1867

Just remember, you've had one tough year and you're bouncing straight back, we've had fifteen years of continual shite, and with no end in sight - it could be a damn sight worse!

I'm not here to give you some Geordie bashing like has become fashionable, or butter you up like some do - just going to give an honest assesment of today. Fans Superb following from your lot, and as has been covered elsewhere the only reason you weren't given more tickets (the north-west corner) was because of the South Yorkshire Police - not the club. I was anticipating the corner being used as a spillover for any Newcastle fans caught in our end but it seemed there were only a handful of these cases as opposed to the 5,000 that you estimated would try and get in However, I would like to see how your crowds would fare after ten years of shite like we've had as opposed to the one tough year you've had. I know you like to label yourselves the most loyal fans in the land, and you quite rightly won't be far off, but spare a thought for us. In a two club city unlike yourselves, we have continued to average 20/25,000 for ten years outside the Premiership, good going IMO - when you think about it Newcastle is bigger than half of Sheffield so in terms of attendees per population we won't be far off having the best crowds around (it galls me when Leeds get all the attention for having great fans when they're a one club city not getting much bigger crowds than we did in the Third Division). The crowd today just crawled over 30,000 which was disappointing tbh, although our recent form must have kept a fair few away. One more point, you lot singing 'empty seats' was a bit ironic considering you must have the most empty seats per club in this division every week! (barring last week) Match Having put £15 on you to win, and £1 each on 0-2, 0-3, 0-4 and 0-5, I was stunned by how we actually seemed to care today. We started off like a house on fire and deserved to go in front, but it was inevitable that you'd come back into the game and scored with your first two shots on goal. Apparently the second was offside but I couldn't see from behind the goal - i'd instead like to focus on our sloppy defending - I know Harweood gets a lot of stick from you but him and Ameobi were running our centre-halves ragged, Beevers (a rumoured target for you) was far too lightweight to cope. I didn't like Kevin Nolan, after one niggly tackle from James O'Connor (a poor mans Nicky Butt - who was a class apart), Nolan spent the rest of the afternoon trying to break O'Connor's legs, and Ameobi was fortunate not to get a yellow for his persistant backing in like Marcus Tudgay was (although again, half the time he wasn't fouling at all - just too strong). I thought come half-time we were unlucky to be losing, and deservedly got into the game in the second half, heavy pressue on your goal, and trying not to be biased I couldn't see much wrong with our goal, Varney jumped fair and square, and won the ball, though I haven't seen the replay. Coloccini doesn't look like an international centre-back and he was your weak link. It looked like you had another couple of gears to go up and didn't use them until stoppage time when I was convinced you'd score. A few points on other players I haven't mentioned - Harper - Fantastic save to stop it being 3-2, no idea how he managed it (the useless lump of a ref wanted to give a goal kick) Enrique - Looks a really tidy player but didn't seem up for it Butt - your best player, never lost the ball All in all I was happy with a point, as should you too - we could well have won it. I've read others slating the performance etc... If you can get a draw away from home anywhere in this league you've done well and you have a strong home record/ten point advantage - stop moaning, you have it easy! All the best for the rest of the season, you'll piss this league