TheBrownBottle

‘Cowies’

‘Now put your dummies back in or we’ll start charging for tickets’

I still love that they put it about like it was a moral choice of theirs, mind. ‘No blood on our hands’. As if a sovereign wealth fund would be interested in the first place, you daft cunts.

You would need to be in the top four consistently for years to have a chance of overtaking Spurs. At the moment, that looks beyond us. Not sure how it’s factually impossible. I can’t see how we catch up to Spurs at the moment; Man City and Man Utd are light years away. Unless something significantly changes, we have a very obvious ceiling.

Barring an absolutely ridiculous run of results, Howe should be getting at least the first half of next season too.

Increased stakes really do ‘up the ante’ mate. The one that sticks in my mind is the 4-1 win at the SOS - the celebrations were more muted that the result might imply. A half-empty stadium, and an easy win against (at that point) the worst team in recent top flight history (they ended up with 15 points) just didn’t really register beyond shits & giggles. It was more like dancing on a grave than stress-relieving ecstasy. The playoff semi final defeat is etched into my brain - I was just a kid, but I can remember the looks on my dad and my uncle’s faces when the second went in. When you’re a kid, you feed off the emotions of the adults around you. The mixture of devastation and anger is incredibly visceral.

I love watching their internal dialogue manifest. They’re not in our shadow, but they go on like it’s Real Madrid vs Gateshead. They want to be massive underdogs, yet sneer at everything that makes them the underdog in the first place. They want to be seen as our equal, yet it’s a David and Goliath contest. Daft cunts. No excuses from the team or all involved for not beating the cunts, it has to be said. And I’m confident we will.

I agree with a caveat - you can score with your shoulder, head and chest. So there is as much an advantage with those as with the feet. Your hands and arms though - that shouldn’t be off, for me; only body parts from which you can score.

It’s also completely the norm on Tyneside. Everything gets overanalysed. I’m as guilty as anyone, happy to hold my hands up. Everyone I know does this in the pub, at work, or when just sat about talking shite. It is results-driven though. We have an injury crisis, with multiple repeat injuries and the recently appointed head physio is off. Brian Clough once said that ‘when a manager is sacked, the man who appointed him should walk with him’. Now, I don’t quite hold that viewpoint - but there is something seriously wrong at the club in terms of injuries. The man who appointed the man who is there to ensure that the impact is minimal takes his share of the blame. Unless we should only give credit and stay silent otherwise? Praise but don’t criticise? That’s not childish - that’s what a cult does. I’m well aware of where we were under Ashley - but you know what, I’m not going to use that as a benchmark. I don’t see why different standards apply now - again, I saw this shite during the early Hall era, lots of ‘do you want McKeag back?’ type crack for any criticism of the sainted John Hall and his executive. That thinking ended up with years of mismanagement and syphoning off of money. The club has come a long way - through some inspired coaching, shrewd transfers and hard work and buy-in from the playing staff. But the parameters change with transformation - and a lot of transformation has been driven also by HUGE sums of money being pushed into the club. Following football - and getting worked up by it - is childish. There are no ‘grown ups in the room’ when it comes down to it - you can’t rise above by wearing a cloak of ‘maturity’. It is trivial, ultimately.

‘The Wee-ah - Tyne derby’ As it’s known in Sunderland only

You’re right - and yes, UEFA has its own FFP rules independent of the PL. Are you referring to the proroguing of Parliament? I think it’s difficult to truly distinguish govt from Parliament - I know our executive hold ministerial portfolios, but ultimately the govt comes from the govt benches. Another system in need of reform!

The Supreme Court are there to interpret and of course create case law - but they can’t block legislation. The elective dictatorship will always be able to get what it wants

Singing ‘attack, attack, attack attack attack’ at Dalglish’s side in ‘98 sticks in the memory as much as owt else. There was an undercurrent of annoyance at the limp-wristed approach to a cup final. Then defiance when about twenty thousand of us stayed back chanting Newcastle songs as Arsenal celebrated. Waving a flag would not have cut it.

I reckon you only sang all those verses because you’re named in them …

Silly season will end when form picks back up. The idea that Marca would know what the board are thinking but UK hacks don’t seems far-fetched.

And I’m not one of them. I walked after KK resigned - I didn’t attend a match after Bolton (H) in 2008. That wasn’t an easy thing to do. I didn’t sit in silence whatsoever. I’m not happy reading people writing that they ‘hate’ people for having a different view, or what people ‘deserve’. I got to miss out on the social elements of match days with friends and families because I hated what Ashley did and would do. I don’t ‘deserve’ an administrator as wonderful as Dan Ashworth. Haddaway man.

Make sure you give Ashworth a big thank you hug when he fucks off to Salford

I think it probably has more to do with him about to piss off 18 months into his contract, after we paid Brighton a lot of money and had to wait six months for him to join. If he left now what exactly would his legacy be? The physios were his appointments and we’ve had non stop injury crises. No one is ever accountable, though - to question it means that your support is in question. Hate other people all you want, I wouldn’t have the energy for it. Support isn’t fawning sycophancy.

The Gallowgate troughs are burned into my memory bank. Never did quite get my sense of smell fully back

I think it’s more the building up of an administrator into someone who is irreplaceable. Just because what Ashley did was shite, doesn’t mean we need to fawn over what follows. The ‘let’s do what Ashley did then’ stuff is daft.

The govt can enact any legislation they like, ultimately. Including amendments or new legislation providing opt-outs and protections for some sectors - including sports. Post-Brexit, they are in a position to do this without external considerations.

‘That was some canny faggots and peas, mutha’

It definitely is. Plenty of us just aren’t rude enough to point this out every 5 bloody minutes.

I think it was the recently deceased Henry Kissinger who said that student politics were so vicious precisely because the stakes were so small. The derby has had plenty of games where the same applies - they are a shitload more important when there’s little else going on. This being an FA Cup games ups the stakes again for me.