songs manage to neatly capture an attitude of greed, entitlement and crass, finance obsessed superciliousness which contributed towards many of their city’s residents finally losing their patience last week in one of the most horrible ways imaginable. I’m not saying that Arsene Wegner’s spending policy helped cause the London riots. But, with those riots as a backdrop, the bunch of charmers in the Arsenal support may want to consider their song selection a little more carefully.)

What to do when you like your left back

2011-08-09T06:28:00.000-07:00

"I keep looking at him and smiling...he smiles back"- Alan Pardew on Jose Enrique

The venue where we spend the majority of our waking life, our place of work is an ideal place to form bonds and meet people. Many a glorious coupling began at the photo copy machine, and of course a great many ended there too. However, given the close and involved nature of the working environment, it’s best to take precautions and not rush in to anything. It may seem like a good idea to declare your feelings after three gin and tonics at the Christmas party, but try to keep in mind that you will have to see the object of your affection again. There is nothing quite as awkward as the moment when, as manager of Newcastle United, you run in to an old crush in the Players’ Lounge at Anfield.

Before you do anything, it’s best to deduce whether your feelings will be reciprocated. Never an open and shut thing, there are nevertheless signs that indicate whether pursuing your interest will be welcomed by the source of it. And once you have spotted these signals, you can
best decide on a sensible course of action conducive to a healthy, long term relationship which leaves you both satisfied. Here we do our best to guide you through the dos and don’ts of the early, often stressful but always thrilling, stages of the workplace wooing of your first choice left back.

*Study body language. Does he smile a teeth showing smile if you use the word ‘we’ when outlining your hopes for the coming season? Does he appear to be giggling with friends whenever you look over during a briefing on defending corners? Is he paying particular attention to his hair- shampooing it when you try to go through his new contract offer, for example? These are known as ‘cues’- or ‘tells’ if you’re a
poker player- and largely involuntary indicators of attraction. (This may also help explain why the team appear so reluctant to have you over for poker nights.)

Be warned that a lot of players give off these cues without particular concern for their coach, so, before assuming anything try and study how he acts with other managers when he’s chatting with them and his agent over coffee in the training ground’s canteen.

*Establish communication. Initial attraction is one thing, but few people are likely to act solely on piqued curiosity. A rapport needs to be formed. Introduce yourself- explain who the hell you are and what the fuck happened to the last guy. It may feel like you’re being a little forward, but remember that most footballers are used to being approached by a new Newcastle United manager and are unlikely to view it as big a deal as you do. Tease and make him laugh- a self-deprecating quip about your time at Charlton should loosen things up nicely.

*A lot of people wonder about the more traditional gesture and whether or not it is appropriate. While caution is advised, a little romance never hurt, and offering to carry his wash bag and boots is a perfectly harmless and charming way to forge closer contact and impress with your chivalrousness. It’s crucial to not be seen as a pushover, though, politely refuse any request to give him your back a minute so he can tie his laces.

*Be yourself. More accurately: be yourself as stipulated by the exact terms of your contract leaving no room for deviation, repetition or hesitation.

*Be seen with other full backs. While being careful to not mislead anybody, it would serve a certain purpose for the full back you harbour thoughts for to see you communicating in a relaxed manner with as many other full backs as possible. This theory is known as ‘peer approval’ and any hurt feelings on James Perch’s part when he realises the nature of your scheme will most likely be softened by his relief at his presence in at least one of your plans for the season.

Be careful to avoid the trap fallen in to by characters in American teen sitcoms when seeking advice from the plain girl on how to
attract the bombshell- which is to say, don’t suddenly realise that it’s James Perch you’ve wanted all along when it’s too late and he’s already going to the prom with somebody from his after school science club. That wouldn't be fair on James Perch.

Derek Llambias's Guide to Summer Spending

2011-08-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Newcastle United M.D has had a busy summer of shopping. Here he explains how, registered to the right mystery shoopping agency, a typically stress filled experience can instead be fun, productive and profitable.

•Changes to the system in recent years have lead to some people panicking, but I am from a school of philosophy that dictates one should never rush through purchases. In fact, I have even marked down till assistants for that very practice.

I had been charged with buying a breakfast to the value of £5.00, excluding the price of a hot drink which I was also required to sample, from Gosforth Asda during their busy morning period. The young lady behind the till put through my order without first confirming each item, as staff are required to in case of allergies or fussy preferences, and seemed more concerned with tending to the bags under her eyes than with acknowledging my presence (and if that done enough to hint at a heavy session the night beforehand, the overheard reference to “up all night being sick” surely confirmed it). I would love to name and shame her right here but, in a further affront, she was sans name badge. As I pointed out in the further comments section of the online feedback form: I was wearing mine; why wasn’t she wearing hers?

•Balance is everything. And in pursuit of balance things can something be sacrificed: that’s just the way of life. Like when I was asked to take a guest to the Pacific Bar Cafe in the city centre with their famously wonky tables. It wasn’t ideal having to ask a member of staff to stand by us as we ate with his foot wedged underneath the shorter leg, but in the long term interests of the table’s stability it was the best thing for everybody. Apart from the young gentleman himself, conceded. But he was amply rewarded with a toilet break- during which time a beer coaster was forced to suffice- and the staff themselves were given a generous six out of ten for their ‘helpfulness and overall demeanour’ (having lost some marks for smirking when I ordered a sex on the beach cocktail).

•Keep deadlines in mind. Submitting your findings after the twenty four hour cut off point is no good to anybody, and as well as details being naturally forgotten one may find oneself tempted to exaggerate or take liberties with the truth- overcompensating and reflecting their overall feeling for the place rather than reporting the bare facts, doing what some may refer to as ‘lying’. Strangely, this is something the agency is
particularly concerned about with me. I remember on one occasion they actually sent somebody to secretly monitor me as I in turn secretly monitored the level of service at the Apple Store in Eldon Square. It’s not long until a situation like that turns farcical, as you can probably imagine. For me it was when his recording equipment interfered with the iPod touch I was trying out- as he bent down to retrieve his dislodged lapel mic he inadvertently unplugged the Beats by Dre headphones we were sharing.

•Keep your feedback concise. In these days of palm piloted social networking it can feel like you’re the centre of your own customised universe, a constantly buzzing environment wherein friends, family and loved ones are at permanent hand to reinforce and validate. But when mystery shopping you have to drop the ego and you can’t value verbosity. For that reason I have set some very strict limits on my own online communication- nobody ever ‘likes’ my status updates on Facebook and my only followers on Twitter are mobile phone spam companies represented in their profile picture by Eastern European girls biting their little finger suggestively.

