Der Prozess

Things are about to get a whole lot worse for Newcastle United...

I’m writing this on the Tuesday before Newcastle’s 2026/2027 begins in earnest with our annual scheduled home trouncing by Liverpool. Without assuming the critical Cassandra role, my earnestly held belief is that NUFC will do well to avoid relegation in the campaign we’re about to endure. Last time around, we veered from mediocre to abysmal, with only the occasional, fleeting glimpse of anything resembling attractive, attacking football. Since then, the squad has been annihilated by the loss of Gordon, Tonali, Guimarães and Trippier. Three of them have been sold for vast sums of money, though in the case of Guimarães perhaps for far less than his actual worth to the club, while the latter may have left for free after his contract expired, but like the aforementioned Guimarães, Trippier’s true worth as a natural leader cannot be counted in monetary terms alone. Nice bloke though Dan Burn is, the stone cold reality is that we have lost the only two natural leaders with a winning mentality the squad possessed and the club is heading into the new season, thankfully without the distraction of European football, with a considerably weaker roster than the one that served up an unconvincing 12^th place finish last year. Sure we’ve made half a dozen signings at the moment of writing, none of whom have played Premier League football before, but I’ve absolutely no idea if they’ll be any good or not. Crucially, Murphy, Pope and Willock remain on the books, with no imminent signs that anyone is prepared to show some sympathy and take them off our hands. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lewis Hall is sold and have misgivings about the level of commitment Joelinton has for our club.

At the moment, I’m desperately casting around to find a team worse than Newcastle, as I can only see Hull, Ipswich and Coventry finishing below us next May, unless something dramatic happens in the transfer market before September 1^st or, and this seems unlikely, Matthias Jaissle is able to polish a turd. Hence I’m predicting a 17^th place finish. At best.

Ah yes; our new head coach. From the Saudi league, unsurprisingly. Will he be any good? I’ve no idea. I’ve never heard of him before. While he is untested at this level, he comes well recommended. At least he’s under no pressure from the higher-ups at SJP, whoever they are, as the PIF have shown their complete uninterest in Newcastle United as a project for most of the time they’ve been in charge. Yes, money has been thrown at the club, in terms of the unwise acquisitions of several seemingly ill-judged expensive flops (certainly in their first season on Tyneside), but almost 5 years after the takeover, there is still no clarity about progress relating to a new training ground, or stadium redevelopment, while meaningful communication with supporters remains at the level we were used to when the likes of Lee Charnley and Jeff Vettere were in post. Interesting the annual NUST survey identified the number 1 issue of concern among fans as the utter lack of real communication from the owners. The notable exception to this corporate wall of silence is the ever more unhinged babble that issues forth whenever the immaculately attired David “Hoppy” Hopkinson opens his mouth. Remember his pronouncement that NUFC were going to be a bigger club than Real Madrid by 2030? Well, Hoppy remains the gift that keeps on giving. Apparently we are now Newcastle United 2.0; a lean, mean fighting machine of young tyros about to tear up the Premier League. How we’re supposed to do this with a team shorn of the best players and only natural leaders we possessed is frankly beyond me. Perhaps the whole PIF masterplan is to be so shit nobody will want to watch us, thus rendering all questions about stadium expansion utterly academic.

The true nature of PIF’s attitude to Newcastle United can be seen in their supine willingness to accept just shy of £230 million for our best players, with only vague mentions of financial fair play regulations forcing our hand. What balderdash. They’re now engaged in a process of extracting as much money from Newcastle United as they can. Remember Ashley’s announcement of “no capital investment.” Well, history is repeating itself and it’ll probably get worse as each, and every saleable asset is moved on with indecent haste. I don’t believe PIF should have been allowed to acquire Newcastle United in the first place. Yes I’m grateful we finally ended the trophy hoodoo less than 18 months ago, but it seems as if we’ve entered some kind of sporting Faustian pact, whereby the price of that moment in the sun has been the comprehensively filleting of our club’s soul. I’m not like the NUFC Against Sportswashing vanity project run by former House of Saud employee Denver Hird; I don’t blame the support for swallowing the whole Saudi shtick, in the way that a load of the on-line merchandising operatives were anxious to get their grids all over social media snaps with Chris Mort and Ashley himself almost two decades ago. However, I ask those who dolled themselves up in cheap sunglasses, bath robes and tea towels, how do you feel about the whole takeover five years on? Do you still entreat us to trust the process from your sunny and sandy exile while stroking your watch collection? Or are you now aware that we’ve simply exchanged Tsar Nikolas for Stalin’s Five Year Plans? Except, in the case of PIF, there isn’t any discernible plan. This is why Gordon, Tonali and Guimaraes have jumped ship, as well as the chance to double their wages. This is why we’ve reverted to doing things on the cheap, by investing in young overseas players with potential, in the hope of turning a trick and moving them on for vast profits in a couple of seasons. PIF are no longer remotely interested in sportswashing. Cash is what they are all about. Real Madrid? I’d much rather we were trying to emulate Raya Vallecano.

