Planespotting

Seven years ago, on May 24^th 2009, Newcastle United produced a limp, somnolent non-performance as they slid to a hideous, preventable relegation, losing 1-0 to Aston Villa. Following that demotion, caused by boardroom incompetence and lazy, uninterested multi-millionaires phoning in their appearances, it seemed at the time that, unlike 1977/78 and 1988/89 where relegation was inevitable from early in the season (about 32 seconds in the case of 88/89) there was a kind of stunned, mournful air of unreality around the city. I got terribly drunk and staggered home, cursing. Of course, personally speaking, the pain was intensified as I was awaiting my dad’s imminent death from cancer (he passed the day after Bobby Robson, on August 1^st), which clouded my vision and my judgement. What I didn’t do though, was actively look for ways of torturing myself by feasting on gleeful predictions of NUFC’s imminent demise by polyversity media studies and sociology drops out supporting the likes of Huddersfield and Ipswich.

Less than a decade ago, social media was in its infancy; Facebook was still a way of reconnecting with long lost pals and not a place to share photos of cats with cute expressions and endless shaky clips of bands you half liked half a lifetime ago. There was no Twitter to my knowledge and the only way football fans could keep in touch with each other was through the fetid swamp of message boards, where lollygagging hobbledehoys essayed mendacious persiflage. If you went looking for it, you found foul, personal abuse, threats and all manner of disgusting comments, often between supporters of the same team. Nowadays, the abuse may be restricted to 140 characters or made by people using their real identities, but you can still avoid it; unless you enjoy being outraged about nothing much.

Even though it seemed fanciful to suggest it at the time, the 2009 relegation was the making of a generation of our support and those players who had the cojones to stay. It would be difficult to pick a particular game when everything fell into place during the Championship gap year, but somewhere around the last-gasp victory over Doncaster at SJP or the dogged win away to Sheffield United the week after, both courtesy of Kevin Nolan, once the clocks went back, Newcastle United went forward. It was an educational, humbling, life-affirming season and thankfully the club learned from its mistakes to ensure we’d never suffer the ignominy of relegation again… err, hang on…

Well, it’s happened again; Newcastle United have been relegated to The Championship. Unlike last time when an elusive single goal (specifically Howard Webb, the original Payaso de Mierda, disallowing Viduka’s header against Fulham in our final home game) was all we’d needed to stay up, things were sorted long before the final day. After the ultimately false hope provided by Andros Townsend’s winner over Palace that took NUFC out of the drop zone at the end of April, another spineless, shot-shy debacle in the 0-0 at Villa ultimately did for us, while the Mackems won their final two home games; 3-2 over Chelsea in a thriller and 3-0 against a disintegrating Everton who dispensed with Martinez the very next day.

You’d have to say that, providing you’ve suspended your moral judgement about the case of convicted predatory paedophile Adam Johnson playing for Sunderland with the full blessing of their senior management, the Mackems deserved to stay up by winning those two games. It is a real shame that John Terry has signed another deal with Chelsea as the idea of his final performance being curtailed by a red card after an agricultural scythe too many was a delicious prospect. On May 11^th, I played Over 40s away to Hedworthfield (drew 2-2; equaliser my fault – soz) and afterwards we went back to their bar, The Red Hackle in the Scotch Estate. The arrival of a dozen ageing Geordies appeared a popular move as most of the pub leapt to their feet as we entered. In actual fact, this was Sunderland’s second goal and it would be fair to say it polarised opinion in the pub. Unlike 2009, I’d didn’t get rotten drunk; I had 3 pints and headed home for a bath. Frankly I was over it by the next morning, relegation not the equaliser against Hedworthfield, and looking forward to what happens now at Newcastle United.

Rather like 77/78 and 88/89, ultimate failure was seemingly inevitable in 15/16, if not from day 1, then certainly after McClaren didn’t get his cards after the Chelsea scudding in February, or even the Palace demolition at the end of November. Charnley’s vacillating inaction after the slaughter at Stamford Bridge was ultimately fatal to our prospects. That said, my take on the season just finished is influenced by the fact I only saw home games; I know plenty of away games were live on Sky or BT, but I don’t have them, so the only one I saw was Chelsea, because it was free to watch for some reason. Mind, you wouldn’t pay for that shite would you? Honestly, my heart goes out to those who witnessed a series of abject surrenders from Sunderland to Southampton throughout the season, because that’s where the seeds of relegation were sown.

At home I saw 9 games live (as well as the Norwich and Liverpool games in The Bodega on fanzine selling duty); 2 wins (West Ham, convincing, and Spurs, more of that one in a bit), 4 draws (Southampton, Chelsea, Man United and the Mackems, when we could, perhaps should, have won all of them) and 3 defeats (Arsenal, Everton, both unlucky and Bournemouth, which was the only truly appalling performance I saw all season). If a comparable points per game ratio had been repeated across the whole season, we’d have accrued something like 42 in total, which was the sort of total I’d imagined McClaren would bring us. Shows what I know eh?

