Newcastle United vs Nottingham Forest

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Gush away lad, let it all out!

[Guest alex]

Really enjoyed last night, especially the atmosphere which, at times, was really good I thought. Delighted for Enrique last night in particular after he got his goal. Up until then it was like shelling peas for him, it was so easy. Again.

[Guest alex]

What a lovely feeling it is to be winning football matches. Woke up with a smile on my face.

 

On adifferent note, I thought that James Perch was excellent, handled Jonas very well, can play right or left, young, cheap. Ticks a lot of boxes.

Tbf, wor lass could have marked Jonas last night. He was utter gash.

[donaldstott 0]

What a lovely feeling it is to be winning football matches. Woke up with a smile on my face.

 

On adifferent note, I thought that James Perch was excellent, handled Jonas very well, can play right or left, young, cheap. Ticks a lot of boxes.

Tbf, wor lass could have marked Jonas last night. He was utter gash.

 

Yeah, he tends to regress as soon as he comes up against someone who can match his pace. Having said that i think he used the ball better last night and brought other people in to play when it became apparent he wasn't gonna beat Perch.

 

One of his free kick winning dives was just embarrassing. IIRC it was early in the second half, 10 yards in to Forest territory.

[Guest Barrack Road]

What a lovely feeling it is to be winning football matches. Woke up with a smile on my face.

 

On adifferent note, I thought that James Perch was excellent, handled Jonas very well, can play right or left, young, cheap. Ticks a lot of boxes.

Tbf, wor lass could have marked Jonas last night. He was utter gash.

 

Yeah, he tends to regress as soon as he comes up against someone who can match his pace. Having said that i think he used the ball better last night and brought other people in to play when it became apparent he wasn't gonna beat Perch.

 

One of his free kick winning dives was just embarrassing. IIRC it was early in the second half, 10 yards in to Forest territory.

Who cares I'm all for fair play, when we're the benefactor, all this bollocks about English fans booing their own players who dive, I certainly never will, part of the game rightly or wrongly.

[Guest Barrack Road]

Newcastle are often described as ‘everyone’s second favourite’ team. When Kevin Keegan’s attack-minded team were credible challengers to the evil Manchester United empire, who could fail to admire them?

 

How times have moved on.

 

The failing club from the sportsdirect.com stadium of today is an object of ridicule, their fans can only be mocked for their delusions of grandeur following their slide into Division Two and their style of football is effective, yet terribly dull.

 

Great night out and all that, but as we're about to whopp their 'never won fuck all' asses this evening, here six good reasons not to like them:

 

1) Geordie tears

 

In short, we’re sick of the weeping. The close-up of the sobbing fat Geordie has become one of the iconic images in the modern game. Newcastle fans patented the weeping-fan genre as Keegan’s team blew the title in 1996. Within seconds of the final whistle sounding at Villa Park when they went down, the camera picked out a Newcastle fan crying shamelessly. G.E.T. A. B.L.O.O.D.Y. G.R.I.P.

 

That said, there’ll no better sight than seeing a few fat, topless Geordies crying tonight, as the magnificant Trickies mock: ‘Crying on the telly, we saw you crying on the telly’.

 

2) Massive club syndrome

 

Stick a microphone in front of any randomly selected gaggle of barcodes and I guarantee that they will tell you, with no trace of irony, that Newcastle are a ‘massive club’. Geordies believe that Newcastle’s rightful place is at the top of the Premiership.

 

Despite decades of underachievement – their last domestic trophy was in 1955 – the delusion that Newcastle belong amongst the elite still persists. It was perfectly expressed by David Ginola, who said: ‘It would be a disaster for the city if Newcastle went down. But it would be a disaster for the Premier League as well. The English game would suffer.’

 

Well, I’ll concede relegation might have been a disaster for Newcastle. But a disaster for the Premier League? I don’t think so. Their crap brand of football certainly hasn't be missed. Like Leeds, the rest barely know they're missing. Thing is Newcastle, you're a very average club tucked away in the far reaches of England that isn't known beyond these shores for the simple fact that you're not, and never have been, a big club.

