Season's Greetings

Another of the raft of brilliant new fanzines I've come across in the last 12 months is "Duck," which is dedicated to Stoke City. The following article appears in issue #4, which came out last Saturday for their home win over the Mackems, even though it had been supposed to come out on Saturday for the away game at Everton. Needless to say I'm delighted it appeared on a day the filth lost at the Britannia, but also because the game will go down in history as the day Gus Poyet took his coat off... It's just a shame I went to the NUFC v Massive Club citeh League Cup game to ruin the chronology of this piece, but no matter. Anyway, let's get festive.....

As far as I understand these things, issue #4 of Duck is being published to coincide with Stoke’s game at home to Everton on November 30^th. If you’re reading it on that date, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you it is St. Andrew’s Day, though you may not be aware it is also my cousin John’s 52nd birthday. Happy birthday to him.

However, I’m writing this piece quite a long way before that date; a whole two months to be precise, on September 30^th, the very day my team, Newcastle United lost 3-2 to Everton at Goodison Park. Of course I wasn’t there. Frankly I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d less like to be than at a football match 200 miles from home at 10pm on a Monday. I’m 50 next year you realise; I need to be tucked up in bed by that time on a school night. Actually, I didn’t even watch the predictable, though as I’ll explain, ultimately meaningless defeat at the hands of the Scouse Mackems, as I’ve cancelled all my subscriptions to Sky Sports packages. Though I must confess that I did watch St Mirren’s 1-1 draw with Aberdeen on line, having borrowed my 80 year old mother’s BT Sport log-in details. Although, as it was frankly terrible, that’s nothing to brag about is it?

On November 30^th, Newcastle United play host to West Bromwich Albion, with a 5.30pm kick off. Quite a few years ago, before professional football sickened me, I used to love those Saturday tea-time kick offs; plenty of time for pre match boozing and a noticeably more raucous crowd as a result. Also, we seemed to do better at that time, never losing at home for instance. However, such feelings are in the past and what is a racing certainty is that I won’t be there for the Baggies game; not only that, I feel it’s very unlikely I’ll even get to see it on television, as I’ll be travelling back from watching my other team Heaton Stannington, of Northern League Division 2, playing away to Washington. Obviously this will be no great loss, as the only option available to me that of watching a game in the pub surrounded ill-informed cretins who know as much about the game as I know about marine microbiology, is about as pleasant as being painfully sodomised in a Turkish jail. Apparently.

The day after November 30^th is December 1^st; time to get your Advent Calendars up. I know that many of us view Christmas with the kind of enthusiasm turkeys have for the festive season, but despite the revulsion I feel when seeing adverts for Christmas parties appearing in the local press from mid-August onwards, acting as a nauseating counterpoint to the “back to school” adverts in supermarkets before the bairns have even broken up for their holidays, I’ve been looking forward to Boxing Day since the end of June. This is because I am going to see Newcastle United versus Stoke City on the Feast of Stephen, a fixture that last took place at The Victoria Ground in 1989, which will be my first NUFC experience of the 2013/2014 season. For the avoidance of doubt, I am solvent, able bodied and live, according to Google maps, 3.1 miles from St. James’ Park.

In 2009 Newcastle United were relegated for the third time in my life. Unlike 1978 and 1989, there was more than just footballing grief to cope with as I also had to deal with the fact my dad died and my son came out as an unapologetic rugby player. The cumulative effect of these traumatic events was such that I felt I had no choice but to bin the array of NUFC season tickets we’d had in the family since 1989 and 2003 respectively. While I was unable to comprehend my son’s sporting choice (he’s a second row, apparently) and left utterly inconsolable by my old man’s passing (still am I guess), it was a blessed relief that I no longer had to watch Newcastle United. For so many seasons, other than the Keegan and Robson eras in all honesty, the Premier League just hadn’t been any fun; mean-spirited, moaning twats in the stands, hysterical commentators mendaciously talking up the quality of the fare on offer, pampered prima donnas on the pitch and grasping owners fleecing the fans had broken my spirit. For years, I’d been delighted when games were switched to Sundays so I could get out and see real football, at a non-league level on a Saturday. Tyneside is home to the Northern League, which has produced the last 5 FA Vase winners, in Whitley Bay, Dunston and Spennymoor, so you can see a cracking game for £4 or £5 rather than lashing out the thick end of £40 to be defrauded by the likes of Michael Owen; on the rare instances he was fit.

