Vichy Shake

L’enfer, c’est les autres (Jean Paul Sartre Huis Clos 1944)

Newcastle’s progress to the last 16 of the Europa League occurred, from my perspective, in a vaguely unreal manner. Mainly this is due to the banal television coverage of our away leg victory over Metalist Kharkiv by ESPN, whereby it appears that the kind of shaky, hand-held mobile phone footage you’d ignore when scrolling through YouTube has become the standard of picture quality we must learn not just to tolerate but to expect from broadcasters other than BBC or Sky. In addition, ESPN’s constant use of Chris Waddle as a summariser for our games provides an extra sheen of trite incompetence, meaning it was extremely fitting our winning goal by Shola (he might not do much else, but he doesn’t miss from 12 yards does he?) came from the spot. As ESPN has been completely bought out (Premier League games and all) by BT, it is more than apt that our last appearance on that channel on a Thursday night required Waddle to repeatedly use his personal linguistic foible pelanty. However, no longer will Newcastle’s European fixtures be relegated to recondite corners of the TV schedules; we are going free to air in the next round which, looking at the opposition, may well be as far as we get.

Liverpool’s defeat to Zenit St. Petersburg, as well as being an insufferable tragedy for the entire proletariat as the red shirted, never walking alone, wholly innocent, sporting tribunes of the working class have been vanquished, leaves ITV4 with a hole in their schedules on March 7^th. Spurs might be on at 8pm in a glamour clash with Inter Milan, but our away leg against Anzhi Makhachkala, now taking place in Moscow not downtown Dagestan, kicks off at 5, so we’re live at teatime. At least the early start means I’ll get to watch it in full and play 5 a side at the Lightfoot on the same night, which is what I call a result.   Waddle’s tortuous speech, Liverpool football club’s propensity to mawkish grief at the drop of a home point and the abysmal quality of current sports broadcasting might all be soft targets for my ire, but I make no apology for taking aim at them. There are other targets to come as well.

Not that our performance in the Ukraine merited much criticism of course, other than Danny Simpson’s appalling error of judgement in combining a short sleeved shirt with gloves and tights. You’re either cold or you’re not; decide!! More seriously perhaps, Cabaye’s woeful delivery of a series of free kicks in to the box caused irritation, especially regarding the relentless monotony with which he hit the first defender; it reminded me of Keith Gillespie in his pomp. Don’t laugh.

Being positive, Shola was effective in his role as the slothful fulcrum of our attack, Haidara had a more than handy debut, suggesting there’s a promising young player in there and Krul was absolutely outstanding in the last 15 minutes, when Kharkiv decided they didn’t want to go limply out of the competition and fancied having a go at us. The fact they didn’t breach the defence was down to the much maligned Dutch keeper who has finally started playing at the standards he’d set last season; typically enough, he was injured in a late and seemingly innocuous challenge that will see him miss the next round.

Many of our travelling fans will miss this Anzhi tie as well, partly through expense; for a start we’re being asked to pay £26 for tickets, when Anzhi fans are getting comparable ones for £4, much to UEFA’s indifference. Mainly though, our fans, other than the likes of Biffa, Fink, Glenn Wallace and The Undertaker, will be missing out because of a combination of inconvenience, as a result of Thomson cancelling plans for a one-night stay charter flight and the tortuous bureaucratic nightmare involved in obtaining a visa during the two week window between full time in the Ukraine and kick off in Moscow. The official travel advice from the club is as follows -:

Newcastle United are advising supporters intending to travel to next week's UEFA Europa League fixture with FC Anzhi Makhachkala in Moscow to apply for their relevant travel visa urgently, after advice from the Russian National Tourist Office. Applicants are encouraged to use the Express Service, which offers a processing time of two working days and enables successful applicants to enter Russia on a single-entry basis. The Express Service is priced at £210. Applicants who are self-employed, company directors working from home and those not in employment may be required to show bank statements for the last three months which have a current balance of £100 per day for the duration of their visit. They must show the applicant's name, transactions and current balance.

