football – Page 14 – Middle Age Fanclub

Worst NUFC side ever? Sorry, but I beg to differ!

There can be no doubt that these are dark times for Newcastle United supporters. And sadly that’s a sentence any one of us could have started an article off with at almost any point in the last fifty or sixty years. From the likes of Lord Westwood with his pirate eye patch, through the Seymour years, McKeag and most recently Mike Ashley, the ownership of the club has regularly been a shambles. I mean, if you think back, even Sir John Hall seemed, at one point, to be doing his best to mess things up by forcing Kevin Keegan to walk out. And those were the good times!

There have been questionable managers too. And that’s me very much using the word ‘questionable’ as a polite way of saying shite. In my memory we’ve had some shockers – Gordon Lee, Richard Dinnis, Bill McGarry, Jack Charlton, Ardiles, Gullit, Souness, Allardyce, Kinnear, Pardew, Carver, McClaren and the current incumbent Steve Bruce, who seems to be mainly getting by on his reputation of being a nice bloke who has a lot of admirers in the media. You can tell this as they constantly refer to him as ‘Stevie’ or Brucey’.

So, although I have to admit this season’s performances have largely been woeful and are getting worse, some of the outrage at our team and squad that I’ve witnessed lately has made me chuckle. And that’s what prompted this blog.

Now before some brave or eloquent soul labels me an Ashley apologist, a fan of Steve Bruce or the Anti-Rafa, well I’m not. Plain and simple. For the record I’ve been boycotting games now for the last 10 years, having given my season ticket up when cuddly Mike forced Kevin Keegan to resign. The whole Rafa thing simply strengthened my resolve to stay away. But it’s ridiculous to think that I could turn my back on my club entirely. Newcastle United are still my team, my birthright. As a result, I’d still say that I’m still worryingly obsessed with the club.

I’ve read a lot recently about how this season’s vintage is ‘the worst team we’ve ever had’ and I find that a little bit laughable, if I’m honest. It’s also a bit of an insult to quite a few of the squad. Let me explain.

I simply can’t agree that this is the worst team we’ve ever had. The tactical element is entirely down to our head coach and his team. Bruce, Clemence and Agnew, who by the way in my opinion has been given a very easy ride given his former allegiance to both Sunderland and Boro. But that’s something for another time.

Compare this team to several of the last twenty or so years and you can see how ridiculous a label it is to call them the worst. I mean, think back to some of the players in the teams sent out by Jack Charlton or Souness and you won’t have to look far to find some absolute duffers. However, for the purposes of the blog though I’ll focus my thoughts and the comparison on a team that almost had me throwing in the towel years before I finally did. For me, straight off the top of my head, the worst ever NUFC team that I’ve witnessed would be that of Sam Allardyce.

Allardyce, like the current incumbent of the job is coincidentally another media luvvie who seems to take every opportunity to ludicrously defend himself about the dullness of the side he put together at St. James’. For the record his team was clueless. The man, who still claims that if he was called Alladychio he’d be sitting pretty in a top job, was a disaster for us. Not only did he buy a load of absolute duffers, but he brought his horrible playing style too. We were awful under Allardyce. I would drive up from Leeds every other week and sit in my seat on Level 7 of the Leazes end wondering why I’d bothered. There was always hope, but that hope was usually destroyed within the first quarter of an hour of a match. The football bored me rigid. The idea always seemed to be to take a safety first approach and with some of the players in the squad – not many mind you – this seemed at best wasteful.

One particular match under Allardyce stands out as a beacon of drudgery and proof positive that times and teams have been worse. On 3rd November Newcastle played Portsmouth and I remember turning up full of optimism. Pompey were a long way from home and wouldn’t relish playing us at St. James’. How wrong I was. We were 0-3 down after 11 minutes and it genuinely felt like Pompey were playing a different sport to us. Our defending was described by the BBC as diabolical, our midfield was non-existent and up front Michael Owen wandered around like he was out for a walk with the dog. Sadly his dog seemed to have taken the form of Alan Smith and he was clearly on a short lead.

It wasn’t just the system though. Some of the players were amongst the worst that I’ve ever seen at Newcastle. There was Claudio Cacapa, who whatever your views on Joelinton, was quite simply the worst Brazilian to ever play first team football for the Toon. Centre half? Defensive midfielder? Even he didn’t seem to know what he was! He arrived on a free aged 31 and was given a deal worth £40,000 a week. He stayed for 2 years and played a grand total of 25 times. A woeful excuse for a footballer and part of, in my opinion, a far worse team than we have at the moment. In fact, if you think of those in today’s squad who could do that dual centre half/defensive midlfielder role you might well come up with the names of Isaac Hayden and Fabian Schar. Now, you’d be hard pushed to successfully argue that either of them lacks at least a bit of quality, Schar in particular looking a Rolls Royce of a player at times. And, if you were watching during Allardyce’s time, it wouldn’t take you long to work out that neither is the equivalent of Claudio Cacapa.

Alongside Cacapa there was David Rozenhal a Czech defender who, I must admit, I actually thought was quite a decent player at first. Turned out he wasn’t though. In fact he was very much a Czech version of Steven Taylor, who himself was also part of Allardyce’s squad. Rozenhal was Taylor, but without the Forrest Gump running and bad Platoon style acting when he’d handled the ball in the box. I daresay he didn’t wave at keepers either. He was very good at standing still while attackers waltzed round him though. So, in that way, very much a Taylor-alike. And again, simply not in the same class as the likes of Lascelles, Schar, Fernandez, Clark or Lejeune, all of whom would have waltzed into Allardyce’s side and all of whom are currently competing for places in what some would have you believe is the worst NUFC team ever.

Then there was Geremi, another alleged footballer brought in on massive wages by Big Sam. Inspired. Geremi came from Chelsea, who strangely seemed to make no attempt whatsoever to keep him. But in much the same way as we’re always the team that a stirker who hasn’t scored in ten games will break his duck against, we were similarly welcoming to high profile footballers that nobody wanted. Which brings me nicely on to another of the mainstays in Allardyce’s side.

Alan Smith had picked up a career-threatening injury at Manchester United and was never really the same player again. It was plain for all to see. All that is apart from Sam Allardyce who threw £6 million at our friends at Old Trafford and brought Smith to St. James’ Park on £60,000 a week. I remember reading about the potential deal before it happened and going through the same emotions I’d felt when it was reported that we were after John Barnes and Ian Rush some years before. Fear, panic…and a bit more fear.

Smith was at a stage in his career where it had taken such a bizarre turn that no-one seemed to know what to do with him. He could play up front, but had a happy knack of not scoring goals. He was never prolific in his heyday at Leeds, but by the time he reached us it was like he was the reason someone had invented that phrase about the cow’s arse and the banjo. Sir Alex Ferguson had used him as a defensive midfielder, but that didn’t work either. And as if you ever needed evidence of the man’s arrogance, Allardyce seemed to think he knew better.

Smith had even confessed that, ““My injury will restrict me from competing at the very highest level.” and said, “I know that I’m not as good as I was, simple as that.” Astonishing really. Imagine any of our midfield saying that now and think about your reaction. It was never going to work for Smith at Newcastle and under Allardyce, in my opinion, he was an integral part of a team that just didn’t work. Another reason why this was a far worse team then the one we have now. And again, whatever position he’d have played in he doesn’t compare favourably to what we have now.

Allardyce’s team also included the player I rate as the worst I’ve ever witnessed in a Newcastle shirt. Abdoulaye Faye. Another who could play as a defensive midfielder or centre half – Christ, how many did Allardyce think he needed – words almost fail me when I think of him playing for us. Almost, but not completely. I can summon up the following. Slow, clumsy, tactically inept, couldn’t pass it, couldn’t control it, struggled to head it, made me think on more than one occasion of the bloke who rang Souness when he was manager of Southampton and claimed to be George Weah’s cousin and ended up on a short term contract; surely this wasn’t him again, but with a new name? I always wondered what my dad meant when he used to say players ‘couldn’t trap a bag of cement’. And then I saw Abdoulaye Faye and I wondered, for quite a while, if my dad was indeed some kind of wizard.

Faye is undoubtedly a brilliant reason why this season’s squad couldn’t possible be called the worst ever with any legitimacy, because it doesn’t contain Abdoulaye Faye.

Other notable names from Allardyce band of brothers? David Edgar, Peter Ramage, Mark Viduka and Charles Nzogbia. Look for their positional equivelants now and you could easily settle for the names of Ciaran Clark, Emile Krafth, Dwight Gayle and Alain Saint Maximin. Well I know who I’d rather have.

Times are hard at the moment. Hope is in short supply and frustration and anger is in danger of boiling over. But to suggest that this is the worst NUFC squad of all time is ludicrous. Blame Ashley and Charnley. Blame Bruce and his staff if you like. But don’t blame the players. Don’t include Ritchie, Saint Maximin, Almiron, Lascelles, Dubravka, the Longstaffs and any of the rest of them in something as stupid as your worst squad of all time.

Coaching football: When just in case becomes just too much.

Back from Storm Ciara to announce a surprise postponement!

As a grassroots football coach it’s easy to become obsessive. I’ve blogged about this before. Training sessions, team shape, ordering kit, even how kids’ families might feel when their son or daughter isn’t picked. But our obsession with weather must be right up there.

Since going back to coaching I’ve become completely obsessed with the weather. One of the first things I do each morning at work is to bring up the BBC’s weather page on my screen. The tab is always open on my phone too. And as dull as it undoubtedly is, I’m forever checking. Percentage chance of rain, wind-speed and the search for the sunshine emoji are personal favourites. But it’s essential. No, really. It’s essential.

It’s not even a case of what the sky is doing on matchday either. Some weeks are spent scanning the day by day percentage chance of rain in the week leading up to a game in order to assess whether we’ll have a pitch or a swimming pool waiting for us on a Sunday morning. I spend more time refreshing the weather than is healthy really. But then you never know when the forecast will change and the rain will just disappear.

This week though I feel like my obsessiveness has moved on to a new, much sadder level than ever before. My team, Morley Glen Juniors Whites of the Garforth League, division 3a should have been in cup action. And we’re on a cup run, so this is exciting stuff. Although, when I say a cup ‘run’ I mean that we got a bye in the first round and today should have been the second round, but the season going as it has been doing, we’ll take any win possible. Even if we won a game that wasn’t even played against an opposition that didn’t even exist. In my head it was a tactical triumph.

As ever, having confirmed the match details with the opposition coach on the previous Sunday afternoon, I checked the weather. With the pitch in mind I went through every individual day. I’d be at work for most of it, but it feels important to know if it’s going to just rain all week or whether we can expect a drier pitch by the weekend. As I said before, it can be the difference between a pitch and a swimming pool.

The week looked great. Day after day of dry weather, one or two warm-ish temperatures, sunshine and a bit of a breeze. Our pitch would be brilliant. And then I read Sunday. The cloud and rain emoji spelt trouble, but maybe it’d be a case of getting on with it and getting soaked again, like we have done on several occasions this season already. But there was an exclamation mark. In a triangle. A weather warning. And clicking on to the actual day would reveal the small matter of potential 48mph winds. Driving home that evening from work the news then informed me of the approaching storm, this one given the charming moniker of Ciara.

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As the week progressed it seemed that the wind speed was increasing day by day. I’d refresh the weather several times a day just in case the storm had miraculously changed direction and was now heading for Spain or somewhere else that wasn’t Morley. But oh no. This lass Ciara was very definitely heading our way. Ever the optimist though, I was still texting all concerned on Saturday night, confirming that yes, the game was still on and that I intended to have a walk over to the pitch on Sunday morning to check exactly how things were. The now predicted 68mph winds weren’t going to cause a problem.

And so it came to pass that I left my front door slightly before 8am this morning and headed out into a quite horrendous storm. I could hear the scale of the thing through the bathroom window while having a shave half an hour earlier. I could see it from the kitchen window when I went downstairs. But a combination of guilt and stubbornness prevented me from calling the match off from the comfort and warmth of my own home. Surely, once you were out there, you could have a game of football, right?

