It's already got a name

Copy of an email sent to the following addresses:

info@ampersand.uk.com
Deborah.Grocock@sportsdirect.com
info@sports-world.com

[Ampersand are the company who will be looking to find a sponsor for the whole rebranding mess surrounding Mike Ashley's attempts to sell a part of Newcastle's heritage in exchange for some money. Money he lost by being a complete idiot when it came to running a football club.]

Along with tens of thousands of others, let me assure you that any company paying towards the rebranding of St James’ Park with from that day forth receive no money whatsoever from my pocket. If you’re looking for a way to get the name of a company out there on a wave of bad publicity then you’re going the right way about it.

Not just Newcastle fans, but fans of many other clubs are up in arms over the horrendous way in which our history and part of our identity are being ridden over roughshod by a man who has no shame, no knowledge of the footballing world and no idea of the amount of ire he’s capable of dragging up.

Whereas sponsoring one half of a rivalry could result in the other half boycotting your products, the rebranding of St James’ Park has had a negative response across the board – irrespective of the clubs supported. I even know of Sunderland fans who regard it as an insult. Believe me, for those people down the road to side with us against anyone shows the depth of loathing for Mr Ashley throughout the footballing world.

Do yourselves a favour and distance yourselves from him and his companies as best you can. Sure, you stand to make a fast buck (in the case of Ampersand) but whoever ends up with their name on our stadium – should this lunatic plan go ahead – will rapidly find themselves out of favour with a huge number of footballing fans. Already many sections of the media have pledges never to use the “new” name when reporting on the games so surely it’s just money down the toilet. Or into Mr Ashley’s pockets.

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Keep St James’ Park as St James’ Park

                          

Newcastle United

A few weeks back I posted a link to my Google Calendar with the Newcastle United fixtures on. I had to do this as Google removed the “search” option so it was impossible to find any useful calendars.

They’ve not reintroduced this, but they have added a new slew of “Interesting Calendars” (their words) which include fixture details for a ton of football (sorry, “soccer”) teams as well as a plethora of other sports. As a bonus, you can watch the scores update in real-time-ish as the match progresses via the details on your calendar.

To get to them, look down the bottom left of your Google Calendar screen for “Other Calendars” and click on “Add” at the bottom of the list. Then just navigate through the categories to find the club and competition you want.

I would note a couple of things, however. And these are the reasons I’m keeping my calendar online and updated as well. The first is that there are no TV details for the games. This is understandable as mine’s geared at UK users whereas Google’s far more international. The second is that it looks like you have to subscribe to three or four calendars for each team if you want to follow their league, league cup and European fixtures as well. Why not one calendar for all fixtures regardless of competition?

Oh, and they’ve mis-spelled “Darllington” (sic) in the League Trophy section. Note that this is the Trophy and not the League Cup. They’re different and there doesn’t appear to be a listing for League Cup fixtures. Unless they’re included with the main team fixtures – in which case why not do the same with the League Trophy ones? [I just checked - they're not. Google doesn't list our fixture at Peterborough on the 22nd of September]

So, 75% for effort to Google. But I still think they’d have been better just replacing the ability to search for useful calendars. The work would be done for them – and better – by fans of the sports in question. Mind you, I bet the American sports are far better organised especially as, with the NFL at least, there’s only one competition.

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Football fixtures on Google Calendar

                          

Newcastle United F.C.

A few blogs have been mentioning that the last time Newcastle United played Sheffield Wednesday at St James’ Park, we won 8-0. Fair do’s, but a lot has changed since then!

For a start, we’re a shadow of the side we were then. It was Bobby Robson‘s first game in charge and a team almost always does better in that situation as players try to make their mark. And when that manager takes over from an utter arse, confidence is also an issue.

Non more so an example than Alan Shearer that day, who scored five. He’s always said Bobby brought him back from the brink and that was the game that proved it.

Wednesday were relegated that season and went into freefall. Everyone beat them. They aren’t that team any more. They won’t be so easy tonight.

Fingers crossed, but no way will we see 8 goals on either side.

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Easy Wednesday?

                          

Bobby - R.I.P.

Never met him, wish I had, never will.

I just returned from a week on the Gili Islands with next to no interet access. I fired up NUFC.com as I do when I check the web for the first time each day and the sad headline faced me – Sir Bobby Robson R.I.P.

At 76 there’s no denying he had a good innings, especially given the numerous fights he had against cancer. I still think the way he was offloaded by Newcastle United was horrendous, yet I don’t recall him making any bitter comments in the press. He did as well for us as anyone could have hoped at the time, and he got England as far as anyone has since the 1966 World Cup.

I’d honestly be amazed if anyone had a bad thing to say about the man.

As I said, I didn’t know him. But I’m still going to miss him. The world needs more nice people and it’s lost an amazingly nice one with this sad passing.