•Finally, as in any competitive industry, you have to remember that it’s dog eat dog out there. And sometimes to get ahead the dog eats dog food. That isn’t trite platitude. If I’m being asked to grade, say, Petwise on Elswick Road then I’m going to sample the wares. A lot of the others don’t, which is why I’m as well regarded as I am at this game.

Petwise always do well these days actually, always impressively prepared for my visits, almost as if they hear me coming before I get there. It's been a marked improvement, with their alertness on my last few visits in stark contrast to the chaos of my first and the saga of the chrome cat collar with affixed bell that they let me try on and that between us we’re yet to work out how to unfasten.

Barton's Eleven

2011-07-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

With the first team squad still in America, Newcastle United’s reserves travelled to Amsterdam. Among them Joey Barton and Nile Ranger, both of whom were denied Visas to join the first team due to previous criminal convictions.

From the diary of Nile Ranger

Wednesday 20th July
We arrived separately. To ensure a smooth pass through customs, J.B had provided us with fake moustaches and a pair of Austin Powers glasses each. He had also had his passport guy knock us all off a counterfeit. J.B swears by the guy but as I’m regarded with suspicion by security I can’t help but wonder if our individual Merlin Premier League sticker with crude biro scribbled where the glasses and moustache are supposed to be was necessarily the best way to go photo identification wise. But I was wrong to doubt Joey. He’s always been a great dressing room influence, ready to put an arm around the younger lads, give us the benefit of his experience and knowhow, always happy to stay back after training and work with us on our lock picking. And one of the biggest lessons he ever taught me was that a plan is only ever as good as its flexibility. His words were proven typically astute as one sweaty handed guard inadvertently smudged the moustache on my passport photo before putting me through to the next check point.
“Why are you holding your hand over your mouth like that?” the guard at the next point asked.
“Like what?” I said.

Rule 2: Never concede any ground under interrogation. I’m in.

Thursday 21st July
Team meeting. J.B welcomed the new member of the group, a French fella. There’s was an immediately palpable undercurrent of mistrust in the room, and J.B seemed to sense it. Nobody doubts that foreign players have a lot to teach us, they have schools and academies over there which encourage them to focus on their technique at any early age and not just lump the recently liberated credit card in to the pin machine, mash the buttons and hope to get lucky. At the same time, doubts are always going to exist about their heart for the battle and their propensity for gabbing to authorities, and a few of the lads suggested as much when invited to share their views. Angered, J.B said that he didn’t want to hear any more nonsensical complaints based on dubious national stereotypes and laboured football puns. Besides which, he said, Y.C is on board to help with the escape plan and we all know how easily the Frenchies go to ground .

Friday 22nd July
The plan. J.B argued that we should look on America being off limits as an opportunity to expand our operation; in Amsterdam we’re unknowns, he pointed out, which can only work to our advantage. Look at Ocean’s 12, he said. “In so much as there was a plot, that was vaguely it.”
This set me thinking. Like Julia Roberts near the end, would we be expected to play ourselves? We do it all the time in training, obviously, but I felt it could get a bit complicated during a job. One lofted pass and, before you know it, you’ve triggered the laser alarm system. I made a quick note to clarify a few things with J.B later.

Saturday 23rd July
Because of what I asked J.B yesterday the lads have taken to calling me ‘Trigger’. It’s all good fun.

Sunday 24th July
Planning the jobs is always lively, and we got in a good session of it before an ice bath and a quiet afternoon back at the hotel. A pal had tipped me off about a scam he’s got with Amazon Kindle, starting to download the book before quickly cancelling the order, and I suggested it to J.B. He listened attentively but seemed rather downcast before I’d finished. “Why come all the way to Amsterdam to do something we could do anywhere?” he asked. “Besides which,” he continued, “surely they’ll realise what you’ve done and cancel your download before the book has finished.”
“That’s never been a problem for me,” I tell him.
“No, well, I wouldn’t have thought so,” he counters, cryptically.

Monday 25th July
The day had arrived, and frankly I still wasn’t quite sure what the plan was. As far as I could gauge it, Sammi was the safe man, Perchy was in charge of balancing delicately on various edges as the rest of us looked on in tense silence, the new French bloke was the smouldering charmer bound for a first act cheeky tryst and a third act meaningful moment with the bank manager’s disillusioned wife, Xisco was the mute one who eventually delivers an incongruous piece of dialogue at an inappropriate moment leading us to look at one another before looking back at him, Donno was accents and I had to ‘wait over there’.

Tuesday 26th July
An atmosphere of rancour was prevalent, with J.B in particular in bad spirits. Nobody likes to approach him when he’s in one of his moods but it was decided that the air needed clearing before the events of the night before could be properly dissected.
As he often is, J.B was right to point out that he had insisted on all phones being on silent as we crawled out through the intricately dug underground tunnels. It was also fair to say that if my phone not being on silent wasn’t damaging enough, the ringtone being set to the theme tune from The Great Escape really was asking for trouble. But that’s the use of being here with a pro like J.B: you’re always learning. I can only hope that the next seven to ten years will be in some ways as valuable an experience for him as I’m sure they are going to be for me.

A Word in Defence of Summer Football

2011-07-04T06:57:00.001-07:00

There were hums of excitement and murmurs of surprise from the crowd at Fulham’s first game of the season. The news of a team-sheet containing a healthy amount of first teamers- indeed, eight of the eleven starters had played in the final in 2010- had been announced earlier, and those inside the stadium making their way to their seats tuned to one another and remarked, with breathless wonder, that it’s actually cooler inside than outside.

It didn’t end there. There was a real summer gala feel to the evening- which is to say that it was an enjoyable event in agreeable conditions and not that children looked bored and their parents fussed about forgetting to bring the sun lotion, though there was probably a bit of that too. Most importantly, though, the long road to the final began, with Fulham no doubt hoping for a significantly smoother journey than the majority of those journeys began in stifling sunshine; new boss Martin Jol no doubt taking heart in the fact that though this level of football throws up its fair share of testing games, few are as likely to be as testing as ones involving small children arguing from the back about the exact rules of Eye Spy.

Yes, summer football has often been the source of derision, but reading the newspaper reports of Fulham’s early start who didn’t feel the slightest tinge of envy? Always a thrilling moment the first game of the season, and what a curiously charged thrill in seeing your seating neighbour- ordinarily an amalgam of ticks and ambiguity, a strange fellow who exists solely in the context of your sitting by him at the football during long and cold winter months- in glorious sunshine? A moment of rare titillation marked all the more titillating for his wearing shorts and a sleeveless vest, one wagers.