There was no-one around as I started the five minute walk to the pitches. Scanning the houses around me seemed to reveal that people were still in bed, perhaps playing hide and seek with Ciara. The main road also revealed no cars. But still, I pressed on. Of course I did.

In actual fact, it didn’t feel that windy. It was raining, which probably didn’t bode well for the pitch, but the wind wasn’t too bad. There was hope for this game yet.

And then I turned a corner and headed up a narrow path that leads to the pitches. Now the wind stopped playing games with me. Suddenly I was being battered and it was actually quite tricky to walk in a straight line. Like three years at university encapsulated into a matter of seconds, but with less lager.

Staggering like a drunk I had to keep my head down now because the rain was actually stinging my face. But I still hadn’t checked the pitch. There was a glimmer of hope for this game and the magic of the cup was still alive. I kept on going, still with no other human soul anywhere in sight. Where were the dog walkers that normally left us a Sunday morning surprise? Where were the runners in badly matched shades of lycra? Who knew?

Before I knew it I was out in the open. Ciara was flinging me round like a rag doll (Wow, reading that back, perhaps I’ve got a Mills and Boon or a Fifty Shades in me yet?) but I was ridiculously determined to carry on. Pausing to edge my way up a muddy grass bank in order to avoid a path wide puddle, I pressed on as best I could. I slipped and slid and for a moment feared that I was going to end up face down in the mud, but I leapt the last bit in hope and desperation and made it to the other side of the path. I mean, how stupid would I have looked falling in the mud? Well, in truth, no more stupid than I did with rain streaming down my face and a veritable lake down my front, but my obsessive coach’s nature tells me that as yet, this game hasn’t actually been called off.

I briefly recall playing in horizontal snow last season and imagine that we could yet have a game. And then I reach the pitch. Even at a distance the surface water is clearly visible and I know that unless we play in wellies we haven’t got a game. But still I feel that I should walk on the actual grass to just confirm it. I’m wearing fly knit running trainers that give no protection at all and my feet are already damp, but there’s nothing like the feeling of actual water squelching between your toes to confirm a postponement. So out I stride.

Except I can’t stride out as it’s far too slippy. So I tip-toe on to the grass like some kind of wet, clumsy ballerina. We still have white lines, which is a plus, but in no time at all I’m ankle deep in liquid mud. I hang around for a few minutes, just walking on the pitch, maybe in hope of a dry patch, but it’s inevitable that we’ll have to postpone. I love football, but it’ll be no fun whatsoever to play in this, let alone stand around barking instructions at my team.

I spot a dog walker approaching and it’s this sight that brings me to my senses. We exchange pleasantries, each as funny as the other in a not funny at all kind of way.

“Lovely morning.”

“Aye, just beautiful isn’t it?”

We’re vying the title of Archbishop of Banterbury here, but rather than claim the sceptre and funny hat, I walk on, heading for home. I’m soaked and there’s a path wide lake to avoid on the way back.

When I get back the whole family are waiting for me. My wife and daughter both tell me how ridiculous I look and how stupid I’ve been, but it just makes me laugh. My son joins in, probably more out of relief that he doesn’t have to go out into the storm and attempt to play football. I know why I’ve been out. I understand that I could have called this game off from the safety of my home, but that wouldn’t be right and proper. Other coaches will understand.

I dry off – every item of clothing is wet (I’m definitely writing that racy novel by the way, ladies) – and head downstairs for breakfast. Picking up my phone to relay the postponement to all involved, I see that I have a message. I open it to find that, from the safety of his home, the opposition coach has texted.

“That wind’s probably going to spoil the game mate.”

Life in grassroots football: How to turn your Under 11s four match losing streak into a personal crisis!

Right lads, read this, take it all in and get out there and play like Brazil. Oh, and enjoy yourselves!

Every week, I try to make the last words that I say to my team exactly the same. “Enjoy it”, I say. And I mean it. I won’t lie though. I desperately want them to win because I know that winning football matches is a great deal more enjoyable than losing them. It’s simple really. But I always tell them ‘enjoy it’.

There’s no doubt that there’s a boat load of enjoyment to be had from running a kids’ football team. Certainly that’s what everyone will tell you. It’ll be a tonne of fun. They’re right as well. It is fun. So why am I currently turning our form into some kind of personal crisis then? Well let me attempt an explanation.

“I take it all very personally”

First up – and I know from conversations with other coaches that I’ve got no exclusivity here – I take it all very personally. When I played, as a kid and as a much younger man, I wanted to win. Desperately. Now, as an adult, I won’t ever send a team out thinking that any of us will enjoy it if we get beat. I certainly won’t. I don’t even enjoy it when we’ve got beat and played well. I might tell the kids that it was enjoyable to watch, but that’s a carefully placed white lie. When I played I would brood on defeats or bad performances for days on end. Nowadays, as a coach, it wakes me up in the middle of the night. ‘What could I have done to prevent that from happening?’ I tell the kids that I enjoyed watching them play, but inside I’m already asking myself how I could have changed things in order to avoid that defeat. Or I’m wondering how what we did in training on the Thursday and what we spoke about before kick-off didn’t make it to the match.

Kids don’t enjoy defeat either, especially when it’s a run of them. This thing that was meant to be fun isn’t anything like fun when the other team are laughing at you or celebrating yards away as you sit and have a drink of water miserably at the end of the game.

“I didn’t shout and bawl and I wasn’t cruel.”

And then as a coach, what do I say? I understand the need for positivity, but I think sometimes you have to be human too. Sometimes I just find it really tough to choose my words. And it becomes something that I worry about. Another reason to lie awake on a Saturday night. After our last game, and at the end of the four game losing streak that kind of prompted this blog, I’d had enough. I didn’t shout and bawl and I wasn’t cruel. But I couldn’t tell them lies. Not on this occasion. It had genuinely felt like every instruction given had been ignored. It had genuinely felt like, as coaches, we’d been let down. Of course I didn’t tell them that, but they were left in no doubt that they simply hadn’t been good enough. We’d been forced to make three substitutions because of the attitude of some of the boys and the fact that they’d decided to shout at not just the ref, but their coaches, parents and each other too. Of course, I then worried about that as well! Should I have been negative? Did I need to say anything? Would I need to sit them down again before the next training session and be all ‘cuddly’ and positive? In the end I said no more, but I must have thought it through at least a dozen times in the days between the game and training.

I did end up spending even more hours on football that week coming up with a code of conduct for the boys with some ‘rules’ and sanctions. I gave it out at training still feeling like I might be taking it all too seriously, but then comforted myself later with the thought that I’d taken out the bit where I wanted them to sign it! I’d planned to photocopy each of the signed code of conducts, so that I had a copy as well as the boys! I’m still keeping it in mind for next season though! After all, they’ll be coming up to 12 by then…

As coaches we took that day personally. In the heat of the moment I genuinely considered quitting as it just felt like I wasn’t making any kind of difference any more. As I do on many a Sunday, I found some time to sit and think things through in the afternoon after the game and came to the conclusion that I was taking things a little too seriously. There was no option but to carry on, making sure that training was purposeful and fun and that we worked more towards getting things right in games. After all, it’s an under 11s team, not someone fighting to win the Champions’ League. But it demonstrates how easy it is to become completely obsessed by the small part we play in football. And I’m sure I’m not alone in being this way. I hope I’m not, anyway!

“…I’ve allowed running a team to become too big a part of my life.”

The lengths I go to and the time I put into my team probably pales into insignificance when measured against some coaches. But I still feel that I’ve allowed running a team to become too big a part of my life. In the lead up to a game I can be regularly found scribbling down teams and formation on the backs of envelopes or scraps of paper. I’ll invariably then proceed to lose the envelope and have to search out another one and do it all over again! The trouble is that a combination of a big squad of players – we have 16 kids for a 9-a-side team – and a poor memory means that every team is different again as I forget a player and include someone else. Suffice to say the whole envelope thing can be unnecessarily stressful!

I used to keep a record of every game we played as well. I’d mark each player out of ten, record scorers and write a paragraph or two about how we’d played and things to change. Family life and work has put pay to that particular obsession though as I can just never find the time anymore. Again though, the little orange book is something I’m thinking of bringing back for next year!

When I’ve got time I get out my little magnetic board with the counters that represent players and play about with it, working out who’d be best where and what I’d need to tell them in order to get the best out of them in said position. I haven’t yet had the bottle to use it at an actual match, but the time will come when I finally convince myself that it’s not that embarrassing and that it’s what other coaches do! I’ll stress myself out about that too.

“…please don’t get me started on dog walkers!”

And then, in terms of obsession and crisis, we get to the pitch. Our pitch takes up so much of my time that it’s criminal really. I live quite close to the club, so in times of bad weather I’m forever thinking about it. What will that near side touchline be like? Will the top goalmouth be holding water? Is the grass too long in the corners and is it possible that my lines have disappeared again? As a further consequence of living close, I’m forever checking the weather forecast for the week a well, just in case there’s a few days worth of rain that I need to panic about while being unable to actually do anything about it.

All this is of course before we even touch on the subject of kids using the pitch to ride bikes on. And please don’t get me started on dog walkers! It seems that every time I go over to re-paint the lines someone has let their dog use our pitch as a toilet and then conveniently not noticed! And I swear that every time I’m leaving having re-done those lines someone will proceed to walk their dog over our pitch, even though they can see me coming out of the clubhouse! I’m beginning to feel paranoid; that someone is watching me paint the lines while simultaneously winding up Fido ready to go and run all over our grass!

It gets worse. I can often be found hanging out of my bedroom window, craning my neck to see if I can get a view of the pitch from about 400 metres away. I can’t, but it never stops me trying! Sometimes I’ll see dog walkers or, Heaven forbid, kids playing football and quietly curse to myself while trying not to worry too much. I’ve genuinely become a pitch bore and I fear that I may need to seek some kind of professional help in order to shake the disease.

The final form of obsession can be found on the morning of any match. As a supporter I’ve been ridiculously superstitious for as long as I can remember. Nothing too crazy…just the lucky pants, the lucky socks, the lucky top, not using any plates, bowls or mugs that are the same colour as opposition shirts, the lucky pebbles found on a beach stuffed into coat pockets, buying a programme from the same place week in, week out. Just the kind of things I’ve found as a Newcastle United fan that are proven to work and responsible for all of our success over the years. I mean you can’t always rely on the likes of Mike Ashley, Joe Kinnear and Alan Pardew.

As a coach I’m much the same. If we lose I won’t wear the same top for the next game. I’ll change tracksuit bottoms after a bad result too. I put things out in a certain order when I get to the pitch. I haven’t quite got to the lucky pebble level yet, but I know it’ll happen. I just haven’t found the right pebble yet!

We finally have a game again this weekend after the last four were postponed due to the weather. After what has felt like months and months being obsessed and feeling like I’m in the middle of some kind of personal crisis I have an outlet! I hope that we go out and play well. I hope that the formation I’ve been considering will work and that the changes I’m planning won’t be too much. I hope we can win. And, you know obviously, I hope everyone enjoys themselves. Whatever happens I’m sure I’ll sulk and moan and overthink every last second of it!

An ode to Matt Ritchie and why his injury could prove disastrous to Newcastle United.

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I was driving home on Wednesday night when I heard the news of Matt Ritchie’s injury. Ironically I was driving home to Leeds from Newcastle where I’d been visiting family and friends. My self-imposed boycott – 8 years and counting thanks, Mr Ashley – meant that even though I was home I wouldn’t be in attendance as Newcastle bowed out of the cup in traditional fashion once again.

Ritchie’s injury brought a much greater significance to a game that I’d fully expected us to lose. They say that with Newcastle United it’s the hope that kills you. Well, in terms of the cups, I gave up hoping a long, long time ago. So actually, I was fairy impressed that we’d put out a scratch team and actually drawn the match over 90 minutes. The loss on penalties was par for the course. But then came a different kind of hope.

