May 2010 Archives

For a defender who has not played a game for England Steven Taylor is attracting a hell of a lot of interest from rivals clubs this summer. I wonder which top European side will be in for him this weekend! Real Madrid perhaps? Inter Milan?

Taylor is a fine player, but I find it a little strange he is supposedly on the wanted lists at clubs like Barcelona, Arsenal, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Everton, particularly as he is not an international player and has got nowhere near the England squad in the last couple of years.

However, that is not to say some of the above are not genuinely interested and I would not be surprised in the slightest if Taylor leaves St James' Park this summer.

There are times as a sports writer when you know you have witnessed something special, history in the making as it were, and I am delighted to say I've had precisely that feeling in Canterbury this week.

Durham have had their problems this season and it is already looking as though their bid for a third successive County Championship title is doomed to fail given the excellent start to the season by Yorkshire and Lancashire.

I might be wrong, there is still a hell of a lot of Championship cricket to play either side of our new mid-summer infatuation with Twenty20 competition, but without an overseas batsman at number three and with injuries to so many of their first-choice bowlers, it is going to take a stunning turn around.

If there is no money to spend at Newcastle United, there is no money to spend. If there was one positive from Sunday's night bleak official club statement, at least we know where we stand.

But that really was about it. The rest was just depressing. Newcastle will not be spending any money because Ashley has decided he wants to clear debts more than he wants to make sure United stay in the top flight. Oh and nobody on the board will ever feel the need to explain themselves ever again!

Balancing the books is more important, apparently, than the rather more pressing concern of making sure the squad is good enough to stay in the top flight. The business needs to be sorted out and the team can fend for itself in the meantime.

There are a couple of contenders for the chant of the year at Newcastle United, although my personal favourite has to be the one about Fabricio Coloccini and the liberties he can take with supporters' wives.

Apparently the Argentinian did not know anything about it until I politely told him during an interview and tried to give him a vaguely censored grasp of the song's lyrics. I've since been told he liked it even more when he learnt exactly what they were singing.

So no longer does Coloccini have the best haircut in English football, he has one of the best chants as well. But I wonder how Andy Carroll and Steven Taylor feel about the latest popular terrace ditty?