NUFC: Demba Ba is a Geordie

As you's know, it’s mainly Twitter for me these days; and there the other week I was joshing with some Newcastle fan whom I’ve never met about whether we would take Andy Carroll back, in the event that Liverpool thrust him in our direction, nose and eyes averted toward high heaven... Just banter, as I say, because despite big Andy missing something of a sitter the week before he was said to link up well with Suarez in a win at the weekend. In any case, I expect the much-rumoured ‘psychological flaws’/’refuelling problems’ of the young Bensham Beast would now pose a really unsettling problem for the newly world-famous Team Spirit and United Dressing Room of Alan Pardew’s NUFC.
We are 3rd tonight, and some might say we are walking in a Demba wonderland. It’s an outstanding effort from this squad in every department, and respect is due to the manager whom some of us used to pretend was called Curbishley. Moreover these results and this placing are a useful if temporary two fingers up at free-spending bigger clubs, some of whose fans, despite their mob being several points/places behind Newcastle, are still making free with the patronising remarks online about how they’d gladly consider giving Coloccini a run in their side.
I don’t know one Newcastle fan who thinks European qualification is achievable – not unless Mike Ashley gets so drunk on New Year’s Eve that he goes out and buys half-a-dozen high-waged hot-shots with his own money. Even the much-vaunted Sky/Talksport ‘Battle for Fourth’ is hard to get excited about, since to be involved in that is only to waste a lot of quality time having to think about Spurs and Liverpool. And looking up is an impossibility, first among many reasons being quite simply that right now it looks like Man City have bought the title; and bought it in a way that makes what Jack Walker did at Blackburn with Kenny Dalglish seem hardly more substantive than what John Henry et al are now doing at Liverpool with... oh aye, Miserable Kenny. What should be the ambition be, then? To edge 'The Battle for Eighth'? To be 'North East Top Dogs'? It’s all down to the players, isn't it? God knows what they’re on right now, but I’ll have a shot of it whenever you’re ready.
Anyway, past half-way to safety... and the pleasures of this Newcastle run are in the attractive, smart, committed football that the side are playing, and also in points won that, given the low expectations back in August, almost have the sweet feeling of being stolen - or should I say twocked?

Sylvain Marveaux is a Geordie. As is Demba Ba.

In a fortnight NUFC return to action, as they say, with the first pre-season outing at Darlington Arena, followed by a US tour and games against Sporting Kansas City, Orlando City and Columbus Crew. How's the recruitment plan looking then? Alan Curbishley, sorry, Pardew has said "I am really pleased with the way the squad is taking shape." But Al, shouldn't that be more like "Je suis vraiment heureux avec la façon dont l'équipe prend forme."? Because aside from those long-term crocked lads who "will feel like new signings" (and actually this does go for one of them too) we seem to be entirely in the business of adding Frenchmen or French-speakers to the ranks.
No, since you ask, I'm not over L'Affaire Carroll yet. True Faith speaks for me:

"I’d foolishly allowed myself to imagine myself sitting in my SJP pew watching the Bensham Van Basten develop over the next ten years into a bona fide No.9 legend, smashing goals in, leading the line and providing the essential link between team and the terraces he also supported the club from... But the fact is Andy Carroll is not at Newcastle United but £35m of Liverpool’s money is... I didn’t imagine that the big answer to Carroll’s departure would be Demba Ba, on a free with a dodgy knee... and us having had the bum’s rush from No.1 and No.2 targets Gameiro and Gervinho."