As I watched the highlights and Hamza Choudry’s crunching challenge on Ritchie, I immediately feared the worst. Here was as good an example of a straight red card as one could hope to see. But it wasn’t given because referees and Newcastle often don’t mix. The sight of Ritchie hopping out of the challenge and trying to stay up before collapsing to the ground sent a shiver down my spine.

Matt Ritchie is my favourite player. In fact, if you look at my Twitter feed – @grahamcrosby – I can fairly regularly be seen to be declaring him the best player in the world. It’s as close as I’ll get to loving a footballer. I’ve always had a taste for wide players. I was one myself and feel that I can identify with their role. It all started in the 70s as I attended St. James’ Park with my dad to watch an utterly uninspiring Newcastle United side containing, over the years, the likes of Tommy Cassidy, Irving Nattrass, John Connolly and Alan Gowling. My favourite though, was Micky Burns. From memory he was a workmanlike winger who would graft up and down in front of me in the East Stand. There was no discernable pace and little skill, but I loved watching him. Micky Burns was the Matt Ritchie of his day. Possibly. Later I’d fall for wide men such as Waddle, Sellars, Lee, Tino, Ginola, Solano, Robert and Ben Arfa, but I’d never forget Micky Burns. I’d also have to put up with people like Alan Davies – God rest his soul – and Wayne Fereday, so I think I deserved the likes of Ginola and mad Hatem. But Matt Ritchie is my current beau.

Ritchie first caught my attention when he played for Swindon under the notorious, horrible, referee assaulting mackem fascist Paolo Di Canio. If you’re reading this Paolo, I hope all the dry cleaning in the world never got those knee slide trousers clean. I’d occasionally watch Swindon on Sky or just catch goals on highlights shows and Ritchie would always turn up.

He then went to Bournemouth, where a lot of Geordies will remember him for the incredible volley he scored at Dean Court against sunderland. Here was a player that I coveted, but never imagined we’d sign. He wasn’t French enough for a start. And so – and I can’t be the only one who does this – my imagined ‘scouting’ would once again go to waste. But sign him we did.

Arriving as we prepared for a promotion attempt, having been relegated under Rafa, here was a sign that we meant business. We payed £12m as a Championship team and persuaded him to drop down a division and to me as a fan, that meant a lot. Here was a bloke that wanted to take on this challenge. Here was a bloke who wasn’t frightened of the potential mess that was put in front of him. Here was Matt Ritchie – I felt at one with Rafa Benitez!

One of the first things he talked about would remind me of Kevin Keegan. And for me, Ritchie is a Keegan type player. In early interviews Ritchie spoke of his father-in-law, an exiled Geordie and how he’d tell him of the joys of Newcastle United. Ritchie bought into the club straight away and was quoted as telling journalists who asked about his decision to drop down a division, ‘You cannot pass up an opportunity like Newcastle’. Much like Keegan and his tales of his exiled Geordie father, Ritchie was endearing himself to the faithful straight away. Here was a player to fall for.

Since his arrival Ritchie has been a pivotal part of the team. And so his injury and the two months out that it threatens to bring will prove crucial to the Toon. Much is made of the captaincy of Lascelles, the finesse of Schar and the pace of Almiron, but for me Matt Ritchie is the talisman and leader of this particular group.

I coach my son’s under 11 team and can get quite obsessed with the role. This often means that when we sit down to watch games, I’m constantly ranting to him about how a player made a run or what decision was made. All in the name of progress though! Matt Ritchie is someone I always draw his attention to as an example of how things are done. My son is ten and impressed with Dele Alli’s handshakes and Jesse Lingaard’s dancing, and while I want him to enjoy his football, I also want him to see the value of passion, desire and working hard. Matt Ritchie encapsulates all of these qualities.

There will be much to miss about Ritchie in the coming months and thankfully some of his time out will be taken up by the first international break of the season. We’ll undoubtedly miss his work rate. Ritchie is a renowned grafter and footage of him sprinting back into position at the very end of last week’s win away at Spurs was great to watch, but nothing remarkable for him. He leaves nothing out on the pitch, as they say and he’s always looked like one of those players that might well die for the cause.

Ritchie also brings a wealth of experience, which often comes out in his talking on the pitch. Throughout any game he seems incredibly vocal; barking orders, cajoling others and generally chuntering along at himself. He seems bad-tempered with it, which can be a useful motivating factor for those around him. A lot was made of the relationship between him and Miguel Almiron last season, but I for one didn’t notice much to worry about. My take was that we had a seasoned professional talking a fairly young and inexperienced new signing through exactly what was required of him. Ritchie was merely Rafa on the pitch and acting as the kind of player that Sir Bobby Robson would have referred to as one of his ‘blue chip boys’. He isn’t afraid of giving out the odd bollocking either, which when the stakes are high is a valuable tool to have. I’m not sure kicking the arse of Christian Atsu, as witnessed last weekend at Spurs, would be found in any coaching manuals, mind!

Another excellent quality that Ritchie possesses is that he never hides. He demands the ball and commits everything to every single challenge and run. There’s the odd trick in him too and he can certainly pass a ball. His delivery from wide areas especially will be missed and could be something that costs us dearly with Joelinton and dare I say it, Andy Carroll waiting in the box. He reads the game well and is often in the right place at the right time to make a vital block or interception. Ritchie is brave in possession and hungry for the ball when out of possession and as we scrap for every available point in what could be a long next few months, it’s almost cruel that our under pressure manager has been robbed of this player.

The last thing that I think fans as well as players will miss is Ritchie’s enthusiasm. I don’t pretend to be ‘in the know’, but I imagine that he is the kind of character that galvanises a team. You can see it in the way he screams at officials when he senses injustice. It’s there in a very different way when there’s a goal and someone is the recipient of a dozen forceful slaps to the head – an in joke? I don’t know, but again it’s the kind of thing that appeals to team mates – the ones who’s heads remain unslapped – and fans. And it’s also there as he’s kicking the shit out of corner flags!

I sincerely hope that Ritchie isn’t missed too much and it would be nice to think that in his absence someone steps up to fill his boots. But this is Newcastle United where a crisis is never far away and rarely averted. Let’s hope that Ritchie’s back sooner, rather than later.

Newcastle United – a football club divided?

Unfortunately I couldn’t get a picture of the newly painted wall at SJP.

I’ve supported Newcastle United for forty years now and I feel like I’ve seen a lot. I watched blokes who looked like they’d just stepped out of the nearest pub representing us for years, but I’ve also witnessed the likes of Gascgoine, Keegan, Beardsley, Cole, Cabaye, Ginola and many others who have more than graced the shirt. I’ve watched us lose away at Bournemouth long before they were a Premier League club and I was there when Andy Griffin scored the goal in the Champions’ League that beat Juventus. And while I’ve never sampled the corporate hospitality of Premier League football, I’ve stood in a very different St. James’ Park to the one we know today. To paraphrase Lindisfarne, I’ve “wet on the wall” in the Gallowgate end, which if you’re old enough, is actually probably quite a pleasant memory.

I’ve sampled the agony and the ecstasy that goes with supporting Newcastle and I’ve sampled it in spades, but I have never felt as confused and conflicted as I do today.

Back in 1989 I walked past my cousin on the way into St. James’ Park for the opening day on of the then Division 2 season. Nothing remarkable in that, you might think, unless you’re a bit younger and have no concept of what Division 2 was. However, in terms of our support for Newcastle United that day, we were a family torn apart. That day I walked through a boycott in order to support my team. My cousin, on the other hand, was prepared to protest to end the rule over the club of a particularly unambitious regime.

With Gordon McKeag as chairman Newcastle had been run on a shoestring budget for years. We were the very definition of mediocre, with years of selling our better players and under-spending on their replacements and as a result were destined to stay beneath the top tier for years to come. The ‘Supporters for Change’ group had had enough and they organised a boycott of this first match. Thousands stayed away, some standing at various entrances to St. James’ Park, imploring those going in to change their minds and stay out. Despite my cousin’s plea – and some abuse at my ‘scab’ status – I went in.

I was rewarded with a 5-2 win against Leeds that included four goals for Micky Quinn, our new number 9, making his debut that day. I think I still have the issue of The Pink from that evening. But I was left desperately frustrated at the end of the season – as with many other seasons – as we failed to get promoted, losing to Sunderland in the Play-Off semi-final. Perhaps I should have boycotted. It didn’t work in that particular season and I continued to attend. However, within a few years McKeag and his cronies had been ousted by Sir John Hall, a movement at least in part brought about by boycotts and protest. By that time I’d begun a small protest of my own which I would carry out at every game attended. Ever in fear of authority though, I’d simply scribbled ‘McKeag Out!’on to the back of my scarf in marker pen and would furtively reveal it during matches, all the while fearing being kicked out by an over zealous McKeagite steward. With rebels like me about it’s no wonder social media does so well nowadays.

Almost thirty years on and there’s another boycott. This time though, along with many others, I’m taking part. And like myself back in 1989, many others are not. Newcastle, once again, doesn’t feel very united at all. Thirty years on and nothing has really changed. Yes, there’s been relative success in between times, but after 12 years of Mike Ashley’s ownership we’re faced with a club that is not only divided, but is sleepwalking through a period of utter mediocrity. For myself and thousands of like-minded souls now is the time to take action. A disregard for cup competitions in favour of the race for 17th place, a world class manager traded in for a journeyman from the managerial old boys’ club and a lack of consistent investment on players, the stadium, the training ground and the academy. The list could go on and on, but those are some of the headlines.

And yet, many fans continue to vow to attend matches. Somehow, the blatant disregard for our club doesn’t seem to matter. Somehow, it’s not enough.

I understand. I can empathise. I get it. But I can’t follow suit. Not again.

The lure of your football team is enormous. Look away now Premier League tourists, but silverware doesn’t have to matter. Glory doesn’t have to be a Champions’ League campaign or wining the league. What matters is the pull of your club. The feel for the town, the city, the region. The feeling of being surrounded by like-minded people from all kinds of backgrounds, all pulling in the same direction. The love of the club and those players and that shirt. That badge. So I understand that people don’t want to boycott. I understand that people don’t want a matchday without St. James’ Park or a trip down the country to watch Newcastle. Especially as, in my opinion, we have a special club in Newcastle United. But it is possible to stay away and in many people’s view, it is all we have left if we want change.

It’s sad to see but our fanbase is now split. Boycotters are criticising those who attend and those who attend are questioning the loyalty of those that boycott. And it’s exactly what the likes of Ashley, Charnley and Bishop want. Divide and conquer, right? The club know that the supporters will find it nigh on impossible to give up on their team. After all, that trophy drought – 50 years and counting – is well publicised. And yet we still fill the stadium every other week. So Ashley and co have gambled for a while now. Keep the spending low, survive in the Premier League and they’ll still turn up. And in doing so, there’s a big chunk of money to be had as a reward, as well as all the free advertising you can cram in.

Every so often there’s talk of a takeover to placate those who are genuinely disgruntled and by the time it comes to nothing you’ve renewed your season ticket in some act of blind loyalty. And as fans, we’ve fallen for the same tricks for the last 12 years. So how long before more change their minds and decide that enough is enough?

The trouble here is a question of loyalty. As the song goes, “we are the loyalist football supporters the world has ever seen”, so staying away goes against the grain. Our loyalty has been blind for a long time now. Take out Keegan’s, Robson’s and Rafa’s teams – and in fairness a season worth of Pardew – and recent history doesn’t leave a lot to be loyal to. But we’ve stayed loyal. Rafa brought us more hope than we’d had in a long time and meant that the loyalty was more than worth it. So now, post Rafa, thousands are staying loyal and criticising those that have had enough. The fans who are boycotting are largely pro-Rafa, while those that choose to still attend matches seem to now be picking Rafa apart. Turns out they never really liked him or his tactics after all. And there are many who are calling those who boycott out on the question of loyalty. In my own case, for example, after forty years of support, where thirty odd of them have seen me attending games, I’m not a fan.

