Have Newcastle United finally woken up and maybe turning a corner?

[gray]

Is it just me, or is this a cracking good read?

 

http://www.footballfancast.com/blog/newcastle-united/have-newcastle-united-finally-woken-and-maybe-turning-corner/2644

 

"Newcastle fans have not been watching the real Joey Barton", Jon Champion informed Setanta viewers fifteen minutes into the Birmingham City Match on Monday night, and everybody glanced at one another feeling a little guilty. 

 

 

It doesn't sit right, six months screaming abuse at an unpractised understudy hurled into Newcastle worst Premier League season ever for little more than his stunning inability to pass a football over ten yards feels disproportionately cruel and point missing, like snarking at Anne's Frank's somewhat stilted prose and over-reliance on semi colons or pointing out the continuity problems in ‘Schindler's List'.   

 

Is this true of all the players, what Champion claims, have none of them been real?  I only ask because had we known that all season long we'd been watching the only extras with equity cards - shoved onto stage by a pushy and demanding director - in lieu of highly paid top flight footballers we would all have presumably been more forgiven and understanding, applauding politely and pretending not to notice when Alan Smith stutters and stammers all over a line reading, benevolent parents at our infants' nativity, smiling cloyingly and desperately resisting the urge to look at our watch.  We may have even found ourselves enjoying it.

 

Everything suddenly seems more palpable and fun armed with the knowledge that  our season, far from unmitigated disaster, has actually been nothing more than an elaborately plotted episode of ‘Blackadder':  Mark Viduka being played by the bloke that always hangs out at the coffee shop in ‘Neighbours', drinking strong espressos and mugging unconvincingly whenever Harold drops the cappuccino maker on his toe; the role of Steven Taylor taken by the little girl who trips over her own feet and falls during the opening credits to ‘Little House on the Prairie'.   

 

So who were we watching in the second half on Monday night then, and can we keep them please?  We'll feed them and look after them and everything, Mam, you won't have to do anything.

 

Newcastle were terrible in the first forty five on Monday night: soft centred, second to everything and doing that infuriating thing wherein they politely and non threateningly knock the ball to one another outside the penalty area waiting for the opposition to declare their interest in it, like our midfield are hesitant guests at the buffet table unsure as to whether or not nab the last chicken drumstick.  They were plodding and listless, treating possession as the type of thing one would ordinarily go out of their way to avoid, an invitation to a friend's house to see the new wallpaper they've just had put up in their bathroom.     

 

It was pointed out to me at half time that had it been a Newcastle player that had sliced his clearance inside the penalty area like Stephen Kelly did in the forty fifth minute it would have flown into the back of the net, but at this point the role of the abused and luckless victim felt disingenuous and more than a little out of character.

 

Newcastle supporters do a fine line in self deprecation (well, you'd have to, wouldn't you?) but what they have never, and should never, do is regress into sitting at the bar at half eleven in the morning, sans a fairly prominent front tooth, rolling thin cigarettes and drinking double whiskeys, bemoaning the hard luck they've had over the years.  Every club is convinced theirs is the most cursed and it's a tedious way of thinking that Newcastle's lowly league position is down to anything other than having lots of footballers of limited talent playing way beneath their ability.  Up to half time on Monday, this season has been one long slog through self pitying wasteland, walking around with shrunken shoulders and complaining that nobody told us the party had been switched to next weekend.

 

Something changed in the second half, there was a moment where the players appeared to snap out of it, splash cold water in their faces and take a good hard look at themselves in the mirror.  "What the hell are we doing?"  They appeared to be asking one another, chuckling incredulously at the situation, rolling their sleeves up and finally going out of their way to do something about it.

 

Michael Owen took time out of pestering Fabio Capello as to why he added Dean Ashton as a friend on Facebook and not him to look interested and industrious - his goal was the exact type of goal you thought was a few years past him - the defence handled everything calmly and smoothly, never clearing aimlessly when passing along the ground was an option, and though Barton in midfield was clumsy in possession and cowardly in the tackle for once he was the exception:  Butt had his best game for a while and though Geremi's distribution was woeful (and whoever sanctions his taking of corners really needs to have a good long think about the career options available in the civil service) he never once hid.