At least Gordon moved rapidly out the door with a modicum of dignity. Tonali to Spurs just makes me laugh. Fair play to them; they’ve got a bloody good player, but if they think he’s there for the long haul, they are deluded. The Guimaraes transfer did sting, partly because of Ross Wilson’s pitiful claims that the deal was brokered by “very sophisticated actors” on both sides. Is he talking about Nigel Havers I wonder. What a preposterous tissue of horseshit. No, the pain of the Guimaraes deal was occasioned not because I unquestioningly believed all his relentless missives of uxorious flannel about the joy and honour of living and playing up here, but because he was our talisman, on and off the pitch. Someone to believe in, because he always delivered the goods. The one player who never chucked it, whatever the circumstances. And now he’s gone. I’d like to think that Ramsey and Miley, who are currently our only viable midfield pairing, can do just half of his job between them, but I really can’t see that happening.

I didn’t catch the Everton game at Murrayfield, as I was at Gateshead Borough 1 North East Sporting Club 6, when Jaissle said a lot of honest things after we’d been stuffed, or the Bayer Leverkusen home tie, as Percy Main 3 Haltwhistle Jubilee 0 obviously took precedence, but I did watch the Valencia friendly. Albeit on a stream that buffered so often it was like enduring a series of transient ischemic attacks for the opening half. Being honest and acknowledging we were up against 10 men for more than half the contest, it wasn’t a bad performance. Wissa took his goals well and we seemed to be displaying the kind of high press that used to suit us when we had good players. Always nice to win a trophy as well. That said, Willock, Woltemade and Murphy (did you see that attempted back heel? Shit heel more like) offered absolutely nothing and I wonder whether there is any point in keeping them. As the first and last mentioned have deals that expire next summer, we should be looking to offload them now. Big Nick remains a conundrum. If Jaissle can’t get a tune out of him, we may have to kiss and say farewell, because it hasn’t worked out for either party. I’ll confess to not being optimistic for a happy ending.

 

I actually went to the Strasbourg game, originally because I wanted to give a standing ovation to Valentin Barco who had so got under Jude Bellingham’s skin after the England v Argentina World Cup semi-final, but he’d been sold to Chelsea (now there’s a surprise). In fact, I wish I’d waited and not bought tickets but nabbed a couple of freebies from the Blue Lights Foundation. Instead, I paid my £25 and actually quite enjoyed most of it. Osula and Ramsey were our two best players by a mile, even if they both missed during the baffling penalty shoot out that was needlessly appended to the contest, and Ramsey got in a muddle that led to their equaliser. Until the mass changes by Strasbourg at the unnecessary in 19 degrees, hydration break after 67 minutes, we’d looked in control. That changed the pace of the game, and they could have won it in normal time. Still, I made the most of what may be my only visit to SJP this year, getting to see a few of the new signings. Ewen Jaouen did well, Bazoumana Toure was full of running, but offered little concrete threat and Aladji Bamba, who may be a starter next weekend, was fairly anonymous, other than missing his penalty. I haven’t seen the other new signings: Sean Steur (very promising apparently), Lukas Hornicek (better than Pope) and Amar Dedic (just through the door, but we trounced his Benfica side last season). Where does this leave us in terms of a starting XI. I’ve no idea, but with Livramento about to spend another 9 months on the treatment table and Joelinton mysteriously absent, it could look something like this: Hornicek, Dedic, Hall, Botman, Thiaw, Ramsey, Bamba, Elanga, Barnes, Wissa, Osula. Well, that’s eleven names at least, with Steur, Miley and Toure options off the bench.

