I'm not really one for football trivia, you know, those brain teasers know-it-alls like to throw into pub conversations, like name four players who have played in every season of the Premiership or name the footballer who slept with his pet goat and became a chicken farmer?!
It might just be that I'm not very good at them, or perhaps it because I've got better things to do with my time with friends than ponder over, at best quirky, at worst downright useless, bits of sporting trivia.
Nevertheless, as it's approaching Christmas and people do lots of things they only do once a year - talk to people, drink, go out, eat Brussel sprouts - I thought I'd pose a little question of my own.
What do Leicester City, Blackburn Rovers, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, MK Dons and Coventry City all have in common? They are just some of the rubbish teams to have won a major piece of silverware since Newcastle United last got out the silver polish in 1969!
Most of you probably got that one, but it's about this time in every football season that United fans start to go on and on about their club's lack of trophy success and football fans up and down the country laugh at their barren run.
Yes, that's right, it's quarter-final time in the Carling Cup, English football's third - fourth for those competing in Europe - most important competition and Newcastle's supposedly most realistic chance of lifting a trophy.
There will be lots of talk of what a great club Newcastle is and how their wonderful fans deserve some success in the national press. The players will talk confidently of being the ones who end the drought and then one of the big four, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, will shatter the dream for another year.
For all of the Carling Cup's supposed insignificance to English football's elite it is worth noting that in the last ten years one of these clubs has won it five times out of ten. Middlesbrough were the last "unfashionable club" to enjoy the prestige of a trophy in 2004. Since then Chelsea and Manchester United have walked off with the prize.
With Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool - I'm writing this before Tuesday night's clash between the latter two - the danger is that one of the big boys will walk off with it again.
For their supporters, the Carling Cup is a consolation prize, a nice day out and something to put in an already bulging cabinet, while the focus remains firmly on larger, more prestigious prizes. For a club like Newcastle, a Carling Cup victory would be enough for the whole of Tyneside to grind to a halt for 48 hours of impromptu celebrations!
With that in mind, let's hope Chelsea send their reserve team to St James's Park on Wednesday night. Newcastle have beaten the reigning Premiership champions at home twice in as many years so maybe, just maybe the Bigg Market will have its Spring Carnival. Mind you, if they get to the final and lose the Bigg Market will get its Spring riot!
Finally and completely unrelated, I forgot to mention Orient's magnificent 3-1 win at Nottingham Forest at the weekend. How do you like that Christmas pudding?
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