Stop fretting about relegation. Instead, embrace it…

[Wullie]

It's the negativity that makes the stays in the PL seem grimmer than they should be. Bournemouth are an example of a club basically going nowhere in mid-table but I doubt their fans are sick of things in the way some fans will be, and not least because they're a tiny club. They're consistently entertaining and score plenty of goals - usually stay up with plenty to spare as well. Them and their manager are a credit to the league.

[Dave]

It's the negativity that makes the stays in the PL seem grimmer than they should be. Bournemouth are an example of a club basically going nowhere in mid-table but I doubt their fans are sick of things in the way some fans will be, and not least because they're a tiny club. They're consistently entertaining and score plenty of goals - usually stay up with plenty to spare as well. Them and their manager are a credit to the league.

 

https://twitter.com/Dabigt/status/993436472085831683

 

I know it's only one person but I was surprised to see it. It's possibly already getting to that point with them, where they wonder what the next target is.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

For a supporter, there can be no better feeling than seeing your team win a football match because that’s the name of the game. If you win it well or by playing well, even better. That feeling can not be diminished regardless of the division. It can be heightened, however. Likewise against certain opposition. So in many ways, the sentiments expressed in that article are spot on.

 

Last season was much more enjoyable than this season which has been more about getting it over with, making sure we didn’t go down. However, beating Man Utd at home and Arsenal at home for example will always trump beating some Championhsip side 5-0.

 

For me it’s not all about winning as much as I enjoy that, it’s about trying to be the best you can be and this season our own club has been that little bit better all things considered. So I’m happy as a fan. Now next season if we have the same kind of season we have had this season I won’t be happy, even if we throw in a few wins against the likes of Man Utd. Because we should be aiming higher.

 

It’s about context for me. The Premier League isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s dominated mostly by teams that are bang average all fighting just to stay in the division with only a handful of teams looking to win the thing or finish as high as they can rather than anywhere as long as it’s not in the bottom 3. So yeah, just trying to stay up is not fun. We found that out under Pardew. I hated those years even when we finished 5th. They meant nothing to me. Beating Man Utd and Chelsea were enjoyable at the time, but they were hallow victories.

 

I would have swapped those years for a club that tried to be the best it could be even if it meant playing in the Championhsip or non league because as a fan, a supporter, as much as I want my club to be in the top-flight as that is the big league, it means fuck all if your club and team aren’t going places or doing anything remotely worthy of the status.

 

It’s actually pointless, as a fan anyway. As the Middlesbrough fan pointed out, it’s no fun losing so many games, scoring so few goals and going to all these grounds and getting nothing in return. Especially so at the huge expense doing so now costs. It’s fucking awful.

 

Sadly for clubs being in the top-flight is the be all and end all due to the money and that’s what is destroying football and making fans like the person who penned the article in the OP question the whole meaning of being a top-flight club.

 

For all our mocking of the mackems, they will have a great season next year if they win games. Accrington Stanley away winning well or Anfield away getting spanked? I know wher I’d rather be on a weekend, or is it Monday or mid week? better check Sky...

 

Anyway, again it’s about context and where your club and team is at in terms of standing or development. Us pissing the Championship was fun, great in fact. Us finishing mid-table if we do and surviving is progress and significant. But only if we kick on otherwise again it’s all pointless.

 

If all we aim to do is finish 17th then send us back to the Championship please.

 

My best ever time following NUFC was in the top-flight when we were first promoted under Keegan, I wouldn’t swap that for 1,000 wins or even a trophy to be honest. If we had of stunk up the PL having went up just trying to avoid relegation, however, I wouldn’t be looking back at that era at all as I’d have erased it from my memory which I’m now doing with the Pardew era, thanks to Rafa mainly.

 

Aye winning games is good, it’s fun, it’s what it’s all about, but that Boro fan wouldn’t be writing that if it were them currently in Burnley’s position right now I’m certain of that.

 

Blame the Premier League, blame Sky, but look more closely at your own club.

