Percy Street

5-4 Fantastic. The daft personal memory was being in Inventions (now the Crow's Nest) on soft drinks after the game. I'd had a particularly pickled Christmas and I remember I stayed off the booze for 3 weeks (for clarity that doesn't mean I'm lying face down the days I'm on it - then or now (!) but I was on, for me , a serious fitness thing). My disbelieving mate said after the game "are you sure" you're not drinking?" "If we played like that every week I wouldn't need to" was my sober reply. And watching the crowd - we forget how much the old place rocked. I'm sure SJP will be up for tomorrow but I'd so love some sci fi timeslip where the mackems ran out to THAT St James' Park............Darren Bent running back down the tunnel, Lee Cattermole finding out he's not a hardman after all and Steve Bruce stumbling around saying "where is this place?"

Talksport is there purely to provoke a reaction and they are largely clueless about matters in the North East. The "biggest" derby is always your own I realise but SJP attendances dwarf anything in the midlands, Edinburgh or the South Coast. I imagine the "arrests" stats speak for themselves as well. As respected football expert Howman Heyman points out this was probably cobbled together in a hury by some southern research assistant.

Face pressed against our window all their lives. Even Father Dougall wouldn't need to ask "so why are they called sad, mackem bastards then...................?"

We rode out luck against Arsenal at times but could have been 2-0 up by half time. How we didn't beat United is beyond me, we couldn't have got anymore unlucky if we tried. And against City we played them off the park for at least 45 minutes and more than deserved the last minute winner, although we got super, super lucky with Tevez's miss. I'm expecting a positive result against Villa tomorrow too... And as the saying goes, form goes out of the window in derby games, so those stats mean nothing really do they? You seem a sensible and reasonable sort (despite your obvious flaw) but some of your mates on Ready to Go astound. Some good posters on there when i take a sneak peak but also some complete and utter tools without any sense of self awareness or irony. That we get some knackas on Newcastle boards I wouldn't argue for a second. I play football with mackems, go for a pint with some and would call the odd one a mate. I'm not being an arse here (at least not intentionally!). Sunday is a tough game and one we could easily lose - we could also easily win it as well. For me we have the better individual players, Sunderland the better defence. Where some of the mackem's shoutier (new word alert) confidence about humping us comes from I'm not sure. Sunderland's away form is awful and they are almost comically reliant on Darren Bent to score goals. If Sunderland were playing Wolves the pre match instructions from McCarthy to Karl Henry wouldn't require huge amounts of cynicism to imagine. Thru my biased eyes the MOTD highlights seemed to suggest the mackems used up two games worth of good fortune yesterday - here is hoping from the bottom of my twisted black and white heart. 2-1 to the North East's biggest club (and don't mackem's know that better than us - it eats the dafter ones constantly)

I may be corrected here but has anyone ever failed the "fit and proper persons"test? I don't think it has any credibility to be honest. I don't think the football authoritieshave the expertise or the power to make it meaningful. Sort of the point I was making. Sorry ewerk - not at the peak of my perceptive powers at midnight on a Friday - can't think why! Cheers Percy

I may be corrected here but has anyone ever failed the "fit and proper persons"test? I don't think it has any credibility to be honest. I don't think the football authoritieshave the expertise or the power to make it meaningful.

Lots of clubs sack managers after short bad runs and we have serial form for panic stricken decision making, doesn't make it right! The timing and the nature of dear old Bobby's departure was a shockingly bad piece of decision making - Doug Hall (his name rhymed with fuck all for a reason) - took the bow for that one I believe. Hughton still has a lot to prove after a great season last time out but I'm totally unconvinced that sacking him is the answer. One of the few real strengths we seem to have at the club is the team bond / spirit that Hughton has built in tandem with the players. Blowing that apart for someone else (and who ?) would seem to be a huge gamble. Newcastle cries out for stability and has huge inglorious form for hitting the panic button - the last thing we need right now is all change. Yes things could get worse lose the next two league games and CH may well not survive - I prefer to raise my half full glass to the do -able prospect of winning them both.

