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Some of us complain about regional stereotypes. Others just reaffirm them.
Pizza, chips, kebab, pasty - YOU DECIDE!
You’ve been to the match, you’ve had a couple of beers and you’re on your way home…
But what do you stuff your face with before you stagger through the door and get told off by the missus?
That’s the subject of our web poll today, inspired by news that Greggs plans to open a late-night bakery in Sunderland.
Use the panel on the bottom right of this page to have your say now.
(click for larger, more readable version)
It seems that I am not the only one to notice Guardian hack Louise Taylor’s crush on Sunderland boss Roy Keane.
Okay, so the mock up above is fake. But, then again, these little love notes aren’t.
Oh Louise. He only has time and eyes for his Labrador. Sad but true.
Image found here.
Okay, so this may be little more than a fledgling urban myth but I do hope it’s true.
Apparently, so the tale goes, ahead of kick off at St James’s Park today, the visiting Sunderland fans smashed up all the toilets in the away section.
Unfortunately their appalling lack of foresight meant they were left without “a pot to piss in” for the rest of the match. I am sure, what with them being kept behind at the end, those prematch beers must really have been starting to hurt.
Smashing toilets is silly. Smashing the only toilets you have is doubly daft.
That’s if the tale is true of course.
Oh and rather wonderfully we won.
*Update on the Louise loves Roy situation: All had been quiet on the Ms Taylor front. We’d actually started to believe that all the Geordie requests to have her removed from covering Newcastle had worked. But she’s back and bitterer than ever - thanks to Newcastle’s win over Sunderland. Check this out and ask yourself - how gutted is she that Roy’s boys didn’t win?
* Update 2. The “other” Guardian Sunderland supporter Barry Glendenning takes a hissy fit on the Guardian footie podcast calling Newcastle fans muppets to incredulous noises from his colleagues. Later he compounds this by defending his actions on the Guardian blog - calling commenters (including meee): “sanctimonious, paranoid and humourless cranks“. Such fun.
From www.nufc.com
It was twenty years ago today….
That our current Academy coach really got under the skin of Steve Foster and his Luton Town chums see here
It’s all there: the benches, the fences, standing terraces, Michael O’Neill’s skinny legs, Gazza in happier times, ballboys in Co-op trackies, Willie McFaul wearing his wife’s dressing gown, executive portakabins and changing rooms behind the Leazes End.
On the soundtrack commentator Charles Harrison burbles “perhaps that’s a bit unnecessary….”
Au contraire Charlie, it was essential - never was there a more rotten away venue than Kenilworth Road, with its plastic pitch, ID cards and Thatcher-loving Chairman David Evans.
They took the mickey out of us in a 4-0 loss there in November 1987 - and it was fitting that we took revenge and rubbed it in at the next meeting with the Hatters.
Prissy Steve Foster with his daft perm and headband had led the p*ss-taking in Bedfordshire six months before, but couldn’t stick it when the tables were turned on Tyneside
Another cringingly classic love note in print from Louise Taylor in today’s Guardian. But does big tough Roy Keane even know she exists?
It’s the love affairs that’s gripped football.
She writes:
Not the type to rely on notes or props, Sunderland’s manager invariably ad libs his team talks. By all accounts they are frequently transfixing and sometimes quirky but the Irishman’s speech during Saturday’s interval was his most powerful yet. “The gaffer was as passionate as I’ve ever seen him,” said Kieran Richardson, a one-time Manchester United team-mate of Keane’s. “He gave us a history lesson at half-time. He’s a great manager.”
Seeing as Louise’s love notes are the most frequently Googled pages on here I thought it was time I put them in one place where I can regularly update them. They are now sighted here and linked above.
From Tottenham website The Proud Cockerel (published before today’s game) referring to perceived changes since the last time Newcastle beat Spurs:
…in the space of four months everything has turned full circle and the balance of power between one truly big club and one wannabe who is really nothing more than a clown academy for supporters and players alike has been restored. Spurs go into this game brimming with confidence and playing with a touch of the old swagger, topped up with a glistening trophy safe on the mantelpiece with a head coach who is proving to be even better than the brochure suggested.
Newcastle are the Premier League’s laughing stock once again. Bereft of any belief despite a scrappy win against an awful Fulham side, seemingly unable to create anything in the new era under a manager who promised so much free-flowing entertaining football but has instead been unmasked as a soundbyte-tossing has-been with as about as much clue of modern football as the black and white sheep that follow their ridiculous club.