 

If we fail to kick on I know who I’ll be looking at... the person that is happy just to make up the numbers. That won’t be Rafa, the players and certainly not us fans.

 

Back to the mackems I would honestly swap places with them right now if it meant we finally got rid of Ashley because as long as he’s our owner, even with Rafa, it’s a pointless excercise because our football club ain’t going anywhere, and definitely not to a place where we as a club could go and should be aiming to go which is more than just staying up or finishing mid-table or the odd qualifying for the Europa League.

 

We go where the manager wants to take us, but he can only take us as far as where the owner allows him to. Survival this season isn’t an overachievement IMO, the way we went about it has been and if we were to finish in the top 10 that’s pretty good going all things considered, but fuck me if that’s our lot.

 

I’d rather go and watch Gateshead.

[Twinport53]

The PL is literally the opposite of a "sporting institution", it couldn't be anything further from fair and balanced to promote competition.

 

If the TV money was divided further down the football leagues, fans would give less of a toss about hanging on to 17th place, as they could relax in the knowledge that relegation wouldn't cripple or dissolve their club. Wanting to be in the top division should be based purely on footballing prestige and pride rather than healthier balance books.

[Hughesy]

Get the sentiment behind it, but can't say I agree. Yeah, beating Rotherham et al is fine, but so many matches during the last two Championship seasons felt so... empty and devoid of meaning? I hated Saturday evenings when MOTD was on and we weren't on it. Last season was only bearable to me because we had Rafa.

 

To be honest, I think it's the hope that we could be in the top 6 again (however delusional) is what keeps me going and thinking we could win something. I can't see the enjoyment of being some perennial yoyo club.

 

Plus as someone said - the football just isn't that good below the PL. I want to see us play against the best and beat them, not beat teams full of Clint Hills and the like.

[Andy84]

Totally get the sentiment and it’s hard to disagree  with a lot of it  but for me the only place for Newcastle United should be the PL.  it’s not about being elitist and it is just great to be able to enjoy winning football matches but for a club of our size anything other than the PL is failure, and being stranded down for years would be agonising. 

[HaydnNUFC]

I agree with the sentiment. I personally laughed at the mackems last season whom some of which were claiming that they'd rather lose games in the PL than winning in the Championship. Get to fuck. August-mid December last season was fucking brilliant, the winning run in September, October and November, that Norwich game, the League Cup run, it was superb. Then Ashley came along in January and reminded us of the limits he puts on the club.

 

Newcastle United should be in the PL, it's too big a club to be in the 2nd tier. It has the potential to be up there, fighting it out for a Europa League spot and going far in that competition, and perhaps being an outside contender for a CL spot. Ashley is the restraint for us, under him something remarkable must happen in a season to get us up there, like signing a player like Cabaye for £4.5m, signing a striker who'll get 13 goals in 14 games like Cisse did. So for us, I think it's a bit different.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

It's the negativity that makes the stays in the PL seem grimmer than they should be. Bournemouth are an example of a club basically going nowhere in mid-table but I doubt their fans are sick of things in the way some fans will be, and not least because they're a tiny club. They're consistently entertaining and score plenty of goals - usually stay up with plenty to spare as well. Them and their manager are a credit to the league.

 

Bournemouth just being a PL club is an amazing achievement. The way they have went about it has been brilliant. However, the PL narrative will see to it that fans will become disillusioned with mid-table and the same old same old and want a change of manager. Then when they tumble all the pundits and media who will be the ones parroting the narrative of could they be doing better, do they need to change manager, blah blah blah, will be the first ones to say they should have stuck with Howe, ideas above your station etc.

 

That is what pisses me off with the PL and why today I don’t watch any shows, listen to pre and post match shit, read the news etc. I just watch the 90 minutes and even then it’s a handful of games a season because guess what, the PL is boring as fuck. I don’t even enjoy watching Man City, I find them too samey samey, too formulaic. I enjoy watching Liverpool because they remind me of us under KK and Arsenal occasionally. I’d hate to have to pay to watch a Man Utd or Everton. Ourselves, we are not so good to watch either.