But, in my opinion, loyalty can be shown in different ways and there’s a big picture that needs to be looked at here. The boycotters can see that the club have broken their transfer record twice in the last 6 months or so. We can see that other money has been invested in the playing squad – although, net spend, net spend, net spend…but let’s not get too bogged down there. We can even see that an entire wall at St. James’ Park has been given a shiny lick of black paint. Oh, and that the players’ entrance has been revamped. However, this isn’t enough to buy our loyalty. And it’s not enough to ignore the last 12 years of mismanagement and neglect. Not by a long way.

My loyalty is to Newcastle United, not Mike Ashley’s Newcastle United. I owe nothing to the Sports Direct Arena and nothing to the large scale advertising project that has been inflicted on my club for over a decade. My loyalty tells me to stay away from all of that, because in staying away I live in the hope that myself and thousands of others are forcing change. Hopefully change of ownership. This is loyalty to a cause. A cause for the good of Newcastle United. And in sitting in the stadium and handing that man your cash every week, nothing’s going to change. You can support the team, but I fear that it won’t change a thing. It won’t be enough.

For myself and thousands of other Newcastle supporters – and like it or not, that’s what we are – it’s time for change. In effect, thirty years on, we are still supporters for change. We can’t ignore over a decade that’s served up JFK, Wise, Pardew, paddling pool ice baths, awful kit deals that lead to awful kit, the horrific mismanagement of commercial link-ups, threatened player strikes because of year in, year out bonus cock ups, Lambias, Yohan Kebab and Charles Insomnia, sneaky, childish V signs from owner to fans, staff pizza nights by way of reward for professional sportsmen and world class coaches, pitch side headbutts, exclusive interviews that fail to ask pertinent questions, the open derision shown to fans by not only the ownership, but at times the management – Steve, Pards, Joe, I’m looking at you – , players signed from YouTube, banning the local paper, press conferences where journalists are referred to as c**ts…face it, the hits just keep on coming and this could be almost an inexhaustible list. Suffice to say though that my loyalty doesn’t stretch to that.

The mess made of Rafa Benitez’s contract was too much for me. It was too much for a lot of us. The disingenuous claims made by the club hierarchy since Rafa went have left a bitter taste. Out of it all has come The Magpie Group, the NUST and several other protest groups, all fighting for the same cause – to oust Mike Ashley and end his disastrous tenure of Newcastle United. All too predictably though, I still class myself as a Newcastle United supporter. I can’t completely desert the club. I was brought up with this club and it’s in my bones. Yes, I made a decision almost a decade ago now to give up my season ticket and not go back to St. James’ Park until Mike Ashley was gone, but I resent the views of people who still attend and now question my loyalty or accuse me of not supporting the club.

And this is what it’s come to. Name-calling, bitter claims on either side, ignorance and especially online, a whole host of smart-arse remarks. But the people who still populate the ground on matchday cannot question our loyalty in boycotting the games. All those years ago, I felt embarrassed walking past my cousin and his mates in the Supporters For Change. But there was no abuse on either side. I understood what he was trying to achieve and he understood my need to go and support the team. Nowadays, I won’t criticise those who attend. I don’t really understand what it’s going to take to see them vacate their seats, but I won’t criticise them. Perhaps, by the time the next game comes around, some more will decide to boycott. Perhaps, it’ll take a season or perhaps, like me, it’ll take decades of misery.

The point here is that Mike Ashley isn’t doing a very good job of running Newcastle United. An understatement if ever there was one! And we’re not talking about winning trophies here and fans making unreasonable demands. The mantra has always been about a team that tries and pride in the shirt. No one supports Newcastle United as part of a pursuit of trophies. Ashley himself has admitted that he’d give himself ‘1 out of 5’ for his ownership of the club. He admits he’s a negative. He simply hasn’t got the skills to run this particular football club. And despite all of this there are still thousands of fans that are quite prepared to stick by him, which makes us more divided than ever.

And the we get to the appointment of Steve Bruce as the new manager, Rafa’s successor. Now, I’ve nothing against Steve Bruce. He seems like a nice enough bloke and I particularly liked the Twitter account where he turned up at people’s weddings. Not real, you say? Well, I’ll have to look into that. Serial wedding crasher or not, in my opinion Steve Bruce doesn’t have what it takes to manage Newcastle United. He’s never done well at Premier League level and his appointment smacks of a managing director who is out of ideas. Uninspiring, unambitious and in many ways, desperate. Surely even those who are still attending, those that renewed season tickets, can’t actually believe that Steve Bruce is the right choice.

Newcastle United are more divided than ever. An owner who is despised, a managing director who doesn’t appear to be up to the job and a manager that isn’t wanted and deep down, must realise that he isn’t wanted. Add to that a fanbase who are now very much in two opposing factions. For me, this boycott has to work otherwise it’s terrifying to even think about the future.

Grassroots Football: The Gala Experience

On Sunday 7th July I took my Under 11s football team to compete in the Wakefield Owls Soccer6 Gala, a tournament for various age groups across Yorkshire. This is our story. From previous experience I know that galas are a frenzied affair. There are teams as far as the eye can see, accompanied by parents, close relatives and coaches. And as an actual coach you’re attempting to be in several places at once, coaching your team, instructing subs, keeping parents informed, finding out what’s going on and where you’ll be off to next, as well as trying to stay composed and focused. This may well be what they term ‘mini soccer’ but at a gala it’s like the circus have come to town…and brought the auditions for Britain’s Got Talent with them. And on closer inspection, some of the under 7s do have more than a passing similarity to both Ant and Dec. Gala day begins early in our house as we need to be there to register our team by 9am. Having attended a family wedding the day before, this getting up early lark is not going to be easy. I struggle through a shower and make breakfast for the kids, while intermittently attempting to sort out my coach’s bag and footballs. We load up only the essentials today – first aid kit, bibs, etc and just the 5 footballs so that we can get some practice in without spraying dozens of footballs all over other people’s pitches; after all this isn’t the usual herding cats scenario that we know as training on a Thursday night, with 17 kids and footballs being relocated from anywhere within a half-mile radius. It’s strange how none of our boys can spot the bright yellow football that they themselves have just kicked onto a neighbouring pitch or a patch of grass 50 yards away on a Thursday! Away games can be chaotic in terms of travel. Despite living in Leeds for over 20 years I’m still not that well versed on its geography or that of the surrounding areas and so we’re often screeching up to pitches later than the majority of parents. But today, we’re early, negotiating the journey with no wrong turnings and easily managing to get parked. It helps that we’ve played here several times before, of course. I meet up with my assistant coach and his son. It’s not even 9 ‘o clock and we already have two players present, which is a relief. Just the other six to tick off now. We wander down to the clubhouse and meet some other parents and players before registering the team’s attendance. One of the mum’s makes herself the least popular adult with our squad by producing suncream from her bag and liberally lathering it all over the necks and faces of the boys! There’s an outcry that can probably be heard back in Leeds, but it’s better to be safe than sorry though, right? At this point there’s always a shared sense of determination and optimism. Football at this level is meant to be fun, but in truth, none of us have turned up today to lose while maintaining inane grins all over our faces. We all want to win and nobody is looking to be humiliated. It’s a nice, positive atmosphere to be part of and it’s even nicer to see the undisguised excitement of our boys. Before we know it, we have a list of fixtures and the excitement is ramped up a notch. There’s a managers’ meeting where rules and expected conduct are explained and in almost the blink of an eye we’re on our pitch, sitting the boys down to explain tactics, rules and teams. We’re feeling quietly confident; we have a good set of boys, all of whom can be trusted with the ball and all of whom have shown that they can hold their own against decent opposition. We’ve played three of the teams in our group before and again, never looked out of place. We do still have one nagging problem though. Our goalkeeper still hasn’t turned up. I’ve checked my phone and the text was sent on the previous Thursday, but not replied to. It’s looking increasingly like we’ll be re-arranging the team and start with one of keener outfield players in nets. It’s not ideal, but we’ll have to cope. And then, just as I call my new ‘goalie’ over to give him the shirt, I take one last hopeful look at the entrance to the gala. It’s a miracle. My goalkeeper is jogging somewhat dishevelled and shame-faced over to us! It turns out that they’d lost their door keys, but they’re here now and we can all settle down! Games are one half of ten minutes. It’s only six-a-side and there are no offsides. It’s generally quite hectic, end-to-end stuff and as a coach it can be quite stressful to watch. Usually, if there’s a mistake you’ve got plenty of time to try and put it right, but a game of just ten minutes puts the pressure on somewhat and you have to guard against casual mistakes as you might not have time to put them right. Our first game is against Allerton Bywater, a team we’ve never played. It’s quite an even match, but at the end I feel like we should have won it. Our boys look a little taken aback by the pace and despite warnings they’re fussing over corners and throw-ins, rather than just getting on with it. We snatch at a couple of chances, but defend well at the other end. It ends in a frustrating nil nil draw. We’ve got a point on board, but it could easily have been three. With five teams in a group we get to take a rest next as the other four play each other. It’s a baking hot day, so in one way the rest is welcomed, but it also means that we face three games back to back after this. With that in mind we’ll need to rotate. The rest does give a coach a little bit of time to think though. So I spend the next 5 or so minutes going round my players trying to stay positive, but also reiterating a few key messages and instructions. With that done and dusted there’s time to take in a little bit of the gala. It’s an amazing sight if you love your football. We’re surrounded by games going on and the sound of encouragement fills the air. A glance across at the under 7s brings a flash of nostalgia too and I think back to my son’s first games where he wore a kit that was more like a tent and he barely looked able to run, let alone dribble with or pass a football. The excitement across the site is tangible and it would be easy to get carried away and just wander off to take in some games, but before I know it we’re back to business and our next game. We play a Beeston side from the league above us next and again it’s close. I’ve brought our two subs in to start, the idea being to give everybody a rest, while also making sure that everyone gets a decent amount of football. We lose the game 1-0 though and again have enough chances to at least get a draw. But it’s not to be and if we’re going to qualify for the main trophy we’ll have to win at least one of our last two games. The change in format doesn’t seem to be helping our boys. The pitch is much smaller than we’re used to and the length of game much shorter. And yet, every time we get a corner we’re over-hitting them, lofting them into the air and out of play on the other side of the field. Similarly, when we get a throw in we’re fussing about who should take it or taking an age trying to be ever so precise about where it goes, rather than just getting it taken quickly, down the line as instructed. We’re making mistakes and piling pressure on to ourselves. And we’re yet to score a goal. This changes in our next game. We’re playing one of the host’s teams – Wakefield Owls – and it feels like we are dominant. It takes us a while – which is the very definition of things being relative with a ten minute match – but eventually we get our goal. It’s a scrappy affair, with the ball bundled in at the back post, but they all count. It feels like we can go on and win from this position, but within a minute we’ve presented our opposition with the ball and they’ve scored. Suddenly the tables turn and we’re under pressure, but we ride this out and in the end (again!) we’re unlucky not to grab a winner after we hit the bar once and slam a few chances narrowly wide. It feels like we’ve finally gotten into our stride though. The games seem to be kicking off at different times and so we’re left waiting for our final group opposition, which gives me a bit of time to go around the lads once more, passing on instructions. We eventually sit them down and give them the big pep talk. That’s pep as in building the boys up and trying to make them feel more positive, rather than being any kind of tactical genius with a Catalonian accent. This is a big game for our boys. Exactly twelve months ago to the day we played the exact same opposition at the exact same stage of the gala and lost in a bit of a bad tempered game. It meant that we didn’t qualify for the latter stages of the trophy and a few of the boys ended up in tears. As it turned out we went on to win the less prestigious cup that the teams in the bottom end of each group played for, so the tears soon turned into smiles. But we really want to win now! It seems churlish and perhaps a little immature to talk about revenge, but then again, if we’ve not come to win football matches then why have we even turned up? The game is close, but frustratingly – again – we have more of the ball. We’re fairly dominant, but again we just can’t seem to score. We force the keeper into saves and we hit the bar, but that ball just will not go into the net. I’m struggling to retain any sense of professionalism by this point and each time we go close I’m either sailing through the air ready to celebrate or dropping on to my haunches like some kind of over emotional teenager. But that’s football. I don’t go along with the theory that we’re better coaches because we stand there saying very little. And I don’t think that it’s a case of the more vocal the better. We just all have different styles. I can’t help but get involved. I’m not negative, but I’m not particularly quiet either. And at this point on Sunday I was struggling to maintain control! The game ends in a 0-0 draw. This almost certainly means that we will drop into the lower end of the knock out matches. After a few minutes of standing around I head down to the clubhouse to try and get some more information. This is a well organised gala, so it’s easy to get our finishing position confirmed. And it’s exactly what we thought. However, some games are running over and so we’re faced with an anxious wait to see who our semi final opponents will be. I say ‘anxious’ but it’s of no interest whatsoever to my team who proceed to spend the next ten minutes or so practising elaborate corner kick routines. They even devise a celebration to fit the corners! That’s the brilliant thing about football at this level. Yes, it matters, but the emphasis has to be on enjoyment and my boys are definitely enjoying themselves. It’s getting the balance right, again, that’s key. Meanwhile, I’m having no fun whatsoever, sweating over the team for the semi final and fretting about how we’ll react to the pressure! We play another side from Beeston in our semi final and in the end we make too many mistakes. We lose 2-1, despite some frantic attacking once we’d gone two goals down. We pepper the opposition goal and manage to scramble one in but we run out of time. And that’s it. We’re out. We encourage our boys to shake hands, but for some it’s a step too far. There are tears and sullen faces everywhere I look. We try to get around each player, staying positive, congratulating them on all of the good things that they’ve done today and reminding them that they should feel proud. But it’s to no avail. These boys care deeply about this team and I have to admit that this makes me feel even more proud of them. As I walk around the pitch I hear a distinctive sound. It’s the sound of one very upset little boy and it’s a sound I’m only too familiar with. Like many coaches, I coach my son and for now he’s devastated. Despite the fact that he scored our goal he’s blaming himself as he misplaced a pass in the lead up to Beeston’s second goal. So the coach has to be put to one side and dad takes over. I want to scoop him up like I did when he was much smaller, but I know that he’ll be mortified. So, I crouch down next to him, give him a big hug and talk to him, telling him that it’s not his fault, that it’s no one’s fault and reminding him what we all learn in the end; this is football. We decide to watch the final as a team at the boys’ request and again, like we’ve witnessed all day, it’s a brilliant competitive match. Again there are tears at the end, but thankfully not from our boys who by now, my son included, have moved on. Afterwards we make our way down to the clubhouse where our team are presented with medals; a lovely touch from the organisers. By now, all of my boys are smiling and have their team photo taken holding medals aloft proudly, like they’d won the tournament after all. And there’s that lesson again; this is football. One minute your as low as you imagine you can be and then next you’re flying high. Whatever you feel, it’s an utterly brilliant game to be part of. Thanks to Karen and all at Wakefield Owls for their hospitality and another fantastic gala. We’ll see you again next year!

