October 2006 Archives

It is quite an achievement to get mugged when you don't tend to move off the sofa and haven't left the house in almost a week, but I've still managed to become the victim of this most unpleasant of crimes.

You see, I already pay for Sky Television and I pay extra to watch Sky Sports, justified to my girlfriend as a vital tool of the job, but that still wasn't enough for me to gain access to coverage of Newcastle's drab 0-0 draw with Charlton Athletic on Saturday evening.

Oh no, I needed to stump up some more cash for that particular privilege and at £8 I wish I hadn't bothered!

Somehow I suspect that Ross Wallace is going to become something of a cult hero at Sunderland because nobody can fail to love a player who thinks like a fan - even a hard-to-please manager like Roy Keane.

If we are being sensible we'd all say that Ross' second red card of the season was stupid and immature because the resulting two-game suspension has damaged his side's chances of beating league leaders Cardiff and Norwich.

Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Let's face it, if you had just scored a wonderful goal in the last minute of an away match in front of your own supporters you'd probably get a little over excited.

The best touch for me, though, was, after being shown the red card for his second bookable offence, Wallace turned round and celebrated some more with the Sunderland fans. Class!

Hello there. Just thought, for those of you who have been plagued by sleepless nights and panic attacks since Newcastle's defeat at Boro, I should let you know that I am still alive.

Naturally, the on-going concerns about Newcastle United may have occupied your mind rather more than my health, but the operation went well and I'm at home recuperating.

Thankfully, the wonders of modern technology mean I can still write my blog from my sick bed, inbetween games of Football Manager and PGA Tour Golf, interspersed with the drivel that is daytime television!

So what have I missed?

As Newcastle United’s illusions of grandeur were shattered by Yakubu’s 85th minute header and the travelling supporters smashed the watching Freddie Shepherd’s reputation with chants of “Shepherd Out� on Sunday afternoon some chav scum was putting a brick through the rear window of my car!

I have decided it was a Middlesbrough supporter, or some loser from the town anyway, but I suppose it could have been an angry Newcastle fan after the final whistle. When you see your team lose a local derby they should have at least taken a draw from, it can play havoc with your anger management.

But it wasn’t what I needed after watching a Newcastle defeat which has cranked up the pressure on manager Glenn Roeder, as well as his chairman and it wasn’t something I needed to be sorting out on my last night of freedom before I go into hospital for a rather painful operation. More of that, though, later.

Roeder might have felt some sense of relief when the fans vented their spleen at his boss during the final five minutes of the Tees-Tyne derby, but Newcastle’s manager also knows that when the chairman starts to feel the heat, he sweats and looks to find a sacrificial lamb - the manager.

There will be no pull-outs in the paper, there will be no fireworks or Red Arrow displays and there certainly won’t be any live television coverage when the Newcastle Vipers run - surely that should be skate - out against the Belfast Giants on Sunday.

Unlike a certain Newcastle United number nine -what’s his name, it’s on the tip of my tongue, Arthur, Angus, oh yes, Alan Shearer - Michael Tasker’s retirement will not make front page news and most of you will probably not even know who he is.

But, like Shearer, Tasker is a sportsman the North-East can feel proud of, an athlete who reached the pinnacle of his game, a key figure for both club and country.

You’ve got to feel sorry for Steve Harper haven’t you? I mean, fair enough, he is a well-paid professional footballer who has spent a lot of his time sitting around on benches - of the substitute variety not park benches, with a bottle of cider in his hand - but there are not many nicer guys in the game than Steve.

You could criticise him for a lack of ambition I suppose. After all, this is a goalkeeper who has the ability to be a first-choice at a Premiership club and who might have played for England if he was.

But. there were people who never understood why Matt Le Tissier refused to leave Southampton in the nineties, but it wasn’t really a decision they had to make, or he wanted them to understand. Some people like staying where they are, they like the life they lead and that’s it, end of story, stop going on about it.

So when Shay Given finally suffered a serious injury - sorry that sounds awful doesn’t it, but see it from Steve’s point of view - everyone was delighted to see Harps being rewarded for his loyalty with an extended run in the side.

My word, wonders will never cease, after seven years of computer generated artist impressions, arguments, delays, pleading with bank managers, promises and broken promises - oh and almost £800m, the "new" Wembley Stadium is almost finished.

Well blow me down with a feather, let's get the ticker tape out and declare a national holiday to celebrate the fact a highly-expensive, long overdue, English construction project is almost finished. Whoop de doo!

The thing I can't understand is, why did we give the contract to an Australian firm called Multiplex? Aussies are only good for bar work. If you want something built you look for Polish builders, they're quick, efficient and they would surely have given the FA a better price!

England aren’t very good at one day cricket. We make all the right noises about wanting to be good at it and we play plenty of it, but we just can’t seem to become any good at it. However, the real question is, does anybody actually care?

The last thing you can call me - and trust me I’ve been called plenty of things in my time - is a traditionalist, but for once I agree with the Luddites, the conservatives, the moth-ball brigade, whatever you want to call them.

One day cricket just isn’t proper cricket is it? No, proper cricket is a game where you can play for five days, have 45 hours of supposedly fierce competition and still not get a winner or a loser.

It’s a game where newspapers can be read without much disturbance, it’s a game where the picnic and refreshment tents are just as important as who is playing and it’s the only sport in the world - with the obvious exception of ski-ing , where unsuitable weather means everyone gives up and does something else instead.

I don't like to boast, but once again I will. Thanks to my powerful argument regarding the pros of men wearing pink the Newcastle Falcons have sold out of their fetching new away kit.

The club have informed me that they will be getting a new batch of the shirts in sometime later this week so please be patient all you big pink wearing girls out there.

Seriously, though, the shirt was made in conjunction with Cancer Research UK and sales of the top, superbly sported by Jamie Noon as he dived over the try line against Lllanelli Scarlets last week, has already rasied more than £6,000 for the cause.

A price worth paying for fashion don't you think?

I’m a big admirer of Jose Mourinho. I like his arrogance, I like the way he winds the media and rival managers up and I like the fact he has brought a bit of style - since copied by several other managers including Glenn Roeder - to the Premiership with that black trench coat and scarf ensemble of his.

But I just wish he and Chelsea would stop going on about the terrible injury to goalkeeper Petr Cech.

It was an awful incident and the news the Cech international will not play again this season because he has had two metal plates inserted into his skull following the collision with Stephen Hunt during the win at Reading is shocking.

But Hunt did not mean to do it, he was going for the ball, it was an accident and the sort of thing that can happen in any sort of contact sport.