 

I’m hoping the PL goes through a period of what happened to Serie A which today, now minus the ‘galacticos’ and vast sums of money is quite exciting to watch, like it was back in the early 90s where money made it so, but not the be all and end all, kind of like the PL was when it first exploded onto the scene. Today the PL is basically Everton.

[jdckelly]

its a difficult one, on the one hand of coarse you want your club to compete at the highest level possible and play against the best teams but on the other hand most clubs in the premier league aren't competing are they? Maybe I'm looking back with rose colored glasses but my god for all the money being spent by most premier league teams on players the standards seem to be getting much worse. It just feels like the mid-table has vanished and the league is divided between the good teams and everyone else is roughly as shit as each other.

[Darth Crooks]

*HTT KEEGAN KLAXON*

[Guest Howaythetoon]

I quite enjoyed last season’s lack of coverage in the Championship because it stripped away the hyperbole and bull shit. I imagine for fans not from the area who now live away it was difficult though the lack of coverage and that’s where the PL being pretty much a world-wide thing is valued a lot.

[Darth Crooks]

its a difficult one, on the one hand of coarse you want your club to compete at the highest level possible and play against the best teams but on the other hand most clubs in the premier league aren't competing are they? Maybe I'm looking back with rose colored glasses but my god for all the money being spent by most premier league teams on players the standards seem to be getting much worse. It just feels like the mid-table has vanished and the league is divided between the good teams and everyone else is roughly as shit as each other.

 

In all seriousness, it's never been this bad for the gravy (stained) train mentality.

[Twinport53]

Get the sentiment behind it...

 

Totally get the sentiment...

 

I agree with the sentiment.

 

Very sentimental you lot.

[BlackandWhite]

I’d rather spend years doddering around mid table in the premier league then go down and then have the risk of doddering around the championship in mid table every year (like Ipswich Town).

 

When you go down there is no guarantee you fight for promotion instantly. And championship football is shite. At least when you lose 4-0 to City you at least get to watch a top class team of players strut their stuff.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

its a difficult one, on the one hand of coarse you want your club to compete at the highest level possible and play against the best teams but on the other hand most clubs in the premier league aren't competing are they? Maybe I'm looking back with rose colored glasses but my god for all the money being spent by most premier league teams on players the standards seem to be getting much worse. It just feels like the mid-table has vanished and the league is divided between the good teams and everyone else is roughly as shit as each other.

 

Agreed.

 

The PL used to be so much better, even shit teams had quality players and unfashionable clubs could finish in the top 4 and 6 even. Burnley fans, sorry to burst your bubble but this is as good as it gets. Expect your manager to be tapped up as the next England boss or Everton boss or anywhere other than your club because, well, know your place.

 

If you do keep hold of your manager and start finishing mid-table or fighting relegation, expect the media to question Dyche and wondering why yous aren’t protesting or going on YouTube asking what happened to Halycon days. When he leaves and you go down or struggle again, it will be your fault for wanting more.

 

God forbid you get a foreign manager, mind if he does well, don’t expect any column inches or praise. If he fails though... well, that’s yous finished.

 

Should have stuck with Dyche who by then will be the new Moyes, Fat SAM, Pardew et al with a host of PL clubs under his belt. Or retired/managing in Holland following a debacle as England manager.

 

Tread carefully Burnley fans.

[Beren]

Good thread.

 

I agree with the article. It's difficult to disassociate the present day from the format we grew up with, where - in theory - any team could break into the upper echelons of the league and do something special. On the surface nothing has changed.

 

Examining the league with fresh eyes, I'm astounded at just how many of the 380 Premier League games a season I find to  be utterly meaningless. 7th to 17th is limbo.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Fans have had a part to play in the whole PL ‘thing’ as well. I say fans, older generations were much more inclined to give players a chance, managers a chance, getting behind their team etc. Proper fans.