Newcastle United – addressing the state of our nation.

This isn’t some kind of mock speech. It’s not an address where you’ll learn anything particularly new, but I do hope to add to what seems to be a growing number of fans thinking in much the same way. Because what needs to happen is going to take numbers. And I do hope to address the state of our club. And what a state it’s in.

Newcastle United are a proud club. We are 126 years old and as such have had a history that has been eventful to say the least. We’ve sat, several times, at the very top of the pile dominating English football and we’ve had our own personal rock bottom years too. We’ve never dropped into League 1, mind.

Sadly though, for the majority of the last 12 years, Newcastle United have been nothing short of a shambles and while there has been some relative success it has always been clouded by darkness, a lack of ambition and it would seem at times an unfathomable determination to do anything possible in order to alienate its fan base. We are a club stricken by disease and until we find a cure, Newcastle United cannot move forward and will continue, tragically, to be overtaken by the likes of Watford, Bournemouth and Southampton.

Mike Ashley ruined my club for me. His actions and his decisions made me give up on what had been a lifetime obsession. Born and raised in Newcastle I had followed my father in supporting our home town team. This had nothing to do with glory-hunting or bandwagon jumping; this was a decision made out of love, pride and blind loyalty. We were in Division 2 (the equivalent of the Championship) at the time. That was my story. That was the same story that many of us would have. But, having sat through so many highs and lows that I’d lost count I gave up my season ticket because of Mike Ashley and his cronies.

The infamous Hull City game made up my mind. It was September 2008, Kevin Keegan had just resigned and we were facing up to our first game without him, again. The atmosphere was toxic, the ground a seething cauldron of pure anger and hate. I sat, having previously been moved to a place in a different part of the ground away from people I’d spent years with, feeling alone and helpless to stop what was going on with the club. My decision was made that day. I would see out the season regardless of what happened – we were relegated – and I would never go back until there was no Mike Ashley.

I’ve never been back. It’s a decision that has been made slightly easier as I now have children and I live 100 miles away, but it still breaks my heart. As a kid and even as a young man, not going to St. James’ Park was something I couldn’t comprehend. But things change and people get older, move on and welcome other obsessions into their lives, like families. I had a family and had put some distance between myself and Newcastle. Neither reason would have stopped me going without Ashley though. I read the newspapers, watch the games and reports on television and scan through social media for news of my club. But it’s not the same. A chunk of me has been taken away.

So what started off as a small boy – I think I was 6 – going to home games with his dad and sitting fascinated by the colour and the noise and the fact that people genuinely got paid to play for my team, at the back of the East Stand, then blossomed into attending games with my mates and doing anything I could to scrape together the money to afford the ticket. As a teenager I started to travel to away games too, opening up a whole new world of following the Toon and just multiplying my adoration for the club. This continued as a young man and well into my late thirties. When I had kids I naturally assumed that this would be something we’d do together, like me and my dad had many years before. But no. Mike Ashley and his reign of neglect have forced my hand, like it will have done to many other fathers. So if you thought describing this whole scenario as heartbreaking was a bit over the top, then maybe now you can understand.

Recently, even following from a distance has been painful. We’ve had two stable seasons and the signs have been good. We’ve had a world class manager; a man who clearly loves the club, the area, the people. We’ve – sort of – broken our longstanding transfer record. We have a team that cares, and team that tries and who, it would seem, would lay their bodies on the line for our club. It had seemed like this never-say-die quality was going to be supplemented by even better players. But no. Despite meeting with his manager weeks ago and despite said manager providing a list of potential signings Newcastle United has ground to a halt. Rafa Benitez – he of Champions’ League winning, managing some of the top sides in Europe, Paul Dummett transforming, popping his glasses back in his top pocket after games, calling it a cloob, and telling us C’mon Toons! – has been dispensed with.

It came as a shock, but at the same time was no shock whatsoever. Whichever way you look at it the decision was the most Mike Ashley thing ever (until the next one) and had I been a betting man I could have cleaned up. The offer made to the manager was never going to match his ambitions and it would seem that this was wholly intentional. And in the end why would any manager want to stay at a club that wouldn’t let him manage?

Rafa Benitez will be a huge loss to us all. His arrival awakened the club and in truth it awakened something in us all, too. He brought vision, class, passion, expertise and understanding, where before we’d had John Carver talking about the guys at the club, Alan Pardew talking about himself and forever adding to a seemingly never-ending list of excuses and Joe Kinnear talking out of his arse. Rafa did none of that. Rafa gave us hope.

Rafa also helped bring back pride and dignity to not only our supporters but to the region too. It gladdened my heart to see the pictures of him and his staff taking in the local landmarks a couple of years ago, in order to learn more about their new environment. And then there was his work with the Newcastle United Foundation and the NUFC Foodbank – both causes that the likes of Pardew wouldn’t have touched with the proverbial bargepole. There will undoubtedly be lots more causes that Rafa took an interest in, lots more lives that he touched, that you or I will never know of.

Rafa Benitez got Newcastle United. He understood the people, the city and the region. He invested in us and although it’s a terrible cliché, he became one of us. He stands alongside Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson as one of the greatest Newcastle managers of the modern era, as well as one of the most popular. It’s nothing short of a crime that the powers that be at our club – it’s not theirs – have allowed his contract to run down and essentially dismissed him. I understand that he wanted to leave, but that has nothing to do with anything or anyone other than Mike Ashley and his gang of halfwits. These people have made our club into a shambles by taking backward step after backward step and all of it without any real communication with their customer base; the fans. While all of this has gone on, off the back of – relatively speaking – another successful season, the club have churned out ‘no comment’ after ‘no comment’. In the end, what was happening was as predictable as it was inevitable. Most of all, it was heart-breaking.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the background, a takeover has been brewing. Someone in possession of both a shedload of money and a modicum of common sense had seen the potential of our club. It was really going to happen this time, right?

Wrong. Even amidst talk of a takeover it’s been difficult to get excited. There was optimism for a short while; someone was communicating with the fans. We didn’t know who they were or whether they had the money to buy the club, let alone whether Ashley would sell, but these people were telling us it was on. But as with Staveley and Kenyon (Christ, even like Barry Moat!), the trail has gone eerily quiet. We’ve gone from the bookies giving us relatively short odds on signing Kylian Mbappe to the majority of people suspecting yet another false dawn in a matter of weeks. A Newcastle United story if ever there was one. Aye, another one! But just because it’s all so very Newcastle United doesn’t make it any easier to take. And the silence from the club – apart from the now universally mocked ‘ no comment’ – is simply astounding. Astounding and absolutely unacceptable.

So what exactly is the state of our nation. Well, as I previously stated, it’s nothing short of a shambles. And that’s being reasonable. The club is quite simply an utter mess. At the time of writing we may or may not be being taken over by a billionaire. There should be a sense of optimism at the prospect of being labelled the new Man City and preparing ourselves to ride the wave of success that would inevitably bring. But there can’t be, can there? In actual fact, we can’t even be too sure that our owner, who put the club up for sale, actually wants to sell the club. And the fact that even one fan might regard this as a possibility is completely ridiculous. I’ve found myself looking at the buyer’s name to try and work out if it’s an anagram for something else that would reveal that we were being cruelly misled. We’ve seen an interview from Ashley himself, discussing the possibility of selling the club on more than one occasion and still, he might as well be saying that he’s attempting to sign Mickey Mouse for world record fee (for a mouse).

As I write we have no manager. We had one. A world class one. But those in charge of the club decided that his help, guidance, advice and football knowledge wasn’t really needed anymore. Not exactly a forward thinking approach. However, add that to the fact that pre-season training starts in a couple of days and you wouldn’t get many sane people questioning you when you tell them you expect another relegation this season. On top of that we know that Lee Charnley is in charge of appointing the next manager, and I don’t think I’d be alone in finding that prospect as one that sends a chill down my spine. That said, I’ve got to the point where I’m actually not that interested anymore. Whoever becomes the new manager will still inspire the same lies, lies and more lies that any other manager in the Ashley era has been faced with. And whoever they are, you’d be surprised to see them get anything more than another lick of paint to the training ground in the next few year, let alone any stellar signings.

The transfer window has been open for quite some time now and we’ve still done nothing. No incomings – so little change there then – and plenty of ridiculous stories linking us with players who we simply won’t buy because of the finance involved, which is exactly the same as previous seasons. Think about it, last season there were several clubs in the Championship that comfortably outspent us. Christ, we haven’t even sold Joselu yet and from what we read in the press he’s been heading through the door for the last three weeks! But hot off the press comes new of Ayoze Perez’s departure and the seemingly strong possibility that Sean Longstaff may also be sold. And still, according to some in the media, it’s not Mike Ashley’s fault, he’s doing nothing wrong and us Newcastle fans are unreasonable.

