Benwell Lad

Just showing support for their manager and star striker. Nowt wrong with that really.

Despite the difficulties and criticism he endured during his first season and arriving at a club in turmoil he never went missing, he played almost every game when some players might have found a dodgy hamstring or something to get out of the firing line. That probably says as much about the bloke as his sublime ability does and contributes towards him being a great player and not just a good one.

Who spotted Krul and brought him to Newcastle ? Whoever it was thank you very much. I've always rated Harper and still do but we are very lucky to have this kid at the club.

Brilliant !

See Bent and Kenwynne notched again this weekend. Go on Brucie lad !

Bruce has to stay. His mission to send them into oblivion with a bunch of over paid has beens who they will never get rid of is pure genius and he must be allowed to finish the job.

How is he employed as a professional footballer ? That said he sums up the rabble down the road and their manager. Having him as club captain shows how scummy they really are.

Only the usual tarts on here openly showing that kind of attitude. There'll be no fear in the dressing room or on the terraces. Thank god.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/quinn-scores-drinkdrive-own-goal-243122.html Staggering. So where does the sanctimonious attitude come from ?

Did Niall Quinn really get done for drink driving or is it just a wind up ? Pretty unsaintly behaviour putting innocent people's lives at risk if it's true like.

Dunno I'm not privy to the boardroom but I guess we can assume it was to reduce operating costs, make the club leaner and self sufficient, reduce the age of the playing personnel and stop dishing out Freddie pensions to past their sell buy date superstars. Like I said a broadly unpopular plan but a plan nonetheless. There again if we listen to the many of the opinionated "superior" fans who create websites or publish fanzines it was to single handedly destroy the heritage of Newcastle United, make himself rich at our expense and take us into the 4th division or whatever it's called nowadays. I guess we can take our pick.

Pressure is on them after Bruce's derby debacles last season and that his obsession makes it look increasingly like he spent a fortune buying players to win a one off game rather than planning for the longer term. Even if they beat us I'm sure we'll finish higher in the league than them.

The fact of the matter is, since the club was first made available for sale by Hall and Shepherd, Ashley is the only one who has been willing to put the money down required. Where are these saviours who will buy the club and pour money into the squad? So far the only serious interest was NUST with their collective whip round which flopped, and Barry Moat who was told to take his begging cap to the pawn shop by the banks. That is the reality. And people should not rule out a scenario in which Ashley sells the club to someone worse, and by that I mean someone who somehow finds the asking price MA wants then f*cks up and can't afford to fund a recovery. It seems to be the case that people buying football clubs invariably get unpleasant surprises when they find out what it takes to keep them going let alone move them forward. Also a change of owner often means change of manager and not always for the best. I'm struggling to believe that Avram Grant was a better manager than Zola, and that Steve Kean is a better manager than Allardyce (and I'm purely looking at Allardyce as a Premiership survivor not with any great admiration I might add). So are we supposed to be grateful for the idiots we have. If clubs like fulham can be run sensibly and play in Europe with their resources and fan base, I will burn before I'm grateful for the shoddy way this club is being treat. You missed the point. It's entirely up to you whether you want to feel grateful to him for everything, some of the things or nothing that he's done here. But if he did get out there's absolutely no guarantee that he'll sell it to someone who will be able to run it better. So sadly true. There is no Geordie with the interests of NUFC at heart either capable or willing to take on the club in the present financial climate and if Ashley were to move aside it would most likely be for something even worse and to someone or something in it for money rather than love. At least the present regime have a plan, albeit a broadly unpopular one but a plan nonetheless and in fairness one which has stayed pretty much on course for the last couple of years.

Found it quite staggering that the piss poor Tyne Tees Northern Life sport section last Friday, on the eve of the new season, chose Freddie Shepherd of all people to preview and summarise Newcastle's position. This the man who was taking us to the brink of bankruptcy/oblivion and has a chip on both shoulders about the current set up. Needless to say it was absolute tripe complete with snidey snigger from the blatantly mackem biased presenter (forget his name). I wonder why the producer allowed such an agenda driven piece instead of an actual sports report ?

The f*** does that mean? Immense pressure on Bruce to deliver after spending a fortune and the way he fucked up last year's derbies and made a complete arse of himself ranting about revenge songs etc. FWIW I think that despite his spending, squad wise he's weaker than last year and win lose or draw he won't last the season. Not that it will bother him much as he picks up the balance of the huge new contract Quinn just gave him returns to his Newcastle home and spends Saturday's watching his beloved Man Utd safe in the knowledge he won't have to dirty his shoes entering Sunderland any more.

