ill communication

The pace of events influencing the current state of Newcastle United, both on and off the pitch, shows no indication of slowing below a breakneck gallop at any time soon. With most clubs, the near fortnight’s break from the Premier League provided by a couple of meaningless international friendlies would be seen as the ideal opportunity to step back and view recent happenings with a sense of perspective and detachment. Certainly, maximum points and clean sheets from successive fixtures against Chelsea and Spurs, the latter involving the finest Newcastle United goalkeeping performance since Krul’s debut away in Palermo 7 long years ago, should be reason to celebrate and allow the side a modicum of forgiveness for the appalling loss on Wearside at the end of last month. However, this is Newcastle United we’re talking about and while 9^th spot, a negative goal difference and 17 points may not be enough to send the supporters into a frenzy of ecstatic street parties, it is probably better than many of us dared hope for at this stage of the season. That said, as the owner supports one or other of the two sides we’ve recently vanquished, he’s probably responded to Pardew’s idiotic post Spurs presser where he referenced the chance of us qualifying for next season’s Europa League, by demanding two home losses to Norwich and West Brom in the next couple of fixtures to ensure we don’t drift too far from the Premier League’s pelagic zone between 8^th and 15^th. To paraphrase the Socialist Workers’ Party; neither Europe nor relegation, but mediocrity.

While stating that Krul’s display at White Hart Lane was wonderful to behold, clearly this level of performance must be maintained on a regular basis by the Dutch keeper to prove that this wasn’t just a flash in the pan and he actually has the dedication and humility to knuckle down and become the goalkeeper he has the talent to be. Personally I feel that Frazer Forster is the far more accomplished keeper, but I’m happy to be proved wrong in the fullness of time. This issue, however, is a minor detail on the expansive canvas that is the intricate, abstract triptych of Newcastle United’s ceaselessly evolving self-portrait. 

It is a matter of some amazement to me that elsewhere in the North East, the insane and loathsome Di Canio, whose vile attitudes under the cloak of antics had appeared to have been granted carte blanche by his employer on the back of a certain 3-0 result back in April and the baleful Cro-Magnon impersonator Mowbray, who everyone assumed to have a job for life, both found themselves out on their ears by mid-October, while the hapless, tactically clueless, smug, bland, spineless, toadying yes man who is Alan Pardew continues in employment at SJP. That said, if the rumour mill is to be believed Pards, as no-one of any worth as a human being would call him except as a term of abject contempt, is being linked with the Crystal Palace job and lined up to replace the frankly detestable Ian Holloway. Aside from wondering just exactly why the current boss of a club the size of Newcastle United, regardless of the relative histories or the current situation of either team, would want to leave in order to assume control at Selhurst Park, where relegation is  assured, even if he did play for them for the better part of his career, this potential change of roles demonstrates the contempt in which Pardew is held by almost all Newcastle fans, by cognisance of the fact that the only voices expressing any disquiet about his possible decamping to the Eagles, Glaziers or whatever their current nickname is, are those whose worry is categorised entirely as a fear whether Ashley would apply one final humiliating dig in the ribs for the support by appointing (strictly speaking,  reappointing) Kinnear as manager as a cynical coup de grace and an attempt to empty the stadium forever.

And, despite learned tactical debates as to whether Cisse is worth a place in the team or exactly how Pardew manages to leave Anita out every week, this is precisely the point where Newcastle United goes from being quite interesting to utterly fascinating. Rather than between the touchlines and in the minutes from kick off to final whistle, it is in the labyrinthine machinations of the club’s third rate communications department, the fourth estate at both a local and national level and despicable fifth columnists among the support deviously pursuing their own agenda, that the club truly engages the minds of a city and the Geordie diaspora worldwide. All of which yet again proves the veracity of my mantra; wherever the team finishes or whoever plays for or manages them, is utterly irrelevant while Mike Ashley remains at St James’ Park. We need Ashley OUT and 100% Fan Ownership IN as an eventual aim, though I admit I am being swayed by the idea of 51% Fan Ownership as a time-constrained, transitional demand.

