Victims of the Dark Side? Sou must be joking!

Oct 12 2008 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

THERE are few things sadder than the sight and sound of men rewriting history — and their part in it.

It’s bad enough being wise after the event. But far worse when that event was, partly at least, your doing.

And lo, we come to the latest chapters of the Geordie gospel according to Graeme Souness, pictured right, and Sam Allardyce, pictured left. A Newcastle Testament, as it were.

The archetypal hard luck story, in my book. Tales from the Dark Side in theirs.

As with most pieces of revisionism, there are kernels of truth in the self-serving arguments of this late, unlamented duo.

Yes, as Souness told Sky Sports last Sunday and Allardyce reiterated in print a day later, Newcastle United have, at times, been badly — nay, catastrophically — mismanaged at boardroom level.

Yes, as Allardyce reminded us, Newcastle finished 14th in the Premier League before he arrived and were placed 11th when he was sacked.

But much of what else he and Souness said is so dubious that their conclusions — that they were badly done by at an unmanageable football club — are laughable.

Souness, not for the first time (nor, I fear, the last), muttered of “ex-professionals” “up there” who “go out of their way to make life difficult” for players, managers and coaches.

“It is as if they take great delight in causing problems.”

Funny, but I don’t recall any of these people making life too difficult for anyone at Newcastle United during Keegan’s first spell in charge or Sir Bobby Robson’s Champions League days.

That’s to say, when the players, managers and coaches in question were doing a good job. Not when the manager in question was sticking Shola Ameobi on the left wing, complaining about players’ ill-fitting boots and buying Boumsong, Babayaro and Faye in the January sales.

“They have had some fantastic managers up there but not one of them has been given enough time because there is elements of the Press — not all of them — that constantly look on the dark side,” added Souness.

To which all of us Vader-esque individuals he had in mind would say two things.

One, that it was difficult for us to look on the bright side as Souness plunged Newcastle into what even his skipper and main dressing room ally, Alan Shearer, described as a relegation battle.

Two, were Keegan (last time around) and Robson, those aforementioned success stories, not given five years apiece — eons in football’s modern age — by way of time?

No matter, for Allardyce warmed to Souey’s theme.

“They finished 14th under Glenn Roeder, the year I took over, and when I left they were 11th. There was no danger of relegation — we were 12 or 13 points from the relegation zone.

“When I was there this time last year, we had the best start in 10 years and I think people lose sight of that.”

Now, there’s no doubting Big Sam had more cause for complaint than Souey at getting the chop, particularly now that Mike Ashley’s true colours have been exposed.

And statistics are generally better accepted than conspiracy theories by way of excuses.

But they can also, as the old saying tells us, lie.

And Sam’s chosen stats conveniently overlook other facts and figures which explain why he is unmourned by the Magpie faithful.

Like how that “best start in 10 years” (though Robson matched it in 2001/02) had also been Newcastle’s easiest (they didn’t play a top four club until getting thumped by Liverpool in late November) in a decade.

And like how United won just two of his last 12 league games in charge.

No, where Souness and Allardyce are concerned, the bottom line is this: if they were half as good as they’d have us believe, why are they not now managing Premier League clubs? Not now managing at all, come to that?

But the bottom line for Newcastle United is far more serious, and my motivation for writing this article.

It is that, football being a small world, the continual carping of two such failures will make the Newcastle job an even less attractive destination for managers truly worthy of it.