It’s easy to act like we have better things to be getting on with football but, reciting things you heard John McEnroe say on Radio 5 in a bid to sound more knowledgeable about tennis than you are during Wimbledon fortnight aside, are we really such animals of varied interest? Watching cricket, going to the cinema and socialising with friends all sounds like something you would put under personal interests on a C.V- not stuff that you’re all that concerned about actually doing- and it’s worth noting, because it's never noted otherwise, that generous offers by most club for families in games like these actually means football represents a much cheaper recreational activity in summer than most others. Barbeques? Yes if you are in deepest Compton circa early nineties having a huge cookout with girls in swimwear and The D.O.C’s No One Can Do It Better blaring out a ghetto blaster. No if you’re going to be eating a crumbling slab of charcoal in your friend’s kitchen watching the rain fall forlornly and listening, through portable speakers, to his Now That’s What I Call Dance albums on shuffle.

And yet still those that opted to cover the match done so with a tone of sympathy for those souls from Fulham who had apparently negotiated one of the trickiest two handers the game can throw at you: managing both a Solero and a competitive European fixture in the same sitting. This, remember, as well, that this is a country apparently largely in favour of a winter break (a recent documentary on Radio 5 proposed that the lack of one was a contribution to last year’s World Cup disaster). Honestly, a nation that resents football in winter and mocks it in summer: we’re in danger of running out of seasons.

More Silverware in the North East

2011-06-18T02:09:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-15T03:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Charity Sees The Need, Not The Koscielny

2011-02-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

"Arsenal fans’ suffering, their wait, goes on”- Alan Parry

The following is a series of reports involving some of society’s most deprived and impoverished people- Arsenal fans. Those of a nervous disposition should be aware that, though not designed for this purpose, these real accounts of human suffering, misery and pain are liable to upset. Please only read on after considering the above. All donations welcomed.

This is Andy. When Andy was twenty two, Arsenal had just won the FA Cup and Andy was just about to graduate with a third in Digital Media and Animation from Nottingham Trent University. It felt like the beginning of something exciting for him. It has not worked out that way. “It started when the lead singer of our band, Toby, got a job handling deeds in a small Mortgage Brokers in Northampton and knocked the music on the head. Then I couldn’t find any work in animation so had to take a job in a call centre for a few months. It was actually a while before I got my footing. I lost both my parents too. It’s not much fun as a twenty six year old having to ask the lady with the microphone at the customer service stand in Tesco to put out an announcement about a missing child, but I had no choice with my dad having the car keys on him.”

Andy maintains that, were it not for Arsenal’s inability to win a trophy since 2005 he would now be working in the animation room at Pixar. “It seems that everybody on my course who supported Chelsea or Man Utd went the Hollywood route. And a Portsmouth fan I sat next to in seminars before they started to clash with band practise is now storyboarding the new Winnie the Pooh film. It’s hard to not make the trophy connection.” There’s a tragic irony in Andy’s one word answer when asked to describe his memories of the cup final win: “Sketchy.”

This is Amy and James. They watched the Cup Final from the poolside bar at their five star honeymoon resort Marley’s Spa. “I remember spending the night sipping exotic cocktails, sampling wonderful local cuisine and being treat like royalty as attentive staff catered skilfully and unobtrusively to our every whim. Afterwards, the pair of us retired to our superbly appointed suite and made wild, yet uniquely tender and intimate, love,” says Amy. “Afterwards, James looked me in the eye and said than wherever we went physically, our souls would forever be as one together on this beautiful island.”

Six trophy-less years since and the couple have noticed a marked decline in their relationship. ”It’s like we’re more friends than anything else now,” says James, from his shed. “The sex gradually petered out. But it wasn’t just that: we would be driving and she would want to stop and ask for directions when I insisted on using a map; her mother would come around to visit. Numerous disputes over remote controls. Christmas is always particularly problematic. It’s like, of all the married people ever, we have been cursed.” He still retains fond memories of that win in 2005 and the night of bliss that followed it. He is convinced Amy does too, but doesn’t want to ask her when she’s in one of those funny moods she gets in.

This is John. Since that FA Cup win in 2005, John has found his perspective thinning noticeably, and now faces up to having lost it all together. “Obviously, it’s a big thing, to lose your perspective,” he said. “But it’s the process that bothers me most, you know? Like if somebody had came and just taken my perspective that afternoon, I would be over it by now. But it’s been gradually eroded. Every day I would wake up and find little bits of perspective on my pillow. The bathroom mirror became something to dread. I couldn’t look at myself without considering the increasing lack of perspective, and in turn I couldn’t consider my rapidly diminishing perspective without considering the wider implications of ageing and inevitable death. I tried to talk to the missus about it, but they don’t understand do they? She’s a Luton Town fan and they won the Football League Trophy the other year. This is an Arsenal thing.”

Niall Quinn On Tour

2011-02-23T04:58:00.000-08:00

“Niall Quinn plans several meetings with fans across the region’s pubs to clarify his comments on fans watching foreign television”- The South Shields Gazette

Minutes of Meeting

Venue: Dawdon Miners Welfare Social Club

Attendees: Niall Quinn, Chairman. Steve Walton, Chief Executive. Selected fans. People watching events through choppy internet stream: not recorded.

*Quinn began the evening by thanking those who have attended and stating what an important issue he felt the one that they were here to discuss was. He stated his hope that those there agreed with him and would work with him in preserving the club's fortunes and making use of their grand potential. Though primarily here to discuss attendances at the Stadium of Light, Quinn welcomed the opportunity to expand any discussion in to a larger look at Sunderland’s place in modern day English football and hoped that the meeting would prove to be ultimately productive in steering the club towards a happier future.

*A patron of the pub entering through the back door asked if they were putting the Champions’ League on in here. Quinn suggested he tried the upstairs lounge.

*Quinn stated that since Ellis Short’s full takeover in 2009 crowds have not been to the level which he expected and proposed reasons why this might be. He believes one of the problems is the ease of accessing football through the internet, the effect of which will prove harmful in the long run.

*A fan suggested he protected against that possibility by installing a basic spyware package you can pick up for pennies nowadays. Another fan stated that he only goes on websites which don’t require you to fill in a survey before beginning to watch. Both fans agreed that My2p2 is probably your best bet going forward.

*Quinn suggested that it isn’t only people watching on the internet at home which are harming attendances. The amount of pubs in Wearside showing live Sunderland games is leading many to sacrifice going to games in favour of watching it at their local.

*Patron came back downstairs and confirmed that the match was being shown upstairs, but only on the little television. He asked how much longer this was going to take.

*Quinn stated that while Sunderland’s on pitch fortunes have been improving, the crowds off it have not been keeping up. This is obviously not a sustainable business model and if it continues the club may well be forced to sacrifice their big stars, such as Asamoah Gyan and Phil Bardsley. Quinn understands watching football can be expensive, but the club have offered all manner of offers for supporters to help them with the costs.

*A fan suggested that these initiatives aren’t publicised well enough. Quinn said that the
club’s website is constantly being updated with information of this nature. The fan said he can’t access the website after downloading a corrupted fileshare programme. Quinn suggested they try and avoid this avenue of conversation again.