We could go on and on, but frankly it’s worse than depressing. Some people believe football to be a waste of time and a triviality that they sum up by telling you it’s ‘only a game’ or ‘it’s just a load of people chasing a ball around’. Well, they’re wrong. It’s an obsession for lots of us. It’s might well be the thing you love the most and if it isn’t it’ll be right up there. In times where mental health is an ever-growing issue, football can be something that brings unbridled joy and a smile to many a face. And if someone wants to trivialise something as wonderful and pure as that, then maybe they’re the trivial one. I’ve experienced many emotions across the course of my lifetime and some of the most joyous could have only been provided by football and specifically by Newcastle United. The joy, togetherness, laughter…even the heartache. Let me illustrate. On one occasion I sat in an ice rink and held hands with my two best mates while chanting ‘We three are one’ in order to somehow help John Burridge save a penalty. Our held hands were placed on top of a cut-out-and-keep picture of Uri Geller’s hand and our feet on top of each other’s, just to add that extra layer of stupidity and detail. Burridge saved the penalty – joy. We were three teenagers lads holding hands – togetherness that was ahead of its time, I think you’ll agree. We still laugh about it to this day. It was the first leg of the play-off semi-final against Sunderland and we lost the 2nd leg and didn’t get promoted – heartache. You’ll read this and understand exactly what I mean. But Mike Ashley, Lee Charnley, Keith Bishop, Dennis Wise and any of the others at the bottom of life’s barrel don’t understand at all. They wouldn’t go to anywhere near the lengths we go to in the name of their football club. And that’s exactly why things have to change.

I’ve never understood why Mike Ashley wanted Newcastle United. Not on a human level anyway. I understand the desperate need to grow his business, but even then, his junk shop was hugely successful and he was rich beyond his wildest dreams, without Newcastle United. So, as we know, it comes down to a simple matter of greed. He cannot get any pleasure, any fun, any joy out of our club. He can’t get what we get from Newcastle United. And in that aspect he can’t even begin to understand what it feels like to be one of us. He rarely even watches them play. He quibbles about buying players and employs PR staff to peddle us lines about being unable to compete with mediocre sides and relatively small clubs in order to try and dampen our enthusiasm and optimism for this thing that we’ve been brought up to love. He treats us like idiots even though you don’t have to be Einstein to work out that the Premier League is awash with money. So where’s ours, Mr Ashley?

Why bother, Mike? You’ll never be accepted and never be taken seriously. Face it, even your friendly apologists are on the payroll in some way. Our club has been dragged through the mud by your regime, suffering under the hands of people like Jiminez, Lambias, Kninear and Wise – although little Dennis’s hands were only tiny. We’ve been lied to and strung along and this has to be the last straw.

So how do we solve a problem like Mike Ashley? I don’t have a grand answer in terms of the protests that we could organise or a guaranteed way of removing that man from our club, but I know a way that we can and should hit back. It’s not original, but I reckon it would be effective. And if me writing this gets even one person to take some action, then we’ve had some success.

We no longer give him our money and we expose his lies to the world by boycotting games. As I mentioned previously, I gave up my season ticket years ago. It wasn’t a decision that I took lightly. Newcastle United have been a lifelong love and I adored everything about going to games. The sense of belonging was something to cherish even when we were being hammered into humiliation; something I’d grown used to. But the highs made it all worth it. Every chant that made me laugh reminded me of what I had. Every goal produced a joy that largely went unmatched elsewhere. Climbing the steps to look out over that ground, that pitch and watching those black and white stripes emerge from a tunnel meant the world to me. But I knew that I had to give it up. And I knew that others would be like-minded.

It’s hard. It’s unimaginably hard to face up to the fact that you’ll not be in your seat when there’s a game. It haunts you and you dream of the day when you’ll feel like you can go back. Like everything has slotted back into place. Because there’s something missing without it. And it’s an absolutely huge something as well.

But you have to give it up. Only for now. A temporary necessity, if you will. To keep going is to perpetuate the myth that everything’s alright. And it’s not alright. It’s not your club anymore. The shell is the same, but there’s a cancer attacking what’s at the heart of it and the only way to fight is to stop feeding it. That man wants you in your seat because it feeds his ego and helps to publicise his shop. Thousands of people sitting around his tacky logo looks like thousands of people endorsing it. But you can’t. You can’t endorse Wise, Kinnear, the Sports Direct Arena, Wonga, Xisco, Pardew, price rises, wheelie bin ice baths, paddling pools being used for the recovery of professional athletes at the training ground, selling off your best players and not replacing them and cheaply manufactured strips that denigrate our name. And you can’t endorse a regime that gives you John Carver, but tosses the likes of Shearer, Hughton and now Rafa Benitez away like used toys. That regime don’t want a Newcastle united. To endorse that is to open yourself up to the fact that it’s going to just keep happening.

So give up that season ticket. Walk away – just for now – from this relationship. And for a while, don’t look back. Fill that void – just for now – with something else. Rediscover family and friends, take up a hobby, follow a new sport or a different team (nonleague, of course). Do anything – just make it lawful – but don’t go back until he’s gone. Because one day we’ll get our club back.

Proof that family and football don’t mix.

On Friday 12th April Newcastle United secured yet another ‘against all odds’ style victory. The 1-0 win away at Leicester City was, in a way, quite remarkable. We’d lost the previous two and were in danger of being dragged back into the relegation fight. Leicester, on the other hand, had won their previous four and were keen to let us know about their confidence via any available media outlet. We’d lost Florian Lejeune to another knee injury while they had Jamie Vardy in the form of his life. And so on and so forth.

As ever our lads put in an amazing shift, covering the ground, sticking doggedly to Rafa’s instructions and throwing themselves headlong time and again into tackles and blocks. Meanwhile, off the pitch, our travelling support were simply magnificent, turning out in vast numbers, out singing the home support throughout and then staying in the ground afterwards to show their appreciation for Rafa and his boys as well as just having a bit of an impromptu party.

That night tributes were payed to the team and the support – and rightly so. Sky pundits congratulated everyone concerned and social media was awash with videos of 3,000 Geordies asking ‘Who’s that team we call United?’ as loudly as their throats would allow, given their performance over the previous couple of hours. Rafa and some of the players joined in and Salomon Rondon even asked if we’d been playing at home. Magnificent.

However, as great as it all was, I was left wondering – in the very back of my mind – if anyone had spared a thought for me. In fact, I wondered if anyone would spare a thought for the thousands who would have had to go through the kind of trials I had gone through just to watch the game.

Now before we get started let me explain that this article isn’t quite what it seems. I’m playing the fool a little bit and laying on the sarcasm in quite a heavy dose. I’m not in any way making a parallel between myself and the people who took time off work or travelled through the night and stood in the cold and who do so every time we play. In terms of away trips I’ve been there and done that many times; I know the hardships but I’ve also shared in the joy. And I know that plenty of people will regularly have to go through a lot more just to watch us play on the telly. I’m simply talking about what should be the simple act of watching the match at home on my own telly on Sky. Let me explain…

On Friday I finished work after what was an extremely long, arduous term. I’m a teacher. I came home quite fancying a pre-match nap, but found that my family were indulging their passion for X-Box, or as I call it, shouting at each other with headsets on. So the nap was going to be impossible. Instead, as a little treat and a way of trying to take my mind off the match, I left them in the front room and disappeared into the kitchen to do some dishes. La vida loca, I know. Later, at the peak of excitement, I cooked the kids their tea. Beat that.

I don’t enjoy the build up to games and I never have. If I’m at work I have plenty to take my mind of it, but if I’m at home it’s always there nagging away at me and making me think ridiculous thoughts about whether my choice of pants, shirt or even mug will affect our performance. Stupid, I know and as Stevie Wonder once said, Superstition ain’t the way. It’s a habit that I can’t break though.

So on Friday night it was a case – as usual – of just doing anything and everything both to stay awake and to take my mind away from the game. The importance couldn’t have been lost on any of us and if, like me, you often take a pessimistic view, then you could have been excused for worrying that we could easily get beat and be pulled back towards Cardiff.

After a while though the build up to the game was on the telly. My family however were still hogging the living room like travellers on the local fields. Minus the alleged petty theft and casual violence though. Although my wife is quite handy at times.

Undeterred, I turned the telly on and was dismayed at the amount of coverage Leicester were getting. Vardy this, Rogers that, Maguire the other. So the usual type of Sky coverage then. Guessing that this was set for the long haul I ducked out and grabbed the ironing board, because when I said I’d do anything to take my mind of things, I really meant anything.

And so I set off ironing while watching images on a screen with the sound muted. Images of Carragher and Neville bigging up Jamie Vardy. This is Extreme NUFC watching, after all.

As a bit of time passed I started to feel a form of mild outrage though. Why were my family insisting on staying in the living room? Could they not naff off out for a walk or move their (metaphorical) caravans into the kitchen? Mild outrage turned to mild temper and, wait for it…I turned the sound on. Luckily just in time to hear Kelly Cates announce that they’d be back after the break to focus on Newcastle. Time to stop ironing, take the chair in front of the telly and focus on the Toon.

By this point my family are knee deep in the middle of a game of Monopoly. No, really, they are. And with Monopoly comes competition. And with competition in our house – surely in any house – comes shouting. Actually, in our house shouting seems to be the default setting. Whatever had prompted it, it was just more to get in the way of my enjoyment of the match.

Now at this point some people would be forgiven for wondering why my family don’t seem to care. Why, for instance at the risk of blatant sexism and gender stereotyping, my son hasn’t joined me. Well, this is because the rest of the family are all Leeds United fans. I moved here in my mid-twenties, married a Leodensian (that’s someone from Leeds, not a posh word for a lesbian or a lion tamer) and settled here. I’ve now lived in Leeds for twenty years or so. And at the risk of outraging many Geordies, I simply let my kids decide who they wanted to support, when the time came. Both plumped for Leeds, their local club. In essence they’ve swapped one misery for another, really. But more of that another time, eh?

The game is now creeping ever closer. We’re mere minutes from kick-off and I am well and truly settled in front of Sky Sports. I know our team and at the very back of my mind there’s a lingering sense of optimism. It is however, competing with an ever present planet sized chunk of pessimism that comes with being a Newcastle fan. So while I sense we can get something, I fear it’ll be a hiding.

Alongside the optimism/pessimism conundrum I’m now starting to get slightly irritated by the others in the room. As mild-mannered as I am, I’ve had to turn the volume up. Apparently the issue of going to jail and not collecting £200 is way more important than what’s going on in Leicester. I can’t really hear what’s being discussed on screen anymore, but I suspect it’d only make me more nervous anyway. But it’s OK, I think, because both kids will have to have showers soon, in preparation for bed and my wife will be off cooking the tea. It’s almost 8 o’clock for pity’s sake and I’m starving.

Needless to say at kick-off nothing has changed. No one is off showering, no one is cooking and none of the squatters has left the room. I attempt the odd subtle ‘Howay the lads’ in order to drop a hint, but to no avail. My son has bought Mayfair and now can’t afford much else – classic mistake. He’s blaming everyone else and asking for the rules to be bent. The Monopoly volume has actually raised while I’m subtly displaying the quietest outrage ever witnessed.

As the clock on the game ticks past 10 minutes though, I’m beginning to get more than a bit irritated. There is literally no sign of Monopoly finishing. No sign of children starting to get ready for bed. No sign of my tea. And no chance I can concentrate on what’s unfolding before me in Leicester. We’re holding our own though. I can’t relax however, as in my suspicious mind the moment you think a positive thought Toon-wise is the moment Manquillo misses a tackle or humps an over-hit backpass towards our goal. And of course off to my right three of the loudest people I’ve ever met are attempting to have a conversation about a bloody board game while all talking at the same time.

I repeatedly turn up the volume which piques the interest of my son who starts to ask questions. Bloody questions! I’m trying to concentrate on the game! He knows the players, the score is on screen, he can see who we’re playing! Aaaaagh! This truly is extreme NUFC watching!

The half is now ticking by quite nicely and we’ve got a foothold in the game. In fact, we’re the better side. Things are settling down a bit. My wife has departed for the kitchen and strangely, my son is now quite placid. And then my daughter starts dancing. The Monopoly board is still on the floor so she’s improvising somewhat, twirling ever closer to me in the armchair. After probably not even a minute it’s too much.