NUFC: Limping to the line

Gettin’ beat 3-0 off Liverpool is a wearyingly familiar experience, as indeed is getting beat 2-0 off Liverpool. Nine years ago one such 3-0 finally robbed the wheels off what had been our very real push to the top-division title under Bobby Robson - wistful to think back on it now, but in that season of 2001-02, with 11 games to play, the title was mathematically in our hands. Seems like dreamland tonight...
Today’s special discomforts: for one it was our owld manager King Kenny in the Liverpool dugout, looking like he’s really enjoying his football, as he never once appeared during his tenure at NUFC (at least not after the day of his coronation and mandatory mobbing by adoring Geordies.) And for two, owld King Kenny reckoned it would be canny just to bring on Andy Carroll for a 20-minute run-out even with the match won. You could have spared us that one, Ken, let it ride for another day... It’s only amazing that Carroll didn’t score, since NUFC alumni nearly always score crucial goals against us, as do the non-Toon-related glamour signings of other clubs, especially when they’ve otherwise been having a lean spell (so back Fernando Torres for a brace at least when we face Chelsea on May 15.)
The corollary to this gloom is that Newcastle rarely ever get to enjoy a reciprocal pleasure in ‘putting one over.’ I remember the hype and the chatter back in 2005 as Michael Owen prepared to face Liverpool for the first time in a black-and-white shirt. What happened that day? That’s right, we’s got beat 2-0, and Owen had the sort of disconsolate just-in-it-for-the-money-pal day that was his stock-in-trade at Newcastle.
The excellent True Faith seemed to me to get it right with this Carroll comment piece before the game. The sad - indeed pathetic - thing is that I dreamed I met Carroll last night – honest – in a crowd amid some kind of post-training canteen chat situation; and he seemed a very nice lad, and told me casually that he reckoned he’d probably be re-signing for Newcastle eventually, after the whole Liverpool thing had gone off the boil... So, alas, I clearly can’t say I’m over this thing yet. Worse, a Liverpool fan of my acquaintance, a good lad generally speaking, seems to have no conception of the pain he causes when he tells me cheerily how much he’s looking forward to having Jose Enrique on the left of defence next season.
In other Toon news the mighty nufc.com kindly transcribes some comments from Kevin Keegan uttered in his capacity as ESPN pundit – another warning that Carroll’s transfer fee will not be spent on new players, and this about our erstwhile #9:

"He (Carroll) was on the fringe when I was there. He was raw. This kid is the best header of the ball I’ve ever seen. That’s his biggest plus point for me... His minus points have always been there. Can he get his head down? Can someone make him realise that all he has to do is train hard, work hard and be a good pro for 10 years and he’ll be a very rich boy? He needs to get rid of the other stuff...”

Ah yes, the other stuff. ‘Very nice lad’? In your dreams, as they say...

NUFC: Bugger-All Money

How are things in black and white then? 36 points on the board as February ends, right enough – a decent place to be. Personally I would want 43 for safekeeping, remembering what happened not so long ago to West Ham... But the main point is that this Newcastle team have shown plenty spirit in adversity. It’s not been a bad season yet, on balance, and that is quite something, given the sum of what’s been inflicted on supporters, again as before and always, by its repulsive present ownership.
Andy Carroll is gone and I must live with that, as must all black-and-white-eyed supporters, including those who actually believe that a shred of the £35 million we got for Carroll will be re-invested in the team. For the prosecution, though, I call Kevin Keegan, who talked to Gabby Logan at the BBC for a spot transmitted tonight and who cited his own thoughts when recently he heard Alan Pardew telling the press about his hopes for what he’d do with the Carroll money: “Alan – you ain’t gonna get any of that...”

L'Affaire 'Andy' Carroll...

... et les cons 'Gros Mike' Ashley et 'Degsy Llambias'... Eh bien, plus ca change... mais l'homme le plus sage est M. Keegan...
The 'disco' in the clip below, BTW, is at 02:15: 'Mike Ashley doesn't know anything about football... Derek Llambias knows even less.' But to be fair, Mike knows a lot about fizzy lager and can sell you a cheap pair of elasticated shorts, while Degsy is just the man for you if you happen to own a casino and are seeking some insufferable little big-mouth to run it.