The essential meaning of the complex strands of related events that interweave and diverge throughout the bemusing, garish tapestry that represents the day to day life of being either an integral part of or a parasitic entity living off the body politic of Newcastle United, may not be immediately discernible, but a clear pattern is emerging and it is one that does certain elements no credit whatsoever. Just when it seemed like communication was providing a potential way forward in uniting the fans and exploring links with the middle echelons of management at SJP, hard faced confrontation and an utter disinclination to  compromise have now been adopted as the default position of most of those on both sides of the fence. Perhaps this is by design or perhaps it is by accident; whichever, the result is a depressing dearth of meaningful dialogue among fans and with the club. Even more alarming, strange alliances and unlikely liaisons have been formed for reasons of expediency that have the effect of alienating other elements of the support who find themselves rusticated and consequently otiose.

Towards the end of last season, Newcastle United banned The Daily Telegraph’s Luke Edwards from St. James’ Park because of a wholly inaccurate, mischievous article dripping with Francophobic enmity that suggested there was a schism in the dressing room between French speakers and non-French speakers. Subsequently, rather like Martin Hardy’s embarrassingly hysterical claim that the Wonga deal would see every Muslim player at Newcastle United depart the club in protest at this grubby, tawdry commercial tie-in, Edwards was shown to have written something that was either pure fantasy or deliberate lies, depending on your interpretation. Edwards had little or no sympathy among NUFC’s support or even his colleagues in the press, which was telling.

Rather like the messianic, arrogant narcissism that blights the career and reputation of David Conn, I don’t like Edwards’s work, his stance, his employers or his modus operandi and so I warmly applauded the fact he was kept out of the ground. I don’t hate journalists; many of them are excellent at their job. There are national journalists who report brilliantly on Newcastle United; George Caulkin is obviously the best of all, but Simon Bird, when he isn’t implementing savage Government spending cuts on the poor and weak in Newcastle in his role as a Labour councillor, and to an extent Martin Hardy also tell the truth about our club; critical fans with the interests of the club, not their own CV, at heart. However, please don’t assume I think journalists have to be fans of Newcastle United to report accurately on the team. As regards the local press; suffice to say that Bradford City supporting Mark Douglas of The Journal is unique is his ability to construct a simple declarative sentence involving both balanced thought and articulate expression. Consequently, it is with an immense amount of shock I am forced to accept that many NUFC fans now view Lee Ryder of The Evening Chronicle as the Rosa Parks of Thompson House.

With the kind of crass timing that has become an integral feature of the endless series of public relations disasters which have been the touchstones of the Ashley regime, the post-match press conference following the defeat at the Mackems was seen as the ideal moment to reveal that the club had placed an embargo on dealings with NCJ Media. Just as Alan Pardew was about to speak, Wendy Taylor the club’s Communications Manager, or whatever spurious title this Albert Speer in court shoes is working under, made it clear Ashley’s puppet would not be responding to any questions posed by The Journal or Evening Chronicle as they’d been sent to sit on the naughty step for having the temerity to give positive coverage to the Time 4 Change march that had taken place before the Liverpool game. The bizarre thing about this is that by no means did Time 4 Change attract universal approval; the depoliticised and the Wonga wearing sheep who would accept any outrageous act by the ownership as they simply “support the team” are not the only constituent parts of NUFC’s support that had no engagement with the Time 4 Change march. Realising that we’ve many inroads to make on the political consciousness of a support that apparently includes 37% who earn more than £50k a year, it is more depressingly to realise there are others who made a great show about their voluble lack of engagement with any public shows of opposition to the Ashley regime and I find that troubling.

