Shadowplay

When it comes to the content of my many blog posts and articles for the Percy Main programme, I must admit to a degree of deliberate devilment in my mischievous desire to adopt consciously controversial and often intellectually indefensible philosophical positions for the sake of provoking debate. As the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan once said; “if you think you know what I’m talking about, then you clearly didn’t understand me in the first place.”

My last Percy Main article of the season, “Touching From A Distance,”in the Rutherford programme was an account of how I’d avoided watching Newcastle United for the vast majority of the 2010/2011 season and affirmed that it was my intention to avoid ever seeing them live again. To be honest, that was absolute nonsense as I’d spent the week leading up to the publication of that article exploring every possible avenue for a West Brom ticket, short of going to the ground and buying one of course. If I can be truly serious for a minute, I do object to giving any of my money directly to the current ownership of the club for a list of reasons so exhaustive than going in to them would require a novel rather than article. When it comes to helping someone out by buying a ticket that would otherwise go to waste, I have no problem handing over the cash that has indirectly ended up in Ashley’s pocket, although to be fair I’m a tight bugger so getting a freebie is always my preferred option.

Courtesy of the generosity of Percy Main assistant manager Graeme Cole’s next door neighbour, I came up trumps in winning the raffle for one of the best seats in the house for the West Brom game; G94 in the top tier of the New Stand, as was, or East Stand as it is now known (though it’s amazing how much upset you can cause by simply referring to it as the Mike Ashley Stand). On an aisle, in the front row of the block, right on the halfway line; you would struggle to find a better view in the whole ground and it didn’t cost me a penny piece; for an hour on Sunday May 22nd, it was almost football heaven.

As I’m out of practice in attending league games, I got to town as early as I get to Purvis Park for a Percy Main game ; about 90 minutes before kick off. However, I wasn’t required to make the post match bait or take the team sheet in to the referee’s room, so I found myself slightly superfluous to requirements. Obviously I could have gone to the pub, but as I was here for a game of football and not a skinful, I ignored that option and instead took in the Bobby Robson Memorial Garden, which is almost diagonally opposite the Irish Centre on Gallowgate. Five carved granite blocks depicting Bobby Robson’s life and football career stand as a fitting memory to a true gentleman of the game, who of course died the day before my dad in Summer 2009 (July 31st Bobby; August 1st Eddy) and I don’t mind admitting I shed a couple of tears. The Memorial Garden was as popular with The Baggies fans, who uniformly demonstrated that stonewashed Wranglers are always in fashion down Sandwell way, as it was with Newcastle fans. Let’s hope it is respected by all.

I entered the ground at 3.30, procured an expensive and bland cup of instant Nescafe then found my seat. I don’t intend to say much about the game, suffice to say that it fitted the Newcastle United season pattern exactly, with one third being outstanding, one third being acceptable and a third stinking to high heaven. Until their first goal, I had not heard a single proper gripe all game; admittedly Shola’s uniquely individual approach to leading the line was greeted with almost affectionate world-weariness. For the most part, the spirit of Taylor, the running of Simpson and Ferguson and the slick passing of Barton and Guthrie garnered warm and appreciative comments.

Things changed as soon as Tchoyi sidestepped a lame attempt at an offside trap and dragged them back in to the game. Suddenly the level of unease increased exponentionally, exacerbated by the arrival of Alan Smith from the bench , presumably to make someone other than Shola the target for abuse. Indeed such was the widespread rancour cast in his direction that I thought Michael Owen or Michael Ashley was the player entering the field. Tchoyi’s second, stepping away from a lame and cowardly challenge by Coloccini made things even worse. However it seemed as if the victory was assured when injury time approached, only for the entire back four to switch off and allow Tchoyi to complete his hat trick.

That one act of scoring a goal dropped Newcastle United from 9th place to 12th, costing not just a place in the top half of the table and two points but approximately £3.5m in prize money, or the price of a half decent squad striker or left back. If Newcastle United were a normal club with normal directors and management, this would be seen as completely unacceptable and utterly unprofessional. Pardew would be brought to book for his idiotic substitutions (why take Guthrie and Ferguson off?) that allowed the Baggies to drive on against a fragmented midfield and lop-sided attack and Ashley would see the shortcomings of the squad at first hand. Of course, Newcastle United are not a normal club; seemingly only the fans could see the ludicrous state of affairs that had unfolded.

