An Epistle to the Alopecians

It's about time I wrote something concerning Newcastle United....

February 2^nd, 2019 was the first Saturday I’d not been able to attend a live football or cricket fixture since last March, incredibly enough. On that occasion, the Beast from the East shut down the whole of society to the extent that I could only make it as far as The Lodge and back. This time, a couple of days of snow showers and plunging temperatures wiped out all fixtures, including those on 4G, such as my beloved Benfield’s putative trip to Consett. In the absence of a need to be anywhere in particular, I found myself in The Lodge having my first pint of the week at 11.48 AM; delicious it was too. I only had the one, before taking in Spurs v Newcastle at my equally beloved Tynemouth Cricket Club, with the accompaniment of another couple of pints and then a beer round at Captain Sturrock’s new gaffe, before another in The Oddfellows, an undrinkable one in the Pub and Kitchen and several more in the fabulous new micropub on Bedford Street, the Enigma Tap. Things were decidedly messy by this point and a taxi home, followed by a very early night were the order of the day. Still, at least it allowed me to be up bright and early on Sunday morning to see Match of the Day.

The highlights confirmed what had been my instinct during the game; Spurs had been the better side, but Newcastle had given a decent account of themselves and, despite trailing considerably in terms of efforts on goal, had been more than a shade unlucky to lose. Without question, the two best players on display were Son for Spurs and Dubravka for the Magpies; the latter had been utterly dominant the whole game, showing superb aerial athleticism to catch each and every high ball into the box. Sure, he could have done better with the winner, but if you see it in real time and not unreliable slow motion, you can see what power the Korean put into his dipping effort. I’m sorry if this doesn’t fit with the prevalent NUFC supporter culture of blame, blame and blame again, but I’m not pointing my finger at Dubravka as he is the best keeper Newcastle have had since Shay Given was injured in 2006.

All in all, despite the fact Newcastle sit only 2 points above a relegation spot, the Spurs performance was a decent and almost encouraging one. Frankly, while it seems a reasonable assumption that Wolves will beat Newcastle next time out, the facts are that if NUFC can maintain their more than adequate, hitherto unbeaten record against other sides in the bottom 7, relegation won’t be an issue on Tyneside, which is just how it should be and all of us from TCC can continue to exult in the fact that our very own Sean Longstaff is showing the world, particularly the posturing, bitter naysayer Anthony Giles, just what a good player he is.

You know what? That’s the first half thousand words I’ve written entirely about Newcastle United since mid-October and so I’d best continue in this vein, as a lot of things have happened since Ashley provided Benitez with a hot lunch and accompanying warm beer at Rialto’s in Ponteland 16 weeks ago. Certainly, that bonding evening seemed to work wonders when the first game back after the early autumn international break saw Brighton stroll to a 1-0 win at SJP, as the home side contrived to fail to get one of their 20 efforts on target. Strange as it may seem, the week after’s goalless bore draw at St Mary’s was actually a harbinger of better times to come. Out of absolutely nowhere, back to back home wins over Watford and Bournemouth, the latter achieved almost with a soupcon of swagger, propelled the team out of the relegation zone and curtailed any appetite for protest and confrontation against the Ashley regime among the overwhelming, silent majority of the support.

Faced with a tough choice, in the face of a bit of form on the pitch and the self-serving tactics of the relaunched print version of True Faith, the first difficult decision the Magpie Group made saw them crumble in the face of scrutiny. The much-trumpeted Shirebrook Protest went from taking bookings for a fleet of coaches heading for Sports Direct HQ in the biggest protest in Nottinghamshire since the 84 Strike, to a botched, late cancellation of the whole event on social media that left a car load of angry Mags high and dry. The Geordie Gang of Four had been holed beneath the waterline by Wallace Wilson’s timid toadies and the media baron Hirst, who appears to be ideologically closer to Randolph than Patti. From that point on, regardless of performances on or off the field, the supposedly keynote Wolves protest was doomed to be a disaster, especially as the Magpie Group’s main activity now seemed to be blocking anyone on Twitter who disagreed with them, rather than facilitating a mass protest.