The final score Spurs 1 - Newcastle 4. Just beautiful.
Only Louise Taylor of the Guardian could pen this article about Roy Keane and let him get away with calling everyone else (except him) a hypocrite.
Because remember we’ve already proved that Louise loves Roy.
Interesting thought that depite some very dark times for Newcastle United recently, Louise has kept pretty quiet by her standards regarding the goings on at St James’ Park. Maybe the Guardian have finally listened to all those Newcastle fans who complain on its forums about her admitted bias.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that in the piecel linked above she writes:
As Keane’s overseer at Nottingham Forest, Clough would not tolerate dissent and his players were famously respectful towards referees. If, as a United player, Keane sometimes forgot those strictures, he has now ordered everyone at Sunderland to adhere to them. “I have made it very clear to the players and the staff at our club - whether they be with the Academy, reserves or my first team - that you have to show the officials respect,” he insisted
Even so, the former United and Ireland captain stresses that there are more heinous footballing crimes than ‘disrespecting’ the men in black. “There has been so much rubbish spoken in the last week or two,” he said. “I have spoken to many old players and they used to go out and try to break people’s legs.”
Of course you’d never get that kind of behaviour from Saint Roy. See below and see the horrible taunting afterwards. But Louise doesn’t question Roy, she only prints what he says.
In 2000 - Keane the red and backer of the “hardcore” fan
In 2007, he’s still on the fans’ side and says:
Football has lost its soul and it’s definitely for the worse.
In 2008 - (now at Sunderland) he’s clearly in it for the money and is the first manager to praise plans to play Premier league games abroad.
It’s three years away and I think we should all be trying to be positive about it.
Meanwhile back in 2007 - Sunderland Chairman Che Quinn said:
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect any less crap from my own team Newcastle but it’s a clear reflection that all this “doing it for the fans”, community stuff was only ever PR bollocks.
Following Noodlepie’s unearthing of the worst restaurant review ever (via Pittstop Works), today I read what surely the most awful, most laboured, match report I have ever seen.
The match was good though. Big smiles today.
He wasn’t my first choice but he’s back.
And for some reason I’m grinning like an idiot and can’t wait for tonight’s match. It’s been a while since I felt like that.
While the chances are it will end badly, it’s going to be a whole lot of fun in the meantime.
Tonight my heart is happy and although my head is dissenting, it won’t know what’s hit it after pre and post game celebrations.
The Toon managed to find the manager I didn’t even know I wanted.
More stuff on the fallout from the sacking of Sam Allardyce.
Assembled stuff from nufc.com below. Still the only place you can find intelligent comment on Newcastle United.
On Harry Redknapp being touted for Toon manager:
Trepidation gives way to alarm….Friday’s newspaper back pages are almost universal in their reporting of Ashley’s intent to pay Harry Redknapp a cockney kings’ ransom to succeed Sam Allardyce at SJP.
Mega-money claims of salaries, transfer kittys and private flights from Dorset to Tyneside are being made.
Is it just us….or are others equally nonplussed by this apparent attempt to replace one dodgy operator with another? After all, the bloke is still on bail until next month.
On the media:
Wall-to-wall twaddle about a groundswell of opinion over a certain sheet metalworker’s son from Gosforth sticks in our throat somewhat - based as it is on what seems to be no more than hot air and presumption.
Our friends from Sky invoke their favourite blues player Muddy Waters with their obtuse and garbled coverage:
1. Thursday: “Sam took training today” - a statement made against a backdrop of footage from a training session, with the intention being to suggest that it was current.
Look at little closer though and the cracks start to appear - like the presence of Joey Barton and players now off to the African Nations Cup.
2. Teenage tosspots full of blue pop, asked twice to perform a “Shearer, Shearer” chant for the cameras outside the Britannia Stadium before kick-off on Sunday.
Said footage is now being presented as documentary evidence of “The Geordie Nation” backing Shearer to take over at SJP.
You’re having a laugh? Whoever told you he’d passed all of his badges was talking nonsense. just ask Tommy Craig and the SFA - we did.
The Mail are no better: “As Newcastle fans continue to demand Alan Shearer as their new manager” they wrote on Friday. How and when? Have they been round your house?
3. The attempt on Wednesday to mislead all and sundry about the Newcastle managerial situation with quotes presented as being live about Sam being dismissed without his knowledge.
4. David Craig interviewing the man with forked tongue from The Chronicle outside the ground - this is the Self Preservation society….giving each other cosy stories.