*Patron wondered if it was possible to get any sort of service around here.

*A member of the floor wondered if it not just a simple case of fans enjoying going to the pub more than the game. He said he always likes having a pint at half time and to do that you have to leave your seat five minutes before half time, where you find you can’t even watch the game on the television. Quinn answered that this was a conscious decision on the club’s part to boost support to the team for the entire ninety minutes. The member of the floor stated that he hadn’t been talking about watching Sunderland’s game. Quinn vowed to look in to having Newcastle United games played on the televisions in the concourse but could make no promises.

*Patron asked if anybody had a light he could borrow. He also wanted to know if anybody else had heard a cheer from those upstairs watching the football and further ruminated on what implications that could have for the score line.

*A member of the floor asked Quinn if he ever paid himself in to football ground and, if he
hadn’t, whether this negated his self-appointed role of telling others how to spend their money. Quinn confirmed that he had been in conversations like this before and understood the anxieties of others. But stated that just as he believed sanctioning Roy Keane to spend 6.5 million pounds of the club’s money on George McCartney in 2008 had been the right thing to do and in the club's long term interests, so he feels are these meetings.

*Some sighing from the floor.

*Quinn thanked those there for the opportunity to speak to them and stated again how important he felt the region’s support is in helping Sunderland achieve the potential he believes is deep lying in the club and in danger of remaining dormant. He offered to take any further questions from the floor.

*Patron asked if he knew the Wi-Fi password so he could at least check the score. Quinn confirmed he didn’t. Member of floor could have sworn it ended in a ‘1234’. Another member said that that didn’t sound right.

*The meeting was adjourned.

Leave it out

2011-02-11T02:53:00.001-08:00

Leaving early then, where do you stand? Not in the walkways, ideally, because it wouldn’t be fair to obstruct the views of others, and the last thing you need as you slink away in shame faced embarrassment is to induce a kerfuffle with the stewards. And don’t think you’re fooling anybody with your half-hearted positional play and intermittent bursts of pace, either. If your team are labouring in the last minutes of a game long lost, the intention is to leave early, not imitate them.

Of course, it isn’t possible to establish a true consensus on the best method for leaving before the end because so few will ever admit to actually doing it. People can just about imagine circumstances where it would be acceptable, a fire in your home, for example. But, even then, don’t you have neighbours with their own hose and bucket? It is a disdained practise and not only for its disloyalty- people baulk at the illogicality of the practise too. ‘Would you leave the cinema before the end?’ people ask, assuming your answer would be ‘no’ and not the infinitely more sensible answer that ‘yes, if I hadn’t realised that Kevin James was in the film before buying my ticket’.

And football, like cinema, for want of a more post-modern take on narrative, tends to store its juiciest twists for the end, meaning there’s little surface value logic to leaving early. Just as, fittingly enough, there’s little surface value logic to the twists at the end of most films. At least sneaking out (as the parlance would have it) at the cinema saves you the confused conversation in the lobby afterwards centring on why he agreed to go along with the heist in the first place if he had known all along that the safe cracker was working undercover. Football can’t be said to present such complexities of plot- which is to say that, if asked the final score by the person behind the counter at the chip shop, being unable to answer with any degree of certainty is going to see them question whether your money set aside for weekend recreation couldn’t be better invested.

So why do folk do it? Well, in special cases- usually in the North East- there’s the element of protest to consider. For some, it’s only one element in a whole production of a protest, and they accentuate their performance by throwing their season ticket in the direction of their manager and dug out as they exit. (If you’re planning this yourself, it is probably worth remembering that this is a much grander gesture if it’s done near the start of the season, so its message is a clear indicator to the higher ups at your level of frustration at the club’s direction, and not in May, when the higher ups may assume there’s a wedding in a fortnight that you can’t get out of.) Also worth remembering that, in protest, your action when leaving the ground must be purposeful, dominated by long strides; no hanging back on the stairs just until the attack breaks down. Even rats deserting a sinking ship don’t stop off by the televisions in the concourse to see what happens with this corner.

And there is special dispensation for people who actually do have to leave early to get to work- on a Saturday evening this will naturally involve a lot of doormen, and they will reward the patience you extend them at this junction by being similarly accommodating of your attempts to enter their place of work later that same evening while still wearing your club’s replica shirt. And some people do have trains to catch, of course. Though, for us, the transport argument is a harder sale than the working one. It would stand to reason that people would have to get home from the football, and that some of them will have to do it at staggered periods. Just as it stands to reasons that, on occasion, somebody may be forced to travel through the night to visit a sick relative. That’s why crafty train manufacturers didn’t stop at one.

I must say, for all the reasons against it, the argument against leaving early that tugs hardest on the heartstrings is the one about it being unfair on the players. Because you do, don’t you… you do find yourself, on occasion and mostly at night, worrying about them? Their adorable little faces, their various sponsorship deals and their perfectly shaped girlfriends. And ninety minutes with us probably represents the longest and most meaningful relationship most of them have ever been involved in, even if there are fewer people in attendance at the match than the usual amount invited back to theirs from the nightclub. We should be careful around their feelings.

Consider, though, the fact that every ground in the country has their share of people leaving early and players, who remember spend most of their weekends in and around these stadiums (and no doubt occasionally catch the odd game on television too, provided it doesn’t clash with poker on the other side), have probably worked out to not take it too personally. We can always contribute double to the full time whip round for their tip at the next home game.

So never mind the players, the important person to worry about, be able to live with, is yourself. Guilt, self-loathing, shame, these are all the emotions you are going to be forced to endure after abandonment tantamount to dereliction of duty, desertion even; cowardice and fickleness the charges you will be forced to level in your own direction as you trudge homeward bound. On the plus side, at least you will have a good seat on the bus home from which to consider them.

Newcastle United 4 - 4 Arsenal

2011-02-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

Even among the delirium, the wide grins and the expansive bear hugs that greeted the blowing of the final whistle on Saturday, there was an anxious tinge in the air that our goal scoring midfielder would only be ours for so long. It was a performance that surely screamed, even to somebody as stubborn as Arsenal's manager, that this is the man to firm up their midfield, provide the bite and charisma which could take them from a team full of precious talents to a team capable of challenging properly the game’s true elite. I suppose the question now becomes: what would Arsene Wegner have to do to prise Joey Barton away from St James’ Park?

I think, though he would fit right in with Wegner’s no alcohol policy, certain promises regarding discipline would have to be made to the tee-totalling midfielder. Bitching to referees in the mould of a Wilshire, spending the entire second period trying to get other players sent off in the mould of a Fabregas, or unprovoked violence in the mould of a Diabi…this is not the type of thing that is going to appeal to a lad who has all season long behaved himself, one minor incident for which he accepted his punishment aside, impeccably.