Being honest, I expected this season to be dull beyond belief, with McClaren’s trademark stifling, cautious football strangling games at birth; I thought 0-0 would be our most popular score. However, that was a prediction based on a belief that not only was McClaren still halfway competent and not a vastly retrograde step after John Carver even, but that Newcastle United would assemble a squad fit for purpose; some chance! Of last summer’s signings, only Mbemba has been a success, though the two lads we got from Forest the year before, Lascelles and Darlow, look exactly the kind of hard-working, passionate, dedicated players we will need next year. Mitrovic, despite a few goals, is the Serbian Billy Whitehurst; a carthorse masquerading as a hard man. Thauvin was a joke; as unsuited to the Premier League as his pal Cabella, though if he’d got his toe to the ball in the last seconds at Old Trafford, the tone of this piece may have been completely different. Ivan Toney is a bit part player for Barnsley, which says a lot about his prospects I feel. The most frustrating case is Wijnaldum; a player capable of stunning goals and utterly dominant performances at home, too often he has hidden away. I feel that he, Janmaat and Sissoko will be the first ones out the door; saleable assets with a selfish attitude and an utter lack of conscience for our situation.

Obviously, the players need to look at themselves, but the hierarchy are the ones ultimately to blame; this means Ashley for appointing the wrong people to sign the wrong players in the wrong positions at the wrong time. Look at January’s arrivals; yes Andros Townsend has been inspirational, but Shelvey has been a flash in the pan, while Saivet and Doumbia didn’t play so we can’t judge them properly. The captain didn’t play on account of a thigh strain that immobilised him for the best part of 4 months and we can certainly judge him as a coward and a fraud because of this; in retrospect, alarm bells should have started ringing when he got a new contract in summer 2015. It was a foolish decision and made McClaren fatally weak from the very start.

You may have noticed that, so far, I’ve not mentioned Rafa Benitez in this piece. Well, everything that needed saying was said on and off the pitch at the Spurs game. Twenty years on from the tears and heartbreak of the 1-1 draw that confirmed we’d finish runners-up to Manchester United, we assured 18^th place by simply thrashing Champions’ League hopefuls, becoming the only side to do the double over them. The team played like men possessed, winning battles all over the pitch, humiliating the opposition and gaining massive rounds of applause from the stands (other than the reaction one annoyed bloke gave Janmaat after the last goal). In retrospect, it was a logical result of Rafa’s influence; he has begun to sort the team out, stamp his authority and modify tactics. How my heart sings when I realise he likes Vurnon Anita as much as I do.

Going back to the Spurs game, I must admit to an uneasy feeling on the walk up to the ground. I’d previously expected SJP to be unpopulated by 7,000 empty seats, to boast a smug, packed away section, with the home following made up of 40k stoics suffering in mute disappointment and a handful of drunk, bald, middle-aged men in chunky Italian knitwear gesticulating impotently and making dicks of themselves. Of course the latter pile of human detritus surfaced on Twitter post-match to denounce all those who’d applauded Sissoko, Janmaat and Wijnaldum, as well as getting unaccountably angry at us playing well. The best part of the day, other than the fact we all but sold out of issue 12 of The Popular Side, was just how enjoyable the whole experience was; the entire ground united in adoration of Rafa Benitez.

You know, I know, every single person who has considered Newcastle United’s best interests seriously knows, if Rafa stays we have a great chance of bouncing straight back in significantly better health than we left the top division. I’m not saying we’ll get 120 points or beat Rotherham 15-0, but we should do well. Of course, if he doesn’t stay, all bets are off as to how bad the hangover / comedown / cold turkey will be when Nigel Adkins appears in the home dugout; it’ll certainly not be pleasant. However, I am an optimist and will hope for the best while hope exists. If it doesn’t work out, well that’s football and it is all part of following your team. The fact is, if you can’t handle defeat, then you shouldn’t follow football. Your motto should be gracious in victory and dignified in defeat. Well done Sunderland for staying up and well done Boro for getting promoted, with the boss I said I wanted at SJP when Pardew left. Imagine what it’s going to be like watching them play each other on Sky when we’ve conceded a late goal at Preston? Still, you have to laugh.

That brings me to my final point; when did our support become such humourless cry-babies? At what point did we adopt a Year Zero chronology after Easter Monday 2006? If you remember the two volumes of Let’s All Laugh at Sunderland that probably still fill half the cellar of The Back Page, the A4 posters distributed ahead of the 4-1 derby, the Save Chimp; Don’t Let the Mackems Win merchandise, the changing of road signs to say Stadium of Shite in 2003 and a billion other digs, DVDs, CDs, JPEGs, wind-ups and parodies, you’ll know that what the Mackems are doing is exactly comparable to what we’ve done in the past and will do again, given half the chance. The fly-past during the Spurs game and the banner on the Tyne Bridge are simply par for the course. We’re both spiteful, vindictive, cruel, inventive and unforgiving. Schadenfreude is our middle name, but surely that’s better than hammering the shite out of each other?

If you can’t handle these digs on social media, then grow up or turn your phone off; go read a book, listen to a record or watch a game of cricket. That’s what I’ll be doing all summer; it certainly beats spending your holidays poring over an opposition club’s accounts, when you should have taught yourself that the Magyar word for hubris is önhittség.