One of the catchphrases of the Casual Connoisseur attired sticker brigade is Against Modern Football. However, despite endless use as a slogan, hash tag or both, it is becoming less and less clear to me just exactly what this statement means. To me, rather than a committed call to arms against the problems in the game, it actually appears to be an empty statement used by those who don’t stop to think exactly how conformist their stance actually is. Rather than being part of a solution, the stickerati seem content to hide behind a glib expression that, in their minds, justifies an obsession with fashion, as they consequently eschew any political stance that rejects all of the things that have gone wrong with our game. If they are Against Modern Football, are they in favour of Ye Olde 80s Football, embracing threats of violence, casual racism and unsafe grounds? I seriously doubt it, though I also seriously doubt they’ve stopped to think for a nanosecond just what they do stand for and, frankly, it’s time that they did think a bit more about the future of the game and a bit less about knitwear.

The Time 4 Change march was an opportunity to actually get involved with a visible protest against the evils of the current regime at SJP. However, it appears for a certain kind of podgy, bespectacled Chris Griffin lookalike that being Against Modern Football doesn’t actually mean involving yourself in fan led protests against the club being torn apart, but rather seems to concentrate on festooning pub toilets with brightly coloured bits of paper and posting selfies on Instagram of your latest hat taken on the bus each morning. Why is this the case? It is even more ludicrous than the behaviour of the club to ban NCJ Media.

Implausibly it appeared that this ban had been issued on the Monday before NUFC’s trip to the dark side, but had been hushed up by NCJ Media in the hope of maintaining a sense of unity of purpose in the build-up to this game. Frankly this struck me as about as morally defensible as Frau Fritzl encouraging her brood to send Fathers’ Day cards to Herr Jozef. In support of NCJ Media, or more accurately to complain about the club once again moving to suppress any form of dissent, an idea came from Twitter, not initiated by Time 4 Change or NUST, though unequivocally supported by both organisations, specifically that supporters took a copy of The Journal or Evening Chronicle to wave over their heads as a protest, as the front page featured a direct address to Ashley; bland, naïve and depoliticised in tone, naturally enough. There was also a mooted sit-in at full time in protest, but Remy’s late strike to seal the points probably put paid to that idea. 

I’m not sure of the efficacy of the newspaper gesture, but I am mildly surprised that NUST didn’t suggest fans waved copies of The Mag or some vehicle claiming to have an independent voice as a show of both strength and as a clear indication of whom precisely runs the Time 4 Change show these days.

It is interesting to think about the idea of a coherent independent voice inside the ground, whereby voice in this instance actually means the sound of supporters, rather than the philosophical concept of fans expressing their opinions in an official capacity. From the incoherent ashes of the Toon Ultras, whose sole raison d’etre appeared to be filling the Strawberry Corner with noxious fumes from smoke canisters in Europa League games last season, there has appeared the inchoate organisation Division 92 (http://division92.co.uk/) whose purpose appears to be to bring the noise back to St James’ Park. For this end, they “worked with” the club to identify a section of the Gallowgate Upper in which to wave their shoes during the Man City league cup tie. The particularly interesting thing is that while most of those interested in such public displays of uber fandom, as opposed to watching the game, remained loyal to their instructions from the club, a sizeable minority (Continuity Division 92?) drifted off to the Strawberry Corner to chant Get Out of Our Club to Ashley, when not informing Massive Club citeh that their support was fucking shit. Drawing a veil over the idiocy of such remarks, it is intriguing to wonder just whether NUFC will be prepared to allow such an experiment to happen again, consequently providing an established space in the ground for teenagers to abuse the owner. I’d guess this may have been a one-off opportunity and Division 92 will be restricted to pogoing because they love the Toon at the likes of Hull later in the season.