[His legacy lives on, however. Please consider a donation to the incredibly worthwhile Sir Bobby Robson Foundation]

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Sir Bobby Robson – a perfect gent

                          

Newcastle United

Looking for Newcastle United fixtures for Google Calendar? Courtesy of the hard work done here, I’ve imported them in and made my version publically accessible. Just add a new calendar “from URL” using the following:

http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/r39dbfbfdu7opkaqbe63ko3vk8%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

The advantage is that any updates I make (date changes etc) will be automatically reflected on your calendar. Full credit for initial hard work to Latty’s!

Incidentally, if Google hadn’t taken the calendar search option away, this post wouldn’t be necessary as you could just have looked for the likely umpteen versions on their system. Grr.

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NUFC fixtures 2009-10 for Google Calendar

                          

Sunglasses recommended

Have you seen the Newcastle United change strip for next season? Frankly, it’s fucking horrible. It’s verging on being a throwback to the evil goalkeepers’ shirts of the 1970′s and 1980′s. Only worse. Remember when you left a crisp packet lyinging in the summer sun for months and it ended up all faded, yet with awful yellow colours? Well, that’s what they’ve gone for.

It is eyeball-searingly dreadful. As if we need any other ways to get noticed for all the wrong reasons at the moment.

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My eyes!

                          

Colaship-bound

Well, despite results elsewhere going in our favour I guess it was bound to happen. As I downed several bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale, Newcastle United downed themselves. There’ll be countless dissections of our season, but it all comes down to the fact that we didn’t get the results required. Simple as that.

Over the last 16 years we’ve gone from being The Entertainers and everyone’s second club to a team which struggles to score goals or hold onto a manager for more than a few months at a shot. The blame is bound to be apportioned somewhere, but it doesn’t take a lot of effort to figureout where to point the finger.

It’s certainly not Shearer. True, he doesn’t have the managerial skills required. But to have taken the job on when he knew the state the club was in took some amount of guts. Talk about being dropped in at the deep end. At least he had passion and obviously wanted to win. He’s probably one of only a couple of people involved in the running of the team who wanted victory for more than purely financial reasons.

It’s tempting to blame some of the players, too. After all, they’re the ones who weren’t performing on the pitch – the one thing they’re paid vast amounts of money to do. Thing is, they don’t care what happens to the team to a large extent. It’s common knowledge that relegation simply wasn’t considered when the contracts were drawn up. As a result, their wages will be unaffected – the only way we can tighten the purse strings is to offload a bunch of them or renegotiate contracts (and that won’t happen).

We could point the finger at bad refereeing, but that’s just not the case. You find me a team in the Premier League that didn’t suffer at some point in the season due to poor decisions. The fact is, as always, this does balance out over the course of the season. It’s not an excuse. Results around us conspired to, on the whole, help our cause. We, however, didn’t take advantage.

No, if there is any one place to lay the blame it’s squarely on the doorstep of the man at the top of the management structure: the owner, Mike Ashley. Sure, he can claim to be passionate about the club but let’s be honest – he’s only ever cared about the financial end of things and in trying to oneupmanship Wigan Athletic‘s Dave Whelan.

There is no denying that Ashley is a successful (if documentedly dodgy) businessman, but it has become painfully obvious that he doesn’t have the first clue about running a football club. By far and away the biggest mistake he made was to bring in Dennis Wise and effectively refuse Kevin Keegan the control he needed (and demanded) to effectively manage his squad. If there was a bigger error, it was in being stubborn and refusing the ditch Wise thus forcing Keegan’s hand and giving him no choice other than to leave.

That was the turning point. The chances of getting the train back on the tracks with such a swift change in management were ridiculously low. It’s been bad enough over the last few years with managers barely getting a full season under their belt before being given the heave-ho, but we then went through four managers in one season. Admittedly, this was partially due to Joe Kinnear‘s ill health.

However, the fact remains that we should never have been in that position in the first place. Ashley jumped in with both feet, thought he could tinker with something he had no knowledge of and destroyed any chance he and we had of any success. By all accounts his actions were typically Ashley – pig-headed, bullying and arrogant. At least he did make some attempt to sell the club, but couldn’t find a “suitable buyer”. In other words, nobody was offering him enough money.

Well, look where that’s landed him. He should have taken what he was offered a couple of months ago as the club must surely be worth a hell of a lot less now. Which means, in all likelihood, he’s stuck with us and we’re stuck with him. We’re also stuck with a squad full of players we likely can’t afford due to the aforementioned lack of relegation wage deduction.

I’m glad to see, having done a quick Twitter search, that most people who’ve expressed a tweet are hoping we come right back up. Even a few Sunderland fans. For that, I thank them. I don’t think we will – I give us 2-3 seasons, maybe. Financially we need to completely restructure. Alan Shearer may work for free (I’d not put it past him), but nobody else will.

For those who were happy we dropped, screw you. The reasons I’ve heard are plentiful. I can understand the mackems being happy – it makes sense when your rival suffers. I’d have been glad to see them go down. It’s the southerners and the pundits and those with no real beef against us who annoy me the most. These are the self-same people who probably cheered us on as we nipped at the heels of ManU all those years ago. Fickle bandwagon-jumpers.