 

Fans today have been replaced by customers in the main who have bought into the PL and the hype and feel hard done by or get envious when their lot isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

 

I’d say the Emirates is full of customers and not Gooners. Spurs will follow suit soon if Pocchetino doesn’t win any silverware. The Etihad, what a travesty the once admired City fan base now is despite their success as a club.

 

There is a lack of reality or realism on the stands. I’m all for fans wanting better football, aiming higher up the table etc. but to highlight the twitter post Wullie posted, that ‘fan’ needs a smack around the head because what Howe and Bournemouth have achieved is sensational.

 

I will say this about our fans, for all the stick we get, we are realists and have been for a long time now. I’m constantly amazed that other fans seem amazed we are so behind Rafa and seem to idolise a man they reckon has bought the Championhsip and just avoided relegation. Even if they acknowledge his pedigree and CV.

 

Fair enough, or not...

 

Our fan base realise our stock at the moment and where we are at. Yes we will want better and more as time passes, that’s natural, and while we have a manager capable of that, if it’s not delivered we know where to look for the answer or answers as to why.

 

Pardew worked under the same owner and once finished 5th, yet he was never liked or considered in the same vein as Hughton for example, a rookie basically at the time, who also worked under the same owner.

 

People might think it’s because of Rafa’s CV which does help, but it’s because he doesn’t bull shit us and is working his own kind of miracles given how his hands have been tied. It’s because he sends the team out to at least try, to try and win, to compete. There are no excuses when things don’t work or any flim flam. Hughton didn’t have his CV yet was universally liked just the same and fans were patient and respectful.

 

He didn’t have his name sung to the rafters week in week out like Rafa does, but we realise the importance of Rafa for whom without, we would be a Championship club or worse. As Caulkin penned recently he’s the glue that’s keeping this broken club together. He goes and it all comes unstuck.

 

The Ashley era and two relegations has saw to some kind of enlightenment among our fanbase who are grounded in reality now and realism, detached from the hype of the PL and the crap that comes with it. I hope so anyway.

 

The PL is massively contradictory as a whole. WBA fans will look back on the Pulis era fondly if they are to stay down an out just as the mackems now regard Reid a manager they eventually wanted out for not being able to build on top 7 as a legend or Big SAM as the one who got away or Keane as the man for them really or Bruce’s time as up there with the best.

 

And us Toon fans and Alan Pardew, a man who took us to 5th and kept us in the division? Someone we ought to, in the current PL climate, be happy for?

 

I give you SackPardew.com

 

Without there would be no Rafa. It’s not always about wanting more or being better, it’s about what is best for your club and fans in general know what’s best for their club. Not Sky, not Gary Neville or some other pundit or the PL gravy train.

 

Now it’s time for Ashley Out! Otherwise there IS no point!

[Gottlob]

I want my club to be in the best possible division playing against the best possible players, and that's not out of some abstract sense of elitism, because I think the skill level in the Premier League is visibly higher than in the Championship and that games more often than not are better to watch, and the sentiment is stronger as a supporter of Newcastle simply because by virtue of our stadium and support we should have the means to be reasonably competitive, and I'm old enough to remember those times when we did more than compete.

 

The fun I had and the quality of football I watched under Keegan and Robson far surpasses anything from our two Championship campaigns. If that fun and that quality is the objective, no matter how hard it might be these days to attain, then the Championship can at best be an enjoyable blip. Also I think we need to put the fun of relegation in context. We've been lucky enough to dominate the Championship twice, with two strong groups of players and stable and likeable and capable managers who have led us straight back up. Middlesbrough fans after years of torment might well be enjoying all the goals and all the victories this season, but will the thrill remain if they're beating the same clubs next season and the following season, hovering around the play-off places but struggling to get promoted? Are the likes of Leeds, Birmingham, QPR, Norwich, even Derby and Ipswich enjoying their stints in the Championship? Surely the novelty wears off even if you're winning more often than you would be in the Premier League: I'd have thought that for any aspiring club with a decent history, the Championship swiftly becomes a slog, a sort of purgatory from which you're desperate to progress.

