The Charlatans

(Published in Percy Main v Harraby CC programme on 2nd October 2010)

The Dell was never a happy hunting ground for Newcastle United. The Magpies final, ever success at Southampton’s old ground was back in February 1972, a mere fortnight after their last away victory over Manchester United, in the same month that Ronnie Radford scored a tap-in against the Toon as well, curiously enough. In 8 Premiership visits to the Saints’ former home, Newcastle picked up a solitary point, in Kenny Dalglish’s first game in charge, back in January 1997. Even then, they were 2-0 up with 6 minutes remaining before Matthew Le Tissier got involved. While that was bad, it didn’t rank as low as the 2-1 defeat on Sky TV when Keegan had a hissy fit with Lee Clark in October 1993 or the 3-1 loss in March 1995 that saw Paul Kitson’s goal separating the sides as injury time began. All things considered, the routine 2-1 loss on 28th March 1998 didn’t raise too many eyebrows.

That day I was in the Midlands, paying my first and so far only visit to Meadow Lane, to see Notts County clinch the Division 3 Championship with a 1-0 victory over Leyton Orient. It’s a decent ground, albeit generally far too large for the needs of England’s oldest league club and the impromptu pitch invasion at full time was jovial and good-natured. I’m glad I stopped by, though I didn’t hang around for the boss’s speech after the trophy was presented, mainly because I remember him turning out for the Mackems under Ken Knighton’s tedious tenure.

Who was the visionary manager who had achieved the remarkable feat of obtaining promotion before the clocks had gone forward that I chose to cock a deaf one to? Well, he was recently in the news for issuing the following bold statement as regards his modest analysis of his own managerial abilities -:

“Personally I feel I would be more suited to Inter Milan or Real Madrid. It wouldn't be a problem for me to manage those clubs because I would win the double or the league every time. Give me Manchester United or Chelsea and I would do the same. It's not a problem to take me into the higher reaches of the Champions League or Premier League.”

This is the manager who, on the day he made such pronouncements, made the groundbreaking tactical decision that his main striker (a loathsome individual with serial convictions for spitting on fans and opponents, the racist abuse of a ball boy and a season with the Mackems on his CV) should ignore the ball whenever it was pumped predictably high, hard and hopeful in to the opposition box, preferring instead to barge the visiting keeper to the ground. The player, who was instructed to act like a gridiron linebacker at a third down scrimmage, is the nauseating El Hadji Diouf and the manager, none other than the uniquely despised bastard lovechild of Matthew Kelly and Malcolm MacDonald, Mr Samuel Allardyce.

Yes, that’s right, the quotation that comprises the vain and smug analysis of his own minimal talent by the monstrous ego of a monstrous narcissist, suggests that he regards himself to be the equal of Jose Mourinho. You are not dreaming; Allardyce actually said these things, though it has yet to be confirmed whether he was tripping at the time.

Let us not forget, Allardyce is the man who, when given a large amount of cash to spend at Newcastle United, brought in the delights of Abdoulaye Faye, Cacapa, Geremi and David Rozehnal for the grand total expenditure of £15 million for the precise net gain of jack shit. Indeed it is a moot point whether Allardyce's most notable achievement for Newcastle United SJP was a laughable, mincing run across the turf at Craven Cottage while both sides waited to kick off the second half or his solitary substitute appearance for West Bromwich Albion in November 1989, when the Magpies won 5-1 at The Hawthorns.

To be scrupulously fair, I must acknowledge that Allardyce isn’t only famous, in his terms, for failing to win a single trophy with Blackpool, Bolton (bar a play off final in 2001), Newcastle and Blackburn, which is how we normal football fans will judge him. He is equally notorious for a “Panorama” investigation in to corruption in football that saw his son banned by the FA from working in the professional game. Also, Big Sam (his words) does wear a natty earpiece that makes him look like Morrissey would if he’d been fed on steak and kidney pudding four times a day since he was potty trained.

This earpiece is linked to Allardyce’s 25 strong backroom op centre, which consists of innumerable snake oil salesman and other barely credible boffins, allegedly conducting several kinds of spurious tests and crunching numbers in to dozens of hi-tech gizmos and gallimaufries, for a yet to be discerned purpose.

Supporters of Allardyce, who presumably compromise these lads in the lab coats, him and his family, regularly tout the hippo-headed fool as the next England manager and to be fair, he probably wouldn’t have done a lot worse than Sven, Second Choice Steve or Bo Selecta. Remember, Sam has a European pedigree, having led Limerick City to the First Division title in the League of Ireland back in 1991.

At the same time as Allardyce continues to acclaim his own talents, Irish society is reeling as yet another example of incompetence by Allardyce lookalike Taoiseach Brian Cowen (aka Biffo, the Big Ignorant Fella From Offaly) sees the man charged as being single-handedly responsible for the loss of 150,000 jobs in the last 6 months alone, bladdered out of his head in a Galway nightclub at 3am on a Tuesday morning. Frankly, such behaviour is not unusual in Irish public life; the secret though is being able to get away with it. Ensconced in the City of the Tribes for a Fianna Fail policy summit, Cowen comprehensively let his hair down, shouting and roaring until closing time and, by all accounts, giving a grand version of the Christy Moore classic “The Lakes of Ponchartrain.” Unfortunately, Cowen’s voice betrayed the lateness of his hours on an interview regarding the state of the economy on “Morning Ireland” at 7.30 the following morning. Cowen stopped short of an apology, though he did display a degree of clarity the man who sees his imminent elevation from Ewood Park to Old Trafford as a given would never dream of stating, when he commented on the media storm by stating, "it wasn't my best performance.”

However, we are being unkind; Sam has got one thing in common with Sir Alex. Not the 2 Champions League wins, the 8 Premier League titles, 6 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, European Cup Winners’ Cup or any of the trinkets picked up by the Govan Genius when in charge at Aberdeen. No, the sole thing they have in common is a refusal to talk to the BCC. Sir Alex does it out of principle; Hippo Head is presumably taking the Fifth Amendment in relation to the “Panorama” programme.

Still, silent or voluble, those of us who know the beautiful game agree; Allardyce’s long ball robots and shoulder charging psychos are a stain on our national game. In the same way that the Irish public have seen through Biffo’s boozy bluster, we won’t be fooled by Fat Sam’s execrable egotism and ridiculous rhetoric.