Tom_NUFC

Yeah, there might be something in that. I'm not calling for his head. I think it's going to take time to sort things out. In a few months time, or a year or whenever I might feel differently, but for now, I think he has to be given a chance. I am generally still feeling positive (and I wasn't exactly overjoyed when Allardyce was appointed). There's a long way to go and there will be hiccups along the way, but I think what is needed right now is a bit of time and patience. This isn't a Souness or Roeder situation. I think if he can get to grips with managing a 'bigger club' then we can move away from the 'Bolton mentality', but it's going to take time.

I didn't think we were as bad as some of you were making out. The Mackems definitely had the first half - no question. But I felt the second half was about even. It was never going to be a brilliant game technically. Derbies are physical and blood and thunder affairs, this was no different. However, I agree that we appeared to be going for a draw, which is a dangerous thing to do. We've been caught out like a few times this season. I'll settle with the draw as a result, and as the game panned out, I think it was the fair result, but to actually go out there and play with the intention of a draw is a big no no.

I'd be very interested in reading this too. You'll find it here http://groups.msn.com/TomNUFC/cover.msnw

I think Brayson was a victim of Keegan's poor youth policy. He was banging in goals for fun in the youth team and the reserves and should have been given his chance. Who knows, if he had, it might have been that he wasn't good enough. But he was scoring a phenomenal amount of goals, and at a time when Cole had gone, but before Ferdinand arrived, and our main striker was Paul Kitson. He should have been given a go at this time. Instead he was left to fester, and may well have gone off the boil. I think he was eventually sold to Cardiff.