“Will you bloody sit down?!”

“Alriiiiiiight!”

Her outrage is palpable. She’s 12 and has mastered the art of answering back. And after all, what’s a living room for if it’s not for dancing around all the garbage on the floor while swinging dangerously close to an enormous Smart TV?

The tension has become too much for me. We’ve now reached the stage of the game where you can almost reach out and touch half time, but when there’s actually still quite a while to go. The half hour mark, as it’s known, when sometimes, just sometimes, even Newcastle fans can relax. But this game is so important. And as with every occasion I watch Newcastle on the telly I have to get up. I can’t sit still any longer so I’ll stand. Maybe if I wander around for a little bit time will miraculously pass. Whatever it is, the dancing has snapped something in me and I’m up.

My son decides that he’ll have a little wander too and between him, a now sulking pre-teen, a Monopoly board and three piles of fake money, it’s quite the job to actually find somewhere safe to place your feet. I turn my back for a second and my son chooses this time to engage me in conversation – probably asking who we’re playing again. I’ve momentarily left the game behind.

Luckily the volume has had to be turned up to a silly level so I just here the commentator’s voice go up in tone significantly. Something’s happening and it involves Matt Ritchie, a man in possession of a magic hat and a wand of a left foot.

Instinctively I spin round. Miguel Almiron has just lost the ball, but it’s heading back to Ritchie. My son is practically standing on my toes for some reason and it’s tempting just to push him over. Instead, I place my hands on his shoulders and hold him still. All this to watch a game of football. But this is extreme NUFC watching.

On screen, Ritchie feints, drops his shoulder and pushes the ball past a Leicester defender before delivering a great ball into the box. I can see Ayoze Perez moving towards it, but two small hands are also grabbing at my midriff. I scream at the telly.

“Get across him!” as Ayoze does just that. As he meets the ball with a powerful glancing header I simultaneously pick my son up and deposit him onto the armchair in front of the telly, while my feet leave the ground. Kasper Schmeichel’s dive is futile and in a flash the ball is in the net. I’m a foot off the ground punching the air and screaming again. I land on a pile of Monopoly money and skid, somehow keeping my balance, but scattering my son’s savings and property portfolio all over the living room. Who cares!This is no time for Monopoly!

My son – we’re his second team – leaps up into my arms as I celebrate. I attempt the trademarked Ayoze fingers-in-ears celebration with a child hanging off me, only to look utterly stupid as for once Ayoze doesn’t bother with it. It doesn’t matter. We’re deservedly 1-0 up.

The rest is now history. We won. Thirty eight points makes us look safe. However, that wasn’t the end of my headache. Oh no. As the second half got underway my daughter finally decided to have a shower which created more problems. Even with the volume pumped up high I still found myself competing – and frankly losing – with her shrieking the latest R&B dirge like a tortured animal channeling Beyonce. And no, I’m not exaggerating. Maybe I’m a little bit odd or maybe I’m just a grumpy old man, but I feel like I need to be concentrating fully on the game, almost as if I might spot a runner and be able to warn someone on the pitch – ridiculous, I know – and my daughter’s singing meant that I just couldn’t focus on matters on the pitch.

And then, just after half-time, my wife decided that tea was ready! Nine o’clock at night and I’m faced with a plate full to the brim of Mexican food. Chicken, salsa, rice, soured cream, all waiting for me to clumsily knock it off the plate as I watched the match with it on my lap. Would a half time tea have been too much to ask? I now have an X Factor audition upstairs and Speedy Gonzales’ tea in my lap when all I want to do is watch my team on the telly!

I try in vain to eat without throwing rice on the floor and also manage to drop soured cream on my jeans and all the while I struggle to really watch what’s unfolding in front of me. However, by the hour mark I’ve finished and despite the mess that I’ve made, we’re still 1-0 up.

Thankfully, we’re into added time before my next problem arises. But extreme NUFC watching has one last twist for me. Just before the fourth official holds up the board to announce our now traditional 5 minutes of added time my daughter arrives back on the scene. I’ve managed to see off my son who thought it best he watched the second half while perched on the arm of the chair, leaning on me and asking a series of inane questions. He’s now gone to bed. But then my daughter returns from her shower and decides that, despite her dad’s obvious tension, she has a few questions of her own. The main one of which will almost see me completely blow my stack.

With three points on the line and her dad watching his team, the team he’s spent forty odd years watching and frankly, obsessing over here is what she asks me.

“Is Alan Pardew still the manager?”

My family and football really don’t mix..

Leeds United: falling apart or ignoring the chaos and building a bright future?

So Tyler Roberts didn’t kick the ball out. Public outrage! For what exactly? What about the noble English art of sportsmanship? Do me a favour! But, but…Dirty Leeds? Well, no. Clearly not. From the outside looking in it looks to me that there’s a lot of blame being thrown around in the wrong direction. One thing’s for sure though; it was the start of a series of events that could shape the short term future of Leeds United.

To recap, during their final home league game of the season, against Aston Villa, when an opposition player went down injured, Leeds carried on playing and within seconds had scored the opening goal of the game. Cue hysteria! Sky pundits -who when they’d played the game themselves most likely were anything but angels – took the moral high ground so high they needed to parachute back down to ground level and the land we call ‘Havealittlethinkaboutthat’.

As the ball hit the back of the net there was a bit of a scrap between opposing players. Or, if you prefer the correct football media parlance, a melee ensued. The mass of bodies became a moving brawl, trundling across the field of play, pausing for a second or two before finding the strength, or the moral outrage to go again. Eventually, with the added excitement of stewards on the pitch – yes, on the pitch! – things calmed down enough for the referee to take some sort of appropriate action. Or so we thought.

The media and social media fallout since has been somewhat incredible. And as a football fan and a supporter of a team that, in my opinion, doesn’t get the rub of the green with the media, it’s made me wonder why. So, is it just a Leeds thing? If for instance Manchester City or media darlings Spurs or West Ham or God forbid, Manchester United had done the same, would it have been OK to play to the whistle? Would doing what you were taught as kids – play to the whistle – have been acceptable then? Because that’s all that happened really.

Oh, I know that if we slow it down it looks like he’s going to put the ball out, blah, blah, blah. And he might well have been thinking that. But he didn’t do it. And in doing so he broke no rules. None whatsoever. Or again, if you prefer media speak, he didn’t contravene any of the laws of the game. Fair enough, he broke some precious unwritten moral code. But how are we governing the game here? Because if it’s based around morals…well, football’s in more trouble than we imagined!

As for the goal scorer, Mattheus Klich, I feel sure that he wouldn’t have been aware of any fuss that might have been going on around him. What he did was what we all would have done. It was Boys’ Own stuff – he had a chance to score a goal in a huge game. His team were stuck in the middle of a bit of a goal drought. He was a professional footballer doing his job. And it was actually a good finish.

So did Leeds do anything wrong? Well, for me, no. Not really. Surely it’s just instinct to play the ball forward? And if we then look at the actual injury we might easily just think that there was very little to kick the ball out for. From my standpoint as a complete neutral there wasn’t even a foul. Both players went in for the ball, there was a momentary tangle and then Kodija went down. Yes, he was injured and subsequently went off, but I don’t recall a stretcher or a head injury.

We all know what happened next. Chaos ensued. Villa players took the moral high ground while also taking the law into their own hands, while Patrick Bamford took the opportunity to showcase his acting skills. Unfortunately, rather than winning an award he earned himself a ban. In fact, in many ways he was the only Leeds player to really do anything wrong. And if we’re punishing bad acting then some of those Villa players need pulling up for their impressions of modern day football hard men. I’m not sure the likes of Bremner, Clarke or Gray would have been too intimidated.

In among the moral outrage Bielsa emerged as the voice of reason, which given his language skills was quite some achievement. With a true British sense of fair play in mind he ordered the Leeds players – and yes, that does include you Pontus – to let Villa run through and score an unopposed equaliser. Villa then withstood the Leeds pressure to hold out for a draw, but that was never going to be the end of the matter. With a multitude of cameras covering any game these days more wrongdoing was uncovered and the scandal lived on. Bamford was banned, a Villa player was excused for punching an opponent and the debate about the rights and wrongs raged on.

Meanwhile the football season continued. Leeds stumbled into the play-offs with Villa a possible opponent further down the line. Another meeting would be compulsive viewing, but both teams have to make it happen. Villa have languished in the Championship for a few years now without ever realistically looking like they might get out, despite a play-off final last year. And their good run has to end at some point. Will their players cope with the pressure.

Elsewhere, Derby have stuttered through the season and only clinched their play-off spot on the final day of the season, while West Brom have only never really looked that convincing all year.

And that leaves Leeds. The biggest club left standing? Arguably, yes, although I’m sure Villa fans would argue otherwise. Personally though I’d love to see Leeds make it to the Premier League. It’s been a long time without them and Elland Road is the kind of ground teams and fans should want to be visiting. No disrespect to any team in the Premier League, but a club and a city like Leeds is bigger and more high profile than most and if this is the league that claims to be the biggest and best in the world, then you’d hope it would recognise the value of a Leeds over say, a Bournemouth or a Watford.

Looking at current form though, it’s clearly going to be an enormous challenge for Leeds in the play-offs. They aren’t in any kind of form. They’re not taking chances, despite creating a lot and they don’t seem to have a striker with that killer instinct that’s needed in such massive games. I genuinely believe that with someone like Dwight Gayle up front Leeds would already be planning for life in the Premier league. Without and they’re relying on Kemar Roofe, fresh back from injury, but yet to truly hit form. Furthermore, there are some problems in defence – as illustrated against Ipswich – with the absence of Barry Douglas proving crucial.

Leeds don’t go into the play-offs in great shape. However, there are factors that might just see them through. Firstly, there’s Bielsa himself. We know he’ll have done his homework, that’s for sure. Besides that though, he has a group of players that are not only capable of playing incisive and attractive football, but who are in clearly in awe of him as a coach. Bielsa has transformed Leeds’ fortunes and although the play-offs are a real test of his mettle and methods, his standing in the game dictates that he should still have enough to pull the team through. If you’re a Leeds fan, you’ve got to hope so!

Elsewhere – and maybe I’m clutching at straws here – I’d point to players like Kemar Roofe and Jack Clarke. Both, to some extent are returning from injury or illness and both searching for form. Could such major games inspire them? Roofe has scored goals while fit and you’d expect him to continue to do just that, while Clarke is a young player that’s likely to produce a trick and a moment of magic, things that Leeds are in real need of now.

Can the crowd make the difference? Well, you’d expect so. Leeds – like my own team Newcastle – have a loyal and long suffering fanbase and it can’t be denied that they make quite a racket, especially inside Elland Road. That should be inspirational; it has to be. These players must be desperate to get to the Premier League, given the season they’ve had and so the occasions that they’re going to be faced with over the next week or so shouldn’t frighten them. One of the key factors, you’d imagine, will be whether or not teams rise to the occasion. Anyone feeling intimidated isn’t going to attempt that killer pass, won’t play the ball first time and is liable to fluff the chance that comes their way.

Having spoken to Leeds fans there seems to be a split in opinion and feeling about how things are expected to go. Some are adamant that Leeds don’t do one-off games and have reverted to the safety of the pessimist. Others however have decided that Leeds’ play-off record has got to change sometime, that this group of players and this manager are good enough to handle the pressure.

It’s been an interesting season for Leeds. It’s been an interesting last fortnight. It’s could be an even more interesting next week or so.

The 2018 – 2019 Season – a grassroots football review.

As a long season in the Under 10s section of the Garforth Junior Football League draws to a close, and every coach’s minds turn to next year and how we step up, I thought it right to have a little look back. A moment of reflection or a review, if you will.

