PaddockLad

That’s Hayden back on, run it off, good lad

When Reagan Thomson looked out of the Hilton Hotel in Gateshead earlier this month, he could see St James’ Park across the River Tyne. Its shimmer serenaded him from across the water over the four nights that Newcastle United put him up there as part of a charm offensive that included a tour of their stadium and training facilities. It didn’t take long for Queen’s Park’s latest prodigy to decide where his future lay. At just 16 years old, Thomson has signed a two-and-a half-year deal with Newcastle — the longest he is allowed to at this age — initially worth about £50,000. It could rise to £90,000 depending on appearances and other clauses. His journey to the Premier League has not been a seamless one, having to contend with much more than the familiar young footballer’s setbacks of untimely growth spurts and bad injuries. It has encompassed bereavement and illness, it has demanded perseverance and sacrifice to overcome the limitations of his background and it has required a strength of character some people would find difficult to muster as an adult let alone a child. Thomson grew up in Govan, the working-class area of Glasgow and former shipbuilding hub Sir Alex Ferguson hails from. Over the past few decades, however, like most of post-industrial Glasgow, it has become dilapidated with derelict ground and rundown flats shrouding the area. Ibrox, the home of Rangers, Thomson’s boyhood team, has remained a permanent fixture in the area. He lived a few turns away from the stadium on Wanlock Street, on the banks of the Clyde. Football is the one thing that has managed to captivate a boy who struggled to hold an interest in anything else — especially school. While football has defined his life, and could well secure he and his family’s future, it is also the sport that tragically deprived him of his dad, Alex. Father and son were playing football in the back garden when Alex went to return the ball to his 18-month-old boy and a slow-burning tragedy began to unfold. Alex’s leg caught the spike of a nettle and his skin broke out in a rash, which saw him rushed to hospital where he was diagnosed with blood poisoning. Nobody could have expected that 10 years later this innocent kick-around would prove fatal, taking a father of five aged only 40. Thomson’s mother, Michelle, recalls the trauma that shook her family. “He picked up an infection when the spike went into his leg,” she says. “We thought it would be OK, as you do, but he got infection after infection before it eventually took him. We had no idea it was that serious. At first, when they put him on a drip, I thought he would be all right but it just kept coming back. “The doctors kept telling me the medication was working but it didn’t last. He would come out in rashes but by the time he died it had started going up his entire leg. I didn’t like looking at it but I think it had got too late by that point. The doctors gave it their all. “It was very hard to deal with. We had planned to get married for years but kept putting it off because of the kids. We had set a date in November 2013 but he died in the May so we didn’t get a chance to. “Reagan was obviously just a baby at the time he caught the nettle but when he passed away, naturally, he was devastated. He looked up to his dad and, with the recent success he has had with his football, he has started talking about him more. His dad was a good player as well. It’s funny, Reagan and his dad are both right-handed and left-footed but the rest of the family are all right-handed and right-footed.” Michelle was left widowed and with five children to raise. Courtney is her oldest at 23, while she has another two daughters, Shannon, 22, and 19-year-old Morgan. Jack, 18, is her other son. If funding her kids through school and supporting their interests wasn’t hard enough, life landed another cruel punch not long after Alex’s death. “At the time I would have been greeting (crying) about it but now I’m fine,” says Michelle as she reflects on being diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2015. “I got radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment for six weeks. Right now I’m in my remission period, which lasts for five years. “Reagan was only 11 at the time so he didn’t understand fully. I was only telling the kids the positive things as I wanted to protect them because they had lost their dad just two years before that. It was difficult for him as I saw a spell where he wasn’t as bothered with his football but no way was I letting him fall away from it. “That’s when I put my faith in Queen’s Park as they picked him up for training and my daughter helped me too. Due to my treatment, I couldn’t drive. One time I actually forgot to pick him up because when you go through radiotherapy, your memory goes a bit.” From their street to Lesser Hampden in the south of the city is no less than an hour and a half on foot but Reagan often walked it. “At first when he asked me to play for a team I said no as I couldn’t drive,” adds Michelle. “I always remember the day I passed my driving test he came running down and said, ‘Can I go to football now?’ “I had five or six jobs at the one time after their dad passed away. Things like cooking and working in snack bars. I didn’t want the kids to feel like they missed out on anything so I took whatever work was offered to me to make sure I had Christmas and birthdays covered.” Thomson was obsessed with football from before he could walk and Michelle remembers how he used to wear full kits to his bed. Every photograph she finds of him as a young child has a football in it somewhere. His mum plans on moving down to Newcastle in the next couple of weeks to help him settle as this is his first time living away from home. She admits it is a scary prospect for her as well as her son but he wouldn’t allow anyone to tell him that he should stick in at school in case he wasn’t going to make it as a footballer. That ambition of earning a first professional contract has now been realised and it is a tunnel vision that convinces Michelle he’s not going to let his chance go to waste. “It’s not been a hard journey with Reagan, I’d say it’s more been an exhausting one as there is so much travelling,” she says. “I feel like it’s paid off to see where he is now. All those years standing in the rain and snow, him walking to football. His hard work has paid off. This is his time to shine. “I can’t put it into words how proud I am, I honestly can’t. I couldn’t point out a good footballer player if I tried but when Reagan scores from so far out, I do wonder how he does it at times. One of his best pals’s dad comes from Newcastle and he always used to say to him that maybe one day he’ll play for Newcastle. I always used to say, ‘Aye, if only!’ “He’s got that gallus (bold) streak about him and he’s always got a one-liner up his sleeve but he doesn’t show off. I like that about him as I want him to continue to be liked and not for people to think he is a cocky wee guy. Once he knew his football was going to potentially take off, he became really focused on it. He stopped hanging about the streets and the four or five boys he has been pals with for years have all been supportive of his career, even though he’s moving away. “He was quite excited but he won’t really show how proud he is of what he has achieved. When I’m bragging to people about the situation he just says, ‘Mum, I’m just playing football’. Charlie King has got to be the best coach in the world. He’s brought him right the way through. Everyone at Queen’s Park has been brilliant.” King is more humble than that. He has watched Thomson develop ever since he joined Queen’s Park at age nine from Park Villa boys’ club. An academy coach at the League Two side, King worked with Thomson for five of the seven seasons he spent with Queen’s Park. He, like so many scouts, saw a player whose striking ability with his left foot stood out even if he “didn’t have the best shape about him” as a youngster. King used to share kitman duties with former Queen’s Park player Andy Robertson before the now Liverpool full-back and Scotland captain moved on. He feels there’s a similar drive in Thomson but it is the need for him to succeed that makes him different to most academy prospects. “There are some boys who you think can go and make it in the game but you know with people like Andy that they will be able to do something else if it doesn’t work out, whereas I was just desperate for Reagan to get this as a job for him and his family,” said King. “I used to have to pick him up as he didn’t have a lift to training and even then I was dropping him off thinking, ‘This isn’t the nicest of places.’ He could easily have said he couldn’t make it in those situations but that never bothered him. He just wanted to be play.” Newcastle sent scouts to watch Thomson this season after he made his first-team debut in August, five days after his 16th birthday. He has only made nine senior appearances but they have been aware of him for longer than that. “We played Newcastle a few years ago and he scored a hat-trick. He was a real standout then but we got to the semi-final of the youth cup last season and he was playing two years above himself. It sounds daft but, when he gets to the edge of the box, you now just expect a goal because he’s done it that consistently and his technique is so good. He could strike a ball 30 yards into the top corner at 10, which most boys can’t do at that age. I don’t think Celtic or Rangers had anyone better than him, from what I saw.” Clyde winger Gregg Wylde, who came through the youth ranks at Rangers, is a big fan and has tipped him for the top on Twitter. Wylde’s father, Gordon, who played for East Stirling in the 1980s, has helped steer Thomson’s career in the last couple of years. He likens the teenager to former Rangers and Norwich City midfielder Robert Fleck and prefers him to play slightly deeper than the No 10 role most teams see as his natural position. King thinks Thomson’s confidence is what helps separate him from the rest. “He’s a character,” says King . “Last season, we had a game on the Wednesday and a game on the Friday so I had to take him off on the Wednesday night. He was raging. He was in a huff so I told him he hadn’t been good enough and that he wouldn’t be starting. I didn’t mean it but I just said it until he apologised. He played on the Friday and scored a hat-trick. He came up to me after the game and said, ‘Is that all right for a ‘sorry’?’ That’s the kind of boy he is. He would never say anything to you, he would go and show it. “He’s definitely matured. He’s gone up to the first team but he’s not shy. If he has something to say he will say it. He’s just been brought up as a wee guy where, if there is a game of football going on, he is there. That’s all he’s ever been interested in. He was never the keenest when it came to the other stuff but he realises that if it’s going to be his job he will need to start going to the gym and eating right. He’s been away with Scotland a few times now so he’s started to get used to that now. “He has never been in this environment before where it’s now his job. You see numerous boys who go down south (to English clubs) and you never hear from them again. I’m hopeful that if he continues to kick on he will be close to Newcastle’s first team. He now has to go and prove he wants it to be his job for ever.” It’ll be quite the story if Thomson is able to overcome the hardship and tragedy that has shaped his life to become a Premier League footballer. It would also be just reward for the support and nurturing he has received from the coaches at Queen’s Park like King and payback for mum Michelle, who has dedicated years of her life to putting a brave face on it for the sake of her kids’ future. “As long as he’s happy, I’m happy,” she says.

