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It’s a football thing

August 17, 2008 in Football | Tags: , , , , , | 3 comments

Joey Barton Doesn’t Shame Me

July 30, 2008 in Football, It's been bugging me | Tags: , , | 4 comments

Despite what the media might be telling you about Newcastle United fans – I don’t care about Joey Barton.

The papers might be able to scare up enough gobby prats to parrot their general sense of outrage but, I repeat, I don’t care.

While I am absolutely sure he is a particularly horrible bloke his presence in my football team doesn’t shame me. I didn’t buy him. His bad behaviour reflects on himself, not the club and certainly not us fans. I would rather not have him in my team but all the various options put up by an apparently furious media make very little sense.

Sack him and we write off £6m while Barton profits from a hefty signing on fee elsewhere. If he shines for his new club and keeps his nose clean they get the kudos for rehabilitating him and his value will once more soar.

Fine him, beyond what is allowed by his Union, and we are on dodgy ground. It’s a legal minefield that could again see him walk away for nothing…  join a new club…hefty signing on fee …etc etc.

And that money we’re expected to write off..that’s mine that is. I, alongside thousands of other fans, came up with that cash. We are not Manchester United or Chelsea. Right now, it appears £6m is a great deal of cash for us.

But anyway, hasn’t Barton done his time? Don’t we have some kind of duty to rehabilitate him? Should all ex-cons not be employed? Or just not employed by football clubs?

Or is this part of a wider media agenda – Booze Britain, Broken Britain etc.  Let’s get everyone simultaneously outraged AND miserable. Bet they wish he’d had a knife, or was a migrant, or a Muslim. Bet they wish the booze he drank was cheap.  Bet they wish they could blame Gordon Brown.

Have they all forgotten Tony Adams already? A player who committed an arguably worse crime and did his time behind bars. He then went on to win silverware galore, captain England and recently won the FA Cup as assistant manager at Portsmouth.

Let’s not also forget that Newcastle’s manger Kevin Keegan wasn’t responsible for signing Barton. It’s yet another problem that he has inherited from the genius he replaced.

KK is keeping his cool and his dignity and is getting Barton back into training and, hopefully, away from whatever demons haunt him.

And no doubt, once Barton is fit and performing well, then real cash offers will once more come in.

Then, and only then, will be the right time to sell him.

* It appears I am not the only one thinking this way. Check out here and here.

Me? I like a whippet stottie.

June 4, 2008 in Food, Football, It's been bugging me | Tags: , , , | 6 comments

Some of us complain about regional stereotypes.  Others just reaffirm them.

From today’s Sunderland Echo:

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.

* Just in case you didn’t know what a stottie is.

Louise Taylor on Newcastle’s derby win.

April 30, 2008 in Football | Tags: , , , , | 1 comment

(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.

Sunderland Toilet Trouble

April 20, 2008 in Football | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.