George Caulkin

[sempuki]

I think part of it is that he knew Bobby and he has witnessed the shambles with JFK and the like since then. We have gone downhill in so many different ways and its all mainly due to Ashley.

[timeEd32]

Anyone have the article? Saw it being linked by quite a few writers that aren't Newcastle-centric, but it's behind the pay wall now.

[Mick]

Anyone have the article? Saw it being linked by quite a few writers that aren't Newcastle-centric, but it's behind the pay wall now.

 

Check the Kinnear thread.

[Mick]

http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,94215.msg4475651.html#msg4475651

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

George Caulkin ‏@CaulkinTheTimes 2m

Dear NUFC fans. As a member of the "snidey press" I would like to apologise for brainwashing you into showing disrespect to Joe Kinnear...

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[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

George Caulkin ‏@CaulkinTheTimes 2m

Dear NUFC fans. As a member of the "snidey press" I would like to apologise for brainwashing you into showing disrespect to Joe Kinnear...

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As you clearly don't have minds of your own, it was irresponsible of me to attempt to influence you in this way. Having now read Joe's .

 

best-selling book, The Bible, I understand that all this was "water off a duck's arse" and that his fundamental role in leading Arsenal ...

 

to an unprecedented quintuple of trophies, including Rear of the Year 2078, was worthy of better. I would also like to extend my apology...

 

to David Llambazee, Dizzy Gillespie, Lethal Bizzie and NUFC players, Sherpa Ameoni, Yohan Kebab and Harry Ben Nevis.

 

[Anderson]

[Mike]

Caulkin going off.

[Stuy_O]

Perhaps a daft question this. Is Caulkin a toon supporter? I know he covers the north east for football but he seems awfully like one of us most of the time.

[Skeletor]

Perhaps a daft question this. Is Caulkin a toon supporter? I know he covers the north east for football but he seems awfully like one of us most of the time.

 

Yeah he is.

[Belfast Mags]

Did he actually tweet that?

[Stuy_O]

Thought as much. Brilliant writer.

[Trev]

Did he actually tweet that?

 

Yes 

[toontownman]

Bloody fantastic!

[buzza]

The one journalist <I have complete respect for. If he did write that tweet... Hats off to the bloke.. Top banana!

[worthy]

George Caulkin ‏@CaulkinTheTimes 2m

Dear NUFC fans. As a member of the "snidey press" I would like to apologise for brainwashing you into showing disrespect to Joe Kinnear...

Expand  Reply  Retweeted  Favorite  More

 

As you clearly don't have minds of your own, it was irresponsible of me to attempt to influence you in this way. Having now read Joe's .

 

best-selling book, The Bible, I understand that all this was "water off a duck's arse" and that his fundamental role in leading Arsenal ...

 

to an unprecedented quintuple of trophies, including Rear of the Year 2078, was worthy of better. I would also like to extend my apology...

 

to David Llambazee, Dizzy Gillespie, Lethal Bizzie and NUFC players, Sherpa Ameoni, Yohan Kebab and Harry Ben Nevis.

 

 

Perfect

[Belfast Mags]

Amazing 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

It's a gift for decent journalists this, never going to be a moment without something to ridicule.

[thenige]

Fair play to the lad, great article and tweets.

[AlanSkÃrare]

It's a gift for decent journalists this, never going to be a moment without something to ridicule.

 

He said in his column yesterday that he's sick to death of the lunacy surrounding the club and gets fed up of hearing "it's never dull up there is it". If he's a fan as well, that explains it.

[Disco]

Sometimes, all that is left is a howl of rage. Like when you’ve been on hold to a utility company or your bank for 23 minutes too long and just at that precious moment when the Muzak stops and you get through to a real-life human being, albeit one in a call centre several thousand miles away, the line goes dead. You howl and rage and bawl into the deafening silence of a phone receiver because it’s all you can do.

 

Like when you’re puttering along quite nicely in traffic and some idiot pulls out in front of you without indicating; you slam on the brakes and reach for the horn and scream “FOR F***’S SAKE! WHAT THE F*** ARE YOU F***ING PLAYING AT YOU F***ING C***? IT’S MY F***ING RIGHT OF F***ING WAY!” because there’s nothing else to be done (unless, of course, you go down the route of following said idiot to work, sitting in your car all day, not eating, urinating into an old cola bottle you found underneath the passenger seat, finally following the idiot home, sitting outside his house for the entire night feeling increasingly paranoid because you haven’t eaten and because that’s how late-night call radio makes you feel, waiting until he leaves for work again and then breaking in and doing something unmentionable on his hall carpet. But I can’t really recommend that, and my bloody injunction is still in force anyway).