NUFC: Loveless Marriage, Divorce Too Expensive

Admirable professionalism from the Newcastle United team this weekend, carefully worded responses to media from Captain Nolan, and exactly the right response from the fans at the game – all the way to the final whistle and the segueing effortlessly from cheers for a top performance/three points to renewed jeers for that minty pair of toe-rags still squatting in the board-room of this club. The Match of the Day cameras kept looking for Ashley’s pie-eater grins, but the microphones must have been pointing the wrong way, i.e. not at the Leazes End. Memo to Ashley & Llambias: we wish most earnestly and urgently that you could live your dream, get shot of us and go catch your effing taxi. Yet you persist (like morons, really) in going quite the wrong way about making NUFC appear an attractive saleable entity. Thankfully there are some footballers at this club, many of them improved immeasurably under the management of Chris Hughton, and yesterday it was clear they were still playing for him. Moreover we were lucky it was Liverpool visiting: a club clearly in an awful lot of bother. Had it been Blackpool or Blackburn or Wigan, strangely enough, I expect we’d have lost. The next four games are looking tough, though, with Spurs and Citeh in the middle of the sandwich. Over to you then, Alan Pardew. Or ‘Sort it out, Curbishley’, as I believe some comic genius sat near the NUFC dug-out addressed the new ‘gaffer’ on Saturday...

#9: The number of the Beast

Is it only 18 months since I sat there most weekends worrying whether Andy Carroll had adequate goals and technique in him for the 'top flight', rather being just another of those Academy nearly boys...? It's the Rooney/Walcott syndrome, 'they need to show they've got it before their 18th birthday' etc. Well, as of today the Bensham Battering Ram looks set for a first England cap. Not that I care, indeed I'd rather he kept clear of all that muck, but then there are distinguished precedents for the national team being spearheaded by pure Geordie instinct for goal... As long as Big Andy comes back from his little holidays safe and well and ready to do it all again for NUFC...

Mind you, Carroll does give the air of being impregnable as well as often unplayable. 'He's a beast', said a West Ham mate of mine during the Boleyn game of a fortnight back - said so not quite admiringly neither. And Carroll's off-the-pitch manners are a big matter for concern, no question. But as Arsene Wenger put it in his programme notes on Sunday, 'Andy Carroll has stature, charisma and quality...' Over 90 minutes on the park, in other words, he is exactly What The Boys Want.

Photograph: Stephen Pond/EMmpics Sport

My beef with Andy Carroll

Jason Mellor writes amusingly for the Independent on the court-decreed arrangement whereby Andy Carroll must currently lodge with his club captain Kevin Nolan, under strict curfew. (The PA picture shows them together at the Old Firm match the other weekend - Nolan presumably cheering for the Hoops, I wonder what side Carroll was on?) Nolan comes over as a decent fellow: his kids are around the same ages as mine, and I identify with his description of the domestic regimen. Obviously I'm not paid seven figures to pull on a black and white shirt, nor do I own an X-Box, but other than that I'm encouraged to think me and the skipper might get along. The towering issue on which we agree is Carroll's barnet: "I keep telling him his hair is absolutely shocking. I've been trying to get him to cut it for ages..." But, tell you what, if the lad can do the business in today's not-insignificant 1.30pm kick-off then I promise to quit my carping for good.

NUFC: Half-Term Report 2010-2011

1. Seven points from seven... Would one have taken that back in mid-August? I suppose so, expecting wins over Stoke and Blackpool, a point at either Wolves or Everton, losses at Trafford and Eastlands and - pessimistic, like - home to Villa... So my radar’s about 50% askew.

2. Call the Blackpool result an off-day when none out of many chances got converted. But it was 2-2 with Stoke at SJP in 2008 when I knew we were going down. So one has to hope this season’s 1-2 will prove no more disastrous (i.e. merely depressing) than the 1-2 home losses to Sunderland in the reassuringly mediocre lower-than-midtable seasons of 1999-2000 and 2000-2001.

3. There we were thinking we had another French bobby-dazzler, younger and possibly with a better attitude than the last few, in Hatem Ben Arfa; and then that despicable Dutch Nigel from Millionaire’s Row near Moss Side goes and breaks the lad’s bliddy leg... My slightly one-eyed regard for the Orange, which even survived that last thuggish World Cup, has gone in the dustbin of history.

4. The Steve Harper injury had a cruelty to it and all. Tim Krul has been in our hearts ever since his UEFA Cup heroics of four years ago, but he’s being tested now, questions about his positioning here and there, though of course he’s not playing behind Cannavaro.

5. We’ve had some dastardly refereeing, and they’d better start giving us at least a few throw-ins, just to level it all out, y'knaa.

6. Andy Carroll - signed to 2015. He only wants to play for NUFC. May you stop at the top, bonny lad, by banging in enough savers for us this season.