And Arsenal fans themselves would have to put behind them some pretty firm rules on aesthetics. Which isn’t to say that Barton’s range of passing and close control wouldn’t fit in with their team’s general style, but rather to say that their fans, who have apparently developed some quite stringent pointers on the attractiveness of footballers to judge from one laughably pompous blog post I read which placed Barton inexplicably alongside Lady Sovereign the Grime MC as rightful figures of class based scorn, would have to make do with Barton’s more roguish appearance. In a piece which surely marks the passing of Arsenal fans in to absurd self-parody, the writer in question makes copious references to Barton’s supposed ‘ugly’ looks, as though such appreciators of the game as themselves are unable to handle whatsoever any affront to their visual pallet. We can only hope he enjoys admiring Lionel Messi’s boy next door cuteness in the coming weeks as much as he must have in their two games with Barcelona last season.

Outside of Barton and Tiote and JESUS CHRIST DID YOU SEE THAT, the main post match conversation seemed to centre on at what point the thought of leaving had crossed your mind and why the urge had been resisted. For my part, a strange numbness had enveloped me as a superb Arsenal team sliced through us time and again in the first half. I have seen this type of performance from Newcastle hundreds of time- inert, inept, in turns timid and clumsy – and it always seemed to end the same way- a one or two goal defeat, at worst three or four, amid mediocre rancour from the stands. This felt like I was seeing what would finally happen when the other team showed up, which would be interesting at least, and it was all too plainly absurd to feel too emotionally attached to.

Besides which, this was also, one sensed as the cries of Chris Hughton and Kevin Keegan’s names rang out at the end of a week when we have lost our most promising player for a generation, to be the fiery culmination of everything bad, sour and rotten about the club, and the decision to stay almost felt like morbid curiosity as much as anything- just how bad could things get? Harsh, bitter laughter greeted Arsenal’s fourth and genuine overheard conversation at half time noted that at least another five goals for Arsenal would mean that Sunderland no longer held the record for our biggest ever defeat.

We wait and see which provided the better marker of our immediate future, the first or the second half. But if the price to pay for that second forty five minutes is ten relegations, that’s fair enough with me. The noise kept rising, almost as people were coming to the realisation that a come back was on in incremental periods and adding to the din accordingly, and the team kept going and then we were suddenly one behind with eight minutes left- two Barton penalties and a neat Best finish- and then Tiote’s goal and the single loudest roar I have ever heard inside a football stadium. A moment of such glorious catharsis that even my stuffy neighbour and I were able to put to one side the issue of that time he caught me having a sly look at his programme at half time of last season’s game against Swansea to embrace one another and garble screamed, indecipherable gibberish in each other's faces while jumping in the air like loons.

Incredibly, we could have won it from then. Nolan, at this point taking the piss like a back heeled goal at the Stadium of Light, ran on to a Ranger hold up, shaped perfectly and hit the ball sweetly. It was whistling in, just as it is whistling in every time I have watched the highlights since, yet somehow it eluded the far post. As horrible as it is each and every time to see it go the wrong side, I can’t look away for the sight of the lower tier of the Gallowgate as the shot comes in- one sprawled mass of excitable Geordie type people, each one stood, each one in a differing state of chaotic frenzy.

Stevenage Remembered

2010-12-14T19:27:00.003-08:00

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

2010-12-14T18:54:00.000-08:00

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?

2010-12-14T18:09:00.001-08:00

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

2010-12-14T16:56:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-11T04:53:00.001-08:00

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

2010-11-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-10-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-19T07:40:00.001-07:00

“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....

2010-06-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-16T02:29:00.001-07:00

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).

2010-04-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-31T03:56:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-30T01:39:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-03-29T07:19:00.000-07:00

‘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

2010-03-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-16T04:11:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-03-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-20T04:16:00.000-08:00

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....

2010-02-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

“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

2010-02-01T22:43:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-01T22:40:00.000-08:00

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.

"You're not slinging anymore..."

2010-01-25T11:30:00.000-08:00

We should take a second to mourn the passing of one of the game’s premier metaphors. RIP the 'David and Goliath' cup tie- crudely hacked to pieces by Jim Belgin, proving that even terms as allegorically rich as this one have their breaking point.

Many had thought it was a day we would never see, but as Jim Belgin remarked that in order to catch a loose ball, Jermaine Beckford would have had to have had ‘the sling David was using’ the analogy was finally stretched beyond all elasticity- and that’s not even to comment on what stretched to retrieving a full sized football would have done to the elasticity of the sling itself. Nor, on the further handwringing complications induced by trying to decide if the sling was active in the build up to the move and thus playing Beckford offside.

It took one back to Tottenham travelling to Chelsea earlier in the season and the claims that “the bus is running today!”- A reference to Jose Mourniho’s ‘park the bus’ jibe of years past, but one which appeared to be confusing poetic imagery for crude literalism. One positively hates to hear ‘park the bus’ in any context now, aware of how horribly mangled its interpretation his been handled by the professionals charged with covering football in this country.

A similar fate has now surely befell one of our more relied on tropes, and it has left many, mainly ITV employees, wondering where the David/ Goliath analogy can go next, as well as reflecting on its storied past.

You will remember David, drawn away against an opponent few gave him much chance with, set up with a bravely attacking formation, and against an out of sorts Goliath, perhaps playing with an eye on forthcoming European fixtures, was able to perform a smash and grab raid, with the emphasis firmly on the ‘smash’ bit, which left his opponent grounded, dazed and in serious need of a week off work recuperating in front of a House boxset.

So juicily did this relate to myriad cup games pairing premier sides against slightly somewhere south of premier sides, that many have, in the past, assumed that it was in fact an apocryphal tale designed solely with the intention of giving commentators charged with a cup game something to say waiting for a throw in to be taken. But, as that would mean it’s made up, and as it first appeared in the bible that can obviously not be true.

Others use it with a flexibility which perhaps serves to derive from the extent of David’s achievement, ranking it alongside a mid table championship side battling for a brave draw at a Premier League ground. Even on Saturday, in a period the will henceforth been known as Before Belgin, we had Leeds playing Sheffield United in 2003 as an example of “Leeds being Goliath”. We were concerned that having any team led by Terry Venables was in serious danger of making the tag ‘Goliath’ look seriously sarcastic- or at least mildly satirical. But we at least understood what was been got at, diminished at it may well have left David’s feat.

Why should we not? For sporting fans, it is a bible passage unrivalled in its infamy. Off the top of one’s head, only the “3.16” given copious air space at World Wrestling events can be seen as a genuine competitor in bible passage terms- and that’s only rose to prominence because of fortunate positioning in the middle of the book: the bit flipped to first by desperate travelling salesmen in American motels scouring to see if any passing evangelical has left $200 as testament to the power of faith in God, presumably unaware that this may strike sceptic minds as..well, cheating a bit.