The fucks it got to do with you?

Me and Mrs PL didnt bother. We drank this instead. Louder Than Bombs Created by Dona Bridges, the bar manager at The Hungry Cat in Hollywood, one of my favourite watering holes. This is a drink named after a Smiths’ song. Dona names a lot of her drinks after Smiths’ songs. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I know a writer who names a lot of characters after former Aston Villa players. Which is… startling. But as Dona says, with all the huge flavours going on here, the name seems apt. Fill a shaker with ice. Pour in 45ml Laird’s Apple Brandy or LeCompte calvados, 15ml yellow chartreuse, 15ml fresh lemon juice, 10ml pomegranate juice, 5ml sugar syrup and 2 dashes St. Elizabeth allspice dram. Shake very hard, and strain into a chilled coupe.

Aye looks like the him, wears a ridiculous 80s mullet wig. Probably mates the The Fish

John Portsmouth Football Club. Public school educated too. Probably set himself up for life this week

This fucker was in front of us at Rochdale

There was a big campaign in Christchurch in the run up to the elevtion to concentrate on his voting record/being an utter cunt but you've illustrated beautifully how effective it was on the door step Meanwhile on the other side of the conurbation this happened on Monday: https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/18157304.health-secretary-matt-hancock-signs-off-changes-bournemouth-poole-hospitals/ Again, these plans were well known to the electorate at the election. Sir Robert Syms, the sitting Tory who isn't on record as having uttered as much as a fuckin syllable about the town he represents losing its A&E department, was similarly returned with a 57.8% majority. Am giving NZ seriuous consideration. The current Mrs PL isn't, but I am

Fuck off

Fuckin hell, it's like Happy Face never existed 😳

Agreed, from what I could make out Willems barely laid a glove on Traore at the weekend...