 

No one actually cares about you.

 

 

3) Geordie Messiahs

 

One of the most pathetic spectacles in football is that of thousands of Geordies gathering at the gates of St James’ Park proclaiming their latest Messiah. What is it with Geordies and Messiahs? First they put their faith in Keegan, an inspirational manager but a tactical dunce. Keegan quit in 1997 saying that he couldn’t take the club any further. Quitting isn’t exactly one the characteristics you’d look for in a prospective Messiah, but Newcastle never stopped believing in King Kev.

 

Bobby Robson was hailed as a saviour when he took the job in 1999 but he joined the ranks of unemployed Messiahs in 2004.

 

Keegan’s Second Coming in January 2008 was greeted with delirium on Tyneside and widespread bewilderment everywhere else. The Newcastle fans still had faith in a man who three months earlier had said he was ‘finished’ with management and hardly watched any matches. Inevitably, Keegan walked out on the club in September 2008.

 

As relegation loomed chairman Mike Ashley played his final Messiah card by hiring Alan Shearer. Cue delirium on Tyneside again. f anyone could save the Toon from the drop then Wor Alan was the man to do it. Admittedly he had no managerial experience whatsoever but why should that be an obstacle? Shearer started fining players for turning up late for training – a sure sign of how far the rot had set in – but he couldn’t perform miracles.

 

Newcastle listen up - There is only one messiah. He died 20 September 2004, and he bloody well hated you lot.

 

4) Self-styled ‘best supporters’ in the land

 

Newcastle fans are often described as the ‘best supporters’ in the country, and most of them believe this nonsense. They point to the 50,000 paying punters who turn up at the sportsdirect.com stadium every week, despite the fact that the Toon have won bugger all trophies for decades. That shows just how passionate and committed their fans are, right?

 

Wrong.

 

Newcastle’s support is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a huge one-club cesspit of a city so there’s no market competition. So they’ve not won any trophies for years – so what? The Championship is full of clubs who have won sod all for years. Unlike Newcastle, they haven’t had the pulling power of Premiership football to put bums on seats. Prior to getting yourselves back into the top flight in the early 90's, your support was appauling. I remember you averaging 16000 in the early nineties. This at a time when post-World Cup fever had spread across the nation, so don't give me any crap about recessions and hooliganism.

 

For a one-club city that size, with regular Premierhsip football, of course you're going to get big crowds. It would be very interesting to see how many would still stay around if you endured what we have over the last ten years.

 

 

5) Geordie Nation

 

It was former Newcastle chairman Sir John Hall who popularised the myth that Geordies were a nation apart. ‘The Geordie nation – that’s what we’re fighting for’, Hall once said. ‘London’s the enemy. The South East’s the enemy.’

 

Hall’s phoney North-East nationalism finds contemporary expression in the belief that Newcastle United should be managed by someone who understands the inscrutable ways of the Geordie. ‘You listen to the phone-ins and people talking about it. They’re people who don’t understand this place, they don’t understand the Geordies. I do’, said Kevin Keegan. ‘This is my third time here, my dad was a Geordie, so I understand them and I know what they want.’

 

The idea that Geordie culture is incomprehensible to outsiders was bluntly expressed in the ‘Cockney Mafia Out’ banner unfurled at the sportsdirect.com stadium. Another banner read: ‘YIZ DIVINNT KNAA NOWT ABOUT GEORDIES, ITS WOR CLUB, LERRIT GAN, NIVVA RETORN. GORRIT.’

 

Or, as they say in German: Ausländer Raus.

 

The thing is, there’s no great mystery to Newcastle’s decline. It’s nothing to do with the failure to understand the Geordies, and your arrogant belief in having your own nation. You'd be fucked if you didn't get your welfare state handouts from the rest of us, so just drop it hey?

 

It’s simply down to bad management and underperforming players. End of.

 

6) Pitch invasions

 

6 March 1974

 

Bastards.