In short, the whole thing is a complete and utter pain in the arse, before the cost of the trip is even considered. No wonder we are expected to be followed by less than 50 people in temperatures expected to be several degrees below zero. Mind, I had an insight in to those conditions on Saturday 23^rd February; waking in Tynemouth on a cold but clear morning, I saw texts on my phone telling me of games postponed inland because of a rumoured 4 inches of snow that had fallen overnight. Disappointed and unbelieving, though with a fond hope that South Shields v Hebburn would beat the deluge, I headed inland on the Metro to assess my options. The fact that from Monkseaton onwards the place resembled Narnia meant I fully expected Andy Hudson’s eventual call telling me Filtrona Park was unplayable. Time constraints ruled out the idea of taking in Whitehaven v Jarrow Roofing, the only Northern League game to escape the weather. Similarly Kirbymoorside in the Wearside League wasn’t an option.

Amazingly, games were still on in the Alliance, at Alnwick, Wallington, Wooler and Hexham; these rural outposts are normally the first games called off. Intent on maintaining my record of having seen a game every Saturday since August, I took the train to Hexham. Once we hit Prudhoe, there wasn’t a flake of snow to be seen. Arriving at 13.55, I still missed kick off, even though the ground is directly opposite the station, mainly because there’s no access unless you skirt round Waitrose and in through the Leisure Centre. Viscount Allendale owns the land, so the Wentworth Stadium bears his first name in a touch of self-aggrandisement that John Hall and Mike Ashley would be proud of.

 

I’m not sure if Wentworth is a football fan, but if he is, he’d have loved this game. The home side, near the top of Northern Alliance division 1, lost 3-4 at home to basement side Newcastle University, who are ironically the geographically closest team to my house (beating Heaton Stannington by about 100 yards). The University had 8 points a month ago, but lost them all for fielding ineligible players and are facing a tough struggle to avoid the drop. They took the lead after 8 minutes, as a decent day gave way to a torrential bout of snow and the referee opted to play with a green football, with the deftest of headed own goals, conceded a comical equaliser when the keeper air kicked a back pass, then regained the lead when the Hexham keeper miskicked a clearance 2 yards to an attacker. 1-2 at half time and the weather lifted; in the time it took me to be served with a gorgeous filter coffee from the Leisure centre café, the sun had come out and the pitch cleared.

The second half was played in pleasant conditions, if a little cold, and was of a higher standard. Four times the University took the lead, but only three times could Hexham claw their way back in to the game. As full time sounded, I left the decidedly pleasant ground in a happy mood, having enjoyed a great game and the great company of Prudhoe fan and bus driver Alastair Speight and his son Liam, which was helped by me catching the 15.45 back to town. Then, checking an email from Newcastle United on my phone, my mood immediately darkened -:

Sunday Is French Day - Make Sure You Get Involved!

St. James' Park is set to have a little more joie de vivre on display than usual this Sunday after Newcastle United's home fixture with Southampton was designated 'French Day'.

In homage to our growing Gallic contingent, which now stands at ten players following five new arrivals from across the Channel in January, 'Le Toon' fans are invited to dress up, paint their faces and bring along their Tricolore banners early to immerse themselves in a French-inspired theme across the stadium.

There will also be chance for a sing-along before kick-off as singer Gavin James Burke arrives on Tyneside to join in the festivities, with further themed entertainment on the pitch at half-time. Ticket holders in the family enclosure, meanwhile, will be in the spirit of things with a team of dedicated face painters.

