On-Line Gaming

Following on from my blog about the Smogs a couple of weeks back, the Teesside Cyber Civil War has really got underway, following their 0-0 draw with already relegated Doncaster Rovers last night. Just to put things in context, Middlesbrough had won 1-0 at Derby on Saturday, to sit in 7^th spot in the table, 1 place and 2 points outside of the play-offs, with 3 games to go; for this crucial game, they managed to attract a crowd of 14,967. To me this is scarcely credible (though we must remember Burragh are a club who once attracted 3,185 to a first team game in this this century); not only is it is an appalling total for any club aspiring to be promoted, it also 30,000 less than Newcastle averaged during our Championship year of rebirth and regrowth in 2009/2010. Yes; 30,000 less.  It’ll be interesting to listen to the 3 Has Beens  phone in on Century tonight, where no doubt the repeated mantra will be along the lines of; Allough Bearny, ut’s Malkum frum Stocktun, Bearny. Hai ave ter seh, Bearny, thut Mogguh’s gorra geow Bearny. Actually, it won’t be interesting; it’ll be akin to pointing fingers and laughing at the inmates of the Bethlehem Asylum in the late 18^th Century.

For years I’ve always felt the main philosophical difference between Newcastle and Middlesbrough supporters is that we are blind, incurable optimists, while they are gloomy, sullen pessimists. When both clubs were relegated in 2009, most observers picked Steve Gibson’s steady hand on the tiller as the reason why the Smogs would bounce back to the top flight, whilst Newcastle were assumed to be about to crash and burn. However, three years later, a very different picture has emerged; Newcastle are all but assured of European football next year, with the Champions League still a very real possibility (providing we don’t arse it up against Stoke on Saturday!!), while Burragh remain in 7^th spot, still 1 place but now 4 points outside of the play-offs. On Saturday they host Southampton, who need a win to mathematically ensure their promotion in a televised game; I’ll not hazard a guess at the crowd. Suffice to say, home wins for Cardiff versus Leeds in the 12.30 kick off and Blackpool against Burnley at 3pm, would render Boro’s mathematical pipedream an impossibility. As they are no longer entitled to the parachute payments that have featherbedded their debts since relegation, I’d suggest Yeats’s concept of historical gyres has some relevance to that lot; not so much C86 as The Second Coming.

The great thing about the level of competition between broadband providers, the availability of cheap lap tops and the preponderance of smartphones in the greater Teesside area (I use that geographical description with more irony than caution) is that the 15,000 actual Middlesbrough fans can all get on line and bicker tediously and incessantly with each other and the 20,000 other armchair Liverpool fans who’ve at some points drifted through Gibson’s folly. Roughly speaking, the Boro fans split in to two distinct camps; the nasty, snide, chip on shoulder, faceless, anonymous keyboard warriors who spout bile in a scattergun fashion at anyone they disagree with and who may be found at www.comeonboro.com while there are those who still grovel and disport themselves at the feet of Gibson and the weird, intense Mowbray who lay the blame solely on those fans who don’t show enough faith in their heroes and can be found at the Fly Me To The Moon fanzine website; www.fmttm.com. In the hours following the Doncaster game, the zealots from Board 1 invaded the private grief of the nodding dog ra-ras on Board 2, with the integrity, ability and future intentions of Gibson, Mowbray and FMTTM editor Nichols (referred to as “Westy”) all coming under scrutiny.

FMTTM saw things in this fashion: I am telling myself how far we have come since Strachan disaster and how much further we could go IF we all started to pull together and stopped the in-fighting and witch hunting and looking for a bogeyman to blame. Those are lessons we can take from this season. We cannot achieve anything if we let the trolls have the upper hand. If we let the negatives weigh us down we will get nowhere at all. The bad guys at Come On Burragh viewed it slightly differently; Hope his fanzine goes tits up as it was basically written by ra-ras who thought Southgate was the best thing since sliced bread. The "Fanzine" is just another club propaganda rag, like the program but without the gloss. It’s no wonder no one buys the fucking thing anymore. Westy must be on the payroll of the club or perhaps seats in the executive boxes is his payment?

To me, this level of hysterical internecine warfare is completely ridiculous as the club are still in with a shout of a play-off spot. Why aren’t they all getting behind their team and leaving the recriminations for the end of the season? Sorry, such logical, rational thought shows me to be a deluded Geordie, a phrase I’d never heard until the internet happened.

The internet and football message boards in particular, can be a bizarre, disturbing place for an outsider to venture in to. Never mind the tedious, forced bonhomie of Facebook or the genuinely supportive nature of band forums (The Fall excepted, obviously enough), where tickets, downloads, rarities and many other items are swapped or traded, as well as real friendships can develop and social events get organised, football boards are generally a bear pit of seething testosterone. Generally, this is because they are the preserve of ultra-macho wannabe alpha males, often in their 30s, generally balding and ageing rapidly.

There may be the odd exception; When Saturday Comes has cornered the market in tedious, chinstroking , supposed cultural commentary, which on their forum is the preserve of non-match attending polyversity Sociology and Media Studies drop-outs, who uniformly appear to support, without ever actually watching, AFC Wimbledon and Ipswich. Still it gives them somewhere to vent their spleen in a polysyllabic way other than on The Guardian’s website. Much of this spleen is directed towards Newcastle United; no doubt on account of The Guardian’s prolonged campaign against the club. When I ventured on to the WSC board in May 2009, astonished at the smug, parochial, glib blandishments that were allowed to pass unchecked as facts, in an attempt to counter such stereotypical propaganda, I was initially rusticated then excluded for swimming against the glib, bland tide of accepted wisdom for stating that Newcastle would not in point of fact “do a Leeds,” but would actually win The Championship with over 100 points. Another deluded Geordie eh? Still, I’ve been proven right.

