Benwell Lad

In typical deluded mackum style they are also now thinking that the stadium capacity may need to be increased As earlier alluded to they couldn't even fill it when they were in the big league playing the top teams. In fact they barely got 30K for a cup semi final against Man Utd This season has just been their gimmick year where there's a bit of a love in going on and they're taking the flattery of posh boy and the Don hook, line and sinker. It doesn't follow that going up the leagues makes the crowd increase, in fact the opposite often happens. The tin pot cup thing is just an extension of this. Even when a club like Tow Law got to Wembley a town with a population of 2,000 took 10,000 fans. Unfortunately they're now struggling on crowds of about fifty.

His controversial and bent decisions on Saturday which ultimately led to the scenes at the end will only encourage the horrible little twat to carry on being the centre of attention. He loves it.

Really nothing much happened, but the problem started when Dean gave yet another bent decision against us for the back pass. Newcastle fans were angry at that and just about every steward in the ground came stood in front of the away fans with some of them (stewards) quite happy to incite. Newcastle then scored and the design of Bournemouth's stadium makes it almost inevitable that the type of boisterous celebration a last minute goal brings, will see fans at the front being pushed onto edge of the pitch.

RTG wank-fest tomorrow especially after he has a pop at us! Him and posh boy are playing them like a fiddle

Lucky again by all accounts last night just as they were at Wycombe on Saturday. They've carried a lot of luck including a couple of games around Christmas where the opposition were denied good goals by bad decisions. They're also playing awful football, according to most of them,in a division where their budget (envy of Championship sides according to the Don) should really have them pissing the league.

FFS was looking forward to this as well.

It probably been overshadowed by the subsequent rugby tackle and not getting a red card but how atrocious was his goalkeeping from Ritchie's cross ?

Someone posted a link to an article, I think from The Times, which explained the reasons he needed to be closer to family in the south. It's a good read and showed him up as a great lad who has been through a lot recently. He loves being at NUFC but is in a difficult situation after his daughter's birth and they need a lot of support from family.

A strange, peculiar absence of NUFC stuff on RTG today and you just know how it would have looked if Everton's goalkeeper had a brain and they'd managed to hold on

Pretty much everything went against in the game aside from our winner. Even the penalty wasn’t done correctly 100%, right from not sending Pickford off, not giving a re-take for him coming off the line. Even on throw ins we had to take ours at the exact spot the ball went out at, and Everton were allowed to steal 5-10 yards, and even then we didn’t get a lot of them that we should have. The referee was awful throughout, and in the 2nd half we got a couple of free kicks which was more an appeasement effort than anything. Despite the goal being offside, Everton can’t complain because overall they had a massive advantage throughout the game. That was very noticeable yesterday and I heard several people commenting about it.

In those 15 or 20 minutes yesterday he demonstrated once again that there are few better passers of the ball than him.

Narrow nail biting wins have become the norm for us lately, and while I'd rather be cruising, those final few minutes where throw-ins and wild clearances into nowhere are cheered like goals are quite amazing.

It really has become like when Ayoze plays well the team plays well. Little wonder he has started more games under Rafa than any other player.

Ritchie clearly has some sort of a personal hatred for him now. A few times Miggy just threw his arms up in the air, asking WTF? I actually think that he resents him because he has all the quality that he doesn’t have and wishes he does have. Yeah, he's a professional footballer, and one of our most dedicated player, I highly doubt this is the case. It is just silly to imply that. Almiron is an exceptional talent who's directness and pace will be a great asset to us. Ritchie is a very experienced senior pro who's game is more pragmatic. We need both sides.

Aye, but Whickham only pay about 20 quid a game, what do you expect ? At least they've got their FA Vase final to look forward to

A comeback win was the best thing today but Pickford being shown up for the total fraud he is just made it so much better. An occasional worldie save seems to mask his awful distribution and decision making.

It's insane that he is criticised for occasionally losing the ball when he has probably been involved in more match turning /winning situations than anyone for a long, long time.

Jordan Pickford man :lol: Utter fraud.

The County Durham thing is just another part of the collective chip on the mackem shoulder which likes to imagine that the Geordie Nayshun manipulated north-east football supporters and years ago everyone in County Durham supported Sunderland. Large parts of County Durham have always been predominantly black and white, other parts 50/50 and some parts mainly red and white. Most people in County Durham see Newcastle as "their" city which they use for leisure, shopping, culture and transport links etc, not Sunderland. The cities of Durham and Newcastle have always had close academic and cultural ties. It's open to debate but I'd think that around 50% of Newcastle's support comes from south of the Tyne, i.e. what was once County Durham. Durham very much deserves to be mentioned on the new mega flag.

Does anyone other than fans of the two teams involved are even know it's happening There was zero national coverage or awareness of the semi-finals.

In the last decade they have only got anywhere near filling their stadium when Newcastle United or Take That were on the bill. They had the highest number of empty seats per game year after year in the PL, they carried that on in the 2nd division and most likely they'll do the same this season in the 3rd division. They're currently having a gimmicky season but once the dust settles they'll be back to their miserable, bickering selves.

Time to forget the traditional rivalry and all get behind one of the region's smaller teams in exactly the same way we would if Gateshead or Spennymoor were going for the FA trophy, or Dunston or Hebburn were going for the Vase.

They'll have to allow about 30 minutes for a penalty if they're going to read it to the letter of the law

Tweaking it to stop the common situation of ten or more players already in the box before it's kicked could be a good idea. Some means to keep the other 20 players on the pitch further away from the ball ??

For the first time in ages the region won't have a team in the FA Vase final so it's nice to see one of our lower league sides having a tilt at the minor competitions. I assume the better lower league sides like Luton and Barnsley didn't take this too seriously ?