Big Geordie

Been mentioned before has he not? Aye - just saying!

Drogba hasn't had the near career-ending injuries that Shearer had. Testament to Alan that he stayed at the top for as long as he did.

He's been scoring penalties all of his career, yet they felt he needed some hand in scoring this final one - I think they could have had every player on the line and Shearer would have found some way of getting into the net. Had to as his knee was knackered at the time!

Graeme Swann - top lad!

Where have you heard that from? Doesn't seem to have been any public consultation from the council aside for being able to object?

I've been saying for some time how poor Nolan is. His goals last season papered over a lot of cracks. He lacks pace, awareness, has the mobility of a man my age (37) when he's 10 years younger. It's even worse when he plays in the middle because the games just seem to pass him by. What happened to the young lad who broke through at Bolton and big things were expected of? He should be in his prime now, nevermind looking out on his arse.

Nailed on pen then? (I haven't seen it back yet) First reaction today for me was that it was a pen, from where I was sitting in the Gallowgate. My mate disagreed as did a few others. No need to press the panic button yet, but I hope Hughton takes on board what he got wrong today and makes changes accordingly. Unfortunately I believe Nolan will be in the team for some time yet, being club captain, etc. He does seem to be Hughton's blue eyed boy. With regards to the width issue, the pitch is a lot narrower this season (and that I've ever seen here) Each wing has been pulled in by at least a couple of yards. Probably to try and condense the play against the better sides, but it's not too good when your own wingers run out of room!

Agreed. It looked an awful tackle from the Gallowgate.

Forgot to add that I was quite impressed with Blackpool. Look organized and passed the ball around well. I think they'll be OK this season, based on that. What riles me is that the top money their players will be on is £10k a week. Alan Smith and Nolan are probably on £100k+ a week between them. Madness.

Just back in. We just weren't good enough today, but in saying that we could have played until midnight and not scored. The whole midfield (excluding Barton) were awful - wingers crossing very poor, Alan Smith and Kevin Nolan looking yards off the pace. Carroll did well, but he might as well have been playing on his own for all the support Nolan offered to him. Where the hell was the defence for the 2nd goal? Colo was left at the back with 2 on 1 - naive at best. So it's disappointing but also a wake up call/reality check for Hughton. If he wants us to win games, then he has the drop the immobile Smith and Nolan. We need an injection of pace in the midfield/up front.

I'm going to this - first game of the season for me. Will be sat in the Gallowgate upper tier. I'll take a win today, regardless of it being scrappy, lucky or brilliant. 3 points is a must.

The anti KK bandwagon out again it seems!

As well as Woodgate being sold, along with Butt and Kluivert apparently being brought in without his say-so.

If it was the Boro game with the Mido stuff, then it makes you wonder. However we all know The Guardian need no excuse to go on the offensive.

Ha-ha - Rooney scores!

Who's that Joey? I'll be listening in for a bit on 5Live. Gone off the national side after the WC. Am sure I'm not alone in that. Good piece that Mirror article, btw.

Won't get sent off tonight. My guess is that he'll be quiet and do very little. Bigger test for him is when the Mancs are at Everton on Saturday. I've a suspicion that Ferguson will leave him out for that one. If he does play, he'll be nailed on to get sent off as the scousers will turn the place into a bear pit.

Cheers for the tip off. Have they got any good games on over the weekend?

qued outside Gallowgate all morning, looked like we wernt getting in, someone shouted thers a gate open at the benches, loads of usran up the alley, ended up getting in the leazes corner. Watched the rest of KKs time here in the west stand Paddocks. I'm not even sure how my dad managed to get us in that day. Could it be that he knew John Trewick's (who played for Newcastle at the time) dad very well? Hmmmmm.......

I was at the QPR game (West Stand Paddock) with my dad, as a 9 year old. I remember the gates being locked by 130pm - magical day.

this. is it really in the public interest ? It is in my opinion. He's a role model (like it or not) and is also paid vast sums to endorse a variety of products.

