Giraffidae

NUFC like most clubs are involved with loads of charity requests all of the time, there’s no way they can accept them all. They’ll have a strict policy of protecting their sponsors advertising hoardings too. Good luck to Jack and his family though. edit: so who titled the thread “Newcastle Staff” then?

so you want to boycott Cruise Clothing who had nothing to do with taking the banner down, their advertising goes into the coffers of YOUR club, NUFC have to protect their sponsors advertising space as that’s where they get their sponsorship from. And you want stir up a boycott of an innocent business that sponsors your club? — try upping your medication lad.

Rooney seems seems to be a different player when he’s angry. If he’s punished by the FA he’ll make somebody pay....

That simply isn’t true. £135m was a stupid price to pay for a club that was apparently about to cease to exist, and we all know why he paid way over the odds. It’s ironic a man renowned for bargain buys should get so well and truly ripped off. Ashley gambled and lost. The bottom line is in close to four years the club’s revenues have dropped, attendances have dropped and its status has dropped. The only key business indicator that has gone up is the amount of money it owes, which has near enough doubled and now stands in excess of £150m. It’s a shocking state of affairs and there is only one person to blame. The local media need to grow some balls and scrutinise the data, not just regurgitate the club’s absurd spin. the biggest and most telling "facts" of all, and indisputable. NUFC’s revenues have been declining dramatically since Ashley took over and even with slashing the wage bill is still declining. Ashley’s keeps having to plug the gaps that his incompetence has created. But oh well, lets believe the clubs statements — ‘hail Ashley the saviour’ — hahahaha, yeh right.

Mike Ashley clearly doesn’t have a clue how to run a competitive football club — I know this is our promotion season and our main concern is avoiding relegation — but if we do qualify for Europe in the future, he’d shit himself. If we do stay up and “compete for European places” then that is the maximum he’d stretch to. Having to put a squad together that could cope with the demands of a European competition and the top 10, then he’d be well out of his depth. The last transfer window was another litmus test for him, but he chose to cut costs rather than pushing on from the healthy position we were in — and that’s the gambler without wisdom in him. You only have to look at our centre forwards (since the window shut) that he’s happy to gamble on staying up with, to know he likes to take high risks. Running a football club at the upper levels is a financially scary proposition for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, and it seems at the moment he’s more driven by the buzz of doing it his way with reduced outlay, than with any aspirations that come with the capabilities of a club the size of NUFC. You only need to look at him employing a casino manager mate of his and Joe Kinnear to understand his mindset. He tried to do it differently with KK and Wise but got his fingers burnt as he was well out of his depth, he hasn’t got the balls to do what is needed anymore, so now he aspires to the ‘success’ of Wigan et al — and that’s about it. The danger is now that he thinks relegation isn’t really a problem as he’s got through it before....

Adelaide where all the trampy Aussies live. It must be fuckin bad when even Aussies say it's full of ugly bamps. Actually I was born in England and in a city that is equivalent to England as Adelaide is to Australia. Sorry to disappoint you mate. So you're a fuckin brummie as well. Not got much luck have you? No, sorry, born in Newcastle. Why else would I care about NUFC you fool? The equivalent of Adelaide, you stupid cunt. There is no Australian equivalent of Newcastle, no history, no splendour, no historic buildings. The most notable construction in your country was copied off the Tyne Bridge even. Nobhead. er, Sydney Harbour Bridge was both designed and the construction started before the Tyne Bridge, although the Tyne Bridge was completed first, the confusion arises because the Sydney Harbour Bridge took longer to complete due to its larger size. The Tyne Bridge is a scaled down version of Sydney’s.

never really noticed the ‘south facing’ fuss, it was only when we got a south facing yard that I realised that I’d only ever lived in east and north facing previously. I would never consider having anything other than south or west facing now though.

Google Newcastle 5 Leicester 4 and stick it in youtube. Listen to the roar when McGhee makes it 5-4. Thing of the past that noo, only 21,000 or so there too. Best noise I can remember was first home game of the season against Spurs who Gazza had just joined, we'd lost 4-0 at the blue dippers the week before, and were supposed to get stuffed off Spurs too, but we were winning 2-0 after 4 minutes, both goals at a dangerously full Gallowgate End. There was 45,000 in that day imo. Given as about 35,000. The Leicester 5-4 is still one of my favourite games of all time like. Fucking mental considering we looked completely fucked at 4-2 down with just over 10 mins to go. Gallacher scored IIRC and the place erupted. The players responded believing they could do it and never gave up. We got everything we deserved that day. Aitken's debut as well wasn't it? 14 years at Celtic and then he came down to us with a game like that. Pretty certain he said something like the atmosphere suppassed any Old Firm game he'd ever been involved in. Yeah it was. After he'd been brought in to stiffen the midfield and make us harder to break down yep definitely Aitkins debut, he was a shite player for us though, made Jan Molby look like Speedy Gonzales. his debut is my favourite match too. I was in the scoreboard, it was absolutely mental in there, everyone was still going mental for ages after the final whistle, you’d have thought we’d won the cup! I remember walking home up the West Road afterwards as traffic was at a snails pace and you could tell if someone had been to the match by their insane grins!

I was in The Corner that day. I recall Ron Atkinson saying on tv or radio, at a later date, that he experienced one of his greatest match day lives at St James' that day (he was also the co-commentator for 'the' Barcelona game, and I'm sure he says half way through that that was the greatest european atmospheres in his life). Someone please confirm it was Atkinson managing Man U for that cup game, 'cause if not, I am thinking of another game entirely (but I can't recall another right now). Atkinson was sacked by them in 1986. I have vague memories (again!) of playing them at home in the cup a few years before 1990. Strachan was playing for them then and was superb. Atkinson might have been managing them then. I was in the west stand paddock and the abuse Strachan was given was loud and constant as he played wide on the wing then, but rather than shy away or get abusive back he played it up with a cheeky smile on his face it was brilliant banter — he got a good applause for it at the end. I’ve never seen a player take stick so well the way he did that day.

just about the only thing I can remember about that ManUre game was standing in the Scoreboard section looking across to the corner and noting how mad the surges down were — worse than they normally were — and laughing about my mate who got a ticket in there by mistake. the wonders of the human mind!

I can see this becoming difficult. How do you define it ? There is an obvious link between acting big and becoming successful, attracting supporters back, and being seen to be big by others as a result. The problem is, if a club acts like a small club [like we are doing], does it mean they aren't a big club anymore ? Or is it just that you are a big club being run badly ? That's the thing though, people not going to matches isn't just about success on the field Lots of our fans have stopped going because they aren't happy with how the club is being run, sick of having to get by and then there was the 2 failed stadium moves (1 of which none of us wanted) I think we'll get less season ticket sales next season because people seeing that we are being left behind if we don't get investment so are boycotting Newcastle are obviously a big club and have a fantastic support, you could see that with the protests etc but I don't think support equals everything I have to disagree with your first comment. Success on the pitch is everything. Win and your crowds go up, at any level of the game, at NUFC a winning team is a full house. 2nd sentence - most people have forgotten about those stadium moves now. Personally, I think we should have moved to Leazes Park and forced the issue more. We will get less season ticket renewals next season because the team is struggling on the pitch and there is little optimism for improvement. 3rd sentence - I don't think any club would fill a 52000 stadium anywhere in the world having put up with what we have for so long to be honest, although it is going down now, it will still hover between 30-40,000 even when the damage inflicted by Mike Ashley increases, and no club in the world would get that either, especially when even a few wins in a lower league will send it back near 50,000 again. Just my opinions of course. Disagree with that like. There are more than enough dafties like me to keep going. We averaged 44,000 in the Championship playing the likes of Doncaster and Scunthorpe every week. The next few years we will come out of the recession and people will have more money. We were in the bottom half of the table largely from 2004 to 2009 and 90% of home games sold out. I think economic conditions are having an impact, but we're still averaging nearly 48,000 fans, and how many times have we been on live telly?? A fuckin lot. We will never go under 40,000 in the Premiership, and even if Ashley is here the next five years, sadly it will have no impact on attendances. This season the games have been fucking great you don't know what will happen, the gates have been going up all season, and we'll have even more season ticket holders next season, particularly if there's a few decent signings in the summer. Don't underestimate how daft NUFC fans are. There isn't a parallel to Newcastle United's support in world sport, anyone that says Man City is a mug, they all fucked off under Pearce, we stayed and faced the Championship music. As for big club. Course we're a big club. I find it insulting to be compared to Aston Villa. The muddy area of what a big club comes when you're comparing sizes. To me it's fanbase. You can't pin it all down to history. Man Utd are 10 times bigger than Liverpool in my eyes, but have slightly fewer trophies, and I can think of parallel examples with certain clubs and us. If you don't have more fans able and willing to go to support the team than Newcastle, you're not a bigger club than us, and only Man Utd and Arsenal have, Liverpool have many more when they're doing well. All of the rest well it's just muddy water. A debate no one can ever win, but I think we're an important club which the Premiership can't do without. There are only a few clubs you can say that about. Not one person would miss Villa, even if they were gone 10 years you'd just think so fuck. Everyone missed us, even if they don't admit it, they did, BBC certainly did. Stevie.......before Keegan came back to Newcastle, our crowds were around 20,000 and for periods prior to that, sub 20,000. I know things were different then, but a prolonged period of apathy [which will happen if Ashley stays long term IMO] and the crowds and interest that have been generated will ebb away to low levels again, maybe not as low as this, but around 30,000 or less on occasions, however the team only needs to win a few games in any division and it would hit close to the 40,000 mark even for a temp period. We will see. I do agree with you about us being unique in sport, because we are. But no club would even get those gates above, time has shown it, everybody in football who knows anything about the game knows NUFC are the sleeping giant of world football. The Keegan years showed it, if we had had a 70,000 stadium like the Millenium we would fill it with local support alone. Anyway, as you say its a debate nobody can win and hopefully he will sell to somebody who understands football business before things get much worse. I went to games from 1985 onwards. Between 1976 and 1993 we finished in the top half of the table once, and spent 10 of those seasons in the second tier. I remember the game before Keegan came actually was a FA Cup Replay at home to Bournemouth and there were 27,000 people there, and yes we fuckin lost, on pens, O'Brien nearly smashing the Scoreboard with his. Before Keegan came league wise there was an official boycot by the USFC, I remember one game against Oxford there were as many outside as inside. Our average in 1990 was 22,000 in D2, 17,000 in 1991 at the height of the boycot, and 21,000 in 92 when we finished TWENTY FIRST IN DIVISION TWO. All this at a time when football wasn't fashionable at all, our gates near the bottom of D2 were still among the best in the country. Since 93 and especially Euro 96 football became cool, a lot more OC's go to games, far, far, far more women, you even get ethnic minorities going so the fanbase has changed in terms of profile slightly and not only that probably doubled. I will pay £100 to a charity of your choice should we ever get a gate under 40,000 in the Premiership, it's just not going to happen. I don't know one person who is jacking it next season, but I know plenty who are coming back. NB. that Bournemouth game got an inflated gate because the first game was abandoned by fog and because they wouldn’t refund our money they made the re-arranged game half price — iirc, which bumped the attendance. wasn’t that the game where Alan Thompson got sent off for that disgraceful 2 footed stamp? — which is one of the worst things I’ve seen a footballer do to another player. You are right but there was 26,000 at the abandoned game. Aye re Thompson. Keegan got rid right after that game, he never played again. Right in front of me that was in the East Stand benches that night. didn’t know it was 26,000, I thought it was a lot less. Ardiles was the manager at the time and said he would never play Thompson again after that. Aye but Keegan was at the game, he was working in a PR capacity if you remember. nope, never knew that either.

I can see this becoming difficult. How do you define it ? There is an obvious link between acting big and becoming successful, attracting supporters back, and being seen to be big by others as a result. The problem is, if a club acts like a small club [like we are doing], does it mean they aren't a big club anymore ? Or is it just that you are a big club being run badly ? That's the thing though, people not going to matches isn't just about success on the field Lots of our fans have stopped going because they aren't happy with how the club is being run, sick of having to get by and then there was the 2 failed stadium moves (1 of which none of us wanted) I think we'll get less season ticket sales next season because people seeing that we are being left behind if we don't get investment so are boycotting Newcastle are obviously a big club and have a fantastic support, you could see that with the protests etc but I don't think support equals everything I have to disagree with your first comment. Success on the pitch is everything. Win and your crowds go up, at any level of the game, at NUFC a winning team is a full house. 2nd sentence - most people have forgotten about those stadium moves now. Personally, I think we should have moved to Leazes Park and forced the issue more. We will get less season ticket renewals next season because the team is struggling on the pitch and there is little optimism for improvement. 3rd sentence - I don't think any club would fill a 52000 stadium anywhere in the world having put up with what we have for so long to be honest, although it is going down now, it will still hover between 30-40,000 even when the damage inflicted by Mike Ashley increases, and no club in the world would get that either, especially when even a few wins in a lower league will send it back near 50,000 again. Just my opinions of course. Disagree with that like. There are more than enough dafties like me to keep going. We averaged 44,000 in the Championship playing the likes of Doncaster and Scunthorpe every week. The next few years we will come out of the recession and people will have more money. We were in the bottom half of the table largely from 2004 to 2009 and 90% of home games sold out. I think economic conditions are having an impact, but we're still averaging nearly 48,000 fans, and how many times have we been on live telly?? A fuckin lot. We will never go under 40,000 in the Premiership, and even if Ashley is here the next five years, sadly it will have no impact on attendances. This season the games have been fucking great you don't know what will happen, the gates have been going up all season, and we'll have even more season ticket holders next season, particularly if there's a few decent signings in the summer. Don't underestimate how daft NUFC fans are. There isn't a parallel to Newcastle United's support in world sport, anyone that says Man City is a mug, they all fucked off under Pearce, we stayed and faced the Championship music. As for big club. Course we're a big club. I find it insulting to be compared to Aston Villa. The muddy area of what a big club comes when you're comparing sizes. To me it's fanbase. You can't pin it all down to history. Man Utd are 10 times bigger than Liverpool in my eyes, but have slightly fewer trophies, and I can think of parallel examples with certain clubs and us. If you don't have more fans able and willing to go to support the team than Newcastle, you're not a bigger club than us, and only Man Utd and Arsenal have, Liverpool have many more when they're doing well. All of the rest well it's just muddy water. A debate no one can ever win, but I think we're an important club which the Premiership can't do without. There are only a few clubs you can say that about. Not one person would miss Villa, even if they were gone 10 years you'd just think so fuck. Everyone missed us, even if they don't admit it, they did, BBC certainly did. Stevie.......before Keegan came back to Newcastle, our crowds were around 20,000 and for periods prior to that, sub 20,000. I know things were different then, but a prolonged period of apathy [which will happen if Ashley stays long term IMO] and the crowds and interest that have been generated will ebb away to low levels again, maybe not as low as this, but around 30,000 or less on occasions, however the team only needs to win a few games in any division and it would hit close to the 40,000 mark even for a temp period. We will see. I do agree with you about us being unique in sport, because we are. But no club would even get those gates above, time has shown it, everybody in football who knows anything about the game knows NUFC are the sleeping giant of world football. The Keegan years showed it, if we had had a 70,000 stadium like the Millenium we would fill it with local support alone. Anyway, as you say its a debate nobody can win and hopefully he will sell to somebody who understands football business before things get much worse. I went to games from 1985 onwards. Between 1976 and 1993 we finished in the top half of the table once, and spent 10 of those seasons in the second tier. I remember the game before Keegan came actually was a FA Cup Replay at home to Bournemouth and there were 27,000 people there, and yes we fuckin lost, on pens, O'Brien nearly smashing the Scoreboard with his. Before Keegan came league wise there was an official boycot by the USFC, I remember one game against Oxford there were as many outside as inside. Our average in 1990 was 22,000 in D2, 17,000 in 1991 at the height of the boycot, and 21,000 in 92 when we finished TWENTY FIRST IN DIVISION TWO. All this at a time when football wasn't fashionable at all, our gates near the bottom of D2 were still among the best in the country. Since 93 and especially Euro 96 football became cool, a lot more OC's go to games, far, far, far more women, you even get ethnic minorities going so the fanbase has changed in terms of profile slightly and not only that probably doubled. I will pay £100 to a charity of your choice should we ever get a gate under 40,000 in the Premiership, it's just not going to happen. I don't know one person who is jacking it next season, but I know plenty who are coming back. NB. that Bournemouth game got an inflated gate because the first game was abandoned by fog and because they wouldn’t refund our money they made the re-arranged game half price — iirc, which bumped the attendance. wasn’t that the game where Alan Thompson got sent off for that disgraceful 2 footed stamp? — which is one of the worst things I’ve seen a footballer do to another player. You are right but there was 26,000 at the abandoned game. Aye re Thompson. Keegan got rid right after that game, he never played again. Right in front of me that was in the East Stand benches that night. didn’t know it was 26,000, I thought it was a lot less. Ardiles was the manager at the time and said he would never play Thompson again after that.

I can see this becoming difficult. How do you define it ? There is an obvious link between acting big and becoming successful, attracting supporters back, and being seen to be big by others as a result. The problem is, if a club acts like a small club [like we are doing], does it mean they aren't a big club anymore ? Or is it just that you are a big club being run badly ? That's the thing though, people not going to matches isn't just about success on the field Lots of our fans have stopped going because they aren't happy with how the club is being run, sick of having to get by and then there was the 2 failed stadium moves (1 of which none of us wanted) I think we'll get less season ticket sales next season because people seeing that we are being left behind if we don't get investment so are boycotting Newcastle are obviously a big club and have a fantastic support, you could see that with the protests etc but I don't think support equals everything I have to disagree with your first comment. Success on the pitch is everything. Win and your crowds go up, at any level of the game, at NUFC a winning team is a full house. 2nd sentence - most people have forgotten about those stadium moves now. Personally, I think we should have moved to Leazes Park and forced the issue more. We will get less season ticket renewals next season because the team is struggling on the pitch and there is little optimism for improvement. 3rd sentence - I don't think any club would fill a 52000 stadium anywhere in the world having put up with what we have for so long to be honest, although it is going down now, it will still hover between 30-40,000 even when the damage inflicted by Mike Ashley increases, and no club in the world would get that either, especially when even a few wins in a lower league will send it back near 50,000 again. Just my opinions of course. Disagree with that like. There are more than enough dafties like me to keep going. We averaged 44,000 in the Championship playing the likes of Doncaster and Scunthorpe every week. The next few years we will come out of the recession and people will have more money. We were in the bottom half of the table largely from 2004 to 2009 and 90% of home games sold out. I think economic conditions are having an impact, but we're still averaging nearly 48,000 fans, and how many times have we been on live telly?? A fuckin lot. We will never go under 40,000 in the Premiership, and even if Ashley is here the next five years, sadly it will have no impact on attendances. This season the games have been fucking great you don't know what will happen, the gates have been going up all season, and we'll have even more season ticket holders next season, particularly if there's a few decent signings in the summer. Don't underestimate how daft NUFC fans are. There isn't a parallel to Newcastle United's support in world sport, anyone that says Man City is a mug, they all fucked off under Pearce, we stayed and faced the Championship music. As for big club. Course we're a big club. I find it insulting to be compared to Aston Villa. The muddy area of what a big club comes when you're comparing sizes. To me it's fanbase. You can't pin it all down to history. Man Utd are 10 times bigger than Liverpool in my eyes, but have slightly fewer trophies, and I can think of parallel examples with certain clubs and us. If you don't have more fans able and willing to go to support the team than Newcastle, you're not a bigger club than us, and only Man Utd and Arsenal have, Liverpool have many more when they're doing well. All of the rest well it's just muddy water. A debate no one can ever win, but I think we're an important club which the Premiership can't do without. There are only a few clubs you can say that about. Not one person would miss Villa, even if they were gone 10 years you'd just think so fuck. Everyone missed us, even if they don't admit it, they did, BBC certainly did. Stevie.......before Keegan came back to Newcastle, our crowds were around 20,000 and for periods prior to that, sub 20,000. I know things were different then, but a prolonged period of apathy [which will happen if Ashley stays long term IMO] and the crowds and interest that have been generated will ebb away to low levels again, maybe not as low as this, but around 30,000 or less on occasions, however the team only needs to win a few games in any division and it would hit close to the 40,000 mark even for a temp period. We will see. I do agree with you about us being unique in sport, because we are. But no club would even get those gates above, time has shown it, everybody in football who knows anything about the game knows NUFC are the sleeping giant of world football. The Keegan years showed it, if we had had a 70,000 stadium like the Millenium we would fill it with local support alone. Anyway, as you say its a debate nobody can win and hopefully he will sell to somebody who understands football business before things get much worse. I went to games from 1985 onwards. Between 1976 and 1993 we finished in the top half of the table once, and spent 10 of those seasons in the second tier. I remember the game before Keegan came actually was a FA Cup Replay at home to Bournemouth and there were 27,000 people there, and yes we fuckin lost, on pens, O'Brien nearly smashing the Scoreboard with his. Before Keegan came league wise there was an official boycot by the USFC, I remember one game against Oxford there were as many outside as inside. Our average in 1990 was 22,000 in D2, 17,000 in 1991 at the height of the boycot, and 21,000 in 92 when we finished TWENTY FIRST IN DIVISION TWO. All this at a time when football wasn't fashionable at all, our gates near the bottom of D2 were still among the best in the country. Since 93 and especially Euro 96 football became cool, a lot more OC's go to games, far, far, far more women, you even get ethnic minorities going so the fanbase has changed in terms of profile slightly and not only that probably doubled. I will pay £100 to a charity of your choice should we ever get a gate under 40,000 in the Premiership, it's just not going to happen. I don't know one person who is jacking it next season, but I know plenty who are coming back. NB. that Bournemouth game got an inflated gate because the first game was abandoned by fog and because they wouldn’t refund our money they made the re-arranged game half price — iirc, which bumped the attendance. wasn’t that the game where Alan Thompson got sent off for that disgraceful 2 footed stamp? — which is one of the worst things I’ve seen a footballer do to another player.

go to file — then to Print — PDF tab — Save as PDF Open the saved PDF and then print from there. It’s more likely a Microsoft shit programming error, rather than an Apple error.

artificial rain, yeh right Bernie, knowing his love for Ferrari, if they’re some way down the field he’d turn on the rain just as the leaders had past the pits giving enough time for the Ferraris to pit and put some wets on before anyone else. Could make a lot of boring races entertaining — but too open to abuse for it to work.

Encona tis nice like, a substitute for me if no Dave’s sauce, but I go through it too quickly.

oh yes.

I know it isn’t really cooking, but if you’re like me and you add a few dashes of Tobasco sauce to liven up a bland dish then I recommend ‘Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce’, most other sauces are wishy washy in comparison, but this stuff is the business, great flavour to it too. It’s ideal for livening up one of those microwave curries that are too bland. WARNING: it is bloody hot though! It has a very thick consistency so one drop is quite an amount, anymore than one small drop per serving will have you pouring with sweat and your sinuses streaming! NOT for kids or the elderly!! unfortunately in the last couple of weeks my Asda has stopped selling it so I’m having to hunt some more of it down elsewhere.

Said this elsewhere, there is no way Graham Carr has suddenly developed genius talent spotting ability like Peter Taylor [of Brian Clough's partner not the hopeless cockney who has managed about 30 lower league teams by now]. He got lucky, a great spot but lucky all the same. You sign these bargain basement players for nowt or small fees, about 1 out of 5 or 6 will be hits and the rest will be a Perch, Lovenkrands, Routledge etc. I'm sure I was watching a game in the last couple of weeks where the commentator stated Keegan had tipped Tiote to Houghton and was watching him at Roda while he progressed. Just a thought... yep, when Keegan was manager he sent Hughton (who was coach at the time) to watch Tiote.

WTF, is that Carroll’s new chaperone, trying to keep him out of the bars? — hahaha good luck with that Dalglish!

I believe there’s something in this, in my view it’s clear that we didn’t have the ambition or resources* to pay Carroll what he was worth (what he could get elsewhere, and centre forwards are paid at a premium) and that’s the same with Enrique. This “waiting until we’re safe before signing” smells of bullshit, preliminary discussions with Barton indicate that they’ve only offered him a contract well short of what he’s on now. *the key to a well run club is to extract the maximum amount of money from sponsorship deals, we no longer have anyone at the club who knows how to do this, more is the point the present regime have scared any existing sponsors away because of their wrong doings. Ashley has just stuck a Sports Direct logo on anything and everything to mask the truth, to benefit his shops and not NUFC. Ashley either doesn’t want to and/or doesn’t know how to run a competitive club. There’s no way that Ashley will progress the club or it’s players to full potential. The players will know this more than anyone. “You need to spend money, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys”. — Joey knows.

any NUFC fan over the age of 35 who doesn’t think KK is a god should be banished to that shithole 12 miles to the South East of Newcastle, for life. He took our club to a different stratosphere and in such a spectacular way too. St James’ Park wouldn’t be the way it is today without his impact and NUFC probably would’ve gone out of business as well. I loved him as a player even before he played for us, but wow, what an impact he had on NUFC.

socialising on holiday is fine with me, mind the thought of being stuck with our lass 24/7 is the main reason. As long as it’s only for a few nights in the bar, or even joining them for a meal if they are worthwhile. Met some great people on holiday and it can make a big difference. Best way to do it is to not stick to just another couple, a group of 6 to 8 people stops any clinging. I find it quite funny telling saddos that “we want to be alone” because OL is too soft to get rid. The worst thing is on the last day, she takes it seriously people exchanging names and addresses, yeh right “we’ll pop down and see you!”— FFS it was just having a laugh on holiday!

I worked out that in a different way: we need to buy a class centre forward which would cost £20m pay £60k a week which over 5 year contract is £15.6m. Total = £35.6m That sort of money’s not a huge amount for footballers, as Liverpool have proven it won’t buy you the calibre of an Andy Carroll. Bearing in mind before the transfer window opened we needed another quality centre forward to play alongside Carroll to progress the club — then that sort of “warchest” is shite. Now if you add in ticket sales, sponsorship, TV revenue, shirt sales etc — again, that sort of “warchest” is shite.

Capello was interviewed in the Sunday Times a few months back (just before the last England games) saying that he would’ve called Barton up to the England squad as he was the best English midfielder this season – but couldn’t pick him because the FA and the media wouldn’t let him.