So it pains to see David/Goliath sacrificed this way, pains to bare witness to the demise of football’s relationship with the bible. But, as Jesus rose again, so too, we feel can David and even, after a proper rest and a thorough head check at the nearest emergency room, Goliath. Football needs this; we need this. But first the Leeds/ Spurs repay to get through. Be vigilant, stand firm, and, most importantly, be on the lookout for any airborne and divinely powered rocks.

Wag Weekly...Elena Shtilianov

2010-01-25T10:15:00.000-08:00

First, there was Tedi Velinova. Then came Elena Shtilianov. Somewhere sandwiched between them came, apparently- and as if my spell check didn’t need a break- playboy model Nikoleta Lozanova. You may need more than my word for it if you’ve been asked to mark him out of a Premier League game at any point this season, but, honestly: a man could lose track of Dimitar Berbatov.

Shtilanov represents his long term plans, and he has accordingly denied reports of an affair with the unjustly stunning Lozanova, once romantically linked with unused Liverpool goalkeeper Nikolay Mihaylov. We are not here to cast doubt on his denials. Why would we? On the subject of unused goalkeepers it seems only right to defer to Berbatov, something of an expert in the field, unused as he frequently leaves goalkeepers up and down the country every weekend.

But the rumours did lead him to all manner of bother, when, allegedly, he was threatened by Lozanova’s current boyfriend and Bulgarian crime boss Georgi Stoilov. The allegation was never substantiated. Nor was the other one which claimed the texts in question were actually sent during a Premier League fixture which Dimitar Berbatov was actually playing in.

Putting this behind them, Shtilianov and he plan to wed. Rumours that the Manchester United forward will spend the entire ceremony slouching at the altar, wearing the look of vague indifference, and leaving his partner to pick up all the slack and do the actual work, were probably began by Wayne Rooney.

Manchester City 2 1 Manchester United

2010-01-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

The assumption of any match report is that the writer’s eye is an unfettered and impartial one, and one unencumbered by distractions. How much stock this idea holds rests mainly on who the reporter is and, more importantly, what the seating plan in the press box is. Certainly, if you’re sat next to Andy Dunn from the News of the World for ninety minutes, you’re going to be less likely to lose yourself in conversation.

Journalists happily go along with this conceit because, when you’re being paid generously to watch football and scoff on prawn soufflés at halftime, it may seem slightly like pushing your luck to be doing something else, browsing your friends’ status updates, say, or otherwise just looking in the wrong direction, when a big shout goes up for a penalty in the second half. So you rarely get a match report like this one, which begins with the confession that I didn’t actually see some of the game, as it was on the television in the corner behind the counter, and I was supposed to be working at the time.

So, 2-1 to Man City, yeah? Yeah, I just about caught that, in between a sea of fifteen year olds attempting to buy cigarettes and men asking the score and otherwise trying too hard to be interested in a cheap bid to impress their girlfriends.

City’ll be happy then, though no doubt pained by their overall failure to get Mark Lawrenson on board with the project. “The equaliser does not mask how second best City have been in this half,” he said, following Carlos Tevez’s penalty.

But surely it does exactly that? It is the purpose of goals to render peripheral, almost trifling, matters pertaining to possession graphs and amount of time the ball has spent in each half meaningless, is it not? To decry them for their entire purpose seems odd, and speaks to an obsession with analysis and ‘straight laced punditry’, which serves to miss a fundamental point, one crucial to our understanding of the game: namely, that none of that other stuff is important. When other pundits talk of the only thing mattering is what is in the top corner of the screen, they tend to not be referring to the instruction to press red for interactive options.

What the second City goal masked, you would have to ask Mark, as I was busy at the time outlining our strict no returns policy on already half drank from bottles of wine. I caught the celebration, though, and somebody really needs to have a word with Carlos Tevez. Is it just me that finds his chronic inability to move on from his rejection at Manchester United a teeny bit embarrassing? It cannot be doing much good for the City fans’ egos either.

He is like an ex in a bad sitcom plot, all extravagant gestures and attention seeking. At one point I thought he was going to jump on the lap of his new boss, only after first ensuring his old one was looking over. Carlos, be a man: tell your friends you couldn’t care less, cry yourself to sleep for a few months and spend the next three years plagued by a low key but nagging depression, the source of which must never be revealed. We’ll get you through this together, bro.

One last note, this from Guy Mowbray, with Man. Utd one up and playing well (they played well all night, I thought, Rooney was superb): “The fans have responded too. It sounds a little like Old Trafford- not much noise coming from the home fans.” Yeah, I noticed that as well. Uncanny.

Newcastle United 3 0 Plymouth Argyle

2010-01-15T10:51:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the season, Plymouth’s trip to Newcastle was covered by the Football League Show cameras, which meant that away fans already getting up at four in the morning before making a massive journey north in the exceedingly slim hope of seeing little other than their team’s defeat, were further expected to share their sandwiches with Kevin Day.

Perhaps mindful of that, not as many showed here for the Cup game, far fewer in fact. And there was no sign of Kevin Day either. Likewise the home fans- whose attendances this season have been largely astonishing- were short in numbers; the lowest FA Cup ground in ninety years. Only a couple of thousand more than Middlesbrough managed in their third round cup game. That bad.

Among all the questions the crowd is said to have raised- short term questions relating to January transfer window and longer term questions on whether or not this signifies a shifting of priorities from fans who were always said to have an affinity for this cup (I.E, the cup where we traditionally do quite badly in, but not as badly as we do in all the others)- the thought most prominent on my mind as I took my seat was: going on forty thousand of the bastards are empty and I somehow find an obstructed one. I saw Peter Lovenkrands’ first goal- a neat little finish from a good move down our left- from over the little wall separating the two tiers
of the East Stand. I’m assured that it was very smart.

A couple of seat swaps later, and I ended up by the ludicrously self dubbed ‘Toon Ultras’. There are two schools of thought on these lads, who have made it their life’s goal to ‘bring back the noise’ at St. James’ Park. These schools of thought tend to depend on how far you are sat from them at any one time. From their usual distance up in Level Seven, they seem a hardy, and largely harmless, bunch. Sat by them and you realise how largely confused their entire remit is.

Their idea to bring back the noise is a valid one, but one governed not by their own match going experiences, but by the experiences of older fanzine writers. This is evidenced by their rather needy desire to be moved around to the ‘old corner’ for home cup matches such as this one. The corner was once a focal point for Newcastle United fans of a certain type but has been, for the past fifteen years, as bland an area in the stadium as anywhere else. Getting in there seems like a craven bid to assert their own identity on the match day culture, but so muddled is this said identity that the best they can do is cling to somebody else’s from a time long passed.

