Coffee_Johnny

If you look at the impact of Howe in that first season, I doubt there has ever been a more profound improvement made on a team second half of season (would have qualified for Champions League on the points per game for last 19 games; certainty for relegation challenging lowest ever points tally on ppg fir first 19 games). That impact, that remarkable improvement (with mainly the same squad) is possibly a greater achievement of his (and the wider club) leadership than the two CL qualifications or League Cup win.

Alanis Morissette?

He’s a Mad Lads Fan; great at getting through crowds.

😂 that’s just what this Summer needs another ‘How old is he really meme!” (Mbemba flashbacks!)

May seem daft, but having an array of top quality players competing for two (or on occasion three) CB positions may be easier to manage if you accept that one or two are going to miss a few games (hopefully not all at once and for long periods). It may always be better than having a couple of indestructible cart horses as back-ups.

We’ll get them too. Think there is a definite, and sensible, plan of getting good, potentially great, players if and when we can.

Maybe. I mean I know it’s Cat(t)s for you, like. But Keegan and Clark dream team for me.

I’d be delighted with both 🤷‍♂️

Quite liking the unpaid ambassador advocate role he does anyway.

Ah man, Kaka man! I’ve done it again. Watch the highlights on someone tenuously linked and now feel like we absolutely have to get him. Quick, strong, tenacious, good feet, athletic/fit, can use his swinger/left. He’d be a great option for us. He also looked the same (if not better) and completely unfazed in the Euros.

Gordon and Elanga are off to Saudi accompanied by a hen party from the Amsterdam Temperance Society. I think 🤷‍♂️

It’s a slippery slope, man! (Welcome back)

Think this was the bleach-blonde really proactive wide player (right footed, think he played on right but normally plays on left side) who was one of my personal ‘who could we sign’ stand outs from Euros. Seems so long ago!

Just took much longer to get the ball forward. Batty was brilliant at what he did, however a consequence of that was me often sitting thinking stuff like: ‘have they (opposition) got all their players back behind the ball? Nope not quite yet, any second now, ok now he releases it.’ Felt like what we gained in solidity we lost in rapid attacks.

This is a magnificent interview. You can join for 14 day free trial.

One of Gateshead’s finest. Loved Carroll when he was with us. Kind of centre forward I would have liked to be—similar physical attributes (and home town) but I couldn’t head the ball for toffee! despite my first Newcastle hero being (oddly perhaps…) Alan Gowling. I wonder where Carroll sits in list of best ever players from Gateshead? Probably a short list at the very top level, but others that spring to mind, Gascoigne, Waddle, Hunter, Stone, Hutchinson.

Some absolute belters there mind!

Did they appear in Cheers?

Well they’re all important attributes in a player but ‘talent’, to me, infers a high level of a learned skill.

Fuck me have I opened the Daily Mail by accident. Some judgemental shite in here.

Makem nonsense aside, up until 1993 Princess Mary’s (couple of hundred yards away from Exhibition Park) was the busiest maternity hospital in Tyneside with thousands of births per year (mothers mainly from Newcastle and Gateshead though further afield as well). If you’ve ever done the SJP rooftop tour, you can see the site of the hospital and the RVI, obviously, which took over maternity services. Both are within a mile of the ground. You can also see the QE in Gateshead about three miles away and probably other maternity hospitals. So there must be a fair percentage of the fanbase who were born within a mile, or sight, of the ground particularly pre 1993.

You usually are 😉

I’m Spartacus.

Yep. We need good men who are great at football.