Before then, there was the remarkably composed win at Burnley to savour, although I didn’t get to see it, as the new-found pleasures of work meant I was asleep by 9.00 that night. Just as things seemed to have turned a corner, the 3-0 clattering at home to West Ham brought uncomfortable reality back into play. This was the day of the farcical 11-minute walk-in protest, called to celebrate Ashley’s time in charge. Quite fabulously, it coincided with West Ham taking the lead, so the thousand or so amateur malcontents who’d been enjoying an extra £4.50 bottle of Coors in the back of the Gallowgate took their pews just in time to see Newcastle kicking off a goal down and to leap on the end of the wrath of 45,000 others who were more concerned with the fate of their team on the pitch than collecting new Twitter followers. After such a kick in the bollocks, the last thing Newcastle needed was a midweek trip to pantomime villains Everton, but the team again confounded expectations with a thoroughly merited point, raising the stakes again leading up to the Wolves game.

Personally, I had hoped to celebrate Sean’s new contract by cheering him on against Macclesfield in the Checkatrade Trophy game on the Tuesday. Unfortunately, I was stuck at work on a late shift and so I was prevented from joining the 1,126 zealots who’d braved the cold to welcome former NUFC legend Sol Campbell in his first managerial appointment. To put that crowd in context, it was more than 3 times the amount of those who walked in late against West Ham, but fair play to the Magpie Group for organising 50k empty seats for this one. Yes, I’m being ironic. Meanwhile, with Harry Redknapp stuck in the jungle, it appeared that Sulzeer was ideally positioned to replace Parditez in the SJP hot seat. Yes, I’m still being ironic.

With the chance to attend SJP and not see a Parditez team in action being denied me, it meant I was more concerned that week with the impending trial of Paul Gascoigne for sexual assault on a train. The thing that initially surprised me the most was that it was a woman who had been the victim of the has-been, alcoholic’s unwelcome intrusions. You see I have long felt that the root cause of all of Gascoigne’s problems has been self-loathing caused by his utter hatred of his identity; toxic masculinity has poisoned Gascoigne’s mind. He will only feel a sense of peace when he accepts who he really is and embraces his sexuality and possibly his gender orientation. If he doesn’t, endless misery remains in store until he finally dies an unhappy death, quite possibly before the case comes to court in October 2019.

Meanwhile, in the face of claim and counter claim, the Magpie Group endured another self-inflicted body blow by bowing down to the caprices of the printed True Faith fanzine, who demanded the cancellation of the Wolves boycott, presumably as it would reduce the number of sales of their publication on a match day. Of course, they didn’t say this was the reason they wanted the boycott cancelled; instead they came up with the scarcely believable canard that any protest might frighten off potential takeover consortia, as the implied buyers presumably wanted a stable, compliant fanbase as part of the package. The fact the only name who was mentioned as a part of the shady backstage operators and number crunchers supposedly manoeuvring into position, was Peter Kenyon, made the idea of a change of ownership about as believable as the existence of unicorns. Typically, this didn’t appear to cross the minds of the vacuous fools who took the narrative of a potential sale as gospel. As an aside, would any serious bidder wanting to mount a takeover of Newcastle United be happy to stick with a manager who had lost 8 home games before FA Cup third round day?

It had long been my intention to boycott the Wolves boycott, even with Parditez still in nominal charge, but the question of whether to attend or not was made superfluous by the scheduling of the finals of the Northumberland Indoor Cricket 6-a-side finals at South North, where my beloved Tynemouth retained the title. In between games, we got to see the second half of the Wolves game in the closed and chilly clubhouse. I’d never previously associated Wolves with attacking, fluent football, but they are great to watch, especially on the break. By contrast, from what I saw, Newcastle didn’t have a shot on goal. In mitigation, Yedlin’s dismissal made things tough, and in the final analysis, Mike Riley’s woeful refereeing was the difference between the two teams. NUFC should have had a penalty, but Wolves were the better team without question. The moral high ground is still a lousy place to watch the theft of a point in the final seconds mind. Even worse was Parditez’s toe-curlingly embarrassing post-match press conference. Alright, he did have a point about the unpunished foul on Perez, but to mention VAR a dozen times in reply to the soft questions served up by doe-eyed and docile local journos was pathetic and parodic, though it did have the desired effect of deflecting any criticism of a boss who had just endured his 7^th home loss out of 9 games. Such a record isn’t just bad luck, but rank bad management by Ashley, Charnley and Parditez. Still, always nice to see a sold-out SJP; this is the reason why nothing will ever change at Newcastle United.