 

You don’t shout into the telephone because it’s going to persuade the ombudsman to change the regulations about out-sourced customer relations solutions, just as you don’t swear at your fellow road-user thinking it will lead to a wide-ranging review of the Highway Code. You do it because it’s the sound that comes out of you at the time and, for all that it isn’t particularly constructive and you might feel a bit daft afterwards, satisfaction can be taken from the release. So we howl.

 

Football makes us howl constantly. When a striker goes down like a sniper’s victim outside the area and a penalty is awarded against our team and we can all see it was outside the flaming area, even a blind man could see that, well OK, maybe not a blind man, but a man with a poor eyesight and anyway that’s not the point it was outside the bloody area and it wasn’t even a foul and we get to our feet and shout “HEW MAN REF!” and we gesticulate and our eyes bulge and veins pop.

 

We don’t do that because the referee is going to reverse his decision.

 

We don’t do it because we think Sepp Blatter will intervene on our behalf.

 

We do it because that’s what football is — illogical and passionate and standing up for your town or city and just being there and bearing witness and shouting.

 

That’s certainly what football is like in the North East. This isn’t a region where we’re defined by what we win. The things we won — past tense — is a proud part of our history and heritage, but Newcastle United last lifted a meaningful domestic trophy in 1955, the FA Cup in 1973 is the only thing Sunderland have won since before the Second World War and, while Middlesbrough’s League Cup win in 2004 is relatively recent, it is also their sole piece of silverware.

 

So winning, by and large, is not what we do. What we do is turn up and howl.

 

There are spells and eras and individual occasions when we have fun and feel a surge of momentum, but there is a lot of humiliation and dismay in there, too. Football is an extension of who we are and where we live.

 

We want a bit of effort and pride, something to believe in and belong to. And even when things go wrong, which they do quite often, we still turn up.

 

On Monday night, a few hundred Newcastle supporters turned up to the Labour Club on Leazes Park Road, a wayward free kick away (and we’ve seen plenty of those) from St James’ Park. Some came to speak, others to listen, but all were there out of frustration or concern at recent events. Some were there simply because of love. And it is fair to say that some howling was involved.

 

The meeting was organised by Newcastle Fans United, an umbrella group that has opened dialogue with the club while trying to collect, collate and reflect the diverse opinions of supporters. That is not a straightforward task and, as always with these things, there have been questions about agendas, motivation, why some people are involved and others aren’t, and what the point of it is. Those politics aren’t my business or interest, except to say that I know a couple of the individuals involved and would vouch for their integrity and sincerity (you can find out more here). Good people, trying to make a difference.

 

You cannot claim that they did not attempt to do things properly. There was a short statement about who they were and what they were doing. There was an open microphone for fans to make their points and ask questions, two representatives of the club were in the audience (Wendy Taylor, the head of media, and Lee Marshall, the PR and supporter liaison manager), as was an associate of Joe Kinnear, whose contentious appointment as director of football was one of the main reasons everybody was present.

 

There were frustrations, of course there were. Newcastle’s representatives could not answer the questions being asked of them, in part because they do not yet know what the new reality at the club actually is.

 

But they got there early and stayed there late and they listened and they engaged and they chatted. It was ballsy of Kinnear’s ally to turn up and speak, although he did not add much to the clarity of proceedings and, in the end, was effectively drowned out. A motion was called and carried requesting that Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, withdraws.

 

If you were searching for a theme, it was fairly evident: anger. Anger that Kinnear, a man indelibly associated with the most toxic season in Newcastle’s recent history, was back at the club; anger that his interviews brought the tang of farce to Gallowgate; anger at last season; anger at Ashley’s compendium of bizarre decisions.

 

 

 

There was anger at their own impotence, that the club might be here but that nothing would come of it. For the record, there were a few opposing views, and there a bit of anger in them, too.

 

Walking away, my initial reaction was conflicted. I loved some of the eloquence and the passion, the thought that had gone into planning the event (Kinnear had been invited), the push for fairness, but I was also a bit troubled by the absence of fanzines and other people I like and respect. I’d seen the chaos of democracy and wondered what the message was and how you evaluate the worth.