(Illustration is the front cover of the latest issue of the mighty True Faith)

NUFC 6 Villa 0: Bad Karma

There are bitter and intractable and perfectly understandable enmities between football teams and rival fans thereof, usually based on geographical proximity, or else some historical grudge from out of the annals. And all this is good sport. I don’t know who Aston Villa – a club I’ve tended to admire on all sorts of levels – normally have their beef with, because I don’t know much about the midlands, but I’m sure it’s not with Newcastle United. So I was perplexed and irked when a significant section of Villa’s home support came to their last game of 2008-09 seemingly with the chief intent of barracking NUFC and generally celebrating our relegation to Division 2. That NUFC has very often made itself a laughing stock in the last 10 years is beyond argument: it must be why sportswriters like Simon Barnes or David Lacey still feel so comfortable wishing the club ill and broadcasting their anti-Geordie schadenfreude. But still, what kind of no-mark must you be to sit at home like some piddling schoolboy, inking out a bed-sheet banner so as to jeer a visiting team off on its way to the lower league? Who’s Your Next Messiah? Ant and Dec? That was one, wasn’t it? ‘Messiah’ is a term that those geniuses on Sky like to think Geordies are obsessed by. NUFC fans aren’t generally interested, though we do really, really like the loyalty shown to the club by certain favoured sons and local heroes, as does any club that can boast such an array.
So to today’s Toon-Villa rematch at SJP, and I was struck by some Villa texter to the BBC with his side already 3-0 down: "This isn't over - Newcastle can't defend. If we can stop them scoring it could finish 4-3! Up the Villa!..." Ah, another mad-for-it Villan feasting on ‘Premiership’ legend, courtesy of Sky. There certainly were more goals in the game, except it turned out to be the Villa that ‘couldn’t defend’, and Bensham’s Andy Carroll who filled his boots. Now, he’s not the Messiah, mind. In fact he’s often a naughty boy...
But to the bigger picture: as usual it’s clear from the off that the Barclays/Sky Division 1 contains leagues within leagues, and Newcastle are emphatically not in the top flight: the only realistic goal remains survival. I’m not sure which league Villa reckon they’re in, but I daresay they're giving the subject a mite more consideration than they'd expected to as of tonight.

"This is where I'm from and Newcastle are the only team for me."

These, the words of Andy Carroll, as reported last weekend, Andy seemingly having decided to resist the mighty lure of Stoke City, and whatever Stoke has to offer by way of nightlife. Well said, Andy lad - now don't ever make us doubt you... And if you could see your way to a towering header for the winner at Old Trafford on Monday August 16 then I'd carry you into the Blu Bambu on my own bliddy shoulders...

NUFC: It is Accomplished

Tonight's title-clinching win at Plymouth was strikingly similar to the previous 28 we've enjoyed in this friendly old Division 2 c. 2009-10, but particularly of a piece with the last six that have come on the trot from a team now easing through the gears. A big part of the story from Home Park seems to have been the touchingly good sportsmanship of now-relegated Argyle, offering Toon fans a congratulatory banner on the pitch beforehand, plus some choice musical selections over the tannoy, 'Blaydon Races' among them, once all was squared away. Accordingly come the final whistle some of the Mags were on the pitch, thinking it all over, and it is now. A close season's work begins properly for Chris Hughton from this point, the gaffer now set the recurrent task of figuring out how we're going to beat Stoke, Blackburn, Wigan and the Mackems. Through Andy Carroll 'rising high to power home a header' as he did tonight and has done throughout the Fizzy Pop campaign? I wish...

Fenham Eusebio: Incredible Hulk?