The following Saturday, I took advantage of a free weekend for my beloved Benfield to head up to Edinburgh City against Elgin City. On the way, the Metro and Central Station were thronged with Ashley’s Army en route to Huddersfield; many of them showing obvious signs of apprehension but, what do you know, they dug in and dug out a stellar performance that had me punching the air on the bus back to Waverley when the final score came through. My joy was nowt compared to the battered and jubilant hordes detraining at Central when I got back. It was truly the best of times, but why couldn’t the team and in particular the manager kick on and win a home game convincingly? On the Saturday before Christmas, a limp and lousy Fulham side rocked up with a single away point to their name and left after 90 stultifying minutes cursing their lack of composure in front of goal, having spurned 3 clear cut opportunities in injury time. Newcastle, meanwhile, had 2 shots on target all game. Another Parditez press conference car crash ensued, when he tried to accentuate the positive of a clean sheet and blamed the crowd for the team not playing with any fluency. The collective insanity of the back five, not four mark you, may be beyond comprehension, but finally most fans are waking up to the disturbing reality of such negative tactics.

Even more disturbing were the actions of the weird and shady London Mags, who have emerged as a kind of exiled Manson Family style faction of the Magpie Group. In some parallel universe, they reasoned it was normal, acceptable behaviour to creepy crawl Mike Ashley’s house, posting close up photos on social media of the tasteless, pretend Palladian pile in leafy Whetstone, as well as his local, the Orange Tree, taken on a chilly Wednesday night in mid-December. I’m at a loss what such behaviour is supposed to achieve, other than cease and desist letters from Ashley’s legal team, or a visit from the Plod that could end up with these jokers up in court on harassment charges. 

Mind, any sense of Festive jollity and goodwill to all men was wrecked by Parditez’s Christmas Eve press conference that could have stirred Jacob Marley from his grave. With predictable negativity and astonishing unprofessionalism, he announced it would be a “miracle” if Newcastle stayed up. Apart from wondering just how the team would respond to such public trash talking, and don’t try and patronise me by saying it was actually very clever mind games, what does it say about the manager’s ability if he doesn’t think he can achieve a finish 7 places lower than the season before? Such victim blaming was lost among the debris of the Liverpool thumping on Boxing Day, whereby the contrary selection of the worst XI available by Carfa Parditez was partly masked by outrage at Salah’s vile theatrics. That said, another shameful capitulation and dreadful press conference of disingenuous Pilate style handwashing, was a disgrace. Being honest, it was a surprise to see the team thumped on the road, as normally the away performances aren’t quite as bad as the home ones. Perhaps there’s an argument for two different managers; one at SJP who wants to win games and then Parditez away, who sets them up for grim and dogged defence of the point available for a goalless draw.

In the run up to the Watford away game, former True Faith impresario Michael Martin, who’d been in the long grass since the fallout caused by the Wolves boycott fiasco, poked his scalp above the parapet to release tantalising quasi ITK info related to the supposed imminent sale of Newcastle United. Despite hinting at what George Caulkin had told him in confidence, the whole thing was a hill of beans and a tissue of horseshit; nothing happened at all and we’re still enduring the mismanagement of Ashley and Charnley, topped off by the eye-bleedingly awful football and even worse press conferences served up by El Estafador. That said, I did sympathise with some of the criticism dished out by those buffoons on Radio Newcastle as we headed home from my beloved Benfield’s great win at Guisborough Town. It seemed as if everyone texting in was suffering with un Bocado de Mierda, brainlessly blaming Parditez for the concession of 2 points at Watford because the team hadn’t “gone for it” at 1-0 up. You know, I sometimes wonder if those expressing opinions can manage to walk and chew gum at the same time. However, such criticism does show just how much the manager has lost the fans; from uniform unblinking devotion to only about half the support still trusting in him, reflecting the fact you can’t fool all the people all the time.

 And so, to 2019, which was ushered in by a wholly predictable home loss to Man Utd where Dubravka’s first error of the season meant there was no way back from that point onwards. This happened at just the wrong time, with other sides running into form and some desperately tough fixtures ahead. With the club seemingly bereft of direction, leadership or plans at the start of another transfer window, prospects looked very bleak indeed. The ownership displaying stubborn stupidly and the manager afflicted by stubborn vanity. Rather than asking the manager to step aside if he couldn’t be bothered to work with the budget he’d been given, NUFC’s legions of self-appointed superfans came up with a new ruse. They wrote an open letter to Ashley, begging him to sell the club, suffused with that piteous, needy tone of attempted emotional blackmail redolent of fat teenage lasses sending a love note to their favourite boy band member. While Wallace Wilson’s discredited Magpie Group were back on message with the True Faith hierarchy, I was more than elated to see my pals in NUFC Fans United, who continue to do incredible work by masterminding the operational logistics of the NUFC Food Bank, had distanced themselves from this farcical charade. Amazingly, the Gallowgate Brosettes got a reply of sorts; Peter Kenyon’s epistle to the alopecians was suffused with  bread and circuses by way of smoke and mirrors, showing there was no chance of a takeover happening. Like Amanda Staveley, he didn’t have the money to back up his intentions, but at least he’d tried; not that’s much consolation when Ashley continues to siphon off every penny of profit to service his pockets and business deals. Sofa, so bad. 

