The Prosaic Inquisition

I'd like to dedicate this week's blog to former Newcastle United programme editor Paul Tully, who passed away recently. Paul was a gentleman; a dedicated, honest, hardworking and meticulous professional, who upheld the highest of standards in the job he loved for the club he loved in the game he loved. RIP Paul.

Twitter has let me down; you see, these days I’m just not getting the entire ITK lowdown on Newcastle United in 140-character bon mots from the internet superfans, such as the South Tyneside Anti Joselu Federation’s chief theoreticians: NE32 Chris, NE33 Kriss and NE34 Kris. Just as I’m about to claim checkmate on their nauseating theory that Shay Given is “a traitor” when Ashley drove him out the club, by quoting the exact passages from Any Given Saturday regarding the finest goalkeeper and finest man to play for us in living memory, I find myself hors de combat. This is probably because either they’ve all blocked me for calling them out on other servings of their dreary, supercilious baloney or I’ve lost patience with the lot of them and muted all those dreadful accounts spewing out pompous, ungrammatical toss.

You’ll recall I made my position clear about Newcastle United after the Nottingham Forest defeat in August; I wasn’t going back while Benitez was in charge and I still haven’t. There’s no realistic prospect of me changing my mind either, as thankfully Ginger Dave’s Sky TV subscription has provided me with direct access to almost all non-Saturday 3pm NUFC games, when my beloved Benfield hold sway. Hence the internet has, by necessity, provided a blurred and cracked lens which allegedly refracts the truth about those games I’ve not seen in full. That said, frankly it’s no great hardship to find that after every NUFC game I now have about 3 hours extra free time that used to be wasted on correcting erroneous piffle from the opposing wings of the lunatic fringe that patrols the cyber high seas, loosing off volleys of intemperate drivel on the slightest pretext and without any real provocation.

The two sides of a counterfeit coin are represented by the Benitez loyalists, who display the kind of fanatical devotion to their lord and master not seen since Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición was in its pomp and their sworn adversaries, the Brexit in the betting shop with bevvy for breakfast merchants, whose loyalty is to Mitrovic alone and who take each defeat with the kind of cheerful magnanimity akin to Macduff’s reaction on learning the fate of his family in Act IV of The Scotch Play.  Perhaps the only thing the two opposing factions have in common is their fanatical hatred of Joselu. Certainly, the equaliser against Liverpool provoked the kind of furious cognitive dissonance not seen since we went in 1-0 up against the Mackems during Gullit’s rainy suicide note. You’d think, with their obsessive interest in Spanish culture, they’d both be able to have a proper discussion about Catalan independence, wouldn’t you? Don’t be daft; this is Newcastle United. We don’t debate; we shout.

The vast chasm between what is demonstrably true, and the two contradictory control dramas of the Newcastle United support ironically shows how fine the margins between success and failure or what is deemed to be acceptable and unacceptable can be. For instance, in the recent series of games between the October and November international breaks, Newcastle United played 4 league games; until the 92^nd minute of the Bournemouth contest, it seemed a racing certainty that the results of that latest mini-series would be won 1, drawn 2, lost 1. Considering the opposition involved, that wouldn’t have been a brilliant set of results, but it would have been par for the course the way the season has gone so far. Sadly, Steve Cook’s last gasp winner for the Cherries managed to deflate the mood on Tyneside and, when seen in conjunction with the dreary 1-0 loss to Burnley the Monday before and the prospect a fortnight’s international break to allow discord to foment and ferment, the usual hysterical on-line civil war has broken out between the Cavaliers, who refuse to accept there is anything to worry about while El Jefe has his hand on the tiller and the Hotheads, who have already proclaimed relegation as a certainty.

I’ve not written about Newcastle United since the September international break at the end of the deeply unsatisfactory summer transfer window. In some ways that’s a shame and a missed opportunity on my part, as the positive message that could have been drawn from events in October, especially after solid wins away to Swansea and home to Stoke, the astonishingly mature on-line response to the Brighton defeat and the Leni Riefenstahl-inspired vexillophilic display against Liverpool, has been largely eroded by subsequent events. We’re back to mud-slinging, posturing and coarse invective, played out to a soundtrack of on-field mundanity and boardroom intrigue.