 

There are other points too, for instance about the relative lack of TV coverage (a problem we barely had to endure given our stature and the briefness of our spells outside the top flight), about the novelty of new grounds and shabby officials also wearing off. I do think the Premier League comes with a unique set of frustrations, a result of the extremely fragmented nature of the division allied to all of the talk and hype: as a fan of a club outside the top six, you're constantly told how great the league is, while engaged in a fairly paltry battle just to survive. I believe that there is a moral and a practical duty towards good football. But my guess is that for fans at all levels of professional football, the game today often feels quite stagnant, with the huge discrepancies in wealth highlighted by life in the Premier League still affecting those at the lower levels, a growing barrier between players and fans, the chopping and changing of managers with little discernible progress, less interest than ever in the national team, and so on.

[Superior Acuña]

Have to say I couldn't give a shit bout watching big players and good football if we're losing to them. Yeah it's great to beat them, but I see no consolation in getting trounced by someone because I get to see Aguero or whoever.

[Ketsbaia]

Personally, I didnt enjoy the Championship seasons and didn't really celebrate winning them. Because we shouldn't be down there.

 

So I do fret about relegation. Even if someone could guarantee bouncing straight back, I wouldn't take it.

 

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Personally, I didnt enjoy the Championship seasons and didn't really celebrate winning them. Because we shouldn't be down there.

 

So I do fret about relegation. Even if someone could guarantee bouncing straight back, I wouldn't take it.

 

 

I enjoyed both immensely, although not always the football. We certainly deserved to be down there if not exactly belonging down there. Getting out first time both attempts was critical though, but only because of the financial ramifications. Under KK and SJH it was critical because of the development of the club and the ambitions of the manager and owner. Under Ashley it doesn't really mean much sporting wise even with Rafa if our aim is to survive or finish mid-table. May as well be back down there...

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Have to say I couldn't give a shit bout watching big players and good football if we're losing to them. Yeah it's great to beat them, but I see no consolation in getting trounced by someone because I get to see Aguero or whoever.

 

Agree, it seems for many clubs’ fans, including many of our own, they are buying into the chance to see such players and visit certain grounds. Fuck that! When City visit us I’m hoping their stars are injured for example.

[Wullie]

Personally, I didnt enjoy the Championship seasons and didn't really celebrate winning them. Because we shouldn't be down there.

 

So I do fret about relegation. Even if someone could guarantee bouncing straight back, I wouldn't take it.

 

 

We're a fairly unique case amongst the teams that make up 'the rest' in that we should be an established top flight club where only really awful mismanagement should see us below the Premier League, much like Everton (and Aston Villa for that matter). I think we're about 9th in English football's post war league table. Obviously relegation has to be a bigger deal at some clubs than others - Boro as mentioned in the article have always been a yo-yo club.

 

The PL is disproportionately made up at the moment by historically small clubs punching above their weight - God I used to go and watch Hartlepool with my dad and see Swansea, Bournemouth and Huddersfield season after season, these are clubs who are lucky to be in the second tier, never mind the top flight. Relegation should hold no fear for clubs like this.

 

I absolutely detest the attitude of journalists as cited in the article - that the Premier League is everything and the rest not worth bothering with. Someone like that shouldn't be writing about football because they know nothing about the game in this country.

[Odear]

The games against Man Utd and Arsenal were immensely enjoyable, more so than any of our Championship games.

 

If your team is winning regularly it’s going to be fun, but there’s no comparison when you’re up against the elite teams who have single players costing almost all of your first team squad value.

 

There’s a tension to every game in the PL because even the shit teams are still capable of winning.

 

I think bigging up the lower leagues is something you do when you’ve fucked up and ended up there or failed to get out of. It makes the pain a little easier to see the positives. But it’s a total cop out.

 

If Middlesbrough get promoted again, this guy will be singing a different tune, guaranteed.

[Greg]

Easily said for a Boro fan, if they are going to get to the Premier League and not even try and stink the place out then there really is no point. Their transfer business when they were promoted last time was a disgrace.