Game set and match http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/feb/11/newcastle-united-freddy-shepherd-john-hall

They reckon everyone loves, moral, family club Sunderland. Wasn't their centre half implicated in a rape case in which his brother was found guilty recently ? Isn't their club captain banned from all licensed premises in his home town because of repeated violent/obnoxious behaviour ? Doesn't their chairman/management continually turn a blind eye to the regular violent and threatening pitch invasions which occur at their stadium ? Doesn't their manager and most of their players refuse to live and socialise in their cesspit of a town preferring to spend their time and money on Tyneside ? Win lose or draw on Saturday, we will always look down on the sad fuckers.

I want a scrappy 1-0. Picture the scene - A stoppage time corner, Cabaye floats the ball into the box which eludes everyone and heads towards the back post. There, greeted with an open goal, stands Joey Barton. He drops to nod the ball in but misjudges the bounce. To salvage the situation he raises his hand and prods the ball into the net. Barton wheels away, the Sunderland players stand in disbelief wating for the whistle to go to signal handball but unfortunately for them both Webb and his assistant's vision were obscured by Titus Bramble's fat arse. The goal stands. Seconds later the full time whistle is blown. Enraged Sunderland fans spill onto the pitch as stewards usher our boys down the tunnel to avoid the throngs of inbred, coin throwing spastics looking for a pagger. Fights break out amongst the home fans who are now covering the playing surface. Chairs are ripped out and thrown at the away end. After a few minutes rozzers in riot gear descend onto the playing surface and dish out a few well deserved beatings while police outside do their best to stop the celebrating away fans from meeting their less educated counterparts. Fast forward to Match of the Day and the moralising begins. "That boy Barton is at it again", Linekar will say with that oh so unsettling smirk. Hansen and Shearer will nod sagely. The newspapers will be no better - "The Hand of Sod!" the Sunday Mirror will shriek, while some bloated columnist will muse upon the impact Barton's latest indiscretion will have on the youth of this fine nation. Joey will go on national radio to justify his actions, claiming that the team would've suffered if he hadn't punched the ball into the net. Robbie Savage will agree and Alan Green won't hear him but will instead whinge about his viewing position at the Reebok for that days game, muttering that "it's a completely unacceptable way for a club like Bolton to treat a man like me", before cutting into his rant to bring us the breaking news that Sunderland will be forced to play their next 4 home games behind closed doors due to crowd trouble. "I thought they already were" Savage will say, "judging by the number of pink seats on display every other week!" And they'll all laugh. Now that's a derby, boys and girls.

I heard the 1st half of their game on Saturday and they were destroyed and defensively all over the place, could have been 4-0 down at half time, but they got a lot of luck and somehow got back into it, aided by a rather confused looking Liverpool in the 2nd half. Their have been lucky in recent derbies too, lucky to get a draw at the sos last season and arguably just as lucky to get away with a 5-1 at SJP as we eased up on them after 70 minutes. Despite the crap Shearer and co were spouting at the weekend, I think they're weaker than last season, minus Bent,Henderson,Onuha,Welbeck, Zenden and Malbranque, replacing them with a few relegation cast offs and a couple of past their sell by date mercenaries. They may win on Saturday but they will not improve on last season's position. Win,lose or draw no doubt the morons will be on the pitch again threatening players with the full blessing of their chairman and manager.

Famous 3 Kings right next to West Kensington tube, not really a Newcastle pub as such but has every game on and always get a few Geordies in there watching.

I predict that wearside inbreeds will once again encroach onto the playing area intent on violent assault and that it will once again go unpunished by the FA and that Saint Niall will once again turn a blind eye to it. I also predict that the Newcastle fans present will support their team for the full 90 minutes whatever happens, and certainly would not desert their team en-masse at half time as the "fans" of a smaller north-east club did at a recent derby match.

