http://www.true-faith.co.uk/tf/editorials....B9?OpenDocument
So then, that didn’t last long – the buzz after beating The Beasts swept down the gutters of NE1 in that sudden, apocalyptic-seeming downpour towards the end of the Fulham game when I can’t have been the only one to feel physically sick at what had unfolded in front of us. We are now back in the bottom three after all of our shortcomings were magnified from the moment we gifted Fulham the only goal of the game.
Everything that is wrong with our club was on show – the cluelessness in midfield – the lack of craft, quality and pace in our attacking positions and anything we tried easily emasculated by a well-organised, competent, committed but far from extra-ordinary Fulham side.
Then there was the sight of Aaron Hughes in the Fulham line-up. NUFC has been guilty of some monumental fuck ups in the transfer market over the last five or six seasons or so but surely allowing Aaron Hughes to leave the club for £1m ranks down there with the worst of them. Here was a lad who had come through the youth ranks (one of the few), was settled in the area, married to a local girl, a consummate professional, loved the club, never a moment’s trouble to those running the club unlike some of his then team-mates (Bellamy, Dyer, Bowyer, Bramble et al) and who could play anywhere along the back line and in midfield when occasion demanded it. Don’t get me wrong I’m not building Hughes up as some kind of Maldini-like virtuoso but as a PL player, Hughes was always 7/10 every game. Steady. Honest. Reliable. A good lad, a credit to the club, his family and his profession! Souness sold all of that for £1m and we have spent God knows how much trying to replace him with lesser players. Would anyone care to argue with me that Aaron Hughes is a better player than Side Show Centre Half – Fabricio Collocini? That Cacapa isn’t fit to lace his boots? £1m we sold Aaron Hughes for – a proper player in every conceivable way. There are times when you just want to bounce your head off every available hard surface in sheer frustration at the dickheads who have been allowed to run our club into the fucking dust.
And the lad next to Hughes – Hangeland – a player we had on trial at NUFC but overlooked. Hangeland was the player who was a rock all afternoon, who had Viduka in his pocket for most of the game. Who assessed this lad and decided he wasn’t good enough? Get your fucking coat!
As I’m fond of repeating about our team – the best eleven is a collection of over-the-hill inadaquates and less than mediocrities but fucking hell what about the players who can’t get into this team? Ameobi, Geremi, Smith, Xisco, Cacapa and now Owen, mysteriously injured again apparently. Groin strain in training? Aye, right. See you Micky – thanks for fuck all. Off and count your dough. Drains on our resources – parasites who offer nothing and put on big contracts by people who quite clearly haven’t a fucking clue what they are doing!
And these are the cunts we are relying on to keep us in the Premier League. It’s enough to make you weep.
So off we’ll go to Aston Villa looking for points next Sunday in what has become a desperate, do-or-die bid to remain a Premier League club. There will be players talking to their agents and planning their escape routes from the mess they have created, planning their next moves, their next pay-days, wondering what to spend their obscene salaries on. But all we’ll be thinking about is Aston Villa. Some times you don’t know whether to smile or cry – the tickets for Villa have been easily sold out and there is no question we could have taken twice or three times the allocation. The support this club of our’s gets is out of all proportion to its achievements, the talent of its players, the commitment and competence there is in running it. It is the only world-class feature of a club that has lost its sense of purpose.
After the Villa game we’ll know whether we are a PL club or not. In the week after the Villa game Mike Ashley will “celebrate” his second year as owner of Newcastle United. It will be a fitting time to reflect just how rapidly the club has fallen on his watch.
If we somehow retain our PL status what lies in store for us next season? Another round of cost-cutting scams – players sold and replaced with inferior ones, another season of the club being run on a fucking shoe-string? Another grim struggle against relegation? Another season where the name of Newcastle United is rightly mocked and is a parody of the sporting institution it should be.
But if we go down? We simply don’t have players to get us back up. For all the patter about the rejuvenated Academy, we know we don’t have the players coming through the ranks to form a nucleus of a team to get us up and keep us up. We know there’s not an awful lot there despite the smoke and mirrors attempted with this when the cunt Wise was supposedly doing things with it.
The rumours of player contracts having no relegation clauses together with the long and lucrative deals some of them are on is frankly terrifying. Contracts they are unlikely to be offered anywhere else, meaning their agents will advise them to sit tight and keep collecting the lolly. Put that alongside the lack of nous and will on the part of Ashley and at the fear of being melodramatic, I fear for the future existence of Newcastle United FC should results go against us next Sunday.
Look at the three clubs relegated from the Second Division this season (the daft bastards want us to call it The Championship) – Norwich, Southampton and Charlton – all clubs we have played against in the PL in recent memory. Look at some of the clubs above them currently doing fuck all – Sheff Wed, Derby, Forest – is this the future? Need I mention Leeds?