There’s nothing self-important here, by the way. I coach a team of Under 10s and while in my mind they’re a very special bunch of lads, in truth we’re nothing special at all. Not to be disparaging to my boys, but there’ll be hundreds, possibly thousands of teams just like us around the British Isles. The thing is though, these boys and this team have brought me so much joy over the last year that it’s more than worth a few thousand words. And it’s been a hell of a season.

I took over the coaching of the team part way through last season and while I’d like to think I got the boys a lot more organised, we still weren’t winning games. We were undoubtedly more competitive, but we still ended the season with just the single win.

Needless to say, I was desperate to see our fortunes improve this season. We organised some friendlies in June and July and having attracted a few new players, for once not only did we have numbers available, but we were actually improving. We quickly developed a noticeable style of play and identified key players for key positions. And the results were improving too.

Despite the optimism, we started the season with a 2-0 home loss, but it was clear for anyone to see that we’d got better. The team we played, North East Leeds, had dropped down from the division above us, so we took quite a bit from the game and although we didn’t score, we went close. And not too much short of a year previous we’d conceded 18 goals in a game, so a 2-0 loss here was nothing to be alarmed about!

A week later we travelled to Horsforth for an away fixture against a team who we’d played a few times last season, losing all but one where we’d equalised with 8 seconds to go! I must admit though, even early on in the season, I felt fairly confident. However, I wasn’t expecting quite what happened. We were fantastic that day. The desire to win was evident from the very start and we were passing the ball beautifully. By half-time we were leading 3-1 and ended up winning 4-2; a huge win for us. This was only the second time we’d scored more than 2 goals in a game since I was put in charge! It was only our second win ever! I think we were all a little shocked. This winning thing felt strange, but great!

And so began a four game unbeaten streak. We won the next two and drew the fourth game. Suddenly getting lads to turn up and want to play wasn’t a problem. In fact, by the last game of this particular run we had 6 subs. At times in the previous season we’d turned up with just 6 players! Now we had more than enough players and every last one of them with smiles on their faces. That said, you should try getting 6 subs on a field and giving everyone a decent time!

Next came one of the most disappointing parts of our season though. We lost 4-2 away from home against the team who’d beaten us in the first game of the season, but the worst of it was that we were 4-0 down at half-time having performed really poorly. For some reason the boys looked unfocused and a little overwhelmed. We rallied a bit in the second half, making sure that we were as positive as possible with our half time chat, but nothing would shake the memory of that first half performance. I sulked for the rest of the day and couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the week! It’s funny how, even as a calm, rational adult, such things can affect us.

The next game brought a change of emotions and in many ways summed up what grassroots football at this level is all about. It was another away game and I was tickled to see that our opposition played in black and white stripes, like my beloved Newcastle United. As the teams were warming up though, the opposition coach came over for a quiet word. He explained that his team were having a poor season and had been getting hammered every week. He’d taken over just before the season started when they only had 6 registered players and the whole thing was a bit shambolic. He asked if we’d sub one of our players should we get too far ahead in the game. Knowing how things had been for us the previous season, I quickly agreed.

We won the game 7-1 and were excellent. We were fair, our players encouraged theirs and it was a pleasure to witness. I have to admit I felt guilty though. I felt sorry for their boys. This team were exactly what we had been the season before and I was pleased that, although we won in a one-sided game, we were magnanimous and mature about it. The best part of the whole morning came when our opposition scored. Every spectator, every coach and every player cheered. A lovely moment that got lovelier at the end of the match when all players shook hands. Our opponents left the field with some pride and something positive. Yes, we’d won at a canter, but it had clearly felt good not to be mocked and even better to have scored.

Our next two games continued the pattern we were setting. We played the same team – one league game and one cup – and won both well. Winning the second game also meant that we qualified for the Quarter Final of the cup, something that we wouldn’t have thought possible only months before. In their brilliantly naïve fashion our boys also took this to mean that we could genuinely go on and win the thing, which made me smile but also alerted me to a level of expectation that I’d not really felt before. A cup quarter final would most likely mean playing a team from a league above us and I feared that we could be in for a bit of a thrashing. Waiting for the draw to be made for the next round of games certainly had me tense though! I was relieved when we drew a team that we’d played before. We’d lost to them in the latter part of the previous season, but hadn’t been embarrassed, even though they’d stuck five goals past us. Maybe we did have a chance after all. This childlike optimism was catching!

As is the way with football we were brought crashing back down to Earth in the next few weeks. We lost our next three games and learnt a few lessons along the way. The teams we played were physical and pushed us around quite a bit. And we let it happen. My lads are quite the polite bunch when it comes to their football and so, when teams employed an under 10s version of the dark arts, we didn’t stand a chance. But this made me think. How could we combat such physicality? I didn’t want my team to start pushing people around and I wasn’t about to get the weights out, so how did we fight back, so to speak? I found myself scouring YouTube for tips and eventually stumbled upon some great ideas from Italy that looked like a bit of fun as well. I managed to ally these ideas with one or two of my own and for the next few weeks in training this is what we worked on. I’d recently gained my Level 1 FA Coaches badge and was brimming with ideas.

We’d have the boys pairing up and then working on their balance and their core strength while throwing footballs to each other. One exercise involved balancing on one leg while holding a football before pivoting the whole body forward so that you touched the ground with the ball. Then, keeping their balance, they’d pivot back up and bounce the ball to their partner who’d do the same again. Trust me when I tell you it was hilarious! The amount of our players who simply can’t stand on one leg is unbelievable. It was like watching the world’s worst flock of flamingoes!

Other balance games involved jumping over a line, landing on one foot and holding the pose until told to ‘Go!’ and sprinting five to ten yards. We’d also get them to sit down and balance with their legs out in front of them while holding the ball. The ball was bounced to their partner who’d balance and catch it after a few seconds. The drill would end with the pairs working on shielding the ball from each other, twisting and turning in order to hold their partner off and protect the football. It was amazing how quickly they started to use their new found strength and balance in games and extremely satisfying when we noticed it happening.

And then it was time for our Cup quarter final. Every available parent, sibling and even some grandparents travelled over to Wakefield with us and the excitement was tangible. Even at my age, I was desperate for us to win, desperate for us to put in a performance and compete and as a result I was feeling ridiculously nervous. The boys had worked so hard in training and in every match they played just to get to this point; where they could tell themselves, ‘We’re a good team.’ We warmed up, had a chat about our tactics, focus, work rate and supporting each other and we were ready to go.

The game went reasonably well, but in the end we were narrowly defeated. We fell behind midway through the first half when we didn’t close down and simply allowed our opposition to shoot and score. It’s something we have a tendency to do and probably common at this age. But we’d been the better side up until that point and I couldn’t help but be disappointed. Another sign of our progress though was that the boys didn’t let it get to them (unlike their coach!) and they carried on looking for an equaliser.

Not long before half-time, it arrived and it’s safe to say that the proudest man at the game was me. My son smashed in an equaliser, following up as the goalkeeper parried out a shot. I’d spent months sitting watching football with him and telling him that every good striker would follow the ball in, and he’d done just that. As he jogged back to his half of the field he looked my way and we both clenched our fists in celebration. It was one of those tiny moments of joy that you get as a coach and a dad, and as such, one of my favourite moments of the season.

We continued to battle on after equalising and for a short while we looked likely to get another goal. However, it wasn’t to be, and in the final few minutes we were first denied a penalty (home refs, eh?) before conceding a goal from a corner. Another followed and that was us done for. There were tears at the end. My boys had genuinely believed that they could win and this had hurt them. But they were quickly reminded that they’d done themselves proud and that this showed how far they’d come in a very short space of time.

We went the next two games unbeaten with solid performances, before a game that had all of the good and bad of grassroots football. We played a team we’d previously lost to and were 5-0 down at half-time. The pitch was heavy, but the light drizzle that greeted the start of the game quickly gave way to heavy snow and for the first time in a long time players were asking to come off. But it wasn’t just the weather. The opposition’s coach was ridiculously loud and quite aggressive and some of the boys commented that they couldn’t concentrate. If intimidating the opposition is your thing at Under 10s level, then get on with it and feel good about yourself, but it’s not for me. We kept the talk brief at half-time accentuating the positives of our team and telling them to win the second half. And they did just that. The game ended – still in snow – 6-3 to the visitors, but we’d made an impression on their overly loud coach and he’d asked us to finish early as the snow got harder and my boys were pressing for another goal. I agreed and we finished the game, but we’d made our point! Once again I was left immensely proud of my boys, even if I was soaked to the skin. We gathered together in the clubhouse afterwards – players, coaches, parents and siblings – and made a massive puddle together!

As the season ticked on we began to play teams from the division above. The FA seem to just thrown in these extra games without explanation. We still had league games to play and even as I write and the season is finished there are teams in our league that we’ve only played once or not at all. I’m sure the task of organising the games is both onerous and thankless, and I’m not criticising anyone, but I can’t fathom out why we don’t seem to play the right amount of games.

Against opposition from a higher league we lost both games. But narrowly and we always gave a good performance. In fact, it felt like we really should have won them, but a combination of factors seemed to get in our way. Most of this was down to missing chances, but there’s one moment I’ll remember for the rest of my days. At 2-1 down, going into the closing seconds of an away game against Division B opponents, our right midfielder found himself in the opposition box with the ball in front of him. As the goalkeeper advanced he pushed it past him and was sent crashing to the turf by a high kick that had more in common with events in the octagon than Wembley. Surely a penalty, right? Wrong.

But this is where things took a turn. A bizarre turn. That football fans reflex prompted me to call out – ‘Ref?’ I simply asked the question – was that a penalty? No aggression, no attitude, not even particularly loud. I think both of us on the touchline asked. So what followed was mildly ludicrous and really quite amusing for me. The ref in question literally jumped up and down and screamed at me – ‘He got to the ball first!’ (he didn’t). I actually found myself asking him to calm down. I pointed out that I was merely asking a question, that there was no aggression and that, as the coach, I simply had to ask the question. He was not amused. But then again, neither were my team of 9 and 10 year olds. My own son was outraged and in tears in defence of his dad – ‘He can’t talk to you like that!’ – but we wisely let it go. We hoped, like the pundits tell us, that these things even themselves out over the season.

This then left our final two games of the season. And if ever I needed an indicator as to how far my boys have come in just over a year it was with these two results. The first game was at home and we were back to a league fixture. We’d played this team a number of times already in both league and cup games and remained unbeaten against them. However, the matches had always been tight. This time was very different. We won 8-1. I was stunned. I was thrilled. But I couldn’t really enjoy it. This had been the type of walloping we’d been given for most of last season and I must admit, I felt sorry for the opposition and their coach.

Don’t get me wrong, it was brilliant to see the lads enjoying themselves. They just controlled the game from start to finish and I was able to rotate players in different positions and give everyone a fair chance. But there were times when the other team just folded. Whatever they tried just either didn’t come off or was snuffed out by our team and it didn’t feel that satisfying after all. I’d watched players, coaches and parents revel in beating us last season and now I was left wondering what possessed them. I actually apologised to the opposition coach at the end of the game and I wasn’t really that sure what for.

Our final game of the season took us back over to Wakefield and as we warmed up I allowed myself the customary glance over at the opposition. They were big, they seemed to be knocking the ball around with confidence. This would be a test. How wrong you can be!

After an even first few minutes we went ahead and never looked back. Again, I was able to give everyone a decent run out and also to rotate players into different positions. We also gave our goalkeeper some outfield time and he promptly scored direct from a free-kick! We won 6-0. Less guilt and sympathy this time however, as opposition players were vocally critical of our ‘physical’ approach when we came off. We weren’t physical. Never are, never have been. I encourage the boys to stay on their feet and not to dive into tackles and we don’t push and shove. Perhaps all the work on our strength had payed off. Or perhaps, after over a year of hard work, we’ve learnt how to pass and move, how to support and encourage and how we never give up.

So there you have it. The trials and tribulations of another season of grassroots football. My first full season in charge and what a season! Next up? A well earned break. I’m exhausted! Then later on in the month we’ll come together for the end of year presentation and celebrate what’s been an amazing campaign.