You do realise I’m over 1.5k words in and I haven’t mentioned the departure of Howe or the death of Kevin Keegan. That is remiss of me, but it just shows what a basket case of a club Newcastle United has defaulted to. Of course, Kevin Keegan arrived on three occasions when were in considerably worse shape than we are now. In 1982 he came as a player and in 78 league games transformed a team of anonymous trundlers into an attacking, exciting side who deservedly clinched promotion. That was a wonderful time, but it was eclipsed by the joyous, beautiful era of his first managerial appointment. From the Bristol City game in February 1992 until the successive demolitions of Spurs and Leeds in December 1996 and January 1997, St James Park was a cathedral of love. Those days will never return. The modern game isn’t played that way. Even his, in hindsight, ill-judged return in January 2008 to replace the appalling Allardyce saw a visible improvement in the team’s performances. It was tragic how it ended and so sad he never returned to the ground before he passed. The outpouring of emotion his passing engendered shows just what he meant to this club, this region and football as a whole. There will never be another Kevin Keegan.

In the same way as KK looked broken, exhausted and spent when he walked away in January 1997, Eddie Howe seemed to have reached the end of his tether in his press conference after the Bristol City friendly hammering. His departure seemed inevitable, as his haunted expression showed a man who had given his all. Yes, last season wasn’t good enough, but he should have been moved on in May or given this season to turn things round. In the end, he was fatally undermined by those behind the scenes. In many ways, the whole Howe saga it reminded me of The Trial (Der Prozess) by Franz Kafka. It tells the terrifying and surreal story of Josef K, a bank clerk who is arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority for a crime that is never revealed to him. The book stands as one of the definitive literary works of the 20th century, giving rise to the term "Kafkaesque" to describe needlessly complex, bizarre, and oppressive bureaucratic systems. Systems that PIF seem to base their business model on. Still, trust the process eh? PIF OUT!!

West & South

Trips to Newcastle Westgate 4 Hadrian 2 & Gateshead United 1 North East Sporting Club 6...

On account of Percy Main being without games on Saturday 8^th and Wednesday 12^th August, because of problems with the pitch at Rothbury and the resignation from the league of Newcastle Independent respectively, I was given the opportunity to visit a couple of grounds in the Alliance third division I’d not ventured to before.

The Saturday saw me taking the 38 bus from High Heaton to what used to be Rutherford School back in the day and is now known as Soccerworld; a complex of floodlit 4G pitches, where I’ve played 6 a side every Monday evening for more than 20 years. Hence, the location was clearly not unknown to me. That said, I’d never been to what presumably used to be the old Rutherford School grass pitch, where newly elected Newcastle Westgate call home. As you can imagine, it’s a pretty basic set up. There are no spectator facilities as yet, but I noticed a lot of work by volunteers to paint shipping containers dark blue, the colour the team plays in. Presumably these will become toilets and catering outlets in the fullness of time. However, the current situation is that if you need a comfort break, you have to use the Soccerworld premises and if you want a coffee or a snack, then it’s the Tesco express in the garage opposite at the top of the West Road, which is what I did.

Comforted, and refreshed by an Oat Latte, I took a seat on the top of the bank with around 60 others, for the big west versus east clash with Hadrian FC; another fairly new team, who use Miller’s Dene at the end of the Fossway as their home base. As it was a blazingly hot day, I was relieved to be able to find some shade underneath a screen of overhanging trees. Being an east end resident, I instinctively wanted Hadrian to win, partly because they had a pair of hefty, skilful veterans in the centre of the park, who passed the ball immaculately, but struggled to get up and down the pitch in such punishing conditions.

From the outset, Westgate were the better side, carving out 6 presentable opportunities in the first half hour, but blazing each one of them wide of the target. Hadrian took the lead on 32 minutes against the run of play, when the Westgate keeper missed a deep cross into the box that was nodded home at the back post. The home side equalised just before half time, when a neat curling effort from the left edge of the box took a slight deflection to take it out of the keeper’s reach.