"Wayne Rooney paid for secret hotel sex sessions with a £1,000-a-night prostitute while his wife Coleen was pregnant with their son, the Sunday Mirror can sensationally reveal. The £100,000-a-week Manchester United and England icon slept with brunette Jennifer Thompson, 21, seven times over four months. And, astonishingly, he even flaunted her on a string of dates to VIP haunts in Manchester, including bars, clubs and the city’s 235 Casino. Last night a humiliated Rooney was confessing his disgrace to childhood sweetheart Coleen, who took him back in 2004 after the Sunday Mirror twice exposed him for cheating on her with prostitutes. Rooney now expects betrayed Coleen to throw him out of their £5million mansion in Cheshire and begin moves for an explosive divorce. He told a pal yesterday: “My life is in ruins…I’ve been so stupid. Coleen won’t forgive me this time. She will leave me.” As with the downfall of philandering golf legend Tiger Woods, Rooney fully anticipates losing sponsorship deals worth £6million a year which depend on him maintaining his family man reputation. Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, escort girl Jennifer said of multi-millionaire Rooney: “He sent me SIM cards full of text messages and spoke to me on Skype using a false name. Whenever we met for sex, it was always in the same hotel.” It is understood that Rooney, 24, booked Jennifer from an online agency in Manchester which promises its clients “ultimate discretion” after she was recommended to him by a pal. Their first meeting was in July last year at the £300-a-night Lowry Hotel in Salford when devoted Coleen was five months pregnant with their son Kai. Well-spoken Jennifer – whose middle-class parents live in a £300,000 detached home in a leafy suburb of Bolton – provided Rooney with “anything goes” sex. After two two-hour romps with him at the Lowry a week apart from each other, she was dropped by her agency when she took bookings from him direct in order for her to avoid paying commission. The sex sessions then developed into longer, more intimate “dates”, often lasting five or six hours during which time he would arrange for room service to deliver dinner and champagne at the five-star Lowry. On each occasion, he paid her £1,000 in cash for her company. A friend of Jennifer’s said last night: “She couldn’t believe it the first time he booked her. He used a different name so she didn’t know who he really was until she knocked on the hotel room door and he opened it. “She wasn’t star-struck. She considers what she does to be a profession and she always strives to be very good at it. “But she got into trouble with her agency when they found out she was by-passing them and taking bookings from him direct on her own mobile phone and over the internet using Skype. “After he’d had sex with her the first few times, he changed his attitude towards her. He said it was no longer just about an hour or two of sex but that he’d grown genuinely fond of her. But he carried on paying her whenever they met. It went on for four months.” Their last meeting was in October. On November 2, Coleen gave birth to Kai. The source said: “He suddenly stopped calling Jennifer in October, although she has seen him out in bars and clubs in Manchester since. When that happens, she makes sure she stays well away from him to avoid any awkwardness.” The source went on: “She’s a well-to-do young woman and has had a good education. You’ve only got to look at her to see why Wayne liked her so much. “She loves the high-life and leads a hectic life of parties, holidays and nights out. She works hard for six months, earns lots of money and then goes to Spain for a few months to party with friends she has over there. “When she’s run out of money, she comes home and starts escorting again. She’s young but very confident and sure of herself. “In the past, she’s told friends that she would love to be a real WAG. She knows that it all coming out will devastate Wayne. She says she feels sorry for Coleen but that at the same time, Wayne must have known the risks of one day being found out. On a few of their dates, he actually took her out on his arm to bars and a casino. “He must have been on some kind of self-destruct trip. It must have been obvious to him that people would spot him and see that she wasn’t Coleen but he didn’t seem to care.” Rooney and Coleen, 24, met while they were at secondary school in Liverpool. In July 2004 the Sunday Mirror revealed how he had paid £140 to romp with prostitute Charlotte Glover, then 21, before leaving her with a signed autograph as a souvenir. Then, a month later, the Sunday Mirror revealed how he had sex with prostitute Gina McCarrick, 37 at a £45-a-time brothel in Liverpool, which he visited 10 times and where he was caught on CCTV. He also had sex there with a 48-year-old grandmother known as “Auld Slapper”, who wore a rubber catsuit. A humbled Rooney later issued a grovelling apology, saying: “Foolish as it now seems I did on occasions visit massage parlours and prostitutes. I now regret it deeply and hope people may understand that it was the sort of mistake you make when you are young and stupid. It was at a time when I was very young and immature.” In her autobiography, Coleen later revealed that she forgave Rooney because when he had sex with the three prostitutes – in 2002 – she and he had not yet slept together or formally settled down together. She wrote: “The truth is, and I’ve never said this before, at that time in our relationship I’d never even slept with Wayne. “I was only 16 and we weren’t having that kind of relationship at that stage. We used to meet at the chippy or the cinema.” After his double vice disgrace, Rooney gradually rebuilt his reputation, allowing him to garner massively lucrative sponsorships. And he slowly re-established trust with Coleen. Rooney and Coleen married in June 2008 in a lavish ceremony in a converted monastery near Genoa on the Italian Riviera. A beaming Coleen wore a £200,000 white Marchesa wedding gown and pearls while Rooney sported an open-necked shirt for the ceremony at the abbey of La Cervara. In May this year, just before England’s World Cup disaster, he insisted being a father had changed his life. “Becoming a dad means you have to be a role model for your son and be someone he can look up to,” he said. “Now I have someone to look after and I just want to be with Kai and Coleen as much as possible. I don’t go clubbing very much any more, maybe only a couple of times a year. I’m now in bed by 10.30pm.” And he publicly acknowledged the onus on him to behave responsibly, saying: “The lifestyle I lead as a footballer means I am always in the spotlight.” Rooney, who played for England on Friday night in the 4-0 victory over Bulgaria, was due to travel to Switzerland tomorrow for England’s next European Championship qualifier in Basel on Tuesday. But it was unclear last night whether he would remain with the squad amid the crisis now erupting in his marriage." http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/09/04/wayne-rooney-cheats-on-pregnant-wife-coleen-with-1k-a-night-prostitute-115875-22537906/ --------------- Cut and pasted from another forum. Not sure if this was one of the rumours that was floating about after the WC or not. Either way, Rooney is a fool and with having previous, one who doesn't learn from his mistakes.

Treemag - I listened in on the radio too, as was at Uni in Middlesbrough. Went out on the beer after that and had a cracking night.

'Ned' Kelly will always be a legend to Newcastle supporters of a certain age. He was a proper player and man.

Does anyone know where I can get ahold of the Feyenoord and Inter away CL games? They were magic. I know the former has highlights on the NUFC Big Hits dvd, but would love to see both games again.