CAULKIN INCOMING Rumour has it that when Matt Ritchie left the womb he immediately bollocked his mother for her poor positional sense and booted his father up the backside for sitting around watching. Ritchie was born livid, raging at this inadequate life full of inadequate people and inadequate things, permanently furious, forever running until his feet bleed and his body gives up and then raging at his stupid feet and his pathetic body. Ritchie came into this world with an irrational hatred of corner flags. If you happen to be a corner flag, then Ritchie will seek you out and hunt you down and chances are, he will administer the kicking of your corner flag existence. And if you dare to substitute Ritchie, well… just ask a corner flag how it feels to be on the wrong end of his wrath. Hell might be hot but this man’s splenetic indignation is purest magma. Ritchie is back and Newcastle United can finally breathe a sigh of terror. They have done OK in the winger’s absence, certainly in terms of Premier League points and position, but Ritchie remains the tempo-setter of the team, the leader by example, the roarer, the pointer, the irritant. For the last few seasons, this has been a quiet team but Ritchie is the exception. He despises silence even more than he despises corner flags. Ritchie is radge. Radge is an old northern term, Geordie and Scottish, which basically means Matt Ritchie, even though it was in common usage long before his birth in 1989. To be precise, he is a radge packet, a radgie gadgie — but all the best sides have one of those, whatever they might be called in local dialect, and Ritchie is adored precisely because he gives everything of himself in every match and demands precisely the same from everybody else. Miracle of miracles, Newcastle have won a fixture in the FA Cup, beating Rochdale, teeing up a fourth-round tie at home to Oxford United. In the 13 barren years of Mike Ashley’s ownership, they have never progressed beyond that point and so, although nothing has been decided yet, and with all due respect and all that kind of thing, even Joelinton scored and BLOODY HELL, WHAT IS THIS!? WHAT IS GOING ON!? YOU MAY AS WELL HAND OVER THE TROPHY NOW! These developments were so unexpected and peculiar and so welcome that St James’ Park briefly forgot about being annoyed, distressed and tense. Fans in the Gallowgate End implored Steve Bruce to “give us a wave”, which is infrequent enough to merit mention, and then followed it up with a chant of “Brucie, Brucie.” It was a small crowd (including Ashley) and perhaps it was a different crowd, too, but the lack of drama brought a truce. And nobody got injured. Ritchie was at the heart of it. Ritchie is at the heart of it all because even when he does nothing, it is his pulse that powers Newcastle. But in his first start since August, he played the telling cross for his side’s opening two goals, encouraging Eoghan O’Connell to put the ball into his own net and then allowing Matty Longstaff to score. After both, he grinned, gurned, pumped his fists repeatedly and then looked cross at his hands for such an unnecessary display of emotion. Is he like this in real life? The noise is part of him and when he is absent, like when he travelled to Dubai for warm-weather training as he worked to recover from a foot complaint, Newcastle felt the stillness. He is usually the first to clock in for training, full of chirpiness and energy, a determined prankster who takes perverse pleasure from winding up Fabian Schar, the Switzerland defender. The pitch is where his anger becomes flesh. And also the press box. Since Leicester City’s Hamza Choudhury inflicted what Bruce termed a “horror” tackle on Ritchie during Newcastle’s early departure from the Carabao Cup in August, he has spent most of his match-days with the media, berating every decision, slapping the plastic cover which keeps off the rain and celebrating goals with a lack of decorum which would see him expelled from the Football Writers’ Association — and, trust me, they have a high tolerance threshold. If you want to know what Newcastle supporters think of Ritchie and the things he represents, then consider the responses to an appeal on Twitter to complete the following sentence: I love Matt Ritchie because… @TaylorandBesty: “… it doesn’t matter if you’ve scored a goal or made a clearance, he WILL punch you and kick you up the arse.” @delfender: “… he’s a violent little human with a hatred of corner flags.” @sinicols: “ … he takes no fucking prisoners.” @Skumbo75: “… he’s the best chance we have of seeing a player beat a teammate to death.” @MarkCarruthers_: “… he’s a bloody angry little man and I can relate to that in every way possible.” @paulgibbins: “… he screamed ‘track back you bellend!’ at (Christian) Atsu, right into the pitch side mic on a midday kick off.” @cleadonmags: “ … my expectations are diminished to such an extent that I’m grateful that someone runs around a lot and puts a bit of effort in.” @awinston: “… he has anger management issues that rival Mike Tyson.” @Allman22: “… he’s mad as a bag of rampant badgers!” @petermonaghan39: “… he believes violence is the answer to praise.” @ADStoker: “ … he genuinely told my dad to F off at home to Fulham in the Championship.” There were plenty more like this, with multiple references to corner flags, radgies and ultra aggression committed against colleagues. Sausage roll shinpads? Yes, he really does wear them. Sausage rolls = goals. But let’s be honest here. Who hasn’t wanted to tell @ADStoker’s dad to F off at one stage or another? And who hasn’t looked askance at those plastic poles stuck into the ground at football stadiums, with their upright superiority. Pricks, the lot of them. The point is that Ritchie is effective and effusive, the kind of qualities that team-mates, staff and fans appreciate, notwithstanding the side-effects, the scars and the bruises, the shattered eardrums. “We have missed him,” Bruce said after the game. “We have been without some big players but Matt is loud and effervescent. He wants to play and is a great pro and a great lad to have around.” Midway through the second half, Bruce gambled with his own life. The subs board went up and Ritchie came off, replaced by Jonjo Shelvey. Shelvey once said of Ritchie that “he’s an angry little man,” which is pretty much the same as the rest of us think, particularly @MarkCarruthers_, but on this occasion, Ritchie spun on his heels, applauded supporters and even smiled. It was good to be back. You would like to think that once he returned to the privacy of his own home, he punched himself in the face for being soft. A little while later, outside the players’ tunnel, The Athletic approached Ritchie for a quick word. Trepidation hung in the air. A few gentle questions out of the way, this is the end of our conversation. The Athletic: “Are you aware of the Geordie word radge and what it means? Matt Ritchie: “Radge? Yes. I believe it means a bit of a toe-rag, is that correct?” TA: “Well, an angry person maybe.” MR: “An angry wee bastard?” TA: “So you’re aware of the word?” MR: “I am, yes.” TA: “It’s used about you a lot.” MR: “Right.” TA: “But it’s used with a lot of affection and love.” MR: “That’s nice.” TA: “Do you take pride in having that role in the team? There are great clips of you on Twitter kicking team-mates up the backside after doing something good.” MR: “It’s just my character. I don’t… it’s my character. I am who I am. I can’t be something I’m not. I’m not a calm person. I’m an all-or-nothing sort of man. Yeah. It’s just me.” TA: “You’re not angry off the pitch, are you?” MR: “I can be angry. Definitely, over the years — especially in the last two or three years — I have calmed down a lot, yeah. But I think that’s with having children. It changes you.” TA: “Have you ever had team-mates say to you, ‘Why the fuck have you just kicked me up the backside?’ or ‘Why are you hitting me?’” MR: “(Laughs) Yeah, yeah. Matty (Longstaff) said to me tonight actually, ‘Matt, man, why are you hitting my head? It hurts’. But I love it. I love the feeling of winning, of succeeding, that togetherness. When you win it’s so good.” And Ritchie is good, too. So good, it hurts. It hurts everyone and everything, including inanimate objects.

Fuck off

Piers Morgan's former and current employers are currently being sued by the Duke & Duchess of Sussex. I think that's all we need to know on the subject

Is Bruce taking a blind bit of notice of this medical team of which he speaks?

Joelinton gets visibly physically frustrated when play breaks down when the ball comes to him. Most of the time he waves his arms around like a twat sat on his arse. That shouldn’t be the reactions of anybody good enough to get paid to play the game. That’s not a lack of effort, but it’s fuckin poor all the same. Get on with the game you massive fanny

Atsu has gone backwards under Bruce. He was never much good in the first place like...

3 in 6 for Miggy Bruce is still fuckin useless What the fuck was Fernandez playing at for that corner?

What's the latest consensus on his correct position?... I get a bit confused by these things...

7-1 to beat Wolves. Not the scousers or Man City, Wolves. The bookies know we’re in a tailspin. But we’ve been here before, this season even. Bruce got them going after the likes of Norwich & Leicester. 7-1 is absurd.

Yeah ok Pigsy, stop showing off

A very interesting yet likely fairly implausible thread from an exceedingly unlikely source