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George Caulkin

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Tooj

Tooj

Posted
Posted

do you think non-NUFC fans have a case when they accuse them of being delusional and getting ideas above their station?

by nick b

 

No, Nick. I don't. Forty years without a trophy? 44,000 against Doncaster last weekend? They don't ask for much, you know. Just a bit of passion from their players and somebody with good sense running the club. It's not exactly unreasonable.

by CaulkinTheTimes at 1:24 PM

 

I seem to remember you were initially very pro-Ashley. When did the doubts creep in?

by Luke

 

That's also a fair point Luke. A case of 'be careful what you wish for', I suppose. I was desperate to see the back of Shepherd/Hall and the initial signs were promising. They talked about the long-term, Chris Moat was a decent man who seemed keen to communicate. We should have seen the warning signs when Ashley didn't do due diligence I suppose. Didn't take long to unravel. I won't make the same mistake again, I can assure you. And I would guess the same applies to NUFC fans.

by CaulkinTheTimes at 1:37 PM

 

Those two in particular are absolutely spot on.

 

:sadnod:

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Guest toonlass

Guest toonlass

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I am gutted to find out Caulkin is a mackem, he is still my favourite sports journo though.

 

He's a mackem? Where did you hear that? He's not my favourite sports journo btw. Mackem cunt.

 

On his twitter. Says he should be laughing at what is happening because he is a red and white, but "these muppets annoy me"

 

 

EDIT: Hang fire. Might be a mistake on my part. He has replied to my tweet and is denying he is a mackem. Says it was a retweet from someone else. Will update as more info comes through.

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Tooj

Tooj

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I am gutted to find out Caulkin is a mackem, he is still my favourite sports journo though.

 

He's a mackem? Where did you hear that? He's not my favourite sports journo btw. Mackem cunt.

 

On his twitter. Says he should be laughing at what is happening because he is a red and white, but "these muppets annoy me"

 

 

EDIT: Hang fire. Might be a mistake on my part. He has replied to my tweet and is denying he is a mackem. Says it was a retweet from someone else. Will update as more info comes through.

 

He's a Toon fan from Durham. Is it not obvious he supports us? :lol:

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NG32

NG32

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I am gutted to find out Caulkin is a mackem, he is still my favourite sports journo though.

 

He's a mackem? Where did you hear that? He's not my favourite sports journo btw. Mackem c***.

 

On his twitter. Says he should be laughing at what is happening because he is a red and white, but "these muppets annoy me"

 

 

EDIT: Hang fire. Might be a mistake on my part. He has replied to my tweet and is denying he is a mackem. Says it was a retweet from someone else. Will update as more info comes through.

 

He's a Toon fan from Durham. Is it not obvious he supports us? :lol:

 

I thought his articles were written as if he was a nufc fan, I thought it was strange when someone said he was a mackem.  ;D

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Guest toonlass

Guest toonlass

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The tweet include the word 'laffing' instea of laughing. You really think a journalist would talk like that? :lol:

 

It's twitter, not the encyclopedia britannica. I have explained I made a mistake.

 

I am gutted to find out Caulkin is a mackem, he is still my favourite sports journo though.

 

He's not. He used to write for 'The Mag' in the early nineties.

 

He has also written for the Legion of Light.

 

Think we have established I made a mistake ok, sorry and all.

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Interpolic

Interpolic

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The tweet include the word 'laffing' instea of laughing. You really think a journalist would talk like that? :lol:

 

It's twitter, not the encyclopedia britannica. I have explained I made a mistake.

 

I am gutted to find out Caulkin is a mackem, he is still my favourite sports journo though.

 

He's not. He used to write for 'The Mag' in the early nineties.

 

He has also written for the Legion of Light.

 

Think we have established I made a mistake ok, sorry and all.

 

You nearly wrecked a man's reputation is what you did.  ???

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TRon

TRon

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I'd just like to confirm that Caulkin is indeed my favourite sports journalist contrary to what I may have written earlier. A splendid writer fit to grace a quality publication like the Times.

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chicago_shearer

chicago_shearer

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Apparently Caulkin isn't the only one at the The Times with a soft spot for Newcastle.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article6916444.ece

SPECIAL DELIVERY: WHY JOSE MOURINHO WANTS TO GO HOME TO ENGLAND

 

José Mourinho wants to spend the next phase of his career back in England. And he intends it to be a prolonged sojourn, more like Arsène Wenger’s 13 years with Arsenal than his own stint at Chelsea, from whom he parted in September 2007 having won the Barclays Premier League twice, the FA Cup and the Carling Cup twice.

 

Mourinho, who had three full seasons at Stamford Bridge after making Porto champions of Europe as well as his native Portugal, is in his second season with Inter Milan and on top of Serie A, having already celebrated one national title in Italy, his fifth over seven seasons in three countries.

 

But he yearns to settle down and “create something deeper”. He believes that England is the place to do that. “England is the country,” he said. “And my football is English football.”

 

England would be glad to have him back any time. From the day he arrived in West London — he initially settled his family in a house in Chelsea and remembers walking to his first league match at the Bridge, against Manchester United — and reminded the media that we had encountered no ordinary coach out of a bottle but a “special one”, to his final wrangles with Roman Abramovich, we were usually on his side.

 

Yes, Mourinho “shushed” Liverpool fans at the Millennium Stadium on the day his Chelsea took their first trophy, the Carling Cup, and later, when Rafael Benítez’s team knocked them out of the Champions League at Anfield, he sneered that his men had lost to an inferior side.

 

Yes, he behaved badly in spreading the accusation that Frank Rijkaard, the Barcelona coach at the time, had obtained admittance to the room of Anders Frisk, the referee, at half-time. After Frisk had quit the game in disillusion, a leading Uefa official dubbed Mourinho an “enemy of football”.