I thought the Forest fans were set of wanks tbh, quiet too, don't know why anyone thought they were noisy. They are just another team clearly obsessed with us if this post on their board is anything to go by.

 

"No one actually cares about you" apart from sad fucking non entity people from non event towns and cities like Nottingham, who devote 40 minutes of their lives writing about why no one cares about us

 

Wanks.

[Barney 0]

[Andrew 4219]

fella must be fucking fuming today

 

[acrossthepond 703]

That Forest load of tripe Stevie's posted is diabolical. Can you imagine the gall of this lot to talk about "delusions of grandeur following their slide into Division Two" - well, you load of Nottingham wankers were playing in Division Three until recently! Then there's the old saw about Keegan being a "tactical dunce" (well, at least they have the right to talk about managers, having had one of the greatest English managers of all time, but it's still wrong) and let's not forget "one club city" and "nobody cares about you."

 

I hope we saw them off with "we'll meet again." Ian Woan. Bastards.

[NJS 3978]

My pyramid of hatred has always gone SAFC/MUFC-LFC/SWFC-THFC-NFFC - Forest have always had their place because of what I described in the thread the other week about the 95/96 season which is why I was quite pleased we beat the scabby cunts more than any notion of gaining pointless promotion.

 

That forum post is an example of something I've begun to relish - I like the fact that minor cunts all over the country now seem to hate us - it gives me a warm feeling inside.

[Guest Barrack Road]

My pyramid of hatred has always gone SAFC/MUFC-LFC/SWFC-THFC-NFFC - Forest have always had their place because of what I described in the thread the other week about the 95/96 season which is why I was quite pleased we beat the scabby cunts more than any notion of gaining pointless promotion.

 

That forum post is an example of something I've begun to relish - I like the fact that minor cunts all over the country now seem to hate us - it gives me a warm feeling inside.

It's not just minor cunts. I think it's almost everyone apart from the big three of Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea. I had no idea the depth of Leeds' hatred towards us till recently. Surely some of this hatred is derived from insecurity and jealousy?

[Andrew 4219]

My pyramid of hatred has always gone SAFC/MUFC-LFC/SWFC-THFC-NFFC - Forest have always had their place because of what I described in the thread the other week about the 95/96 season which is why I was quite pleased we beat the scabby cunts more than any notion of gaining pointless promotion.

 

That forum post is an example of something I've begun to relish - I like the fact that minor cunts all over the country now seem to hate us - it gives me a warm feeling inside.

It's not just minor cunts. I think it's almost everyone apart from the big three of Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea. I had no idea the depth of Leeds' hatred towards us till recently. Surely some of this hatred is derived from insecurity and jealousy?

 

well it can't be derived from recent competition can it?

[Papa Lazaru 0]

My pyramid of hatred has always gone SAFC/MUFC-LFC/SWFC-THFC-NFFC - Forest have always had their place because of what I described in the thread the other week about the 95/96 season which is why I was quite pleased we beat the scabby cunts more than any notion of gaining pointless promotion.

 

That forum post is an example of something I've begun to relish - I like the fact that minor cunts all over the country now seem to hate us - it gives me a warm feeling inside.

It's not just minor cunts. I think it's almost everyone apart from the big three of Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea. I had no idea the depth of Leeds' hatred towards us till recently. Surely some of this hatred is derived from insecurity and jealousy?

 

Pretty much all insecurity, since as they all continually remind us we've won fuck all for decades!

 

And like you said its hilarious how much of their time and effort people will go to to tell us that they don't care about us, and genuinely be too thick to see the irony in it!

 

I've never given a shit about other fans views of us, positive or negative but i'm getting and added little bonus from promotion knowing how many sad little bastards are gutted that we're heading back where we "deludedly" think we belong! They all wanted us to become Leeds mark 2, well tough shit we haven't!

Edited March 30, 2010 by Papa Lazaru

[Ayatollah Hermione 12767]

Nobody cares about us except the bloke who felt he had to write a full essay about us.