The serious point about all of this is just exactly how far fans can communicate with the club and not be manipulated, as Division 92 undoubtedly were in return for vague promises of a permanent singing section. The long hoped for NUFC Fans’ Forum, that Fans’ Liaison Officer Lee Marshall had worked so hard to bring to fruition, is in a state of crisis following the resignation of Gallowgate End representative Paul Robson, who is also part of the team behind the estimable Shite Seats blog (http://www.shiteseats.co.uk/), because of his disgust at the NCJ Media ban. While I can understand Robbo’s position and applaud him for both his honesty and integrity, I wonder whether he would not have been better inside the tent as it were; then again, he will be replaced and hopefully by someone of equal quality. Rather more ominously, also missing from the next Fans Forum meeting in December will be NUST who have been excluded from all future meetings because of an inexcusable breach of protocol after the first meeting that they are seeking to unconvincingly explain away as a minor indiscretion.

Having become disenchanted with NUST’s abject inaction following the 2010 elections to the Trust board, I allowed my membership to lapse at the end of that year. However, I recently re-joined, as have a number of people of my acquaintance. My reasons for doing so are twofold; while NUST has demonstrated itself to be largely toothless, impotent and complacent over the past few years, it exists as a democratic organisation and thus it is ripe for reanimation at the next set of elections for board members. I believe such a policy is known as entrism and was rather successful in the Labour Party in the 1980s. Basically: join, stick together, take over and use the structure to achieve something tangible. Watch this space…

The other reason I’ve re-joined NUST is to register my disgust at the way their representative Peter Fanning approached the matter of posting minutes of the Fans’ forum meeting on line. Rather than allowing the club to put it on their site, NUST had their version of the minutes, written in a cynical, negative tone it has to be said, up within a day. I’m not sure this was Peter Fanning’s idea, or whether he simply wrote the minutes. Whatever the reason, I have to say that to me, this was an unprofessional and discourteous act to all in attendance, especially as they had all agreed to and subsequently signed a code of conduct. Let’s be clear about this; the Trust were not banned from the Fans’ Forum for speaking their mind, but for behaving in this crass manner. Now, personally, I do not know whether the decision to place the minutes on-line in breach of protocol was done in error or as a deliberate act of sabotage, but the effect of it was not only to get themselves banned, but to ultimately render the Fans’ Forum almost an irrelevance, mainly because of the increased profile recent events have given NUST. I’m not sure if this is simply my instinct, but it certainly feels as if the actions of NUST have had the effect of totally discrediting an idea that both Lee Marshall and NUFC Fans United have worked so hard and so painstakingly to make real. Rather than being a cause of regret, their exclusion has been a publicity opportunity they’ve seized with both fists.

The actions of NUST have further, in my eyes, utterly side-lined NUFC Fans United; this umbrella organisation that I have long supported and involved myself in sought to provide a conduit of communication between fans and the club. Because of the club’s idiocy in banning NCJ Media and NUST’s actions in getting themselves thrown out of the Fans’ Forum, whether accidentally or on purpose, the very idea of communication between the warring factions (The Chronicle, despite several bald men fighting over combs on Twitter, is now in a shotgun marriage of convenience with NUST) is simply off the agenda. As a result, excellent, hard-working supporters like Bill Corcoran, Zahra Zomorrodian, Steve Hastie and Steve Wraith have seen all of their hard work go to waste. Consequently, NUST, The Mag and others in their corner have been able to harness the energy, ideas and organisational ability of Time 4 Change, despite the need for a few Stalinist purges of those not quite “on message” and reposition a large section of the organised fan base into a conflict setting that serves their purpose.

As a result, it appears to me that NUFC Fans United can only really exist in future as a conduit to take items to the Fans’ Forum as suggested by participants and then to feedback on what has been learned, but all the while realising that the meetings convened by the club are not representative of the whole support, not to mention running the risk of another mercurial, confrontational decision issued from on high, guaranteed to upset the fans. Consequently, I won’t be attending the NUFC Fans United meeting on Wednesday 13^th November (I am at work in any case), but I would urge all those who do, to also join NUST as that organisation is ripe for change and appears to be the vehicle most suited for the purpose of both leading the support forward and for re-engaging with the club in a meaningful way, providing we join in enough numbers to sweep away the current leadership.