I think I know why Newcastle never win owt...

Shearer was a horrible player, always cheating. But as I've got older I've realised almost every professional footballer is a cheat.

 

I think this bears reposting:

"Cynics from the rest of the north will often chunter into their half-time Bovril about Newcastle United's absurdly inflated sense of self-importance. This is a team, after all, who haven't won a domestic trophy for half a century and have spent the GNP of several African states in the not winning of anything. According to the 'Toon Army', the self-mythologising name they've given themselves, Newcastle United are a 'massive club'. You hear this time and time again and frankly no one outside the NE postcode seems to know what that means. It seems to mean, as it does with Manchester City, 'used to be quite good'.

"If, as those cynics suggest, there is monumental self-delusion at work here, it gets stoked regularly. Chairman Freddy Shepherd's claim that the Newcastle job is 'one of the biggest in world football' shows a loyalty to the club somewhat undermined by his comments that Geordie women football fans were 'dogs'. Former Magpies striker Micky Quinn once claimed that 'Newcastle is a bigger job than England', which is the football equivalent of saying that the horn section of Dexy's Midnight Runners are controlling the weather through people's televisions'."

- Stuart Maconie, Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North, 2006

 

Same as the late 80's early 90's when they were towing to pull 15 thousand because they were sheeiiite. Then the messiah wor Kev turned up and gates doubled overnight.
The geordie superfans are no different to any other fanbase ,doing well they will back their team , doing w,ank over a period of time, a large amount will find summat else to do on a match day........sithi.

 

We are seriously considering moving to Alnwick and I'd love to be able to go to a few games at Newcastle.
Unfortunately like all or most Prem clubs there's a waiting list and I can't even guess how difficult it must be to go there.

 

I'm probably wrong but for me it seemed like shearer was the start of the big change from players doing not so subtle dives to being subtle 'professional' cheats

 

Didn’t football have a massive boom in the 90’s everywhere? My old man tells me that football got massively more popular after Euro 96.

 

It's hard to say really. Cheating has always occurred of course. Felt like the time it became more widespread in this country. Tv coverage helped us see it. Then we grew to accept it.
Now I see clips of kids games where they are all diving about. Seen it in Sunday league football too.
Once saw a hilarious side by side clip.of Neymar rolling and a Moto GP rider coming off. Neymar stayed down, the rider got back up ram to the pits and got on another bike and carried on.
Football continues to break me the constant cheating and boring style of play everyone adopts.
Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical

 

I think you're right, TV helped to 'normalise' it. I think the shearer thing for me was that he didn't need to cheat so it became a bit more acceptable for a good player to do it if that makes sense

 

I'd say your old man is correct however with Newcastle their crowds doubled at the arse end of 1992 when keegan returned and guided them to safety in the old second Division.

The following season they started splashing the cash and won the league comfortably , think they won their first 10 games if i remember correctly........sithi.

 

Not done bad with sales though.

Got most of the Wood money back.

Moved Anderson & Minteh on for big fees in the summer.

Flogged Almiron in January.

St Maximin went for a decent fee.

Made a quick £20m on Lloyd Kelly.

I don’t think there expenditure is that big over 3 seasons & in the last 18 months the only money they’ve spent was £10m on the young striker Osula.

I’d say there’s only Barnes who hasn’t been a hit up to now as well so if they needed to they’d get huge profits on what they’ve signed.

They’ve also got the added bonus of being able to spend what they generate through kit sales & advertising these days rather than just having sports direct plastered everywhere & castore making the kits to line Mike Ashley’s pockets.

 

I love it round there. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to live up there. Beautiful part of the world.

 

It's my favourite part of the UK Northumberland friendly people stunning countryside and coast. If I could choose to retire anywhere it would there close to a city so not too isolated from medical or other services you may need later on in life.

 

Nice place to live, I love the Northumberland coast, places like Alnmouth, Craster, Seahouses, Tynemouth etc. As for the footy, you'd have to wait till they get relegated and having a mediocre season in the Championship I reckon. You could always go and watch Blyth Spartans of course. When I was there as a student, they drew away with Wrexham (2nd division) in the FA Cup and the replay was at St James' Park and me and a mate (Steve Stewardson who you might remember from Wath Grammar) tried to go but we didn't get in because it was full - the only game that season that sold out as I recall. We lived in South Gosforth and heard the crowd roar as we walked up our street when Spartans scored.