PaddockLad

Brilliant week for the club, even Krul getting a knock the other night doesn't seem to be that much of a handicap. Well done to Pardew and all the players, great stuff.

No, I didn't PM you, I sent a message via the board somehow..."contact us" perhaps?..anyway, not to worry, thanks for your advice....

Cant paste any links into the posting box, its pissing me off. Only happened since I got windows 8, browser is IE. Firefox has problems too. Any ideas?...unable to use the enter key as well, it wont move the cursor at all when trying to post something. Sent a message about this to (I presume) Ant a couple of weeks back but he's been busy apparently...

Garth Crooks made it sound like goal of the decade ...canny enough but theres been better this season alone

I think we knocked back bids for him in the summer...that may explain his "slow" start to the season. Very talented, but he's not going to cement either Spurs or Arsenal into top 4. On the other hand Scholes and Giggs will be lucky to get another contract iyam and Michael Carrick is 33. If manu come knocking I would imagine it would be difficult to keep him. Just as likely to be his own agent planting the stories.

Anybody wanting to blockade Barrack Road with tractors then burn some sheep outside the Black Bull please note the convoy is leaving Wooler at 9am

a. Giddy's already got his sums wrong, he's already borrowing more than he said he'd have to. b. the rating downgrade will make borrowing the money he said he wouldn't need 2 years ago (see a. above) more expensive. c. He's paid not to fuck up like this, he's the fuckin chancellor. 3 years in this is his gig. He knows what he took on and knew the euro zone was a basket case. His job was to steer a course through it. He's got it ludicrously wrong because he's ideologically driven to sack both dinner ladies and squaddies putting their lives on the line un Afghanistan whilst at the same time paying lip service to reform of the tossers in the city who caused the whole fuckin mess in the first place. He's a piece of work this fucker.

Kharkiv was cold, but I think I can confirm that UK is fuckin colder this weekend....great trip, one of the best. Went to Riga for Ventspils and that was very nice for a city that was under communist control until just over 20 years ago....Kharkiv was in part a very fuckin different place ...every third bloke in some sort of para military/police uniform, loads of sinister looking "security" goons hanging about outside shops that didn't have doors, just little hatches to serve out of. Tyne and Wear's finest telling us that every bloke casually reading a paper outside the ground was a plain clothes Ukraine secret service agent, tasked with keeping the locals in line, apparently armed with a list from the club of every hotel where our lot were staying On phone at the moment, will post some appallingly taken pictures later...

Yeah, Pendik (stranglely, also the name of my local kebab house ) is 14km away...might be worth a trip after brekkie at the airport...theres a speedboat or something that will take you for a trip but I'd wager we may be a bit early for that in mid Feb...

http://www.muzu.tv/tricky/black-steel-music-video/234643/ Now yer talkin....one of my all time favouritist tracks of all time

This is where we have a 6 hour stopover via the Turkish version of Ryanair on the way to Kharkiv tomorrow... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabiha_G%C3%B6k%C3%A7en_International_Airport Just the 22 miles outside central Istanbul, landing at 0515 "We've booked, its brillaint, we'll go for a boat trip down the Bospurus whilst we're waiting for the connection to Kharkiv!!" from those quick off the mark on this gig sounds a bit hollow now...bus to the "notoriously slow and overcrowded" Istanbul metro system if we want to go into town...might have to get another book....

How can you know what you'll regret on your deathbed?....I have a feeling mine will be being pissed off with never having seen Newcastle win a fuckin thing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/18/arsene-wenger-arsenal-transcript Looks like our saintly bretheren in her maiesty's press corps have completely rattled Monsieur Wenger this time Poor fucker, after what he's done for that club, theres little gratitude going round. He invented the modern Arsenal, in a similar way that Keegan invented the modern Newcastle united i.e. the key figure of the late 20th/early 21st century. I think Keegan gets a lot more credit up here than Wenger does down there. If he gets hounded out all they need to do is look where Liverpool are for what state they could end up in if they get the next appointment wrong, and its a lot more likely to go that way as long as there are two different warring factions at board level.

I dont think I've seen a better tournament performance than Zidane's at Euro 2000, Maradonna 86 excluded.....or is it?...Maradonna got injured in the England game and contributed comparatively little to the semi and final...is what some people say... Certainly the Spain teams of the last 3 major tournaments are playing football on a different planet to a lot of what has gone before....but I think we've all seen more entertaining individuals than Iniesta at tournaments in the past e.g. the two above, Cruyff in the 70s,Platini for a couple of tournaments in the 80s etc...thats not to say he's shite, its that a lot of his work comes as part of the Spain "package"....if you're saying Iniesta is underrated, what about Xavi?...I enjoy watching him play more than the rest tbh....thats mostly just for what he brings to the team, range of passing etc.

Hows the band going mate? still gigging?..any new stuff we can hear?... edit:...much the same as others....go out friday nite, spend most of Saturday caning something or other, sleep sunday night (usually.... often awake all night Monday though with the heebeegeebees )

Sir Bob wouldve been 80 today http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2280501/Roy-Hodgson-praises-Sir-Bobby-Robson-day-80th-birthday.html Which means its 10 years to the day since we went to Leverkusen without Shearer and Bellamy and won two nil.....Shola scored....fuckin hell we could do with some of that spirit on Thursaday...

How do you account for 5th place then the season before?...who was that down to? Kevin Keegan?

Tricksy Ronnie! http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/video/2013/feb/18/ronaldinho-water-bottle-assist-video

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21478857 Manu have 659million fans worldwide, including 90 million in Europe

"Two steps could be taken to improve transparency. Firstly, publish the wages of players, as they do in the US sports, so there is no mystique about salaries. Secondly, as well as publishing how much a club spend on agents – as the Football League and Premier League do every year – break down those fees to the individual agents and their companies. Let's see which agents and clubs share an especially close relationship." http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/17/gary-neville-football-agents-player-wages Gary Neville is a stand up bloke. Like him a lot. You dont have to agree with his more emotional outbursts as a player (the "lets strike for Rio" whilst on England duty springs to mind, but he was only a young un then) to see that he has a pretty good sense of what is right and wrong in the game. If the FA had a real desire for change he'd be brilliant in a senior role there, but theres too many vested interests at that place to let someone with a bit of common sense through the door.

Yeah but you work in IT with the rest of the panises...swings and roundabouts son....

Bit of S&G?...."Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?..." Those lads knew the score ......lovely harmonies too

Pah! I build fuckin aircraft carriers with my male hormones

Bigger dispaosable income to be spent on this stuff=becoming "middle class/income" having its effect too. If you've nowt left after housing, feeding and clothing yourselves and the bairns at the end of the week Clinique isnt going to be an issue. That paragraph made me laugh out loud at my new desk next to the project manager, he now thinks am a cunt