from .COM:
More observations from Southern-based hacks on events on Tyneside.
First up is usually-unpleasant Hammers fan Martin Samuel writing in Monday's Times and, for a change, his musings seem spot-on. Read here.
Next are the poisonous prejudices of perennial Toon-hater (see below) Mick Dennis who once again lazily throws in random attendance figures to try and substantiate his odium.
The Express didn't see fit to put the article online, so here it is in full:
HERE they go again, the special people demanding that someone who understands just how special they are takes over their special club. The preposterous self-regard of the self-styled Geordie Nation is the single most obnoxiously ridiculous aspect of English football. It is also one of the fundamental reasons why Newcastle United have not won a major domestic trophy since a month after Winston Churchill stopped being Prime Minister.
The Toon Army tell us that, unless we are from Newcastle, we do not and cannot understand what their club means to them. How dare they be so insulting to the rest of us? Of course we understand their passion. We get it. It’s how we feel about our clubs.
And it is those of us outside Newcastle, looking in, who can see how deluded their fans are and the damage their vanity has done to the club they say “deserves” success.
Yep, Newcastle get big crowds. Agreed – although in terms of the percentage of the available seats, their attendances last season were only the tenth best in the land. And when they were struggling in football’s second tier in 1991 their average attendance was a paltry 16,879.
Other clubs have maintained much better levels of support in lower divisions. But, yes, Newcastle have had good crowds in recent seasons.
However, their oft-repeated assertion that they are especially loyal is tosh.
The speed with which they turn on faltering managers has been one reason for the lack of stability at the club. When Freddie Shepherd was chairman, as soon as the natives got restless about a manager, he sacked him. And another Freddie flaw was that, to appease the fans, he kept sanctioning big, iconic signings – rupturing the budget by buying Michael Owen for instance.
Then Mike Ashley took over and fawned to the fans by appointing Kevin Keegan. He’s from Doncaster and the last time he was Newcastle manager he blew their only chance of the title for 70 years by disrupting the team with the Quixotic signing of Faustino Asprilla and failing to sure-up a ricketty defence.
But those special Newcastle fans think Keegan is one of them, so the club’s website announced: “The Messiah is back”.
That perpetuated the foolish fallacy that Newcastle are an exceptional club, preordained to succeed. It maintained the myth that the club should be run like some evangelical crusade.
So now we wait for And and Dec to form a consortium to buy the club and appoint Robson Green as director of football and Jimmy Five Bellies as manager. Well, that’s no more ludicrous than the fans banging on about how special they all are.
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Mick has a long tradition of anti-Newcastle scrawlings. For example:
"But watching Ipswich lose their bottle is becoming an end-of-season tradition, which is just as enjoyable as Newcastle's annual defeat at Wembley."
London Evening Standard, May 3, 2000.
The ludicrous "tenth best in the land" statistic is just bizarre and totally inaccurate. Our lowest attendance in 2007-08 was 49,948 (95.5% full).
This was fifth highest in the Premier League, ahead of Liverpool (95.2%) and Chelsea (94.3%) and way better than those with much smaller grounds (Fulham, Portsmouth, Bolton, Wigan etc.).
None of the clubs outside of the Premier League could match that statistic, including Dennis' beloved Norwich (94.3%).
The 16,879 average in 1990-91 is also a lazy figure to throw in. Yes, it was the lowest point in our recent history but for a team struggling in Division Two (we finished 11th) it was relatively respectable.
Only three teams in that league bettered it - Sheff Wed and West Ham (both promoted) and Boro (playoffs). It was higher than seven Division One sides (Derby, Norwich, Southampton, Coventry, Q.P.R., Luton and Wimbledon).
These were dark days for attendances in England, for example Crystal Palace finished third behind Champions Arsenal (36,864), runners-up Liverpool (36,038) with an average of 19,660.
Of course, Dennis doesn't mention that we finished the best supported team in the land with averages of 49,379 and 56,238 in 1946-47 and 1947-48, respectively - when we were in Division Two.
Just as relevant/irrelevant as his 1990-91 statistic.