 

It has taken me a few days to realise that I was wrong. Ungenerous and wrong. In spite of the motion, dialogue with the club will continue, and if that dialogue proves utterly irrelevant when it comes to Ashley’s mindset and redundant when it comes to influencing him, then it shouldn’t negate the fact that there are decent people at Newcastle who want to do the right thing and who have some small power to do it.

 

Communication is a huge issue, but talking, even in a limited fashion, is better than not talking.

 

I read comments about the meeting on Twitter and elsewhere. I read about a lack of dignity. I read about the Ashley motion and people wanting to know what the alternative was, and then, for a moment, I wondered at my own hypocrisy. Because I remembered a piece I had written for The Times when, in the aftermath of relegation, Ashley took Newcastle off the market and announced his intention to sell the naming rights of St James’.

 

I’d forgotten how angry I felt about that; angry for my friends, for the city I live in and one of its most iconic buildings, for the region I care about, angry at more words written on corrosion. I’d forgotten how important venting can be.

 

Amid Kinnear, Dennis Wise, Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, Chris Hughton, demotion, St James’, Sports Direct, Wonga and everything else, perhaps I had become numbed. (And yes, yes, yes, I know it’s not a one-way street.

 

There has been a plan and a structure recently, fifth place, good players and self-sufficiency, although where all that stands now we can only guess at.)

 

So I looked up that article. Time has elapsed and the world has turned and I’ve probably changed, but it was how I felt back then. I can understand the people who have given up on Newcastle or are close to it and I can also understand those who grit their teeth, wipe their feet on their way into the stadium and carry on.

 

Equally, I have a fresh understanding of those who howl. Well played to those at the Labour Club. Well played and thank you.

 

From The Times, October 2009:

“We may as well begin as we mean to continue: Ashley out. We may as well shed any notion of journalistic impartiality, because certain circumstances demand it: Ashley out. Just as no man is bigger than a football club — in spite of what those same men might think — some issues rise above work and professionalism and straddling a fence in the name of politics and this is one of them: Ashley out.

 

Now that he is staying, it warrants repetition: Ashley out. There is nothing to be gained by not speaking minds, even if Mike Ashley’s tattered regime at Newcastle United is limping on regardless and even if supporters know damn well their battered old club has not been listening. Over the past two years, they have been stripped of their pride, dignity, status and reputation; take away the howl of rage and what are you left with?”

[arnonel]

I like this fella

[Paully]

George Caulkin

Published 32 minutes ago

In the first in our series of scouting reports, George Caulkin tries to get to the bottom of Newcastle’s transfer policy

This would have been an easier piece to write three weeks ago. As it is, with Joe Kinnear’s startling appointment as director of football and Derek Llambias’s departure as managing director, it is more difficult to hold up Newcastle United as a model for anything aside from unpredictability, which feels like a disheartening return to a default setting under Mike Ashley’s ownership.

The upshot of one desperately poor season and one desperately bizarre decision has been to leave Newcastle scrambling; officials have been scrambling to make sense of a new structure at the club and how that will filter down to them, while Alan Pardew and Graham Carr, manager and chief scout, have scrambled into meetings with the new “senior executive in charge of all football-related matters.”

The perplexing thing here - and there is much to be perplexed about at St James’ Park this summer - is that Newcastle’s transfer policy had felt both substantive and (relatively) successful. There were frailties, peculiarities and tensions, which we will come on to discuss, but their policy of signing young players of value, often approaching the end of their contracts and often from France was a sea change.

It was born from pragmatism. Having wasted a significant fraction of his fortune covering Newcastle’s debt and keeping them afloat, Ashley decided he did not want to waste any more. Under Llambias’s leadership, the club aimed for self-sufficiency, making savings on energy consumption and reinvesting that money back into infrastructure. In effect, transfers were an extension of that.

As with all of these things, the key to it is personnel. In a comparable set-up, Dennis Wise and Kevin Keegan proved a toxic cocktail. In Carr, Newcastle have an experienced chief scout - in reality, he has been far more involved than that - with a deep knowledge of the French market in particular. In Pardew, they have a manager who walked into the job with his eyes open.

It was a collaborative effort. Newcastle - and presumably this was a nod to Llambias’s roots in the casino business - colour-coded their players like gambling chips. In time, the first-team would all be ‘purples’, the reserves and development players different shades and they populated all three with youngsters. It was vaguely strange, but the theory went that, in future, the club would look to promote internally first.

In that regard, results were mediocre. Players beneath the first XI have struggled to challenge for places - problematic when Newcastle were beset by injury last season - but few would dispute the achievements elsewhere. Hatem Ben Arfa cost around £5m. Yohan Cabaye cost around £4.5m, Cheik Tiote £3.5m, Moussa Sissoko a couple of million. Form has fluctuated, but the talent and value is clear.

Pardew has played a secondary role. He has recommended players and has, on occasion, been listened to, but his request to add more experience to his squad (in effect, he means British), has, until this point, been largely ignored. Newcastle had a ‘French Day‘ in February, celebrating their Gallic connection, although the way the season ended made that seem a little premature.

There have been strains in the relationship between Carr and Pardew and other concerns about the system. Rigidity on fees and wages saw Newcastle back away from deals for Mathieu Debuchy, Sissoko and Douglas, amongst others, a year ago and Pardew’s team suffered for it. Their dealings in January were an admission of failure and, even then, they barely scraped across the line. Ashley was understandably unimpressed.

To date, there have not been many high-profile departures (Demba Ba, who had a specific release clause, apart), but at some stage it would appear inevitable under this plan - Cabaye seems the likeliest to leave - because Newcastle are not the most expansive payers and nor are they in the Champions League. How does team spirit endure and thrive over the long-term? How can a bond to the team and city be generated?

According to one of the prime movers at St James’, some tinkering was necessary, but Kinnear’s arrival has - temporarily at least - obliterated Newcastle’s stated aim of ‘stability’. There are suggestions that, as Pardew wishes, he will look more to the domestic market - Carr, like everyone, has felt insecurity about his position - but until they act, we cannot know for certain. The model’s foundations are trembling.

 

[Paully]

Mud, sweat and no beers as lean Newcastle prepare to right a few wrongs

 

George CaulkinJuly 19 2013 17:07PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fef_433477d

 

You forget sometimes how many people – how many decent and dedicated and talented people – are involved with a football team. Or, rather, subtleties like that become lost amid the sport’s fripperies, the ceaseless focus on personalities, the manager, the owner, the star player, the daft quotes, the transfer rumours, the bull. When the lid is lifted, detail comes teeming out.

 

If yesterday’s piece in this space dealt with the fretting which has accompanied Newcastle United’s pre-season trip to Portugal – the lack of new signings, the perplexing arrival of Joe Kinnear – then today’s offers balance. While those issues remain vital and have done much to calcify a mood around the club, it is important to acknowledge that it is not the only story. There is good at Newcastle and much of it.

 

Kinnear, Alan Pardew, Mike Ashley, Papiss Demba Cisse; these are the names which have dominated Newcastle’s summer, but for all that the club have been obliged to check their stride as they come to terms with a new structure, a season is approaching and there is work to be done. And by gum, they are doing it; drenched in sweat, prodded to the precise point before aching limbs become damaged limbs. “Pushing boundaries,” Pardew calls it.

 

As they seek to regroup and go again after a challenging, disjointed campaign, Pardew has promised his players the toughest pre-season they will have ever encountered. For a layman, that is a claim which is difficult to quantify, but others have corroborated it and if you could sense anything from an hour or two’s observation at their training base this morning it was seriousness.

 

Newcastle are staying in a good hotel in Braga, which is higher and to the east of Porto, but they are not drenched in luxury. The rooms are comfortable and spacious, with flatscreen televisions and nippy wifi, there is an indoor spa and a small outdoor swimming pool, but there are roads around them and distractions are few. It is a working, businesslike environment.

 

The same applies to their training base, which is a grandiose term for two spartan pitches in the shadow of Braga’s eye-catching AXA Stadium, which is hewn from hillside rock. The weather today was grey and muggy, but it was fiercely hot yesterday and there is little respite from the conditions. In any case, those seeking it would quickly be exposed because of the GPS heart monitors which each player sports.

 

The session began with freshness. Faye Downey, the strength and conditioning coach previously associated with the British Lions, Olympic athletes and cyclists (amongst others), has been brought in by Pardew on a consultancy basis to work on intensity and speed, with injury prevention (there were too many last season) a guiding principle. Pardew is a relentless improver and other sports offer perspective.

