Football crazy in every way

Sep 7 2008 by Ken Oxley, Sunday Sun

I TRY to avoid writing about current events in this column.

Bitter experience suggests that, by the time this gets to print, my thoughts about whatever it was have been overtaken by events.

So at the risk of seeming very out of date on this Sunday morning . . . what on earth is happening?

In the rest of the UK, we’re tightening our belts. But not on Planet Football.

It’s been a staggering week. I’m writing this on a Wednesday afternoon, tuned into Sky Sports News expecting to find out what’s happening with King Kev at Newcastle United. Instead, I hear West Ham’s manager Alan Curbishley has handed in his resignation.

Experts reckon that both of these crises have been provoked, at least in part, by the frenzied nonsense that is the transfer window.

Fans demand new players . . . but who has the say on who comes and who goes? The manager? Director of football? The chairman? Some geezer with a wad of money in another part of the world?

Speaking of which, Manchester United and Chelsea have to contend with a new bully in the playground . . . namely, Manchester City.

They are now owned by an Arab with a lot of money, while Man United and Liverpool are owned by Yanks and Chelsea by a Russian.

But, hilarious though they are to us Boro or Sunderland fans, the antics at Sid James’s Park are worse than a joke. Whether it was watching the increasingly illiterate banners being unfurled by their fans, or the length of time it took the club to actually issue some sort of statement, once again a Premier League team in this area is a laughing stock all over the country.

That’s not good news for any of us in the North.

If Mike Ashley thought being seen swigging a pint in the stands wearing a King Kev shirt was going to endear him to the Geordie faithful, or anyone else around here, he’ll clearly have to think again.