PS - Here’s a message for Steve Bruce, Phil Brown, David Moyes, Paul Jewell, Alan Curbishley and anyone else who succumbed to the lure of the Sky microphone waved under their noses on Thursday:
Shut your yap. You don’t know what you’re talking about - try concentrating your efforts on the dung heaps you claim to be in control of….
On what next:
For Mort and Ashley this is the point that they draw a line under their first seven months, having overseen much positive change off the field.
However they have watched their initial policy of leaving the previously-appointed man in post undo some of that good work by providing sub-standard product to sell.
Another link with the previous administration is severed then - and it’s the last major one.
Whoever takes the job now has a fantastic opportunity to rewrite history - whilst trying to succeed where a galaxy of familiar footballing names have ultimately failed.
It’s a sad fact that the identity of our new manager will at least partly dictate how much rope he’s given by the press - both national and local.
Football as a metaphor for life once more.
Apologies that only football fans will follow this, but…
It’s all to do with this, the sacking of Sam Allardyce, Newcastle United’s manager.
It’s all so strange. It’s strange that me and my friends, who pay money each week to go and see Newcastle are pretty much, to a man, delighted with the news, yet…
It’s strange that the Southern-based media, who don’t live locally, don’t pay to see matches, and let’s face it, don’t even watch our games are against the move.
It’s strange that those of us who go to watch the football are told we can’t expect to be entertained while we thought that was the whole point.
It’s laughably strange that Joey Barton describes ME as vicious. Ha!
It’s strange that Newcastle fans are seen as fickle despite the fact that we still regularly fill a 52,000 seater stadium even though we’ve won nowt in most of our life times.
It’s strange that sacking managers is seen as a result of unfair pressure from fans as opposed to clueless club suits appointing dickheads in the first place.
It’s strange that I hear that we demand exciting football rather than winning football, when in reality we’re seeing neither.
In short…
The prejudiced southern media have their platform and their chance to voice their ill-informed opinions without fear of condemnation.
The managers get to spend millions on rubbish, get to fail and get to walk away with a cheque for millions and the sympathies of the above.
Meanwhile, those of us who pay for them all - who put in the hours, who queue for tickets, who buy our satellite dishes and read their papers, are disregarded.
We’re unimportant, ripped off and labelled as fickle, ignorant and ungrateful.
No wonder we’re angry.
Stuck indoors with a cold.
Have amused myself with trying to prove that Louise Taylor, North East football correspondent for the Guardian, is in love with Sunderland football manager Roy Keane.
In my mind, if no one else’s, that is why she continues to write such glowing reports of Roy (transfer spend this summer £35m, league position: third from bottom).
Conversely, because if you love the red and whites, you hate the black and whites (and vice versa) it might also explain whey she write so negatively about my team, Newcastle United.
Anyway, you be the judge. After literally five minutes Googling here are assorted comments on Roy Keane by Ms Taylor.
Personally I think she’s in lurrrve. But that might just be because I’m childish like that.
(Roy is) immaculately turned out but never flashy (link here)
(Roy is) generous to a fault towards those within his inner circle (link here)
Keane is simply refreshingly honest. (link here)
(Roy’s) Touchline style (is) glowering, prowling, brooding, jaw-clenching - but always immaculately turned out (link here)
Sunderland’s manager (Roy Keane) - fast proving almost as snappy a dresser as the Portuguese (refers to Jose Mourinho) (link here)
One of Roy Keane’s most attractive qualities is his honesty (link here)
Sunderland’s eloquent manager (Roy Keane) (link here)
his (Roy Keane’s) invariably cliche- and platitude-free musings are always worth hearing and delivered in flowing, eloquent sentences that never seem to descend into grammatical black holes. (link here)
Now call me childish but: Louise loves Roy, Louise loves Roy, Louise loves Roy.
Oh and for that matter so does, not-as-funny-as-he-thinks-he-is, Barry Glendenning.
Grrrr. Bloody Sunderland loving Guardian hacks.
UPDATE: On going collection of Louise’s love notes to Roy kept here.
Whether you are a member of the FA, a pundit, or you’re just a moron who rings phone-in shows, remember that whoever is appointed as the new England football manager there is still the traditional scapegoat should everything go wrong.
Should an Englishman fail then you can blame it on “too many foreigners” playing and/or managing in the Premiership.
If a foreigner takes the job then he can likewise be blamed for simply being, well, foreign and “not understanding” or “having enough passion”.
