Typical
Newcastle United. Typical, typical Newcastle United. After signing off before
the latest international break with the adrenaline rush of Ritchie’s last gasp
stunner at Bournemouth, a fortnight’s inactivity was anticlimactically put to
one side by a sluggish and soporific non-performance away to Arsenal, where the
tactics and body language unambiguously betrayed an ingrained attitude of
passive surrender against admittedly superior opponents. A no-risk game plan
that involved heart hearted attempts at winning possession, pointless
non-football when in possession and a general air of impatiently mooching
around, waiting to get beaten. In the end, 2-0 was more than they deserved, but
it’s another game ticked off the list of 38 trips to the dentist without
anaesthetic that each season has become under Ashley. Only half a dozen dutiful
encounters to go until the whole media and social media circus of will he? won’t he stay? kicks into
overdrive. Two cheers for Benitez and his on-pitch derring-do eh?
However,
there are few reasons to beat one’s breasts in anguish just yet, as both
Huddersfield and Fulham have been consigned to the second tier, leaving a
single relegation spot to be avoided by the half dozen sides involved in the
dance of doom. At the time of writing, Newcastle United stand 7 points clear of
third bottom Cardiff City, with the added safety blanket of a goal difference
of -11 compared to -33 for The Bluebirds. Really, it would take an effort of
Pardewesque or Carverian proportions for NUFC to seize demotion from the jaws
of safety at this point of the season. That said, last season’s heroic home
wins over Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United were topped by the tragicomic
floundering of a 1-0 reverse to the doomed Baggies, so don’t rule out custard
pies, banana skins and pratfalls against Palace, Southampton or Fulham away.
What would really grate about such results is that would still be enough to
keep Newcastle up, but losing the first two of that list would probably help
seal the fate of Cardiff City, who appear to be getting measured up for their
relegation suit of sackcloth and ashes.
I’ve no
affection for Cardiff, either as a place or a football club. The only time I’ve
actually been there was for 2005’s humiliating semi-final loss to Manchester
United at the Millennium Dome, or whatever it’s called. Great day that was, eh?
As regards Cardiff City, having missed their visit to SJP in the 84 promotion
season as I was at Uni, the first time I recall seeing them on Tyneside was the
5-1 massacre on a Friday night in February of 2010, when their ageing Soul Crew
toughies enacted an unseasonal, pre-match, pugilistic Eisteddfod in various
licensed premises from Whitley Bay to Gateshead. The only other time I saw them was the day of
the abortive anti Ashley 60 minute walk-out at SJP in May 2014, when True Faith traduced the supporter base
by imposing their own plans to head off on 69 minutes, announcing the charge about a day before and effectively destroying
any unity. That day, I’d been at Killingworth, watching them lose the Northern
Alliance title to Blyth Town, before catching a fast X63 into town and having
my own walk-in protest on 75 minutes that involved seeing a 1-0 lead turned
into a 3-0 victory. So why, on the basis of these cursory interactions, do I
want Cardiff City to stay up? In short, for the sake of Neil Warnock…
If the
answer is the man universally referred to as Colin Wanker, the superb anagram
of his name, then the question may be as inadequate as the binary balderdash on
the 2016 referendum ballot paper. You don’t need to be told, of course, Our
Colin is 100% prime cut Brexit gammon extraordinaire. This is the man who
combines the personality and demeanour of Tony Hancock crossed with Benito
Mussolini, whose undiluted dour Yorkshire miserablism is topped up with the
sort of rampant, paranoid egomania that wouldn’t be out of place in the armoury
of any method actor seeking to portray both Ted Bundy and Donald Trump
transplanted to Sir Geoffrey’s home village of Fitzwilliam. All of this topped
off with the kind of theatricality Sarah Bernhardt would have been proud of.