I'm not entirely convinced by the coal/civil war elements contributing to the rivalry. I did my Uni dissertation on the Tyne-Wear derby, and investigated the whole historical aspects of it all. It sounds very romantic to say that the rivalry dates back to the early coal merchants and the civil war, but I don't think it's the case. This is probably going to turn into a lenghty post, but I'll explain why. There were definitely tensions between the Tyne and the Wear over the coal trade. Coal mining began on Tyneside in the 1200s with collieries owned by the Prior of Tynemouth and the Bishop of Durham. Even at this time there was feeling that the Palatinate of Durham lacked a satisfactory outlet to export its coals. Newcastle was beginning to grow into a significant coal port due to its status as a Royal Borough which granted the city's burgesses special privaleges and advantages. In response, the Bishop of Durham Hugh de Puiset chartered his own Borough of Wearmouth and granted privileges to local merchants. However despite this, Newcastle still dwarfed Wearmouth. The position of the Newcastle Burgesses was furthered strengthened by additional privileges during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. By 1625, annual exports of Tyne coal had reached 400,000 tons, rising to 600,000 tons by the eve of the Civil War. When the civil war broke out, Newcastle, as a Royal Borough with special privileges declared support for King Charles I. Sunderland, stifled by Newcastle's dominance was a parliamentarian stronghold. That much is all true. The problem is however, that Newcastle did not just dominate and stifle the trade of Sunderland. Newcastle's charters gave the city the rights to all sorts of things. For instance, Newcastle controlled the Tyne, which meant that any fish caught in the river had to be brought to Newcastle and sold there so that the merchants could get the cut bestowed to them by the crown. It was the same for bread and beer. If a ship was stuck at the mouth of the Tyne, it was a Newcastle pilot that went to the rescue. Basically, Newcastle prospered at the expence of the surrounding region. It wasn't just Sunderland that held animosity towards Newcastle. It was also Gateshead, the various towns and villages of Northumberland, North Shields, Tynemouth - all places that very much define themselves as Geordies. All places that are today pro-Newcastle, staunch Mag territories. Also, looking into Victorian times. Immediately before Football, the most popular pastime on Tyneside was rowing. Rowing contests on the Tyne attracted crowds numbering tens of thousands of people, and the 'Tyne Rowers' including the likes of Harry Clasper (a world champion, who was the Victorian sporting superstar). The big rivalry in the world of rowing were the contests between the Tyne Rowers and the Thames Rowers. Not only would tens of thousands line Newcastle quayside, but thousands of spectators from the North East would travel to London to watch the contests down there. I've looked at accounts and reports describing these contests and there is something striking. The support for the Tyneside rowers didn't stop with the people of Newcastle or Tyneside in general. There are reports of the continuous arrivals at Central Station of excursion trains bringing Rowing fans from across the region, from out in Northumberland, from Durham and Consett. But crucially from Sunderland and the towns of East County Durham - towns that are 'Mackem' but that came in support of Harry Clasper and the rowers of the Tyne. Because in those days there was no Tyne-Wear rivalry. The rivalry was the North East v London. It was beating the capital that mattered, and a victory by the Tyne Rowers over the Thames Rowers was a victory for the whole region). If you look at the early days of Football in the North East, the rivalry was not very strong. During the 1880s, there was no interest of any Tyne-Wear rivalry. The main rivalry in both Newcastle and Sunderland came in the form of cross-town affairs. Newcastle was involved in the East End - West End split which shouldn't be underestimated. When West End folded and East End moved to St James' and took the name Newcastle United, the club lost a lot of support. West End fans were furious that their ground had been taken over by their rivals. East End fans were also angry that the club had moved out of Heaton, away from the club's support base. The very early years of Newcastle United were plagued by poor crowds, which in turn resulted in financial difficulties, caused directly by cross-town animosities. It took a couple of years for fans to come to terms with it, and for both East and West to rally behind United. In Sunderland, Sunderland AFC had formed in 1879, but arguments amongst members led to some members leaving to form the breakaway Sunderland Albion. That also split support in Sunderland between the two clubs throughout the 1880s. Eventually Sunderland Albion folded in 1892, the same year as East End did, and although Sunderland didn't suffer as much financial problems as Newcastle (Sunderland had established themselves in the league, and therefore drew a greater support base than Albion) there was split, and it took Albion's fans a while to come around to supporting their rivals. In fact, Sunderland were actually supportive of Newcastle. As a First Division club, Sunderland were able to offer support and encouragement to, and helped to alleviate Newcastle's financial problems by playing friendly games against Newcastle as fundraisers. I then went on to study the competative derby matches, looking at Newspaper reports in the Evening Chronicle, the Journal, the Sunday Sun and the Sunderland Echo for EVERY SINGLE DERBY MATCH played between December 24 1898 and April 17 2006. I'm not going to go into it in any great detail, but although right from the start, there are references to 'Local Rivals' the whole tone and accounts of the games portray the games as competative but friendly. Wors such as 'good-natured', 'good-humoured', 'neighbourly' are used constantly right up until around the mid 1960s. The first newspaper report that focusses on a fierce or violent rivalry comes in March 1969 with skinheads fighting at Central Station and along Neville Street. Of course there were occassional incidents of violence and disorder. The most famous being the 'Good Friday' derby of 1901 at St James' Park. However, like much of the disorder that occurred in Football grounds before the First World War (and perhaps even up until the 1950s) it was an isloated incident, caused not by rivalry, but by overcrowding and the decision of the referee to call the game off because of it. There was simply to big a demand to see the game. St James' at the time had a capacity of 30,000, but 70,000 people attempted to get in. The gates were locked 45 minutes before kick off with many tens of thousands of supporters locked out. They were desperate to get in, and broke down fences, forcing their way inside past outnumbered gatemen and police officers. There were so many inside, that the crowd was spilling out onto the pitch, making it impossible to play the game. The referee took the decision to call it off, which angered many and fighting broke out. Not Newcastle against Sunderland, just a free for all basically. Which is how the majority of the rare examples of Football violence at this time can be explained.

If only it was a joke. Unfortunately it was very, very real.

Tell him - tell all the rip-off merchants to sing the full song, not just the chorus. At least in a football context we sing the first verse and the chorus (albeit the words are slightly wrong).

Roeder by miles. He wasn't good enough and did resort to going down the same road as Souness by blaming injuries. But he does at least appear to be a decent, likeable bloke. I bear no ill-will towards him and hope that things do work out for him. Souness on the other hand is an absolute c**t. If it was a Mackem asking me to choose between them for their next manager, I'd choose Souness.

Very bad idea. I'm listening to the World Football Phone-In on Five Live at the minute. Their North American Football (that's our Football - not gridiron) correspondant not only thinks that a Premier League game or occassional Premier League games will be played in the USA shortly. He also thinks that within 25 years there will be an American-based Premier League club, with New York being the obvious choice. My initial reaction is NO NO NO NO NO NO NO, both in terms of not going to happen and shouldn't bloody happen. But then again, nothing would suprise me these days.

I can definitely see this happening. I don't think it's at all right, and if at any point they decided to take one of our home games to the US, or anywhere other than SJP I would absolutely furious. I saw a thing on the news the other day about the NFL Match at Wembley, and there are Miami fans furious because they're losing a home game. I've not got much interest in the sport, but I can completely understand their anger. I have no problems with clubs going off to the US or China or Japan or whatever on pre-season tours. Do that by all means, but to take a competitive league match overseas and rob regular fans of watching their team is nothing short of disgusting.