[Guest Barrack Road]

My pyramid of hatred has always gone SAFC/MUFC-LFC/SWFC-THFC-NFFC - Forest have always had their place because of what I described in the thread the other week about the 95/96 season which is why I was quite pleased we beat the scabby cunts more than any notion of gaining pointless promotion.

 

That forum post is an example of something I've begun to relish - I like the fact that minor cunts all over the country now seem to hate us - it gives me a warm feeling inside.

It's not just minor cunts. I think it's almost everyone apart from the big three of Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea. I had no idea the depth of Leeds' hatred towards us till recently. Surely some of this hatred is derived from insecurity and jealousy?

 

Pretty much all insecurity, since as they all continually remind us we've won fuck all for decades!

 

And like you said its hilarious how much of their time and effort people will go to to tell us that they don't care about us, and genuinely be too thick to see the irony in it!

 

I've never given a shit about other fans views of us, positive or negative but i'm getting and added little bonus from promotion knowing how many sad little bastards are gutted that we're heading back where we "deludedly" think we belong! They all wanted us to become Leeds mark 2, well tough shit we haven't!

Which was the most satisying thing about last night, absolutely fantastic feeling knowing many thousands of ABN's around the country are fucked off. WE ARE FUCKIN BACK!! We might struggle next season, but lets just enjoy our moment today eh? To be honest in footballing terms I think it's better being hated than loved by opposition.

[NJS 3978]

To be honest in footballing terms I think it's better being hated than loved by opposition.

 

The Scouse Cunts in their heyday, Man Utd and at International the Germans have all absolutely thrived on other people's hatred. I think the English national team have been pretty much a failure in my lifetime because of their inability to do the same.

[Guest Barrack Road]

Some of the reasons we're hated for make me laugh though. "Geordies are cunts". Obviously I'm biased but you're never ever alone in Newcastle, people are warm and genuine, as they are in other places of course, but most geordies are good people and you can't say the same about some other places. Even the heed the baal geordies have endearing qualities.

[luckyluke 1]

Some of the reasons we're hated for make me laugh though. "Geordies are cunts". Obviously I'm biased but you're never ever alone in Newcastle, people are warm and genuine, as they are in other places of course, but most geordies are good people and you can't say the same about some other places. Even the heed the baal geordies have endearing qualities.

 

Except if you hail from anywhere outside Newcastle.

[Guest Barrack Road]

Some of the reasons we're hated for make me laugh though. "Geordies are cunts". Obviously I'm biased but you're never ever alone in Newcastle, people are warm and genuine, as they are in other places of course, but most geordies are good people and you can't say the same about some other places. Even the heed the baal geordies have endearing qualities.

 

Except if you hail from anywhere outside Newcastle.

I had a suit on at Anfield once, long story, but I was in their press box, game Steve Watson scored from 25 yards, and some fuckin seagull shat on me down the front of me buttoned up suit. Some old dear must've 70 came over licked her hanky and wiped it off. One of the nicest things I've ever seen, for an old lady to do that, good and bad people everywhere, but you can't say all geordies are cunts like many people do.

 

Is anyone else over 8/10 in the hangover rating stakes today, I'm totally fucked but happy.

Edited March 30, 2010 by Barrack Road

[luckyluke 1]

Some of the reasons we're hated for make me laugh though. "Geordies are cunts". Obviously I'm biased but you're never ever alone in Newcastle, people are warm and genuine, as they are in other places of course, but most geordies are good people and you can't say the same about some other places. Even the heed the baal geordies have endearing qualities.

 

Except if you hail from anywhere outside Newcastle.

I had a suit on at Anfield once, long story, but I was in their press box, game Steve Watson scored from 25 yards, and some fuckin seagull shat on me down the front of me buttoned up suit. Some old dear must've 70 came over licked her hanky and wiped it off. One of the nicest things I've ever seen, for an old lady to do that, good and bad people everywhere, but you can't say all geordies are cunts like many people do.

 

Is anyone else over 8/10 in the hangover rating stakes today, I'm totally fucked but happy.