The best, or worst, place for solid gold anti Newcastle bile is the mackem message board that I named On The Buses back in 2005, for its obsession with the tawdry goings-on related to away travel on the commercial coaches supplied by alleged fans of Sunderland and actual fans of Edwyn Collins. Go to www.readytogo.net/forum if you really want to read page after page of head-spinning, swivel-eyed hysterical hatred of everything Newcastle. According to them, the reason Newcastle have done well is that for 33 games this season the opposition haven’t turned up, or we haven’t played anyone yet or that Newcastle have got lucky (with our one-dimensional long ball tactics) and that referees are biased in our favour. However, such is their belief, this season is only a temporary blip as all the players will be sold and that next season Newcastle will be in the bottom 6 because of the distraction of Europa League football, as well as the loss of Ba, Krul, Tiote, Cabaye, Ben Arfa and, in January 2013 Cisse, who is still seen as a “bullet dodged” on the basis of an admittedly less than impressive showing in the Derby game. However why these imminent departures should affect Newcastle’s performance is a troublesome question, as according to OTB none of them are any good in the first place.

Of course, while the unemployable, the mentally ill, the socially inadequate and the sexually perverse who make up the constituency of On The Buses continue to rave and fulminate about Newcastle United, they conveniently ignore the fact that their saviour Martin O’Neill has actually overseen a widening in the gap between the two clubs since he took over. It is an undeniable fact that certain sections of their support are already questioning whether O’Neill is good enough, while simultaneously saying he’s better than Pardew (who is off to Spurs apparently) of course. While I can understand why firstly Brewse, for incompetence on the pitch, and then An fear leathanbhanda ar meisce (formerly known as Mr Charity) for a shameful lack of business acumen were given their cards, I am unable to see any bright future for 2012 FA Cup Winners Brazil on Wear. Party With Marty? More like Administration With Ellis from where I’m standing.

So, with the Smogs tearing each other apart while facing liquidation and the Mackems ignoring the fact their club is sliding towards an inevitable relegation once Ellis Short calls in his debts, is everything coming up roses in the Newcastle United garden? Well, sort of. On the pitch, providing we hold our nerve, things couldn’t be better; though that is said with the caveat that who knows what will happen to the playing squad this summer. Among the real world fans, things are looking up: United 4 NUFC and two of the three Newcastle United fanzines, the brilliant Toon Talk and the equally outstanding Black & White Daft continue to show that the people at the centre of this club are the fans; we are the moral owners and the real custodians of the history and culture of our club. Sadly The Mag remains as dull as ditch water and NUST an utter irrelevancy; a recent email to tell us that their recent elections have seen Rod Findlay, Peter Fanning and Robin Blagburn elected to the board was met with mute indifference across the entire NUFC supporting world.

However, the really interesting developments among Newcastle United fans can be seen on Twitter, where the ageing, balding, inflating 30-something ultra-macho wannabe alpha males are losing a fight that they picked. They’ve chosen as the targets for their ire, the left-leaning intellectual majority of Newcastle supporters, who comprise deep thinking 20-somethings, as well as experienced, hirsute ideologues in their 40s and 50s who have kept faith with their socialist principles and belief in the goodness of all humanity. These left leaning intellectuals are the living, beating heart of Newcastle United’s supporting social conscience; they are good people.

To the 30-somethings, raised in the belief that fists speak louder than words, the very concept that there may be a complicated truth that is preferable to a simple lie, is a deeply disturbing one. Aware of their diminishing physical powers, embarrassed by their intellectual limitations, they pour personal scorn and invective on those at either end of the age spectrum who calmly and pacifically have shown them the error of their simple ways.

Anger courses through the veins of the League of Bald Headed Men and they relentlessly demand satisfaction from those who would place flowers down the barrels of rifles given the chance. The left leaning politically correct intellectuals are embarrassed by the ultra-machos and their bellicose posturing. It gets worse when the balding boot boys issue unasked for promises to meet and sort things out, which are then hurriedly retracted in a shamefaced fashion via less than credible excuses involving missing phone chargers and the like.

As the mid-life crises gang become aware that their bluff and bluster does not impress those who’ve never been part of such a sub species as these radgey proto pugilists claim to belong, all there is left for those who’ve failed in their mission to be Top Boys because the opposition don’t want to be an opposition and have bigger ideological fish to fry, is gambling, problem drinking and the emotional succour they find on line. Often the 30-somethings seek to befriend the intellectually limited or the young and vulnerable, perhaps because it is only daft teenagers and the terminally thick that will be impressed by such tough guy talk. While there may be a sexual element to this, in the sense that the balding blokes are no longer so certain of their macho infallibility, it just seems that the weak and the lonely need to support each other. Frankly it is all rather pitiful. The left leaning intelligentsia, with the benefit of education and life experience over the failed bullies, forgive the weaknesses and inadequacies of those who seek to provoke confrontation.

It is time for the ultra-macho wannabe alpha male mugs and wrong’uns to pipe down; their race is run and they have been pulled up. Brains have beaten brawn without even being aware there was a contest in the first place.