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All of the sounds coming from Shearer indicate he’s up for the job full time and permanently. For Alan Shearer’s sake I hope he is not being taken for a ride by Ashley in the same way KK was last year. KK back at NUFC with a feel good factor this time last season ahead of some sensible investment in the squad and progress on the pitch was what we bought into last May. As we know that wasn’t the case with Ashley interested in selling us shit and hoping we wouldn’t notice and would be happy we had KK in the dugout. Is this whopper attempting to do the same thing with Shearer? I desperately hope Alan’s enthusiasm for doing the job does not cloud his judgement and he is suckered into being a Trojan horse for season ticket sales. Ashley should be bestowed with absolutely no credibility or trust whatsoever in my opinion.
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Sorry about this but who in their right minds would be tipping up good money for the new Newcastle United (aka the Ashley Top) shirt given the way Ashley has been running our club? The money won’t be used to buy players and he is undeserving of our financial support. There are many of us who will continue to go to matches but as for anything else – Ashley will not get the steam off our shit. The new shirt is Ashley’s – let him keep it and everything else being punted by the club. Don’t buy Ashley’s shirt!
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Rumours continue to grow about a takeover at the club. The latest is the local consortium idea may be about to be trumped by a Shepherd inspired takeover involving US or Far Eastern money. Who knows? One thing is for certain and that is our current decline is in part due to the gross mismanagement of Shepherd in his time as Chairman and his ex-mates, the Halls. All of who made a lot of money out of Newcastle United for minimal investment and little achievement on the park. Few will bemoan the passing of Ashley-Llambias are any of the other useless pricks at NUFC but I find it very difficult to work up any enthusiasm for Shepherd reacquainting himself with Newcastle United FC. He’s only in it for the money, in my opinion.
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There appears to be a degree of uncertainty about what the club plans to do with Barton. Get away eh? Uncertainty at NUFC Vol CCXXVVIII! Frankly, more and more of us are becoming extremely bored with Joey Barton. He fucks up-he says sorry – he’s forgiven, gets another chance – he fucks up and off we go again. Enough. Get him out – no matter what division we’re in.
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It was depressing to learn of well-known Mag Keith Barrett, the Toon Travel gadgie getting himself on the end of a three-year banning order from some idiots in Hull. The banning order was the result of a nothing incident at the KC Stadium back in January for the 3rd round FAC tie. As someone who witnessed the incident reasonably closely I can say it was the kind of incident that would not have even resulted in an arrest had it happened anywhere other than a football stadium. A stern bollocking from a Polis would have been enough. From my own vantage point Keith was doing nothing wrong in displaying his “Cockney Mafia Out” banner before KO, HT and at the end of the game. He and others are entitled to make protests at the way in which the club is being run into the dust. Oh, there were more with Keith’s gumption. It wasn’t causing a distraction to the players on the park but someone took it upon himself to object to the display of the banner and from what I witnessed behaved in a provocative, aggressive and high-handed manner – at one point preventing the banner from being displayed. Frankly, Keith managed to restrain himself in a set of circumstances when many would have reacted far earlier. The lad opposing the display of the banner was no 6-stone weakling either.
From my angle this is a completely inappropriate use of a football banning order. Those who have spent any time travelling around the country following NUFC know full well Keith Barrett is absolutely not a football hooligan and it is nonsensical he is being treated as though he was one. Keith is a credit to Newcastle United supporters and a more fervent supporter of the club it would be difficult to find. Many of us, myself included, have been pulled out of the shite at aways when travel arrangements have unravelled by Keith and his actions are invariably unselfish. These football banning orders so far as I can see it are designed for those committed to causing trouble at the match or in the immediate vicinity of football stadia. You know the lads I’m talking about. Keith isn’t one of those lads and it is an absolute nonsense he is being categorised as one. Keith is an ordinary supporter who has had a row with someone at the match – he has been the only one lifted, charged and banned when the protagonist appears to have been left alone. Get your conspiracy theories ready. The punishment is out of all proportion to the offence. It will be killing Keith to miss games despite us being shit.
I believe Keith is planning an appeal against his ban and I would hope the Newcastle United Supporters Club (NUSC) is helping Keith in any way it can. Don’t expect the FSF to do anything – it might not be in their political interests or suit the career objectives of their apparatchiks to help a Mag in trouble. Remember how they hid behind the sofa when the two lads were had up for the WKL inspired Islamaphobia bollocks with Mido at Boro earlier in the season? This is one for NUSC to step in and support one of our own. We’ve learnt by now that the only people we can rely upon to get anything done for us, is us!
If there is anything this daft little fanzine can do to support Keith and providing he wants us to do, then we will. Keith knows where we are.
On a lighter note, the way things are going, Mags in the away end at Villa Park might be knocking shite out of each other next Sunday in order to get one of those 3-year banning orders and give us a handy excuse to be spared the heartbreak of witnessing the implosion of our football club. Not on the face please!
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So then, Villa it is then. We’ll travel in desperation, pubs will be packed in the NE as nervous Mags become desperate for something to happen in Birmingham and anxious for newly crowned Champions and Champions League finalists Manchester United to go to Hull and win. It will help if Pompey beat the Village of the Damned First Eleven on Monday night so they might be drawn into this horror show.
This is a disaster of a season and it is one that should spell the end of Ashley’s time at NUFC. I couldn’t give a fuck about how much money he stands to lose by selling the club. He just has to go.
Ashley Out!
Keep On, Keepin’ On …