 

What I was getting at is that you can't say all [any other group of people] are cunts either but you frequently do.

[Giraffidae 0]

Nobody cares about us except the bloke who felt he had to write a full essay about us.

^ exactly. Can only laugh at their bitterness.

 

 

Anyway, I slept like a log last night after the promotion tension seemed to be lifted.

 

Unusually I wasn’t at all tense during the match last night, Forest like other teams this season were playing out of their skins last night, but you just knew (like other teams have) they would be burnt out in the last 20 minutes with a decent push, it was ours to take. Men against boys.

 

We’ve been shite more often than not this season, but the signings in the transfer window and Guthrie now being played in the centre has got us going. More importantly the team spirit this season has been exceptional — you can’t put a price on that.

 

Our defending as a team, as well as the passing and movement was a joy. Williamson and Enrique were top class — so was that Perch too.

[Howmanheyman 26815]

To be honest I got a lot of satisfaction out of last night as I was down in Nottingham for our defeat and they were completely nobbish all day, trying to herd us into some big shit room in Notts Countys ground and expecting us to stay there and be happy bunnies. Fuck that! anyway, some of their fans were arseholes and I had the pleasure of scaring one young halfwit shitless as he gave some Geordies who were in the distance a bit of stick with the usual 'aint won no silverware/Geordie cunts' type patter. Poor lad didn't realise that the two lads behind him were 'Geordie cunts' till I asked him to re-phrase himself. The words 'white' and 'sheet' come to mind. Stewards arguing the toss. Police ignoring notts pricks whilst trying to stare me out in a Village people type way. Singing '1-0 to the famous club' and virtually doing a lap of honour in front of nearly 10K more than the very next league match at the City Ground. Small time actions from a once successful club. By the way, when we finished 3rd in Div2 in '84 we had the 3rd highest average gate in the country, 29,811. Forest also finished 3rd but in the 1st division and were watched by an average 17,698, this wasn't too long from their European Cup heyday. Small time club. (And I didn't even mention them being scabs!)

[donaldstott 0]

http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/201...for-future.html

 

Caulkin doing what he does very well.

[Barney 0]

I think I heard Paddy Powers are paying out on us as winners.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/201...for-future.html

 

Caulkin doing what he does very well.

Chris Hughton knew. Naturally, he was saying nothing - it would have been deeply uncharacteristic to stray away from that trusted formula - but Chris Hughton knew. Twice, Newcastle United scored and twice he skittered along the touchline at St James' Park, fists pummeling. Twice he composed himself, smiling faintly, as if embarrassed by the unrestricted nature of his reaction. But he knew, all right.

 

Inside the stadium, with journalists still shaking rainwater from their laptops, Billy Davies enunciated what Hughton knew; barring alien invasion, acts of God, or royal decree, Newcastle are returning to the Barclays Premier League. “I’d like to offer congratulations to Chris and his players for their next challenge,” Davies said. When told of the compliment, Hughton looked tempted to block his ears.

 

Hughton has overseen the quietest of revolutions on Tyneside, which if it wasn’t so contradictory, would be utterly startling. At this most febrile of football clubs, with its loyal and yearning supporters, those years of trophy signings and brittle foundations, managerial upheaval and boardroom failings, serenity and self-containment have become the new black and white.

 

It is why the recent training-ground confrontation involving Andy Carroll and Steven Taylor was such a source of annoyance (moral outrage was fatally wounded some time between Bowyer/Dyer, Joey Barton and Kevin Keegan’s tribunal). Public perceptions change slowly and here was an excuse for the wider world to rehash those cliched tales of past lunacy. However unpleasant and distasteful, it is not the salient story of Newcastle’s season.

 

Whether Newcastle have been correct in saying nothing about an incident which has left one of their players with a double fracture to his face and feeding through a straw (there are separate legal issues to consider), is a matter of opinion, but on the pitch, they have not broken stride. They have got on with doing what they have done relentlessly since August; demonstrating unity and winning.

