The texts and tweets from those making their way down to Brighton started early. Whether by rail, car, plane or party bus, it seemed as if at least half of those making the trip were letting us know of their progress through the means of technology and what I’ve learned to call social networking sites. Of course we didn’t have such things 30 years back when three dozen of you used to meet up at first light on a Saturday morning outside Leam Lane Club with a bag of cans each, to see if someone had managed to blag a transit from work for the weekend to ferry us in luxury and style to any destination south of Birtley. Generally, the outcome back then would be the same as it was in Sussex by the sea; a swaying mass of half pissed, half radgey Geordies would travel in blind optimism and return, some in mute despair, others seething with anger, after the team meekly fell to defeat.
These days, a cup defeat takes me as long to get over as it took me to flick the telly off that Saturday night. Mind I’d had a busy and disappointing football day; my Over 40s team had lost 4-2 down in Hartlepool and I’d been an unused sub, while Percy Main had squandered 2 points drawing 1-1 at home to Rutherford in the Alliance and then, to top it all, Brighton had rocked us. I’m nearly 50 and feel I have some perspective and distance when it comes to spirit crushing defeats; nothing hurts more than a disconsolate troop back up Wembley Way, other than the events in Blackburn on Easter Monday 1996. As a result, I’ll never go back there again; fair play to the fans who dusted themselves down following the FA Cup exit and immediately started to plan travel arrangements to Ewood Park for the Wednesday.
One of the biggest influences Newcastle United have had on the footballing consciousness of the great British public has been to make an obsession with attendances a compulsory subject of conversation among supporters of all 92 clubs. The renaissance of the club, following Kevin Keegan’s first managerial stint, began twenty years ago now and saw our average crowds double; that is a decent length of time ago (for a start we’ve had 5 general elections since then), but still the mantra is repeated that only 10,004 turned up against Oxford and 7,892 versus Wrexham (even if that was in 1979), so opposing fans feel entitled to ask “where were you when you were shit?” with tedious regularity. Almost as a direct consequence to this, there has been the emergence of a tedious, trainspotter-ish mentality among a certain breed of NUFC fans that see themselves as ultra uber superfans.
I don’t include among this that incredibly dedicated band of long term fans who have seen every single game the club has played for more than 4 decades; fair play to a section of the support who go about their business with quiet determination. Instead, I look at the conspicuous, self-mythologizing cadre of false memory syndrome suffering autodidacts who seem to have elected themselves as an elite group of spokespersons for the rank and file support. For some difficult to discern reason, they need to repeatedly inform us just how good a fan they are because they attend away games; just check their photo albums on Facebook if you don’t believe me.
If there’s a league table of the best supporters of Newcastle United, I’m probably looking at relegation to the Conference. While I still love the club (each league defeat fills me with despair and ruins my day), I have to admit that giving up my season ticket 3 years ago has freed me from the cloak of Gallowgate related depression that had hung heavily across my shoulders since the 2-2 against Leicester City on New Year’s Day 1973 that had marked my first visit to SJP. These days, I get to about 7 home games a season, which I don’t regret, though giving up a freebie for Man Utd to watch Whitley Bay Reserves against Seaton Delaval Amateurs is not perhaps my finest sporting decision. The fact I was able to do that, without thinking twice, shows just how distanced from the club I have become. Whitley Bay won 3-2 incidentally.
One question I need to ask is this; does my lack of emotional and financial involvement in Newcastle United make me a better or worse candidate for the position of Supporters’ Liaison Officer than the person who has not missed a game in years, is attired head to toe in club shop clobber and spends the whole 90 minutes each match day singing “get out of our club?” The answer, even if it also involved other candidates along the lines of the Geordie Dancer, Jimmy Nail or the bloke who stood on the barriers in the Corner and sang “the Little White Bull” every home game, is that it all depends what the job description requires. However, the fact is, the club, to comply with UEFA Fair Play regulations, must have a Supporters’ Liaison Officer in place for the start of the 2012/2013 season.
From my perspective, our fans have never been as united in years as we are now; while NUST has sadly proved itself to be an irrelevance, the Newcastle Fans United alliance, as well as this fanzine, the excellent Black & White Daft, huge numbers of blogs and an ever expanding Twitter community all seem to be pulling together. In all honesty, the song “I don’t care about Ashley; he don’t care about me” has never been more true. Witness the hilarious Darwen End Disco at Blackburn in the League Cup, or the viral spread of “Dreamboat” in relation to Yohan Cabaye; it shows nearly all of us, despite the scowling disapproval of a tiny minority, are travelling in the same direction. What is more, the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate are also with us too. Fans and journalists are not deluding themselves that Newcastle United are about to gate-crash the top 4 before establishing ourselves as a Champions’ League superpower, but all seem to be of the same opinion; Alan Pardew’s doing a good job, the team are performing beyond what we expected and there’s a clear sense of common purpose on the terraces and in the Press Box.
This is all well and good, but does it mean we should agitate for someone from the ranks to be appointed to the post of Supporters’ Liaison Officer, whether that causes them to lay down their flag or laptop to assume such a role? I have to say that from my perspective, I feel the answer is a resounding no. One of the biggest dangers in taking up such a position is in putting one’s head above the parapet. The recent and not so recent past is littered with names of those Newcastle fans that’ve leapt on to the end of the collective NUFC chagrin after accepting the equivalent of the King’s shilling. Certainly I’d imagine our editor has a few tales to tell of his marginalisation when on the NUFC pay-roll a decade or so ago; once bitten, twice shy would probably be a phrase close to his experiences.
Frankly, regardless of the quality of internal candidates our support has to offer (and in the shape of Neil Mitchell and Steve Hastie I could think of no two finer fellas for a job share), I feel that for such a crucial to work, the net must be cast wider. As the job involves liaison between fans and “owners,” rather than simply passing on a list of demands from either side of the divide, diplomacy, tact and experience is needed. For me, the best candidates will be ones who have had no emotional baggage related to Newcastle United, but who know how to get both sides of a debate talking in moderate language. If I’m making it sound like a UN peacekeeper’s role, then I make no apology for that; a sea-green incorruptible with a foot in neither camp and a desire to sell hard decisions to fans and boardroom alike has to be the way forward.
Does such a candidate exist? I hope so; otherwise, the role of Supporters’ Liaison Officer will be debased, whether the eventual incumbent is appointed from the hoi polloi or by grace and favour and an opportunity to make proper progress in breaking down the edifice of mistrust and antagonism that still exists among supporters and the presumed indifference and studied disinclination to cooperate from the owners. Of course, I’ll be happy to do it for £42k per annum, plus expenses; JOKE!!
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