And the lack of any organic personality of their own leaves them little more than a collection of charmless clichés- a group of bores doing what they think they’re supposed to do because it’s what you used to do at the football, before they ever actually went to the football. In truth it would be easier, and to their and the rest of the stadium's vast benefit, for them to go to matches with their friends in 2010 and sing whatever songs they want to sing, without being overly concerned about impressing any passing True Faith writer.

I saw Lovenkrands’ two further goals sat with them- a header and a half volley- before the chants of ‘Get your tits out for the lads’ forced me to move. And not just because I drank and ate more than I should have over Christmas and was worried the chants were being directed at me either.

Wag Weekly...Jessica Lawlor

2010-01-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

Jessica Lawlor first appeared on The Simpsons as the rapscallion daughter of Rev. Loveloy, voiced by Meryl Streep, with whom Bart fell in love. Or she didn’t, but she has a vaguely similar name to Jessica Lovejoy, who did, and this is something which was probably a source of pride back when the show was good and popular.

Now the show is aged and saggy, the comparisons are unlikely to cause much as much gentle mirth- outside of whichever Botox agency tasked with perking her up anyway. But still, with Denise Van Outen- perennially linked with footballers but never quite able to finalise personal terms and pass the fitness test- married and out the game, Lawlor would appear to be our best chance of having a wag whose name resembles a character out of The Simpsons, if you squint a bit as you read it. Which must count for something. Unless you did eventually get around to seeing the film, in which case it probably counts for a fair bit less than that.

She lives with Stephen Ireland. “He is a real home bird. He would rather stay at home than go out partying with the lads,” she says. I think at this point we are supposed to nudge one another, in a strained display of ‘who can blame him?’ type shared camaraderie, yeah lads? But it need not be a grand statement in favour of the company of Lawlor over the company of, say, Craig Bellamy. Maybe Ireland isn’t the going out type. Partying with the lads is, like Simpsons box sets past season ten and International football, not for everybody.

Are you board yet? (10th Jan)

2010-01-10T05:09:00.000-08:00

It was difficult to work out exactly why Birmingham City’s manager, Alex Mcleish, was so enraged by the six minutes added on at the end of his team’s game at home to Manchester United. And equally why the board was greeted with mass catcalling and boos by the home support. Outside of those parked on a pernickety meter, I would have imagined the home support welcoming such an extension to the game. Or at least being neutral on the matter.

Consider: Birmingham City, in an absurdly rich vein of form wherein even Lee Bowyer has began to play a bit, and playing at home are offered six spare minutes which to nab a winning goal against a beleaguered Manchester United, themselves still reeling off the back of a home defeat to a League One side last week and otherwise seriously spluttering. A Manchester United side, don’t forget, being forced to play, on the back of Darren Fletcher’s red card, with ten men. Or nine, if we include Wes Brown.

Afterwards, Craig Burley, on Radio 5, commented that “They’ll be disappointed to have not won this one. These are the type of games you should be picking up three points in if you to win if you want to win the Premiership.” And he’s right, of course. But nobody at Birmingham City will be getting ahead of themselves just yet. 40 points first lads, McLeish will have surely been imploring his players, and then we can start thinking about winning it outright. Even so, to be actively settling for a home point with six minutes left? Against a seriously out of sorts Manchester United? Burley is right, I’m afraid, to suggest that this is not the stuff of champions.

It seems in keeping with the current trend to lament whatever time added by the referee in as vitriolic as way as possible, with booing and chants of ‘Fergie Time’ and, no doubt before the season’s out, streamers and choreographed dance moves. This is amusing in many ways. Or amusing in one: to see the cowered figure of a fourth official as he holds to board to mass derision is to study the face of a man who had mistakenly believed work today was going to be a largely menial based doddle discovering how truly wrong he was.

Again on Radio 5, it was noted that at one point during the second half, with the amassed coaching staff, managers and officials on the touchline it resembled something of a mother’s meeting. But few mother’s meetings end with one mother on the receiving end of sustained abuse for suggesting they hang on for a couple of minutes extra and perhaps order another pot of tea. Even with bus schedules to consider.

So, sporadically amusing, then. But also, surely, utterly illogical, particularly when done as a stock reaction, showing scant disregard for the shape of the game and the pattern of the play. And showing even scanter regard for the presence in the centre of the opposition’s defence of Jonny Evans.

It speaks to insecurity, for one thing. I have been in crowds reacting negatively to the amount of stoppage time added, and cringed at what a physiological boost was being casually handed to the opposition. If nothing else, you’re giving them a few ideas. It also serves to deplete whatever momentum your own side may have been gaining. It’s easy to imagine yesterday, for example, Cameron Jerome noticing the minutes added and avowing to have a real go at them, before hearing the reaction the announcement provoked from his team’s support and wrongly assuming that his goalkeeper’s arms had dropped off at some point in the second half without his realising, and that he’d be best off getting back and helping out that way.

The people that do it: do they consider these things? Furthermore, how loaded are they that they can be so blasé about a bit more Premiership football than their initial outlay had necessarily entitled them to? At St. Andrews is it like at my local leisure centre’s five a side court, where any incursion into the second hour will see you charged for the entirety of it?

If so, consternation at added time would be understandable. As it was it seemed simply undignified. And ultimately self defeating. Or, I suppose, self drawing. Which is as bad as it really gets against Manchester United these days.

Wag Weekly...Sophie Houghton (10th Jan)

2010-01-10T05:04:00.001-08:00

If you’re not too busy doing something thrillingly modern and 2010 appropriate involving hover boards or Matt Smith, take my hand and journey with me. Journey with me to a long and forgotten time; a time of great upheaval and strife, but also a time of hope, and competitively priced box sets. Let us travel back to 2009.

Some of the older ones may remember it: A party called ‘Labour’ were in power, ran by a man named Gordon Brown. In cinema, ‘The Hangover’ was rubbish, ‘Star Trek’ wasn’t, and Inglorious Basterds may have been decent if it hadn’t lasted nineteen hours and starred Brad Pitt doing a bad impression of the already quite bad cameo he made in that episode of Friends (‘The One with the Really Quite Bad Cameo by Brad Pitt’; season 8, episode 9).

Over on television, the BBC scheduled ‘The Thick of it’ against Match of the Day, clearly reasoning that if a volatile and increasingly deranged Scotsman was still refusing to give them post match interviews on one channel, then Malcolm Tucker on the other would have to do. A new music starlet, Lady Gaga, emerged amidst an explosion of pyrotechnics and self consciously quirky wardrobe. Jade Goody and Michael Jackson died. And Liverpool were considered genuine contenders for the Premiership title.