I first
became aware of Colin in the spring of 1987, when I heard him interviewed on a
midweek sports programme, which must have been on Radio 2 in those days,
celebrating Scarborough’s ascension into the Football League. Ironically, my
location at that time was Harrow, where the local Conference side Wealdstone
had done the double of league and FA Trophy the year before, which showed
appalling timing as it was 12 months too early for automatic promotion.
Instead, the notorious ticket tout Stan Flashman’s Barnet, eternally managed by
genial Barry Fry, were the hopes of the south, but their progress stalled,
allowing Warnock’s Scarborough to take the title and a place in the Football
League at the expense of Lincoln City.
Back then,
Colin was a jovial ingénue; a lower league scuffer whose 350 game career had
taken him to a series of basement division outposts in the north and east, as
well as a short sojourn with Aldershot, who subsequently trained as a
chiropodist, but kept his hand in by looking after the fortunes of Burton
Albion and Gainsborough Trinity before enacting a minor revolution on Seamer Road.
That said, I doubt the doyens of the long-derelict McCain Stadium were prepared
for Wolves fans swallow-diving through the roof of the main stand on their
debut in Division 4. After a season and a half of getting the smallest club in
the league to punch above its weight, Warnock was offered the Notts County job.
Despite the presence of shadowy hoodlum Derek Pavis in the Chairman’s Office,
it wasn’t the poison chalice the job is now. In fact, Colin oversaw successive
promotions for The Magpies (1862 version), bringing them into the top flight
for the last pre Premier League season of 1991/1992. Sadly, this was a step too
far and County took a tumble twelve months later. They’d brayed Newcastle 2-0
at SJP and 3-0 at Meadow Lane on their way to the top flight, but endured a 2-0
home loss and a 4-0 thumping on Tyneside, when Andy Cole scored his first goal
in black and white stripes, as Keegan’s NUFC stormed to the title in 92/93. By then, Warnock had been relieved of his
duties and took a short term role as “consultant” with Torquay United, doing
just enough to keep them in the Football League on the last day of the season.
Despite his
avowed Yorkshire roots, Warnock owns property in Cornwall, where he intends to
retire. He traces his affection for the land of clotted cream and piracy to the
short time he spent at Torquay, in neighbouring Devon. He obviously didn’t
enjoy working down there though, as he gleefully accepted the Huddersfield Town
job in summer 1993. In two seasons with The Terriers, he oversaw the move from
Leeds Road to the new McAlpine Stadium and promotion to the Championship after
a play-off win over Bristol Rovers. Surprisingly though, he quit literally days
after this and took up the reins at Plymouth Argyle. At the first time of asking,
he led the Pilgrims out of the bottom division, and then consolidated the next
year, before being relieved of his duties in summer 1997. The next two years
were forgettable from his perspective; the first saw him pilot Oldham Athletic
to League 1, before repeating the feat with Bury the season after.
In late 1999,
Warnock appeared to have run his course. Just turned 50, he’d seemingly posted
his best achievements and was now phoning it in, taking over sinecures and
basket cases to top up the pension fund and property portfolio, until he took
the job that not only thrust him into the public eye, but gave him his longest
stint in the hot seat; almost 8 years at his beloved Sheffield United, with
half of it spent in front of the FA, explaining his remarks about referees in
post-match interviews. It was, for the most part, a perfect fit of man and
machine; an angry little bollox in the dug-out, swearing incessantly at
linesmen, while a muscular team of wannabe kickboxers levelled anything and
anyone above ankle height.
Let’s be
honest about this, putting his mannered 100% Blade persona to one side for a
moment, it can’t be denied that Warnock did a brilliant job at Bramall Lane,
especially as Sheffield United were a financial basket case on the verge of
oblivion when he took over. It wouldn’t be right to say he was an overnight
sensation, but he steadied the ship and, come 2002/2003, he managed a triple
tragedy, losing in the semi-finals of both the League Cup and FA Cup, as well
as getting to the play-off final for a place in Premier League, only to be
crushed 3-0 by Wolves. He did finally steer United into the top flight in 2006,
though they suffered a preventable relegation after a single season, having
lost at home to Wigan Athletic on the last day. This was much to the chagrin of
United celebrity superfan Sean Bean who “confronted” Warnock in his office,
using “vile language” in front of Colin’s missus and bairns. Bean denied this
version of events, calling Warnock a “bitter hypocrite,” which may have been
the straw that broke the Colin’s back as he tendered his resignation a few days
later.
