Don’t blame Newcastle fans for problems

Jan 6 2008 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

THE worst things can come in the prettiest packages, as proved by several Christmas presents I received.

So it is that a broadsheet newspaper, for all its fancy words and flowery phraseology, can talk a pile of poop.

Take the Daily Telegraph’s recent – in recent days, that is – appraisal of the supporters of Newcastle United:

“Regular sell-outs despite more than 50 seasons without a trophy speaks highly of their loyalty; their impatience and eagerness to get on the backs of players and, especially, managers does not.”

Am I alone in spotting a glaring contradiction between the first and second halves of that sentence?

Whatever. The same rag was at it again 48 hours later.

“Too many supporters . . . are living in the past, and plenty of others need to grow up.”

My answer to the first charge is: where are supporters who haven’t won anything in their lifetime supposed to live?

Expanding on his second accusation, the author suggests “a first step would be to stop referring to something called the ‘Geordie Nation’, which cannot be found on any map.”

Against that allegation, not least because the “Geordie Nation” only ever existed in the mind of one supporter, Sir John Hall, there is no case to answer.

Forgive me for I am banging a familiar drum. It’s just that when recently deriding certain tabloids for making similar mischief, I naively expected better of our “quality” Press.

Sadly, they too are painting a view of Newcastle United followers which would be no more lazily distorted if it included cloth caps and whippets.

The view being that those fans, over-demanding and impatient, have cranked up the pressure on Sam Allardyce.

That those fans are a part – a big part – of the problem at St James’s Park.

The truth is that Allardyce and his team created pressure by not winning games – and that the national media have since added to it far more than any paying punter.

Bear with me here.

On Wednesday night, Liverpool were booed off at Anfield far more ferociously than Newcastle were jeered off at St James’s.

Yet are Liverpool’s fans branded impatient and too demanding? No.

Why? Because, we are told, they’re used to winning things, so have a right to expect more.

So let’s get this straight: Newcastle fans are derided nationwide as impatient having won nowt domestically for 53 years, yet Liverpool fans are excused their frustration with life without a trophy since, err, 2006.

Last Saturday, I heard Stamford Bridge “diehards” dishing out dog’s abuse to the Chelsea manager of a kind Allardyce has rarely received.

This, during a game that Chelsea won. This, while Chelsea lay third in the table.

Are their supporters branded impatient and too demanding? No. Why? Because they’re used to winning things, so have a right . . . you know how it goes.

The real reason is that geography makes it easy for journalists to stick the boot into those strange, sad Geordies.

Strange and sad because those journalists, in their cynicism and at their distance, have either forgotten or never understood why football can be the all-consuming passion it is up here.

Either that, or with Newcastle fans as faithful as a pet dog, they are easy to kick.

But saddest of all will be if Allardyce’s employers are taken in by the media’s false take on Tyneside’s mood.

If Big Sam goes, it should be because of harsh, cold footballing reality – not the result of some self-fulfilling prophecy begun by people who watch his side once a month or less.

In that context, I hope Mike Ashley first defies the doom-mongerers down south by ignoring their demands for him to swap the away end for the directors’ box.

For the longer he is mixing with the fans, the better he will know that their true mood is frustration, not revolt.