Listening to this affable, decent, thoroughly professional, dishwater-dull post-match interview with NUFC’s top homegrown striker… whey, it could be wor Alan Shearer talking, back in his prime. But no, it’s Shola Ameobi, restored to the side after a frustrating break for injury, and back where he left off, scoring goals for fun in Division 2.
Is Shola about to get another shot at being a top-flight striker, a Toon #9 even? He seems to have held off the challenge of young Nile Ranger, very much a bench-warmer of late, sad to say; also that of Leon Best, who was bought as Shola-cover just as 'Marlene' Harewood was borrowed, and now seems to be struggling to get in the squad. Well, as Shola points out, there’s team spirit about NUFC these days, of a sort not seen since the Robson years. (When Souness was boss Shola was at times deployed on the left-wing, to little effect i.e. the occasional prolonged, gangling, aimless dribble.) The forging of a good team means competition for places, and exclusion. You need to earn your place, and in Shola, Carroll and Lovenkrands NUFC have had three proper notching strikers this season. Next season? Hmm. Even Wolves, as pundit Shearer pointed out recently, could score for fun when in the Fizzy Pop League…
A final Shola/Shearer point: it looks to me like Ameobi has used his convalescence to hit the weight-pile. His upper body has, to my eye, a newly rock-like aspect, reminiscent of how Shearer came back from his ankle break c.1998, shorter of pace but strategically self-reinvented as a serious tough nut. Some might say that with Carroll we have our bruising/eye-watering striker already in place, nee further applications, thanks. But aggression was a quality Shola always needed more of, and a bit more muscle will help with that.

NUFC: Playing for pride, but quite knackered

A sluggish return to points-winning ways for the lads today. A week ago we'd have been fancied to give Plymouth a good hiding. A month ago you'd have got short odds against Amobi hitting six. Tonight we'll take 3-1 and forget about it, cheers.

But the lessons of the midweek Blackpool loss keep coming. We can scarcely afford to be more than one man down at any given time. Only a pair of central defenders to spare (though I'm not sure where the Georgian lad newly loaned from Blackburn is meant to fit - I'd be as concerned for the want of a lefty other than Enrique, frankly.) The midfield showing its age in Butt, its shortage of puff in Nolan and its utter lack of moral fibre in Barton. Upfront, much as I'd love us to start Carroll and Ranger every game, I'd be biting my nails for fear of some rash gadgy going into the back of either. Lovenkrands went straight into the XI today but was clearly off the pace and got stick for it from half the team, it seems. Guthrie and Ranger ought to have started, really, but since they came on as subs and did what they did for the second goal instantly then nee point harping about it. And the mighty Andy Carroll might have had a five-minute hat-trick at the death, but we'll take the one he lashed in, for he seems to be getting into his stride, albeit so long as there's someone faster and tricksier playing off him.

West Brom looked good today in their crushing of the Smoggies but we've already been round theirs and had a point. So with our best first XI week in, week out, and a fair wind behind us, we could bank on one of the automatic leg-up places. But, this being the Toon, I can say only that I'm not thinking about relegation anymore.

Newcastle 2 West Ham 2: what yuh done to yer heid, Andrew?

Cornrow hair-dos on rock stars, I can just about allow to pass. (Basically I can't think of any to mention, beyond the one sported by Axl W. Rose, and this blog uses and keenly endorses Chinese Democracy, also being of the view that Axl's long locks back in his G'n'R heyday were basically those of a big girl.)
But in general I would be on the side of those who think that cornrows look fairly peculiar on white males. On black guys - I rather think they're best carried off if you happen to be a hip-hop MC or R&B vocalist. On black footballers, well... Rio Ferdinand's used to crack me up, and I guess it must have cracked up his teammates and eventually old Rio too. (David James's imitation-Rio was just James doing what he does best, i.e. worst.)
And Newcastle United's contribution to this key masculine grooming issue? I'm thinking back, and until today only Carl Cort, the makeshift 'striker' bought from Wimbledon by Bobby Robson for £7 million, sprung to mind. That was before Andrew Carroll of Bensham took to the field for today's home game against the Irons...
I am unreservedly delighted that the lad who's been banging them in for the stiffs all season has now notched his first top-flight goal, and by all accounts he put himself about for 90 minutes and proved a proper handful and salvaged a valuable point - for all that the result feels like a slight stumble back into the relegation mire, exacerbated by Stoke's point against the same Liverpool side who stuffed us over Christmas. I would love it, love it if Andy Carroll led the line with honours for Newcastle United in seasons to come.
Still, but. Sort your hair out, bonny lad. I know you think you've just sorted it but you've not. Never mind 'the stick' you'll have had off the teammates already. Listen to Alan Shearer on MOTD, who liked the barnet about as much as the direction on that header that found the side-netting when we were 1-0 in the first half...