 

But Mourinho, by and large, was among friends in English football — and the feeling was reciprocated. Not least by the media, who would hang on his every word, enjoying the disdain for clichéd thinking or phrases.

 

His inclination to return was outlined this week at Inter’s Appiano Gentile training ground, on a relatively quiet day when he conducted light sessions with players not claimed by the international break and devoted attention to young hopefuls; a task Mourinho enjoys more than is generally understood.

 

“I want to build something,” he said, and the revelation will interest every ambitious English club except Chelsea, whose politics and philosophy caused Mourinho to become increasingly restless once the glow caused by his immediate success had faded.

 

This eventually led to his disaffection and replacement by Avram Grant, who was ditched despite Chelsea’s appearance in last year’s Champions League final. Then came Luiz Felipe Scolari’s eight-month reign and the temporary stewardship of Guus Hiddink — and now Carlo Ancelotti.

 

Mourinho argued that the top clubs in the Premier League other than Chelsea shared “the English culture of stability” and it will not have escaped his notice that the newly super-rich Manchester City aspire to be a top club. Despite an insistence that the owner, Sheikh Mansour, is happy with Mark Hughes, they are bound to take note of Mourinho’s intentions.

 

The depiction of the Premier League as a haven of constructive peace may nevertheless cause some wry amusement in certain quarters, not least to Benítez at Liverpool, where the American owners’ truce has a patched-up feel and speculation about the manager’s future is near-continuous. But Mourinho’s vision of the upper levels of our game is not wholly fanciful.

 

Benítez has, after all, been at Anfield since around the same time as Mourinho joined Chelsea. Each came to England in the summer of 2004 having newly landed one of the European trophies. The Spaniard had made his name with Valencia, who won two national titles and, in succession to Mourinho’s Porto, the Uefa Cup.

 

Wenger has managed Arsenal since the autumn of 1996, while Sir Alex Ferguson, the daddy of them all, arrived at Manchester United some ten years before that and gradually rebuilt the first-team squad, taking 6½ seasons to win his first league title while revamping and extending the club’s youth development structure.

 

Now Mourinho yearns to build in his own way.

 

“Clearly it is unrealistic to expect to stay at a club as long as Sir Alex, but I am ready for the next phase of my career,” he said. “I want to work with a different perspective.

 

“At Porto, my objective was to win to earn the right to go abroad. At Chelsea, my ambition was to create a bit of history [the club had not won the title for half a century]. But I always knew Chelsea lacked the normal English culture of stability.

 

“I was never under any illusions. I understood the personality of Roman and the culture of the people around him [Mourinho carefully exempted Peter Kenyon, the outgoing chief executive, from this] and knew it was not a job for ten years.

 

“My role was to give this man what he wanted — victory — knowing that, sooner or later, my time would finish, because there were too many things going on around me.

 

“In Italy, I was coming to the motherland of tactics, the country of catenaccio and defensive football. The objective was to win not only in a third different league but a place where they say foreign coaches have had little success. But the time will come for stability.

 

“I love Inter and would love to build for the future here. In fact, I am doing it now, because I am not a selfish coach and I’m thinking about the future in terms of youth development and the age structure of my first team — but Italy is not the country for this. England is the country. And my football is English football.”

 

Mourinho keeps in close touch with the English game — he greeted me by asking how likely it was that the idea of Celtic and Rangers joining an expanded Premier League would find favour — and would settle easily if he returned at the end of this season, once the Serie A and Champions League campaigns are over (the latter may end more quickly than Mourinho would like if Inter lose away to Barcelona, where once he studied under Sir Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal, on Tuesday week).

 

Although he greatly enjoyed living in London, Mourinho would happily head north, countering suggestions that Liverpool or Manchester may not quite be able to rival Milan for architectural and cultural merit with a smile and a dismissive: “I hardly know Milan — I live near the Swiss border.”

 

So both Manchester clubs will take interest: City in case patience with Hughes runs out and United for when Ferguson retires, as intimated, at the end of this season or next. A building job will be required — team and stadium — at Liverpool if Benítez goes. Tottenham Hotspur, meanwhile, have ambitious plans for a new home.

 

Even Newcastle United may hold some appeal if only a convincing owner with lots of money could be found. All in all, it is a fascinating prospect.

 

That'll do nicely, José

He may not be to everyone’s taste, but life was never dull when José Mourinho ruled West London . . .

 

• His first press conference as Chelsea manager, in June 2004, showcased the lack of humility and eye for a catchy phrase (see also “park the bus”, “ghost goal”) that we came to love: “Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one.” We agree you’re special, José ... but we might call you arrogant.

 

• In the Champions League quarter-finals against Bayern Munich in 2005, he allegedly beat a touchline ban by hiding in the Stamford Bridge dressing room, then getting in a laundry skip to evade Uefa officials.

 

Bet Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger have never done that.

 

• Nor was his dog afraid to take on authority. The build-up to the 2007 FA Cup Final was overshadowed when Mourinho’s Yorkshire Terrier, Leya, apparently escaped when council authorities tried to quarantine her. Stubborn and defiant like her master, Leya returned to Portugal.

 

• Despite his wealth and fame, Mourinho has a populist touch. He threw his medal and blazer into the crowd after Chelsea claimed the Premier League title in 2006. He was awarded another medal — which he also threw into the crowd.

 

• He was deemed cool enough to appear in an American Express advertising campaign, like Robert De Niro and Tiger Woods. “My life is about keeping one step ahead,” Mourinho informed viewers, putting up an umbrella just before it started to rain. Wouldn’t want to get that famous coat wet . . .

 

Words by Tom Dart

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