 

In his own quiet manner, Hughton embodies it. As a reporter, you long for him to be open or forthright - and fans might wish to know more about events at their club - but anybody who remembers the unhinged pronouncements of Joe Kinnear will appreciate the value of a little restraint. The manager soaks up hyperbole and in being more difficult to get into the paper, it becomes easier for the club to reinvent itself.

 

It can make you smile. As his press briefing last Saturday, Hughton was asked whether circling the wagons and fostering a siege mentality, has been one of Newcastle’s achievements this season. It was a question half-related to Carroll/Taylor and designed to elicit some sort of comment (I’ll hold my hands up at this point) and the manager clearly saw it coming. Here, for your delectation, is his verbatim response.

 

“I think the success this season has been a football team that has managed to be top of this division for the large part of the season,” he said. “When you're a team that has managed to be top of this division, you have more good days than bad days and when that happens there tends to be a better feel around the place than when things are not going so well. Certainly, the fact that the team has enabled to be where we are has seen us go through a period this season of stability and, as I say, a better feel round the place.”

 

It was brilliant; unusable, but in its own way, a masterpiece. Just as the team has become far more of a collective than it ever was in their final, bitter year in the Premier League, just as there has been absolutely no triumphalism from the stands, so Hughton’s straight bat deflects you away from individuals and stories and controversy and contentiousness. It does not fill back pages but, in some ways, Newcastle have needed it.

 

They will require more of it next season. Whether the prospect is a feasible one, whether the coalition holds or whether, ignoring the bleak economic landscape, a benefactor rides to the rescue, as things stand, the same qualities will have to drive Newcastle through their next adventure. There will be no mammoth war-chest, but a recruitment policy that focuses on youngish players with a sell-on value.

 

In theory, that is no bad thing. In the years which followed Sir Bobby Robson’s disgracefully-mistimed departure, Newcastle became a byword for bloated wages, underachievement, arrogance in the boardroom and an unhealthy fascination with statement signings over team-building. It always felt unsustainable and while there is now a lack of glamour and stellar players, the relationship between pitch and supporters feels more healthy.

 

Provided that Hughton is given the back-up he needs and there is a recognition that a trimmed-down operation is different to a skeleton-staff, the formula can work. There is a monumental gap between the divisions, but Newcastle already have a superior unit to the one which took them down. Overall, their squad is less gifted, but plenty of other clubs have shown that spirit can be a bedrock following promotion.

 

Newcastle already have experience of toil. While their 13-point gap over third-placed Nottingham Forest would suggest that this season has been a procession, in this regard, the league table does lie. Everything has been worked for and nothing has been easy; visits to St James’ have frequently concluded with a home victory and scant understanding of how it actually happened.

 

They are a club which still has a question mark hanging over it. Mike Ashley’s ownership has been peppered with enough misjudgments to ensure that satisfaction with the last eight months is not translated into over-confidence - and the future remains opaque - but there is also pleasure to be taken from that. Reaching for the stars on Tyneside has previously resulted in a grand old club tripping on its bootlaces.

 

The Premier League will be better with Newcastle in it and, with a bit of luck, Newcastle will be better for their year in the wilderness. There has been a value in simply going to the match and enjoying the uncomplicated buzz of victory, the squad has been weeded of malingerers and, by and large, the players who are there want to be there. The team may not be graceful, but it is just that: a team.

 

Few would have thought it, but Hughton has been the ideal man to provide them with respite, to shield them from the spotlight, to foster togetherness. It is a curious combination, but Newcastle is a side being propelled by an internal momentum and with an absence of bombast. Perhaps one day Hughton will let his guard down and discuss it, but the odds must rank alongside those of alien invasions and acts of God.

 

Carroll and Taylor apart, in the dressing-room and the manager’s office, Newcastle have become experts in avoiding excess, in severing the association between their club and institutionalised madness. It has served them very well. But when Hughton twice danced in front of his dug-out on Monday night, losing himself in the frenzied pleasure of the moment, we saw what it meant it him. He will not admit it. But we know.

 

Brilliant :angry: :angry: