Gene_Clark

You genuinely don't understand the point of Gene's post, do you? most people complaining about it either haven't read it or don't grasp what i'm trying to say

is it really paranoia? large elements of your support appear to be in open warfare with Northumbria Police (i speak as someone with a relative on the force who was on duty at the Central Station after the Hearts friendly). if the Police cannot control sunderland fans, what measures are there to guarantee public safety? i think the internet is mainly to blame for the increase in invective & threats; i speak, almost like as alcoholic in recovery, as someone who was a ridiculous & horrible keyboard warrior in the past. all i want is for this game to happen without the undercurrent of menace it is currently affected by. i'd love to debate what i've written sensibly, but is that possible these days?

Masterpiece - screensaver forever!!! Metric Martyrs? Lou & Andy lookalikes at the mackem club shop? John Humble?

From all I’ve read and heard in the aftermath of this game, I can only conclude that in the near future, a Tyne Wear derby will be marked by the death of a fan. Undoubtedly this fan will be one of ours, perhaps a solitary teenager at a bus stop or a middle-aged family man looking for his car, but he’ll be a black and whiter who will fall under a flurry of boots and fists, or a single stab by a bladed up sewer rat. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but the fact is, the mackems hate Newcastle United with such fury they will kill one or more of us to demonstrate that fact. The victim who dies will join Bobby Robson and Gary Speed in the litany of sick songs that are spread on sunderland message boards in preparation for games against us.Having watched the full game again, all I could conclude is that sunderland, both players and supporters, are completely out of control and that this mass, snarling hysteria is fed and nurtured by the highest echelons of the club. Examine the conduct of both sets of fans; on Sunday, Shola Ameobi’s 90th minute equaliser was met with joyous scenes in the ground. However, not one person encroached upon the field of play; compare this with the Mackem reactions to Gyan’s equaliser last season when Steve Harper was assaulted or in October 2008, when Kieran Richardson’s goal was greeted with a mass pitch invasion and Shay Given being assaulted. Admittedly Alan Pardew did go slightly over the top with his celebrations, but at least he had the grace to apologise; unlike O’Neill who didn’t have the grace to accept the traditional post match glass of wine, artlessly preferring to get straight on the coach back to his Wearside midden, no doubt embellishing his fictional narrative on the day. Each season, Newcastle fans travel to Wearside, by Metro, train, bus, car or even furniture van, and cause not a scrap of bother. On Sunday, the Mackems followed up their destruction of a train carriage en route to their cup replay in Smogland by trashing a Metro. This wasn’t a regular Metro, but a special one that went non-stop Park Lane to Central to allow them to get to the game. En route to the game, the windows of The Forth were put in; presumably in the belief that it is still 1983 and the NME were supping inside, rather than because it is an effete gastro pub, with a similarly effete post 92 clientele, even if the prix fixe menu is of an extraordinarily good standard. In the ground several seats were smashed, two stewards were assaulted (a female punched in the face and a male pushed down a flight of stairs) and the toilets were wrecked, as well as having excrement smeared around them, presumably as some kind of Dirty Protest tribute to Niall Quinn, the Drumaville Pavees and their current manager, of whom more later. However, such cretinous behaviour is perhaps to be expected for several reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, mackems are a lower form of life and visiting civilisation gets them all excited. Secondly, but most importantly, their club glorifies boorishness and encourages bellicose posturing. The famed free taxis home paid for by Niall Quinn for the sizeable number of their fans who were drunkenly out of control in Bristol airport in 2007, planted the seed in their minds that anti social behaviour will not only be tolerated by the club hierarchy, but rewarded. The only reason Newcastle did not hand out another severe thrashing to the unwashed is that in the first half, Pardew’s team allowed themselves to be dragged down to the mackems’ level and engaged in a hideous kicking contest. The tone was set by Cattermole’s premeditated attack on Tiote after 40 seconds; having reputedly told Tiote in the tunnel that he’d “do” him, the man who wears the captain’s armband for sunderland deliberately scythed down Tiote in an assault intended to injure the Ivorian. Cattermole ought to have walked then. I remember Gordon Armstrong doing the same thing on Paul Bracewell in April 1993’s game that was decided by Scott Sellars’s free kick. Back then, Keegan’s team laughed it off and got on with the business of winning; sadly this was not the outcome in this instance. Newcastle’s adoption of strongarm tactics saw 4 rapid bookings, even if Simpson was rightly furious following McClean’s vile lunge on him. The predictable conclusion to this passage of ale house clogging by the Magpies was the nonsensical penalty conceded by Williamson for a tug on Turner, which was celebrated in a deliberately provocative way by Frazier Campbell, intended to incense Newcastle fans and no doubt the cause of an imminent FA charge for incitement. Following this goal, a brief period of phoney war almost saw the Mackems go 2-0 ahead, but Krul made an excellent save from Bendtner and with that the Mackems retreated to their own 18 yard line for the remainder of the game. Despite being deservedly behind, the previously mentioned efforts from Ba and Coloccini could have seen Newcastle ahead at the break. In the second period, especially after Sessegnon’s forearm smash on Tiote, who was himself booked for the only foul committed by a Newcastle played after the resumption, Newcastle were a joy to watch. Hatem Ben Arfa was Man of the Match by a street and showed exactly what Newcastle fans love to see; football artistry, poetry with the feet. We are the fans who idolise not only our number 9s, but the glorious ball players who’ve graced the Gallowgate turf; Beardsley, Tony Green, Len White, Bobby Mitchell, Hughie Gallagher, Colin Veitch and Pat Heard to name but a few. In contrast on Wearside, brutish, cowardly hatchet men like Joe Bolton, Charlie Hurley, John Kay, Kevin Ball and now Lee Cattermole are lauded. Off the top of my head I can recall Gary Bennett, Howard Gayle, Paul Hardyman, Titus Bramble, Phil Bardsley, Sessegnon and Cattermole being dismissed from the field of play in derby games; not one of those names belongs to a Newcastle player. The meaning of that is self-evident; sunderland cannot control their players. This season alone Bardsley was sent off for a stamp, Sessegnon for an elbow and Cattermole for an unprovoked foul-mouthed tirade against a referee who’d done his level best amidst the mayhem, even if he missed at least 3 other penalties we should have had. Laughably Cattermole’s conduct was excused by O’Neill in a post match interview where, summoning up all the traditional Celtic paranoia from his stint in Glasgow, he felt there were “mitigating circumstances.” According to O’Neill, there had been a Newcastle United presence in the referee’s room at half time. John Carver at this point interjected and pointed out, in no uncertain terms, that O’Neill was a liar. Obviously as far as the unwashed goes, if a lie is put out in to the real world, it becomes a fact; perhaps being caught out was the reason why O’Neill flounced out of Tyneside, preferring instead to make a cowardly interview with local radio on the Tuesday, replete with lies and innuendo. If you want to see real class and the conduct of perfect gentlemen, seek out the ESPN post match interview with Shola and Demba Ba. Articulate, incisive, humble and intelligent; these men are a credit to our club and the polar opposite of the scowling, snarling, spitting vermin from down the road. As a minimum, the FA need to charge sunderland with failing to control their players, while both Campbell and McClean, for his comments on Twitter, should be brought to book. However, this will not be enough; when a sunderland message board is full of death threats against Pardew, things really need to stop. Back in 1996, the ban on away fans at derby games allowed for the formation of Wear Fans United to protest against the decision; 16 years on I can see no possible hope of a similar organisation being formed to calm the situation down. However, it has to be said this is not necessary on one side of the divide. At Newcastle United, we fans police ourselves; we love the club and we respect our history and traditions. The same cannot be said of our local rivals; unless sunderland fans come to their senses and gain a sense of proportion about what is after all only a game of football, people will die on derby day. Those on Wearside must accept that this is where their conduct has them headed; they need a reality check before it is too late.