The heat began to play a crucial role after the break. Westgate went ahead on 50 when a long clearance was misjudged by a Hadrian defender, allowing the Westgate left winger to precisely lift it into the net. Hadrian came back quickly and it was they who then benefitted from a deflected shot that left the home keeper helpless, to make the score 2-2 on 53 minutes. Westgate kept coming though and, as Hadrian tired, they scored twice more on 70 and 75 minutes, both times seeing agile home forwards outpacing a labouring Hadrian rearguard. After it became 4-2, which was the final score, the fire went out of the game and both sides toiled in the broiling heat. A deserved victory for a lively Westgate outfit over a game Hadrian side. A dead easy journey as well.

This was not so much the case for my second new ground. For a start, Gateshead Borough don’t play in Gateshead. They play in South Tyneside, in Jarrow. Well, in Primrose actually at King George V Playing Fields. Basically, it’s right next to the Lindisfarne roundabout at the end of Leam Lane, heading towards the Tyne Tunnel. Dead easy if you’re a driver. Not so easy if you’re not. Having celebrated my 62^nd birthday on the Tuesday, by going to see the fabulous Andrea Von Kampen at Cluny 2, it was time to get myself a birthday treat. I’d long wanted to visit the Barbour Factory Outlet in Bede Industrial Estate and after a decent trip by bus and metro, I did so. There I was rewarded by finding a couple brilliant dress shirts in the 70% off section and bagged them for £28 each. After a restorative Strawberry McFlurry in a nearby American chain diner, I used Google maps to direct me to Gateshead Borough’s ground. When I tell you that I managed over 13,000 steps that day, you’ll appreciate it was a decent walk.

Firstly, I went past South Shields FC. It’s a good few years since I was last at Filtrona Park, as was, and it has been transformed beyond all recognition with a massive, imposing stand on the road side, which now backs onto an estate of neat, newly built houses. From there, I was in new territory, wandering across open land and through housing I’d never seen before. I emerged from an underpass right next to King George V Playing Fields and settled down on the grassed embankment near the far touchline in a crowd of about 30. There are no spectator facilities to speak of.  While there’s a fence around the pitch, where entrance is effected through a wicket gate, the only building is a set of changing rooms that look like the block on Heaton Terrace in Shields. No toilets I could see, sadly. No corner flags either, only cones. Perhaps the hard, bobbly ground was too firm to accept them.

The final score in this one was Gateshead Borough 1 North East Sporting Club 6, which was pretty generous on the hosts, as their visitors from north of the river (they are based at the Rising Sun) pulverised them from the first whistle. Midfielder Fabian Ikenhi was outstanding all game, ably supported by battering ram centre forward Harry Sawyer, who I remember from his North Shields Athletic days, but NESC were streets ahead in every department. 0-1; a long throw in headed home at the back post after 4. After a terrible offside decision saw a second NESC goal ruled out, it became 0-2 after 22 minutes, just as the eclipse gave the ground an atmospheric sepia tinge, when a defender bundled the ball into his own net, which is how it remained at the break.

Totally against the run of play, Gateshead pulled one back on 48 minutes, after a striker ran on to a superb cross field ball and finished smartly. Bad move, it turned out, as NESC went ruthless from then on. After a bout of arguing, an NESC attacker beat a ragged offside line and slotted home on 55 minutes. Straight from the kick off, Gateshead gave the ball away on the edge of their own box and an NESC striker absolutely rifled the ball home. It was 1-5 on the hour, when a clever bit of play near the byline saw an NESC player shoot home from a tight angle. Gateshead had a notable 60 yard effort just tipped over, but NESC ended the scoring when the impressive Ikenhi headed in from a corner. Full time soon after, then a bus to Jarrow, a Metro to Four Lane Ends and a wander home. Checking the Alliance website before bed, I noted that Percy Main have drawn Bedlington United away in the NFA Minor Cup on 12^th September. Gerrin!! That’s the last ground I need to visit to complete my full set.