 In the circumstances, all you could do was laugh at the fact 37k mugs turned up to watch the Blackburn FA Cup tie. As it didn’t kick off until 17.30, in many ways this was the closest to a cup run the club had been on in years. The only bright spots in another hopeless game were Sean’s home debut and Matt Ritchie showing he cares. Quite how Kenedy and Jacob Murphy can be regard as professional sportsman on this and several other showings, is a complete mystery to me; two charlatans who manage to make Atsu a semi-permanent member of the weekly starting XI. Next up was to the trip to the dark side for the Checkatrade game, with pre-match rumours that this one was a chance to emulate the Potteries derby in the previous round, whereby the away fans smashed the ground up and the black and white side cruised to a glorious victory. Fair play to the Paraffins though; they came out on top both on the pitch with a 4-0 win and off it with a 15k crowd that was bizarrely seen as a reason to take the piss out of them, despite the paltry 1,216 turn out at SJP for the Macclesfield tie. Sunderland might not have had it all their own way on the pitch this season, but they’re a game from Wembley in the Checkatrade and well placed in the league. Let’s hope we don’t have the ignominious spectacle of a Tyne Wear derby in the league to fret about next season.  

Next up there was a trip to Stamford Bridge, where only losing 2-1 to Chelsea was a decent enough result in the circumstances. The team tried their best, but simply weren’t good enough. This result seemed barely to register with most Newcastle fans, while the 4-2 extra time win in the replay at Blackburn seemed to be viewed as a disaster by many. Having been present for the titanic displays of NUFC away support in the 1995 and 1999 replay successes, not to mention the immense win in 2000, Ewood Park has long held a special place in my affections, especially on cold January nights. Obviously, I wasn’t at this one, but it seemed a truly special win and not cause to moan. I suppose the whingers were right though, as the Watford defeat in round 4 went down as the worst of all losses on home soil this season, which is really saying something. The cup exit, coming on the back of funereal press conferences by Parditez and the inability to sign a single player, with Lukaku’s left-back brother from Lazio failing a medical and rumours, thankfully soon discounted, of the odious Dennis Wise returning to an official role on Barrack Road, seemed to hint at new depths being plumbed.

Of course, this isn’t the chronological narrative. There was the thumping home win over Cardiff City, following on from the disintegration of Rafa May’s Brexit masterplan, that completed a few terrible days for Colin Wanker. If the ease of that win was a more than pleasant surprise, the unbelievable victory over a strangely subdued Manchester City was simply incredible. Not only that, the club signed a couple of players, breaking the transfer record with the arrival of Miguel Almiron and loanee Antonio Barreca making it off the bench for a late debut at Spurs, and got rid of dross like Aarons, Lazaar and Murphy on loan to the Championship, where they’ll sink without trace if graft and guile are required, which brings us pretty much up to date with the recent twists and turns involving Newcastle United.

The big question, as ever, is just where do events leave the club? As ever, the NUFC story is full of single, hesitant steps sideways and clumsy tumbles backwards, leaving the club gasping for air in the bottom rungs of lower mid-table limbo, with a manager who is more concerned with his own employability prospects once his contract is up, ostentatiously counting down the days until his merciful release in the summer, rather than rolling his sleeves up to ensure relegation is avoided. The owner remains a cussed, contrary absentee oligarch, apparently more concerned with accumulating a portfolio failed retail outlets than doing anything tangible with Newcastle United. The support has fractured again; True Faith fatally undermined and then emasculated the Magpie Group, with woeful Wallace Wilson unable to show either leadership or any sense of pragmatism, while the overwhelming majority continue to accept every indignity thrown at them with minimal complaint. Being honest, I can’t see anything other than retreads and remixes of the current paralysed impasse for years to come.