And the pièce de résistance is yet to be revealed, with several other surprises awaiting fans at Sunday's game.
Events and entertainment will be taking place from 1pm on Sunday and fans are advised to arrive early to ensure they don’t miss any of the action.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Prior to receiving this, my main fear about the game had been that it would turn in to another Reading fiasco; snow on the ground, the ball in the air and the points down the drain. Even worse, it now seemed that, having loaned Sammy Ameobi to them, we were going to impersonate Middlesbrough, the club I hold most responsible for buying in to the whole modern football as EuroDisney experience with face paint, foam hands, replica shirts, music after goals and consciously whacky fans in fancy dress. Do these people have no dignity? Obviously, Middlesbrough football club, based in a place that endured race riots in recent memory (which may account for some of the venom and vitriol sent in Sammy’s direction after he signed for them), had to change their fundamental philosophical approach from the way they used to behave, when to attend Ayresome Park was to take your life in your hands. Indeed, most respectable football people in Middlesbrough turned their back on the home town team, choosing instead to follow Newcastle or (mainly) Liverpool, resulting in the death of the original Burragh in 1986, a false renaissance and the mid-90s embrace of all that’s loathsome about the modern game, which looks like it is happening again, bearing in mind their five-figure crowds on the back of cut price tickets. To be fair to Middlesbrough, other than dreadful lies in November 2008 about Newcastle fans attacking a Burragh supporting pensioner, when no such attack took place, the club has successfully rebranded itself as a sporting Wacky Warehouse; they still play Pigbag for instance.

Let’s be frank about it though, this sort of hideously embarrassing family fun  isn’t as harmful or as outrageously unacceptable as the relentless waves of sectarian and abusive singing that Rangers were responsible for at Berwick on Saturday, to the extent that the Ibrox hierarchy had to issue an apology for their fans’ conduct DURING the game, which must be some kind of record and an element of progress on their behalf; even if Charles Green displays the kind of rampant paranoia and distrust of outsiders Howard Hughes would have found troubling. However, the kind of conduct the Billy Boys are famous may just be starting to die out; West Ham fans didn’t make any anti-Semitic chants in the direction of Spurs fans on Monday, so let’s accentuate the positive.

 

However, I struggle to see any positives in a French Day at a football club; programme sellers, on minimum wage, wearing berets, strings of fake onions and stick-on handlebar taches, some operatic oaf singing The Blaydon Races in an ‘Allo! ‘Allo! accent and free t-shirts like the one pictured are simply beyond a joke. Have we all forgotten what is essentially wrong with the core of our club? Do we accept the owner treating us in this patronising manner simply because we’ve signed a few new players? Au contraire, mes braves; anyone caught joining in with the spirit of French Day was more Vichy than resistance in my eyes. I advocated tarring and feathering the collaborators or even better, a guillotine on La Place de la Fraise.

If we allow French Day to be the thin end of the wedge, we’ll have the young’uns who wanted to do the Toon Poznan (yes, I know…) the other year, performing the Harlem Shake at the Anzhi home game.  Walking to the ground my iPod spat out the Pop Group’s We Are All Prostitutes and Natural’s Not In It by the Gang of 4 (The problem of leisure / What to do for pleasure); I couldn’t have picked two more appropriate songs. Inside the ground, I was hoping for John Cale’s Paris 1919 or something by Metal Urbain, but didn’t object when Air’s Sexy Boy came over the PA.

 

Worst of all were the female dancers doing the Can Can at half time. Obviously I didn’t watch; I was troubled enough by the exploitation of the programme sellers in their ludicrous outfits, but it got a whole lot worse with women being degraded on the pitch. Awful beyond words… Frankly, we deserve to have lost the game simply for indulging the club’s farcical public relations disaster, but we escaped with three glorious points because Sissoko is a genius, Yanga-Mbiwa is a superb reader of the game and just about everyone else, including Rob Elliott whose distribution knocked spots off Krul’s, stepped up to the mark and put in quality performances in the face of an impressive Southampton side blessed with some fine players and a more than decent following.

With 3 points in the bag and the top half of the table in sight, if we can make Swansea’s homecoming parade fall flat on Saturday, things are looking up. Should we simply forget about French Day, especially when Matthieu Debuchy claims it helped us win the game? Well, I’m really not happy about the programme sellers or Can Can dancers, which were both exploitative and stereotypical, but if I’m honest, crap ideas like that don’t really do anyone much harm at the end of the day and I’m always ready to complain about everything, often for the sake of it. Providing this does not signify any thawing in our attitude’s to Ashley, I’ll draw a veil over proceedings. Anyway, I’ll find it hard to forget French Day, especially after I bagged one of the free t-shirts before kick-off; hence the photo. I wonder if I should flog it on Ebay?

Liberté. Égalité. Fraternité.