In an ideal world, I'm sure we'd all love to see the type of football that we played in the Keegan era. When Allardyce was appointed I was sceptical about the style of football we would play, and OK, it isn't the most fantastic style, but it's OK. It isn't boring, which is what I feared, and there have been some nice bits to it. It's not like we're hoofing about or anything. Let's face it, its not like we were playing scintillating stuff under Souness or Roeder, but generally the performances are a lot better, we have a bit of bite and steel to us and are getting results. So I have no problems. If we were getting results, but were playing long ball. I might be critical, but we're not, so I'm happy to settle with 'OK' football - not too exciting, not too boring if it means the team improves. And I can't say I've heard many complaints. It's just Lawrenson being his usual Gobshite self.

I don't think that's neccesarily fair. If we're talking pre-Sky or pre-Keegan, well that's now 15 years ago, so there are now many NUFC supporters who were either not born or simply too young to be going to matches back then. You can't accuse people of being fickle just because they didn't attend matches where they were too young to go or didn't even exist.

Aye, I got my leg trapped in them stupid old wooden seats at that game. I was pushed during the celebrations, stumbled and wedged me leg between the seats, took a few minutes to get it out. I was limping for a couple of weeks after that.

NUFC v Luton - August 1985. 2-2 draw. I stood in the West Paddock underneath the old West Stand. I've still got the programme. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/supergeordie/nufc85.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/supergeordie/nufc85back.jpg

I remember the day of his funeral. The funeral party passed my Primary school as it came down Benton Road and turned onto the Coast Road at the roundabout by Chilly Road. The school field backed on to the Coast Road and Roundabout and at the dinnertime, loads of us were down in the long grass, climbing on the railings to get a good view. We weren't usually allowed to go in the long grass, but that day the teachers and dinnerladies seemed to turn a blind eye.

toilet paper

sad news, hope he pulls through OK

I am seriously getting sick of England these days. The thing is the guy Martin Samuel is slagging off has a very valid point about how we pay his wages but basically he's England's Michael Owen. This is how the top England players are thought of in the media: Chelsea Captain John Terry (even though he's also England captain), Chelsea's Frank Lampard, Liverpool's Steven Gerrard, Man United's Wayne Rooney, England's Michael Owen. When the four other players get injured, England is mentioned, but their club is mentioned with equal importance. When it's Owen it's all about England, with Newcastle as a lowly side mention, but hey it doesn't matter about the NUFC games he misses. It's not particularly Owen's fault himself, it's the media.

how come you got stuck in London like?

I think Mort said a while ago that initially they were focussing on bringing in new players, but that the expansion plans is one of a number of things that were going to be looked at during the transfer window, so I assume they will be looking at it now, or in the near future.

At least it's not a real sport though - you don't have to suffer through the Quidditch equivalent of Wimbledon or a series of five day test matches and then a sh*tload of one day games, followed by another series of test matches etc.

I've got a mate who likes football but doesn't really like the fact that he likes football because he thinks football fans are charvers. I tell him that yeah some charvers like football, but that football supporters come from all walks of life and that if you weigh it up, the vast majority aren't. He's a season ticket holder as well, so christ knows how he's come up with this. Personally, whilst I don't mind watching Rugby, I can't stand the attitude of Rugby fans, who always seem to have it in for football and spout on about how Rugby sets a better example or how Rugby is a tougher sport and football is soft. It just strikes me that they are sour that Rugby's popularity is completely dwarfed by Football and that they are extremely jealous of that. I think you can say a similar thing about American sports - they're jealous because outside of America, not many people are bothered, and all the big American sports stars are virtually unknown outside of the US. They tried to export their sports to other countries, as Britain did with football, but their sports bombed and football took off. That kind of dents their belief that American is best and they don't like it, so they slag it off out of sheer jealousy. There are three sports I detest, and they are all British-invented sports - Cricket, Tennis and Golf.

I was at the game, but weren't we on Sky? I thought they had a double bill - NUFC v West Ham, followed by Man U v Chelsea? I don't think Setanta had a Premier League game on today.

I think Martins and Viduka should be the first choice strikeforce right now (Owen's probably injured like but even so).

It happened before our second like, because he was down on the ground when it went in I didn't see the strike, just it going in the net when the cheers went up because we were all distracted.