His Twitter feed indicated that an attempted reconciliation with his estranged wife had broken down; this, in conjunction with the loss of his job, on top of his other problems, appears to have been too much. I knew him as he was a referee in the Northern Alliance; effectively his life ended when Moat blinded him.

If you're going to his house, you know where to complain. However, legally, as STs are non-transferable in the terms & conditions, you wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Trust is all you've got mate

His band mates have been informed; Mickey sends his condolenzes but Peter is so upset he can't even Tork

Eh? Hey spacka, you know you were going on about the lad from Belfast supporting NUFC being wrong; well where's your manager from you fucking retarded cunt?

i could say i'm a shit typist & don't proofread what i put here, or pretend my postings are all part of "un grand hommage" to ee cummings.....

if i ever meet you, i'll buy you 3 pints of beer for that; funniest thing i've read in weeks

academia mainly, but also involved in writing, as well as dabbling in publishing & mentoring of new writers

superficial, simplistic & broadly uncontentious; your target market isn't NUFC fans, who already know the club's history inside out

Don't dodge the question, fuckface, tell me what your 'degree' is in! My degree in Literary Studies involved elements of drama & Irish Literature; thoroughly loved it. 3 years of reading books; absolute heaven. My Masters is in 20th Century American Literature & Creative Writing. My abandoned PhD was a study of the interface between factual events and fictional interpretation of the working class experience in 50s & 60s Los Angeles in the work of Charles Bukowski & James Ellroy.

Have you ever seen a Rhys outside of Leith? Have you fuck!

Not outside of Wales anyway. Or Princes Street

I once walked past Griff Rhys Jones at the Edinburgh Festival

G14 in East Stand Paddock supposedly available, but can't be added to the basket for some reason

I didn't mind Kamara but went off him a little bit a couple of weeks back when he tweeted that it was justice 'Arry had been cleared as the amount he had tax dodged wasn't that much anyway. Lost in showbiz. I was given the Chris Kamara & Richard Digance comedy football book as an unbidden Christmas present a few years ago. Suffice to say, a burning orphanage would raise more laughs

ouch!!! I didn't apply to Queen's; went to plenty of gigs there as hardly any bands played in Coleraine or Derry between 83 & 86 (though I did see The Smiths supported by James at Coleraine in november 84)

would agree that education is brilliant in NI - especially as i'm a graduate of Ulster University

can someone put Rhys on a life support machine on sunday please? cheers

off to scotland this weekend to see Arbroath v East Fife as part of a mate's 50th birthday celebration. supposed to also take in Dundee united v Inverness but this has been moved by ESPN from sunday 12 to Monday night; grrrrrr

I joined NUFC Fans United; we may not be storming the Winter Palace, but unlike on line & in print snide whining or the invisible NUST, we are trying to provide a focus for dissenters

He reminded me of Martins yesterday

agree 100%