 

One small detail: Downey has been working with the squad for a few days, but Pardew’s desire to keep them on their toes, to make things different and keep the players guessing, meant it was only now that she introduced herself properly, explaining who she was and her history. While Downey’s involvement has been revelatory to all, suddenly, they got it.

 

“It’s very, very intense,” Steven Taylor, Newcastle’s long-serving centre-half, said. “It’s different to the pre-seasons I’ve done over the last ten years; normally it’s been longer distances we’ve run and this is more short and sharp with higher intensity. Faye has been looking over that and it’s worked the lads. The fatigue we feel in our bodies now is to stop us feeling it in the last ten minutes of games. It’s all about little edges and percentages.

 

“Faye is looking at injury prevention, so that’s what we’re doing before training proper, looking after certain parts of the body we’ve got to work on. It’s basically overloading and getting ready for the games. There will be some games where we’re under the cosh, when we’re not playing well and we need to make sure that we’re able to outrun our opposition and battle away.

 

“At times last season in the last 15 minutes there were moments when the lads were looking tired. We had Europe to contend with and it was difference for us, but that’s just fitness. We’re changing that completely. The high intensity is a massive thing; shorter, sharper drills, less rest, fatiguing yourself and overworking your body in order that we’ll be able to handle it on match day.”

 

From there, it was ball work. While Andy Woodman, the goalkeeping coach, drilled Rob Elliot and Jak Alnwick (Tim Krul, the established No 1, has been recuperating from a shoulder injury and stretched and saved under the separate gaze of Derek Wright, the head physio), the outfield players broke into two groups. John Carver took one, Steve Stone the other.

 

Pardew stood beside a plexiglass dugout and explained what we were watching. It was a forum for honing different techniques and today’s was to look at an area where Newcastle’s statistics have been poor, specifically winning the ball and then retaining it. Within small squares of grass, there had to be an emphasis on solidity and speed; there was no slacking off.

 

pho_433482d

 

After a break for drinks, Newcastle moved to 11-a-side and now Pardew came to the fore, taking the whistle and overseeing a match (one of the two teams will start the friendly match against Rio Ave tomorrow). The play was quick and fluent, but again there was a specific purpose and focus, getting from box to box and getting out of their own box with more speed.

 

It felt exhausting just to watch but this was actually an easing off from the day before, when they trained for almost three hours and then had staggered gym sessions during the afternoon. They returned to the hotel for a communal lunch on the first floor – pasta, chicken and salads (the meatballs were delicious) – and then table tennis, cards, rest in their rooms. Wright cherry-picked players for treatment or monitoring.

 

Twenty-three players have traveled to Portugal (they will be joined tomorrow by Massadio Haidara, who has had a minor knock), as well as 20 members of staff, whether coaching, medical, administrative, video technicians or PR. On Thursday evening, the entire staff wandered for ten minutes to an outside café, sat in a huge circle and chatted. At one point, everybody stood up and swapped seats; no cliques, no comfort zone.

 

Tonight, the whole group – players and officials – will leave the hotel together, breaking out of an environment which can easily become stultifying, learning more about each other, bonding. Because of the game tomorrow, it will be soft drinks only, but Pardew will permit them and almost encourage one night of indulgence. Just as, on a professional level, fitness must be built, so tension must be released.

 

The atmosphere has been open but also single-minded and, to return to the beginning, while my presence here has been fleeting, the reminder it has prompted is welcome. Because of decisions taken at the top of the club, it can feel like Newcastle is a haven for crisis, yet the reality is different. So many experts, so much professionalism, people getting on with it. Fine people, too.

 

What comes next is the unknown – we all know the context – but there is a leanness and focus about Newcastle. “That’s because of last year, if I’m being honest,” Taylor said. “Everybody knows the criticism we got and we deserved it because, as a team and everybody involved, we weren’t right. For whatever reasons we weren’t right last year, we have to put right now.

 

“Everybody is going to be targeting Newcastle, so we know we’re under pressure, but I think that’s why everybody has come back in great shape this summer and so far it’s been a completely different pre-season to what we’re used to. Everybody is raring to go; everybody is buzzing like a bee out there.”

 

George Caulkin is with the Newcastle United squad on their pre-season camp in Portugal

 

[BottledDog]

Love the bit about Pardew not introducing Downeys past until after a few days.