...waits for Rooky.
Well, half way up the A1 at 4pm this afternoon and I nearly crashed... Adrian Durham breaks the news of the 'new' manager. I'm dubious, ancious and nervous... but most of all I can feel the excitement, I couldn't tell you the last time I was exciting by going to a football game, Inter Milan away under Bobby Robson might have been it.
I don't have answer to the mockers of the appointment, time will tell - some comments can be dismissed.
The 'don't go back thing', well there is a pretty relevant example in the PL of that not being a bad thing - there are probably as many good examples of it as bad.
'Its taking a step backwards'. Well perhaps its what we need to do. Not all steps forward are good ones. I'd settle of being right back where we were (not an expectation though!!!!!)
'He couldn't buy the title'. I'd be pretty impressed by any club that could go from the verge of the 3rd league to 3rd place in the top league in 2 years without some heavy investment but I don't think the sums of money were massively out of line with what Man U were spending at the time. (though the fact they had the greatest crop of youth players coming through would class a zero investment I guess!!)
He's a bottler and will walk out'. I don't think anyone knows exactly what happened for him to leave the first time but you can bet it was pretty significant. When he left England everyone wanted him to leave - but he takes stick for doing a fairly honourable thing and stepping down - the FA's bank balance would be alot healthier if managers since would have done the same.
'Money waster'. In terms of his Newcastle buys; for any seen as a poor buy I could name two good ones - in terms of bargains and value.
The game tonight was the best football In have seen played (by Newcastle!) for 4 years, and I'm not joking. The three in midfield walked round the opposition, even more so when they had the extra room when down to 10 men. (side note U Rennie should not be allowed to ref on the local park, completely unfit and doesn't have a clue) Okay so Stoke are a Championship side and if they do make it up they will challenge the lowest points score in PL history, but the performance tonight against a form team, who outplayed us 10 days ago, was good to see. Not sure if it was Keegan's magic dust or just a bit off pressure off the players (who were playing in positions they were comfortable with), but like I say the most flowing and attractive football for ages.
Life can a bit of a grind at times, and football is a man's TV soap, escapism. I want mine to give me the sort of feeling I had tonight. Passion. Trophies fill cabinets but my many happy memories over the years, and the time I spend watching them with my Dad will be with me forever.
I 'LOVE' that interview. Its what its all about. It really doesn't matter what other peoples opinion is. In the end you will be right because he will either be sacked or walk away, but if its 3-5 years down the road with a nice transition to a younger blooded number two then that will do for stability.
For the record 'bigalhx1' there were 32,000 tickets sold at 9am this morning, which was already a decent proportion more than the crowd at Man City for an all premier league tie tonight. I'll give you one guess as to which club has taken the most fans to away games this season, with a clue that they play in black and white and have the furthest to travel for away games across a season- so please don't throw any of the loyal/greatest fans thing at me/us. All fans think there are the best. We are either great fans for getting the numbers we do with being such under achievers or we are a big club that people just want to jump on - you can't call it both ways.
That'll do, sleep required.
Author