 

The fans seemed to realise it too - after a half time break discussing where we're going to be relocating to in the bound-to-be sparsely populated St. James's Park next season and hoping we get Blackpool away in late August or early May, all of sudden we were back to supporting a big club, a real team- whining at Birmingham's time wasting and greeting their every rough tackle with indignant and elongated ‘Ohs', as if auditioning for the role of Paulie Walnuts in the ‘Sopranos' prequel movie. 

 

It was great.  Newcastle slick, quick and creating chances at one end of the pitch, steady and assured at the other end.  Being giddy and enthusiastic about a point at St.Andrews isn't something any of us are particularly proud of but Newcastle supporters are proving themselves as admirable climate shifters and if this is what a relegation battle is to be then what the hell, we may as well plunge ourselves right in to it.

 

To studiers of the big picture after the fact, the game at Birmingham may well mark the point where Newcastle United, team and fans, stopped feeling silly and embarrassed about the prospect of relegation and resolved with a steely defiance to do something about it and stop being so bloody coy.  "Yes, Dad, we do sleep in the same bed when I spend the weekend at his", we spat, finally losing our patience with prodding and cryptic questions regarding our Premier League status, "and yes, I am on the bloody pill".       

 

Tonight Bolton travel to Manchester United and whereas a few weeks ago actively supporting Manchester United would have felt a bit creepy and grubby, tonight I will feel no remorse about cheering on a team we once (a long time ago, it must be grimly conceded) considered legitimate rivals against a team most of us have long held in the same ill disguised contempt ordinarily reserved a commercial break that begins the moment you sit down with your tea.  I will be swinging my arms to the left and the right the way their fans do when they sing about whatisface and joining in heartedly with that somewhat twee white Pele song they have for Rooney.

 

Newcastle United need favours from Manchester Untied and as long as our own team are throwing themselves into battle as they did on Monday night, I feel no shame admitting that.

 

Embracing the possibility of relegation to dispel the possibility of relegation; so crazy it just might work.

[Guest alex]

It's just you. It reads really badly.

[Guest elbee909]

It's just you. It reads really badly.

 

It does read very badly indeed, doesn't it?  You know something's wrong when a paragraph equals a sentence:

 

"It doesn't sit right, six months screaming abuse at an unpractised understudy hurled into Newcastle worst Premier League season ever for little more than his stunning inability to pass a football over ten yards feels disproportionately cruel and point missing, like snarking at Anne's Frank's somewhat stilted prose and over-reliance on semi colons or pointing out the continuity problems in ‘Schindler's List'. "

 

I mean, what?

[STM]

On the other hand what the guy is trying to say is pretty good.

[Consortium of one]

Difficult to read.  I almost gave up on it.  I got the point eventually.

[gray]

just me then! i did fail english though

[Guest alex]

On the other hand what the guy is trying to say is pretty good.

If you say so. It's fucking shite iyam. It tries to be humourous and clever but I don't even think whoever wrote read through it afterwards. At least I'd hope they didn't. 

[Dave]

Turned?

[Shak]

I gave up after the paragraph that elbee has highlighted, seems it doesn't improve.

 

What's the gist then?

[Lenny]

Just read this now, was about to put it up, very good read, entertaining.

 

"Michael Owen took time out of pestering Fabio Capello as to why he added Dean Ashton as a friend on Facebook and not him to look interested and industrious"

[Skeletor]

I gave up after the paragraph that elbee has highlighted, seems it doesn't improve.

 

What's the gist then?

 

"Wow how come our players were so good in the second half? Can they play like that every game? K thanks bye."

[S.S.R.]

It's a simile and metaphor-riddled mess, but his observations are bang on. Well, I say bang on, what I actually mean is that they coincide with my views.

[bulivye]

I gave up after the paragraph that elbee has highlighted, seems it doesn't improve.

 

What's the gist then?

 

"Wow how come our players were so good in the second half? Can they play like that every game? K thanks bye."

 

throw in "it's ok to support man u vs bolton"  and that's it.

[Mike]

When the author wasn't dying to be clever, it was tolerable.

 

"Yes, Dad, we do sleep in the same bed when I spend the weekend at his", we spat, finally losing our patience with prodding and cryptic questions regarding our Premier League status, "and yes, I am on the bloody pill".

 

...what? I've read it multiple times and the meaning of that still escapes me.

[Pilko]

Turning a corner?

 

Wish Geremi could turn a corner... past the first man that is 

[Luc]

On the other hand what the guy is trying to say is pretty good.

 

What is he trying to say?

[fredbob]

Wow, what prententious reviews.

 

What a crap article.