Below article makes sense. Shame as he could have been a Newcastle legend. Jose Enrique Wants What's Best For Him Not Newcastle United - Luke Edwards, The Telegraph He has criticised the club’s transfer policy, accused members of the board of lying, implied the new signings are not good enough to replace those who have left and argued Newcastle United will never challenge for honours again under the present regime – just a wild stab this but I don’t think Jose Enrique wants to stay at St James’s Park do you? To be fair to the Spaniard, his comments on Twitter over the weekend were born out of months of frustration; months of being kept away from the media because the club knew he would say something controversial; months of fearing all the good work that had been in the club’s recovery from relegation was being undone; months of pent up anger unleashed in a few 140 character posts on the world wide web! But just as newspapers and other media organisations are having to adapt to the rise of social networking sites and their ability to make, as well as spread, the news, so too now are football clubs. Enrique, probably bored on Newcastle’s pre-season tour of America and wondering why none of the Champions League clubs his agent had said wanted to sign him have made a bid, decided it was time to get his views across. He might not have even thought about it for very long. It may have just been a spur of the moment decision in a hotel room on the other side of the Atlantic, he may have stupidly thought nobody would be able to read them if he wrote in Spanish, but for me Enrique’s comments on Twitter were calculated and deliberate. He is in danger of being stuck at a club he no longer wants to play for and in attacking owner Mike Ashley and Managing Director Derek Llambias, he hopes he can speed up his exit. He has attracted attention to himself and his, erm, “plight”. He has made it clear to his employers that he does not like them or their business plan and he has played the role of the jilted footballer perfectly. Enrique wants what the fans wants, or so he wants everyone to believe. He wants a bold, ambitious Newcastle United, thrilling the world with its attacking football. He wants Ashley to spend millions on the best new player available, not merely land the best free agents. He wants the board to tell the truth. His comments undoubtedly strike a chord with thousands on Tyneside. There is frustration at the lack of ambition from the owner, there is still resentment senior club officials once admitted they lied as a public relations exercise when Kevin Keegan was manager, there is still a strong anti-Ashley mentality at a club which has made under-achievement a trademark. Yet, Enrique has also over egged the pudding some what. Newcastle fans are blindly loyal, but they are not blindly stupid. They know Enrique has been offered a new contract and they know he turned it down. They know Enrique once said he wanted to spend the rest of his career at Newcastle, comments made when the club weren’t even in the Premier League, let alone challenging for a top six place, and they now know he never meant it. They know he is an ambitious footballer who first started making noises about leaving this summer long before Andy Carroll was sold to Liverpool for £35m in January, but when the prospect of a new contract was first raised 12 months ago. They know he is a very talented left-back who has improved dramatically from the slight, out-of-his-depth youngster who arrived from Spain and couldn’t get a game in his first season on Tyneside. But, ultimately, they know most footballers want what is best for them, not the football club they once pledged loyalty to. They have seen this happen before at St James’s Park and they have seen it happen to others like them, just look at Aston Villa and Stewart Downing. They know Ashley isn’t perfect, they know he has made mistakes and they know they are hamstrung by his lack of spending , but they also know they will have a football club to support long after both he and Enrique have become nothing more than memories. Enrique has been disrespectful to the club, he has been disrespectful to new signings Yohan Cabaye, Demba Ba and Sylvain Marveaux and as popular as he is, that was a mistake. Whether he had said it on Twitter or an interview with a newspaper, the impact was the same. He has attracted unwanted attention to a club which does soap operas better than most. He has given the rest of the country a stick to beat Newcastle with, he has made others laugh at a mess he has created. Newcastle fans will criticise their club until they are blue in the face, they will moan and they will vilify, but they will not let others do it for them. Not even one of their own players and not even when he might have a point if it is a self-serving one.

As I've reiterated many times now - I was not discussing the rivarly in terms of NUFC and SAFC. I was talking about the role that this 'rivalry' has in some people's everyday lives... Poor attempt to wriggle out of what you actually said - you're not related to the Murdoch family by chance ? The bits highlighted are your words and the last statement is arguably your most patronising and offensive to date - although it has some stiff competition. You obviously haven't spent long enough in the NE to realise that due to our former eminence in the fields of shipping and shipbuilding and the decline of our major industries thereafter that we are probably the most mobile bunch of workers in the UK.

Have relatives and friends that live in the North-East, have been going up to Newcastle all my life. I know about the local 'rivalry', and pity it. knowing about it and understanding it appear to be completly different things then. I'll never truly understand it, I agree. I could be wrong, but from what I've always been told the rivalry goes back to the English civil war. Newcastle was on the side of the crown, and Sunderland sided with the Parlimentarians - and then a load of s*** kicked off about coal and as a cause of that, you hate each other? I've never lived anywhere where there is such hatred for people that live in a city 12 miles away, people of similar stock to yourselves... You'd think with so many people in this country ready to turn their noses up at the north-east, in disregard - there would at least be some brotherhood between the people of the region? Couldn't give a f*** about the 'rivarly', it's primitive - f***ing medieval. Where else in the country do you think this goes on, to this kind of level? Its good to see that there are people who don't let this obsession rule their lives (know of a couple married for 20 years, one is a geordie, one is a mackem). Tbh, I'm bloody glad it's something I and those I care about, both now and in the future have never been cursed with. Maybe if some of you guys moved out of the North-East you would see just how abnormal it is, and just how people outside of the North-East react to it? What a load of s***. Southampton and Portsmouth Reading and Oxford and Swindon Ipswich and Norwich Derby and Nottingham Swansea and Cardiff Millwall and West Ham Tottenham and Chelsea Liverpool and Manchester (both clubs) All of those hate each other with the same passion as Newcastle and Sunderland. And of course if you went to a sophisticated, wealthy and well educated place like the Netherlands you would never find the citizens of two rival cities with a "hatred" and "obsession" for each other centred around their football teams. No of course not, such "primitive" "medieval" behaviour exists only in the NE of England and if "some of you guys moved out of the North-East you would see just how abnormal it is" Tit.

Sorry mate you beat me to it. The list is virtually endless if you extrapolate it globally.