At full time I had no intention of staying for a lap of honour or whatever it was called, as we were eating at 7pm and I needed to make tracks. However the vast numbers of plastic seats that were springing up as disgruntled punters stormed out for pints or buses, showed that less than a quarter of the crowd had stayed behind. Is this, as has been suggested elsewhere, a sign of “short memories” bearing in mind the events of the last two seasons? I don’t think so; there were plenty of things to praise in this game, but plenty of things to criticize in the closing period. Those who remained are often the same people trumpeting the line that finishing 12th is better than 9th as if we’d ended up top half, Ashley would have rested on his laurels. Frankly those who think Ashley’s thoughts concerning the club have any bearing on the final league table or indeed a shred of quantifiable logic to them are living in cloud cuckooland.

Obviously finishing 12th has allowed sunderland to maintain their grip on the non-existent title of North East Top Dogs, which was first invented in 2000. Well done them, especially as they were apparently one player short of a Champions’ League spot in early January. Their 10th place finish has coincided with one of the most spurious of internet urban myths ever, that of the supposed creation of a banner by an unnamed supporters’ group or fanzine, to be unfurled before kick off, celebrating Newcastle claiming superiority over sunderland by means of a (presumed) higher placed finish. Obviously the inspiration for this errant untruth was the Old Trafford “Always In Our Shadow” banner, which could be directed at either the Mickeys or Massive club citeh equally. The only problem with the crudely photshopped image of the Newcastle banner that flew around internet messageboards in the immediate aftermath of Sunday 22nd’s results, is that it has been grafted on to a photo from the Hull City game, which took place on September 13th 2008, when the “Cockney Mafia Out” banner got its first airing. Take a look at the two photos; the crowd is identical!

Iinitially I struggled to find the motivation to write this piece, but once the season finally ended with Heaton Stannington’s deserved victory over Ashington Colliers in the Northern Alliance’s George Dobbins League Cup, I got on with it. Typically enough Newcastle United refuse to stand still, or even take a few days off from creating unwanted headlines, so my initial optimism on reflection at the quality of some of the play i’d seen, has been replaced by the usual despondent blanket of cynicism that settles over me whenever prolonged thoughts about Newcastle United cross my mind. While Shefki Kuqi and Sol Campbell’s departures will be celebrated mainly for the £40k a week it saves the club, there are still plenty of problems elsewhere with the playing staff. Firstly, we’ve the Jose Enrique situation; will he go or will he stay? If he goes, what next for Coloccini and Guttierez? In addition, Tim Krul sounds off in the Dutch media about refusing to be number 2 at Newcastle; rash words if true. Look at Ben Foster; a far better keeper but playing in the Championship now. If Tim wants to be first pick in the top flight, it may have to be Eredivise and not the Premier League. Better to keep quiet and learn to catch crosses, as the only area Newcastle United have anything resembling strength in depth is between the sticks. More worrying is the news, brought out by the eternally charming Willie McKay, that Joey Barton is leaving Newcastle next summer as the club have reneged on the promise of a new contract. I don’t like Barton as a person and I have to say that for 3 seasons, including a fairly ineffectual time in the Championship, he was an absolute joke of a player. Admittedly he has been, along with Nolan and Tiote, the reason why Newcastle did reasonably well after the Carroll departure. He deserves a new deal, albeit on less monety as we are living in different times to 2007 when he arrived, but if one isn’t available he should be asking for one not announcing he’ll be off next summer. I suspect this one will run and run, with the losers being Newcastle United fans, as usual.

Speaking of which, one final knee in the unmentionables by the club that they’ve no doubt tried to sneak under the radar in the non-playing silly season, is that the so-called Ultras from Level 7’s singing section, won’t be allowed to transfer en masse to the Leazes Level 4 section, as they’d though. Apparently this will be kept for matchday sales, no doubt meaning those in the Bar 1892 semi-posh seats won’t have to listen to Mad Darren ov Fawdon repeatedly announcing that all he cares about is NUFC while waving his trainers (Nike) above his head. Instead, this lot are going to decamp to The Strawberry corner of the Gallowgate (aka Sports Direct Stand) and turn that in to a singing section. At least I’ll know where to avoid if I go to any games next year.

Roll on August 13th eh? That’s when the Alliance starts again.....