Sounds crazy, eh kids? And yet there we were, and there we may well have remained had it not for Federico Macheda, who came on to score the type of late goal for Manchester United for which they were at the time famed. This was the time, you see, before they lost home games to teams like Leeds United and the entire club was swallowed whole by the debt necessary for their purchase in the first place. (Hey, who remembers when the Glazer family bought Manchester United? I’m sure somebody explained it at the time, but em, what was going on there? Why was that allowed again?)

Macheda scored another crucial goal in the run in- away at Sunderland- but it quickly became hilariously apparent that he was terrible, leaden of foot and with the type of feeble gait that must make walking in this snow we’re having a nightmare for him. But, as a footballer of some repute of the time, he secured a Wag, The Wirrel’s own Sophie Houghton. Houghton is the current Miss Intercontinental Liverpool, however that’s supposed to work, and the pair met on Facebook, which was a popular website at the time.

That's not an understrength lineup, they always look like that...(2nd-3rd Jan)

2010-01-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

Saturday, apparently, marked a watershed of cup competition based tediousness, with absolutely nothing of note happening, until the Reading/ Liverpool game, where, actually come to think, nothing much of note happened there either, but at least they got a few through the doors.

To quickly recap: weakened teams across the country, even weaker than usual in Blackburn’s case, played out a series of dull and eventless fixtures to predictable and middling outcomes. A home win here, a replay a week on Wednesday there. West Brom won, as did Manchester City and I think Stoke did too, though don’t quote me on that. I’d have to double check.

Shockingly low crowds too, even if they do allow us to put the Aston Villa and Middlesbrough numbers together and count that as one, which I don’t think they will. The attendance at Wigan for their game against Hull, 5,335, was especially worthy of comment. Put it like this: when Newcastle United changed the name of their stadium, they were titters along the lines that they now play at an email address. They will take heart in that fact that, unlike Wigan yesterday, they are yet to play to a crowd with fewer people in it than the average Hotmail contact list.

The shock, as it was, was one of your common or garden, low wattage variety of shocks, the type kids at school give to each other using low voltage batteries. The news of Coventry’s draw at Portsmouth drew nothing, on Radio 5, but dim acknowledgement that there had been a game at Fratton Park that afternoon and that yes... it had indeed finished 1-1. At one point it was described as a ‘credible’ result for Coventry, presumably to the embarrassment of the person getting out the bunting and the champagne still left over from New Year’s Eve.

We were, as a nation, left profoundly unmoved and it led to the inevitable talk of a ‘bad draw’. It seemed hard to disagree. It’s fair to suggest that Sunderland’s game against Barrow, say, would have worked better, as a plot device, had the Non League side been at home. For one thing we may have had a shot at getting a bigger crowd in. And for another, it would have given Barrow a bit more of a chance. There may have even been a famous upset- which would have been ideal, obviously, particularly for those of us that don’t support Sunderland.

It took us back to Jose Mourhino and the time when he, then managing Chelsea, suggested that the Premiership teams should always be away in the early rounds to help preserve whatever fleeting notions of ‘romance’ mad people often want to ascribe the FA Cup. This was, to my mind, the exact moment Mourinho lurched into a hapless self parody from which he is yet to fully escape. But, however many years later, the plan got some tentative backing on 606 last night too. Which I can only imagine touching Jose- assuming, anyway, that you can access Radio 5’s listen live function in Milan and also that his plans for dinner had fallen through and he was at a bit of a loose end as to what to do with himself.

But surely, if we are to disregard the concept of The FA Cup as a competition and view it as more an arc based and juicy narrative- if we are so lustful for magic that we are willing to dispense with one of the key components of both the magic and the cup itself (the luck of the draw) - this big team away from home idea is a bit of a weasely compromise. I say go the whole hog, and for each stage of the competition invite a different auteur from stage or screen to give the weekend their own distinctive touch.

For the first three rounds, you will have your own thoughts. But the name I keep coming back to is Ken Loach. His brand of gritty, kitchen sink realism would be the perfect mood setter for the early stages and the heavy involvement of the non league clubs for whom a gritty kitchen sink would actually represent a marked improvement in facilities.

Improvisation would be encouraged, which would make pre and post match team talks fiery, if not strictly decipherable, and which would hopefully mean an end to those goal celebration clearly conceived to award the scoring team lengthy coverage on the evening’s highlight show.

Unfortunately, according to Wikipedia, Loach always shoots scenes in order, believing it only fair to the actor. I’m thinking aloud here, but this method of filming would rather scupper my other idea to spruce up the cup: play the final first, sometime in June, and leave the rest of the competition a mad scramble to draw, and then defeat the winner, thus claiming their crown as your own. But that one needed a bit of work anyway, in all honesty.

The quirk factor in rounds three through five could be ramped up by the hiring of Diablo Cody, writer of Juno and that other one, the one that’s a bit like Juno. What others struggle to say using believable dialogue, Cody is content to say using a vaguely ironic soundtrack and deathly unfunny pop culture references. Luckily, ITV’s punditry panel is perhaps the only place in this galaxy- or in any other far, far away ones- that would be improved by a five minute segment of snarking centred on the plot holes in the original Star Wars trilogy. Or, at least, not unduly hindered by it.

For the quarters to the final, well, I say go all out, and get Russell Davies, now formerly of Doctor Who. Per David Tennat’s last episode, we could expect most games to overrun by a good twenty or twenty five minutes. And it seems unlikely we would make it through the entirety of the final without at least one cameo by Billie Piper. But, on the plus side, where nowadays we have to content ourselves moaning on and on about close offside calls, with Davies at the helm we would be left debating the feasibility of a late twist involving a Time Lord coming on off the bench and saving the game for Bolton Wanderers. This, appropriately enough I suppose, seems like infinitely more fun and less like a gigantic waste of time.

It also offers the thrilling prospect of Alan Green- whose attempts to project an aloof incomprehension whenever Twitter is brought up on his show grow ever more strained- being forced to get to grips with and his head around a sonic screwdriver, at least one romantic subplot, and an alien baddie crossed over from The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Something needed to be done, and then Sunday and Leeds at Old Trafford, and, somehow, without any outside manipulation or a ludicrous bit of ret-conning, something was done. Leeds were excellent. Robust in defence, and slick in attack, they harried and chased with a zest so composed they could have been a stain removing washing powder. At one point, around the sixtieth minute mark, I almost forgot that they were, you know, Leeds United.

“Leeds are back,” sang their fans, and for a mad moment you believed them. Then, for a further mad moment, you wondered if this need necessarily be such a bad thing. It does things to you, this competition, and not always good things. Perhaps we’re best not pressuring it to do these thing when it simply doesn’t feel like it and being aware that it may choose to do them when we least want it to.