Despite my intended abandonment of the Magpies 4 years ago, I found it almost impossible to stay away while Newcastle spent a pleasant, restorative gap-year in the Championship; in the end I saw a dozen home games, but in my defence, all bar 2 of them were Sunday or midweek (there’s loads of those in the Championship). I liked the atmosphere at the lower level; the away fans singing instead of grumbling and glowering,  teams trying to attack, the stick-thin wingers and porky goalkeepers and the fact we cruised to the title. I still watched the non-league game, but I was almost falling back in love with my club. Thankfully the Premiership stopped all that; the year after, I managed 5 games including a cup tie, all on free tickets. I don’t know if it was something to do with the fact we failed to win any of them (drawing 3-3 with West Brom after being 3-0 up for example) or because of the higher stakes of the Premiership, but the moaners were back in force. At that point I should have wised up and walked away, but like a dog that returns to its puke, my curiosity kept drawing me back.

In 2011/2012, my mate Chris took a 2 year contract abroad and I agreed to take on half of his season ticket, on the proviso I could have the Sunday and midweek games, in order to keep Saturdays free for non-league; it worked out well as I saw 7 wins, 2 draws and only 2 losses as the team finished 5^th. I wasn’t to know it at the time, but the 3-0 win over Stoke in April 2012 was the last decent game I would see at SJP. The following season’s UEFA cup run saw, like Stoke the year before, huge numbers of NUFC’s fixtures changed because of the Europa League and the club’s form and fortunes plummet as a stretched squad failed to cope. Despite a chronic campaign, I managed to see 6 wins, 1 draw and 3 defeats, but the majority of these victories were like the 2-1 win over Stoke in late February; late, spawny and totally undeserved.

A blinding insight occurred to me after a 93^rd minute Cisse winner in a 1-0 triumph over Fulham in early April; while Newcastle’s form, playing style and management were absolutely awful, none of that mattered. Whoever played for or managed the team, whatever position the club finished or even which division the side plied its trade, all of that was utterly irrelevant while Mike Ashley remained as owner of the club. Pardew could be sacked and replaced with another low-rent yes man from the diseased gene pool of failed second tier bosses, or even Joe Kinnear and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference; selling Cabaye and replacing him with Messi or a kid from Tranmere’s reserves would be equally pointless. Indeed, even if Ashley flogged the club to another shifty, avaricious venture capitalist concerned only with lining their own pockets, it wouldn’t matter one iota; all that matters is getting Ashley out and establishing fan ownership, hopefully at 100% though 51% will do for now. If that is the case, I’d be just as happy rubbing shoulders with FC United of Manchester as with Barcelona or Real Madrid, though I’d imagine most of our fans would settle for competing with Swansea City, an example of a fan owned club in the Premier League.

Sadly, I don’t have a recipe for either a plan of attack or the seamless transformation of my club from Ashley’s plaything to a fan owned democracy, but that won’t stop me from idealistically, perhaps unrealistically, hoping that one day we can bring about regime change on Barrack Road. Until then, I’ll continue supporting Heaton Stannington (and editing the programme), while repeating my mantra that whatever happens on the pitch, the training ground or in the dressing room is utterly irrelevant while Ashley is there.

As Christmas Day is a Wednesday this year, we get the treat of a full programme of Premier League fixtures on a Thursday. With no competing non-league fixtures, I have no choice but to head to St. James’ Park and the visit of Stoke City. I’ve known this would be the case since Sky Sports butchery of the fixture list for the autumn left Newcastle without a Sunday home game. I hope many of you reading this will be making the journey; if you can find The Bodega on Westgate Road, I’ll buy you a pint. I’d love to say “may the best team win,” but that wouldn’t be the truth; what I will say is that unless a miracle has happened at my club, it really won’t matter all that much who wins.