The most idiotic ones are those who say we deserve to go down as we’ve not achieved anything in 40 years. Yes we have. We rocketed out of the old third division into top flight in record time, winning titles on the way. We provided one of the best nights of Champion’s League football when we – against all odds – progressed from the first group stage after three losses. We beat Manchester United 5-0 and Sheffield Wednesday 8-0. We have one of the best stadia in the country – this I have heard from many visiting fans. We have some of the most passionate and loyal support. Under Keegan we earned and deserved that “Entertainers” badge. We gave people ninety minutes of great football.

Is that not an achievement? But for some reason we’re not allowed to class ourselves as a “big club”. If we weren’t, then why would there be so much media coverage? Why would so many people care about our survival or lack of it? Because we are a big club. Certainly not on the world stage any more, or even on the English one right now. But the simple fact that we’re constantly covered, even in a bad light, by the media says that we’re bigger than they care to admit.

But no club is too big to suffer defeat and bad times. “Bigness” is not measured in success, it’s measured in its effect on the footballing world. And the fact that our drop has caused so many people to have their say about it – positive or negative – proves we’re bigger than they want to pretend.

So am I upset about us dropping? Of course I am. But on the positive side, it’s a whole new challenge. Different teams, different financial issues, different problems trying to get coverage of the matches, different grounds to visit should I be able to afford the time and money.

Life goes on, those who are bouncing when we went down will grow up (eventually). With any luck, Ashley will palm is off onto someone with two ounces of common sense and a decent bank balance to help us rebuild.

In the meantime, I’m still wearing my Newcastle shirt; still have the tattoo; still use the crest as my avatar on just about every message board. That’s what it means to truly support your team. You don’t give up, even when they do. But those who’ve had a giggle over the last few weeks just wouldn’t understand that.

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Game over, man…

                          

Toon! Toon!

Let the arse-puckering begin. After a well-fought 3-1 win over Middlesbrough this evening (well, yesterday evening – it’s late o’clock), Newcastle now sit outside the drop zone, 2 points below the mackem filth. Hull sit just beneath us, but our goal difference is 7 for the better – and currently the same as the unwashed horde’s.

What’s interesting is the run-in. We have Fulham at home and Aston Villa away. By the last game of the season, Villa’s place will already have been cemented. The only thing they’ll have to play for is the fans – and how many professional footballers give a crap about them when putting too much effort in could result in an injury and a ruined summer holiday?

Hull have Bolton and ManU. They could scrape a point from the former, but even a second-string ManU side will run rings round them, the form they’re both in right now.

The scum have Portsmouth then Chelsea. Again, one possible and one you just can’t see them getting anything from.

As such, we seem to have the better run-in.

Of course – bridges/crossing, chickens/hatching. But there’s still an inkling of a chance that we could stay up while the forces of darkness drop down to where they belong.

Is it too early to get my hopes up? Don’t answer that. Of course it is.

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Closing stages

                          

Tamworth FC

So I start following Gateshead FC… and they lose a large leading margin at the top of the Blue Square North, allowing Tamworth to clinch automatic promotion. Gateshead will now find themselves in the playoffs at the end of the season. Congratulations to Tamworth, though.

Let’s not even go near the subject of Newcastle United‘s run-in for the end of the Premiership season. I really, really hope I’m wrong but deep down I just know we’re fucked.

Dammit. I’m not having a good month.

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I am a jinx

                          

Newcastle United F.C.

Thanks to Damo and Weenie for pointing this story out. Yes, I missed it. Because when the news broke I was on a 2850km campervan trip through the Australian Outback where I couldn’t even get an AM radio signal let alone an internet connection. Even if I had, their definition of “football” here is one of three games where you use your fucking hands instead of your feet so I doubt it would have made the news.

So. Alan Shearer. Newcastle United manager. Good news or no?

Well, it’s good to know we’ve got someone who gives a shit in the position and who’s not in a hospital bed. My best wishes still go out to Joe Kinnear, but who knows if he’ll be back in the hotseat next season? My issue is that Shearer has maintained for ages that he’s not ready for the position. What changed his mind?

Is it desperation on the part of the club and even Shearer himself? How can he suddenly be ready to do the job now when he wasn’t only a few months ago? So many questions.

Of course, he’s a figurehead and if anyone could rally the fans it’s the big man himself. I also believe that he’s got that pipsqueak Ashley over a barrel as the only individual who could really set his own terms as manager.

One bit of news that’s been buried ever so slightly by the headline above is that Dennis Wise has gone. Thank fuck. Good bloody riddance to the evil little shit. And I fully believe this was a condition of Shearer taking the job.

What’s important to note, though, is we only have 8 games left. We’re third bottom. Even the mackems are above us. Shearer’s work is cut out (as fourth manager this season) to stop us going down with the Boro.

Here’s hoping this isn’t just a huge publicity stunt on the part of Ashley. I doubt it, purely as Shearer’s involved and there’s no denying his main focus will be on maintaining Premiership status for the sake of the team and the fans – not some arsehole Cockney’s bank balance.

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This Shearer thing