There will still be a few dotted around, I know a couple going. Thankfully I've got a ticket in our end (touch wood) so I will be fine. It is too early for a score prediction then? I'm going for a 0-1 away win. I'm not kidding myself either, it's going to be a hell of a battle but if we play our normal game for stretches of the game we should scrape it. I'm not highly confident by any means but it feels better going into this game with a decent chance of taking all 3 points, it's normally the other way around, an embarrassment at St. James' isn't easy to take. Was slightly worried about the aerial threat of Carroll at the start of the season but now I can't say I'm bothered. Bramble and Turner are superb in the air and have handled everyone so far with ease, Carroll looked extremely poor against a strong Stoke defence too. We've got pace on the break so that'll be handy against Williamson and co. How Enrique handles Elmohamady (sp) will be key, if Elmo gets his way with him you'll be in trouble, he's been superb this season. Fast as a rocket and has a wicked cross, glad we've got a permanent deal lined up for him at the end of the season as apparently other clubs have been sniffing around. So aye, 0-1 - Bent (34 mins). Predicting Bent as your goal threat - you didn't need to deal the Tarot cards to work that one out now did you? Probably be a typical nervy derby - the games you can only enjoy afterwards - sometimes. Still very sick that Hatem Benny won't be available but I think we've got enough. I'm a reasonable Mag as well. I've already sent Darren Bent a get well slowly card. And don't forget the wonders of the Shola system. Whatever his faults not scoring against the mackems isn't one of them. Home win over the undead on Halloween.

Spot on. The club's approach to communication reamains as bizarre and unhelpful as ever. That said the tediously negative knee jerk elsewhere on this thread probably depresses me more.

A good opening post on this thread. I've highlighted the reported comment as the sort of negativity that just does my head in. Elsewhere on here someone criticises Shola for scoring a poor quality hat trick - for fuck's sake man! Shola on reliable authority is a very good lad who lacks aggression from a standing start- people who ought to know tell me so! Has a lot of natural ability but lacks consistency, is injury prone and has underachieved hugely. Seen plenty of worse forwards but to be fair they didn't last anything like as long. For the club and his sake he probably should have been moved on a while back but............ ......there are many people on and off the pitch at SJP down the years far more deserving of the abuse that Shola cops. If he falls on his arse today I won't boo him and if he scores I will cheer because I'm not a miserable twat - I'm calm!

Couldn't agree more! And i don't accept this "injuries" risk either. If you are going to get an injury crisis you are going to get one - players can get fettled in pre season games and training - perhaps we shouldn't do those either! .............and don't accept our squad is that small either, dependant upon the next 24 hours perhaps. If Chelsea put a strong team out we also need to do so as well - an "Accrington" team would get mauled - no benefits to anyone in that.

I understand the logic in rotating for this one and that the gap between the sides should allow us to do it but............... .............I will hate it if we blow this by trying to take the piss and put out a team entirely made up of kids. Teams can be over cautious in "avoiding injuries" If your name is on an injury crisis you'll get one - players can get fettled in training. I'd love to see us make a go of a cup run. And there is plenty of scope in changing Sunday's team without making it a kindergarden. - Involve (from the off) Krul, Lovenkrands, Shola, Xisco, Raylor, Kadar , Guthrie (if fit) and surely Campbell can play here? Never bought into this "disregard the cups and concentrate on survival mentality" - it reeks of fear and small time thinking. A cup win is unlikely I realise (very unlikely if your name is NUFC) but in the last decade Boro and Portsmouth have shown its not impossible to break the stranglehold of the "big" (whatever number they are now). Winning the Carling cup would be Sunday's feelgood factor times 10 - madness not to give it a go.

Will not kid myself that I can do all 20 places but just to say.......... Nee surprises Blackpool simply must have a relegation place booked. Think they will be joined by Wigan who had horrendous defensive problems last season. After that well yes if things go wrong we could feature but I fancy us to spend the season in a relegation battle of varying degrees but ultimately to survive. We are miles behind the PL big hitters but I think that blinds too many people. So is at least half the division. Have half a feeling Wolves will go down with Wigan and Blackpool. Expect Stoke and Brum to do much worse this time around - just a hunch. At the top Liverpool's hand has been stengthened by swapping Rafa for Roy and Joe Cole for Benayoun although I do think the latter is a decent player. The scousers though still have some big problems (relative to their aspirations) The CL and Europa places are between eight teams and extremely hard to call.

So much of what the Tories are doing is driven not by need but of their traditional dislike of the public sector and public sector unions. That the sons and daughters of Thatcher are being aided and abetted in their dirty deeds by so called bloody Liberals is one that party may want to ponder. And they may want to pnder it some more when , as I suspect, they get a kicking in the next local elections. Tory voters voted for this public sector hatchet job, I doubt Lib Dem voters did. This is not the 80's when the ice queen had a huge majority - Labour needs to get its act together and soon for when this marriage of career convenience heads for the divorce courts. Clegg's grab for office is the most shameless abandonment of doing the right thing since Blair crawled up George Bush's arse but I digress.

Voted for Nolan. Last season said the right things off the pitch and did plenty of right things on it. Think he likes it up here and is up for the fight. Will start more games than Smith, Barton doesn't deserve the arm band on his Toon career to date but live in hope he one day matches the brochure. Taylor wouldn't be the worst shout in some ways but would he unite the team? All points to Nolan for me.