The Wigan
game may have been cataclysmic, but the most notorious contest of King Colin’s
reign was the infamous game against West Brom in March 2002. The result, on
paper, was a thorough thumping, with The Baggies triumphing 3-0 in what became
known as The Battle of Bramall Lane. This was not the result after 90 minutes,
but the score when the referee abandoned the game after 83 minutes as The
Blades were left with only 6 players on the pitch, following the dismissals of
Simon Tracy, George Santos, and Patrick Suffo and the subsequent injuries
suffered by Michael Brown and Robert Ullathorne. Were these real injuries or
just convenient excuses? Who knows for certain, though The Blades were lucky
Keith Curle hadn’t also seen red for unleashing a flurry of blows at West
Brom’s Andy Johnson, unseen by the officials. Warnock was at his pompous best
post match; combining belligerence with injured innocence and barefaced cheek,
by suggesting the game should be replayed. It wasn’t.
Following a
few months recharging his batteries down Mousehole way, having been interviewed
but passed over for the Leicester City job, Colin found himself back in the
game in October 2007. Slightly strangely, him and Simon Jordan are bosom pals,
so when the bronzed Carphone Warehouse Adonis came calling, the inveterate
Northerner found himself grafting in t’smoke. He kept Palace up, and then got
them to the play-off semi-finals the year after, before being holed beneath the
waterline in early 2010 when Jordan pulled the plug, the Glaziers went into
administration and 10 points were deducted. Warnock, that great battler, walked
timidly away from what he had claimed would be his last job in football, as now
he’d turned 60, he couldn’t face the fight.
Perhaps it was the Croydon air that disagreed with him, for days later
he’d stepped into the breach on the Hammersmith and City line, by talking the
QPR job. In the usual style, he kept them up the first year and promoted them
the season after, as Champions mind you, in 2011. Equally predictably, things
got tough in the top flight and he was let go with the Rs propping up the table
in early 2012.
Similar to
his post Plymouth wanderings, Colin became a slightly peripatetic serial failure
after that: an ill-fated spell at Leeds (can there be any other sort?) from
February 2012 to April 2013, another Cornish furlough, followed by a return to
Palace in August 14 and the sack in December of that year, then a year back at
Loftus Road, before ticking off another Yorkshire club with a few months at
Rotherham in early 2016, where he successfully kept them up and then walked
away with a job well done.
So, what was
left for the man who had played 330 games for 9 different clubs in a 12 year
playing career and taken 16 managerial jobs at 14 clubs over 35 years and was about to turn 68
on his next birthday? Fairly obviously, he took a position at the 24th
different club he’s been involved with; Cardiff City, where a familiar pattern
unfolded; stabilisation in the first year, promotion in the second (his 8th
different team to have achieved this; a record) and now a tooth and nail
relegation dogfight, with seemingly all the forces of the professional game
lined up against him. When you see the
decisions they suffered against Chelsea the other week, you have to have a
degree of sympathy with the cantankerous old sod. Mind, last minute home losses
don’t sit well with Colin; when Wolves got a 95th minute penalty to
win the Championship title, I thought he was going to level Nuno Espirito Santo
for his “excessive” celebrations. Perhaps it’s just as well Kenedy arsed up
that last second spot kick back in August, even if a successful conversion
would have meant safety for Newcastle by now.
Whether
Cardiff stay up or, more likely, go down, I would imagine Warnock will finally
take a step backwards, spending his cash on the family rather than FA fines for
abusing officials. He’s undeniably a nasty, irritating and touchy little
sociopath, but the game will be poorer without him.
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