I’ve no idea whether Amanda Staveley is a devotee of Busby Berkley, but the choreographed hero worship for Benitez she was treated to at the Liverpool game would surely have impressed her as an unapologetic free market Tory, vehemently opposed to state intervention and consensus politics and confidante of autocratic Gulf potentates who view democracy with utter contempt. The swivel-eyed loonies in the Mitrovic Adoration Society might still be punting their scarcely credible conspiracy theories that Ashley isn’t actually selling the club, but just toying with the support and consequently tormenting the Geordie Nation still further, but I don’t buy their nonsense for a second. As most of those advancing such balderdash are probably either still bedded down in their Mam’s box room or living in sheltered accommodation with an on-site warden, they’ve no comprehension of the complexity of high finance. It’s more akin to a lengthy series of property purchases than nipping down to Boozebusters to get your white cider prescription filled.

Let’s be clear about this; Ashley wants to sell the club, but on his terms. Therefore, we ought to consider whether a life swap from Vlad the Impaler’s Transylvania to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge may not be that great a choice at the end of the day. Sadly, all hard questions are off the menu at SJP, while the servile, semaphoric Benitez obsessives conveniently look the other way whenever mention is made not only of the identity and motives of any potential new owners, but of the Inland Revenue’s ongoing interest in Newcastle United’s transfer dealings. The Rafaphiles seem to be pinning their hopes on the unfounded myth that the tax man will simply go away when the club is sold, and the Geordie Arab Spring begins. After all, if Freddy Shepherd’s death can see outbreaks of revisionist grief that has him recalibrated as the Che Guevara of Jesmond Park West, then anything is possible. Isn’t it? Well if you’re the type of person who believes the only interest the legal profession may have in Newcastle United will be in representing claim and counter claim in the civil courts by allegedly wronged guardians of Gallowgate and Leazes banners that have supposedly brought the atmosphere back to wor hyem, then good luck to you. At this point I have to say I’ve no particular brief for Alex Hurst and his mate who set up Gallowgate Flags, but they’ve been falsely accused  and maligned by the likes of Gallowgate Shots and their acolytes, who really ought to take a look at the nonsense they were peddling.

However, going back to the Pyongyang May Day celebrations at the Liverpool game, then I’ve got to say that  if you’ve spent the last six months sneering down your nose at the supposed cult of the personality that has grown up around Jeremy Corbyn, while at the same time hoisting banners bearing the image of an unimaginably wealthy financier who is attempting to broker a deal between the hated current owner and the shady petrochemical, backstage oligarchs, then don’t imagine your conscience can be salved by donating a few jars of Dolmio to the NUFC Foodbank every home game. As fans, we must have the right to question, in moderate, articulate language, the selections and tactics of the manager which have been found wanting on many occasions since he took over. Similarly, we must be allowed to question the motives and morality of those who may potentially own the club soon.

In March 1983, Newcastle lost 1-0 away to a Burnley side that ended up in Division 3; it was my only trip to Turf Moor. In March 2016, Steve MacClaren’s final tortuous team loss was the shambolic 3-1 reverse to Bournemouth. Both games ended in storms of profanity directed at players who had seemingly let the club down. Ostensibly, we’ve not made much progress on the pitch since either of these events, though the clear majority of the support seem supinely complaint to the hectoring of Benitez loyalists who do not tolerate dissent. This is a situation that surely invites challenge, especially as the funereal pace of a season that has seen a mere 11 games played in 81 days picks up considerably, with the next 11 games before the FA Cup third round played in 48 days. Of those 11 games, defeats are inevitable against Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City, leading to pressure to achieve results away to West Brom, West Ham and Stoke and an unquestioning need to win home contests against Watford, Leicester, Everton and Brighton. Were such results achieved, harvesting 15 points, Newcastle would have 29 points after 22 games and safety would be in sight.

If Benitez, whose preference for prosody over poetry is ingrained in his footballing DNA, is unable to produce such a modest, yet attainable, target, it may well be the case that El Jefe and not Mike Ashley is the main impediment to moving the club forward. Indeed, who is to say that any takeover consortia would be happy to sink the thick end of half a billion into a team playing sterile, one-dimensional, stolid, monochrome football?