A decent article and very relevant to Newcastle

[Snake 0]

http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,1...5153968,00.html

 

In particular

 

As soon as you embrace relegation it ceases to have any power over you. People say the club will have no money but hey, all it has done with the money its had so far is spend it on mediocre players' wages who have got you into this position. So you won't miss it or them. You'll be left with a core of players who might actually like playing for the club. Radical huh? Some of them might get a chance to shine now when the multi-million quid fat striker and his has-been mates have jumped ship.

 

Chances are once relegated the fans will see the club actually winning a lot of games and that is simply much more weekly fun than seeing a teeth-grinding home thrashing by Chelsea or getting caned away to Bolton. Yes, they might struggle but that at least will be a new battle; a change from the same old same old.

 

Here's what I believe; success is not surviving in the Premier League at all costs; success is giving the fans a good time, without bankrupting the club regardless of what position the club finishes. What is success anyway? I'd rather win the Johnstone's Paint Trophy than cling on to mid-table Premier League mediocrity and I refuse to buy this idea that it and only it is the football nirvana and we must all shudder in awe and orgasm before it even while accepting it does throw up some cracking games occasionally.

 

The Premier League and its sirens want to depict relegation as a kind of living death in order to ramp up the status of their league; to make it appear the shiny diamond-encrusted nipple atop the giant milky breast of success. But when you've won just six games all season and played horribly for 80% of the games, that is a lie we no longer believe.

 

The Premier League's 'this is the only game in town' brigade patronise the rest of football and intrinsically belittle noble football clubs who ply their trade in front of a dedicated audience outside the top flight.

 

This isn't a losers' mentality, rather it is a rational mentality with a wider perspective as to what is important about club football. To me just winning enough games to survive playing mostly ordinary football; never bad enough to go down, never good enough to win anything is actually the living death that the Premier League would have us believe is relegation.

[TicTacWoe 0]

http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,1...5153968,00.html

 

In particular

 

As soon as you embrace relegation it ceases to have any power over you. People say the club will have no money but hey, all it has done with the money its had so far is spend it on mediocre players' wages who have got you into this position. So you won't miss it or them. You'll be left with a core of players who might actually like playing for the club. Radical huh? Some of them might get a chance to shine now when the multi-million quid fat striker and his has-been mates have jumped ship.

 

Chances are once relegated the fans will see the club actually winning a lot of games and that is simply much more weekly fun than seeing a teeth-grinding home thrashing by Chelsea or getting caned away to Bolton. Yes, they might struggle but that at least will be a new battle; a change from the same old same old.

 

Here's what I believe; success is not surviving in the Premier League at all costs; success is giving the fans a good time, without bankrupting the club regardless of what position the club finishes. What is success anyway? I'd rather win the Johnstone's Paint Trophy than cling on to mid-table Premier League mediocrity and I refuse to buy this idea that it and only it is the football nirvana and we must all shudder in awe and orgasm before it even while accepting it does throw up some cracking games occasionally.

 

The Premier League and its sirens want to depict relegation as a kind of living death in order to ramp up the status of their league; to make it appear the shiny diamond-encrusted nipple atop the giant milky breast of success. But when you've won just six games all season and played horribly for 80% of the games, that is a lie we no longer believe.

 

The Premier League's 'this is the only game in town' brigade patronise the rest of football and intrinsically belittle noble football clubs who ply their trade in front of a dedicated audience outside the top flight.

 

This isn't a losers' mentality, rather it is a rational mentality with a wider perspective as to what is important about club football. To me just winning enough games to survive playing mostly ordinary football; never bad enough to go down, never good enough to win anything is actually the living death that the Premier League would have us believe is relegation.

 

Yes it is

 

I understand the thrust of the argument and that the fans of Nottingham forrest and Leeds etc still go to the games and enjoy their day out but.....

 

I will always rather be in the prem than out.

 

Same here, while I agree there is a lot of sense in the article as in the PL isn't the be all and end all, it is only when a club is looking doomed the fans start saying this sort of thing and in any case I think most of us would prefer mid table obscurity to the Championship.

[Tooj 17]

The fault with that is there's no guarantee that we'll win games if we go down though.

[Guest alex]

I think it's a bit tongue-in-cheek but I quite like that Nicholson bloke if it's the same lad that used to write on football365 as well.

[Papa Lazaru 0]

I certainly agree that any fan would be happier seeing their team winning loads of games, scoring and being at or near the top of a division rather than watch a load of shite and lose most weeks near the bottom, but sadly if we go down it will be a complete disaster and i dread to think what we'd do in the championship.

 

But i do really miss the days of actually wanting to go to St James and enjoying games there, i haven't for fucking ages now!

[Fop 1]

The fault with that is there's no guarantee that we'll win games if we go down though.

 

That's the thing really.

 

There's absolutely NO reason why NUFC couldn't be in the top 5-6 in the Premiership every season (we might have been this season if things has only been a little different at the beginning), it's not so long ago we were even higher.

 

The only reason we are where we are is basically mismanagement.

 

The problem is there's nothing to say that wouldn't occur in the Championship.

[Nyff 0]

I started reading it and thought it was a pile of shit. Didn't like the way the guy wrote it >_<