As an added bonus, this: “if in doubt, blame foreigners” approach can pretty much work in any scenario from dole queues to housing issues. From a faltering health service to over crowded classrooms.
Blaming foreigners – it means never having to say you cocked it up and is fully accepted as a genuine excuse and an unquestionable truth by Her Majesty’s Press.
Oh and it was the Russian Mafia who took those disks. Probably.
Post inspired by Bob P.
Even during my recent years out of the country I managed to hold onto my Newcastle United season ticket.
A friend seat-sat it and, on my return, I bought a new one to swap with him to get my old place back.
It’s a great spot. High enough to see the shape of play. Low enough to make out the players. The cheapest in the ground but with some of the best sight lines.
Next to me is a bloke that occasionally lets me have his ticket so I can take a friend. In front of me is a classic old gadgey whose rants are hugely entertaining. Alongside him are his boy (who must be 50 himself) and his mate who is suffering the new smoking ban with difficulty.
I know them all through football and we’ve sat together (breaks notwithstanding) for well over a decade now.
Most of the lads I meet up with before the game have slowly collected their seats together in a clump at the opposite end. I’ve been tempted to join them but am too attached to my current location.
There have been prats in the past who have almost ruined it for me. The racist drunk behind me wrecked countless games before I eventually decided to report him. I was as shocked as he was when the police actually moved in and arrested him at half time the following match.
While it was no less than he deserved, I’d only anticipated he’d receive a postal ticking off.
He was gone for a while before resurfacing. I guessed he’d suffered either a short-term ban or was banned for good only to get back in “on appeal”.
Either way he seems a changed character. No more racism from him and over the years he has sobered up. I forget he’s there now.
But now there is a new dick on the block. If he too was overtly racist then I’d have no qualms in reporting him.
But he’s not. Or at least not beyond making moronic jokes about the size of black players’genitalia. It’s that kind of thing. Loud, and moronic and probably mostly with the aim of being a terrace wit rather than anything more sinister.
But, it is horrible.
A few expletives I can take. I have even, broadly speaking in the past, been against efforts to try and clamp down on swearing. The whole point of football is that it is emotional enough that we all let out the occasional four letter word. I know I do.
But this…
Without wanting to go into too much detail his language is invariable at the sexual end of swearing. Lots of very, quite disturbingly, anti-women stuff, a little bit of homophobia chucked in.
For the most part, every time he opens his mouth there is an embarrassed silence on his behalf. I can’t be alone in wishing he’d shut up. I’ll admit, however, that I have heard the occasional titter in response from younger fans.
Maybe I’m just getting old. Or maybe this really is nasty stuff.
But is it my problem, not his? Are football terraces no place for the easily offended?
Would my teenage self think this guy was amusing? Even cool perhaps?
Either way my thirtysomething self hates this guy. His shouting is constant and it goes right through me. His every utterance is followed by “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP,” repeating itself in my own head.
And anyone who knows football knows the score. You’re asking yourself: if I speak to him will he only get worse to wind me up? How many of his mates are with him? If I speak to him and nothing improves then, if I report him, will he know it is me?
So here are the questions:
Should I report him to the club? Ideally they’d just send him a threatening letter but I can’t pretend I wouldn’t love to see him kicked out
Or should I just learn to live with it?
Or should I finally give up my seat?
This made me laugh.
Excuse the slightly crap mobile picture. I should explain what you are looking at.
There was a broken window at Jesmond Metro station. I caught a train from there following a couple of late afternoon beer garden beers.
It had one of those emergency glass patches clagged on. You know the type that are little more than a holding job until proper reglazing.
Anyway, in the glue was clearly spelt out:
SMB
NUFC.
For the uninitiated that’s Sad Mackem Bastards followed by Newcastle United Football Club.
Or to explain further, the next city’s football team (Sunderland), in derrogatory terms, followed by ours in full.
All beautifully written out in glue.
I guess you could call it grafitti, if it wasn’t so obviously written by the people whose job it is to clear up after vandals.
Anyway, the new season starts on Saturday. Away to Bolton and I’m strangely optimistic. When I first considered leaving Tyneside, I feared that Newcastle United would break the habit of my lifetime and actually win something and I wouldn’t be there to see it. I was assured by more sensible people that there was absolutely no chance of this.
They were right. Too right. We only got worse. So much worse.
But we’ve a new manager. A new chairman and new players too.
Whisper it quietly - but my optimism for the new season might just have had the teeniest influence on me heading home.
Except that would just be stupid.
