TYNE Tees rang and asked if someone from the Gazette could do an interview on the soap opera shennanigans at Sid James' and in the interest of spreading brand awareness of what is now, after all, a multi-platform 24 hour operation (and the chance to score a few easy banter points) I agreed.
So, 6pm, tonight then. Sky Plus it. If you missed it or it was edited down to show 20 seconds of cynical gloating (although I doubt they'd need that as they had already done a vox pop in Sunderland) here are the high-lights of what I said:
Far from the "you couldn't script it could you?" cliche repeatedly rolled out by the incredulous and permanently surprised, the current car crash was in fact totally predictable. From the moment the misfing Messiah was lured back as second choice after 'Arry turned it down (and pocketed a decent wedge of a payrise for showing his lotalty to Pompey) it has been an accident waiting to happen.
Poor Keegan is a decent bloke and emotionally honest but his constant populist grand-standing to the gallery about how Newcastle was centred on the fans, that the club was special and the crowd was its biggest asset was totally at odds with the reality. And the reality is that it is just another investment vehicle for just another an out-of-town businessman with no cultural or emotional links or understanding of the team or the crowd or the area and who arrived with pound signs blazing in his eyes at the prospect of the Premier League's overseas TV rights cashcade. Ashley's takeover was a cold hard business move by a Spurs fan looking for a ready seller of a well known but under-performing brand.
The club is dysfunctional and has been for years. Since the sleight of hand of "democratising" the club for the Geordie Nation ended up with a small clique in control, Newcastle United has been a pressure cooker. Expectations have been artificially inflated, a succession of managers have been sacked for not delivering the impossible - and usually on or around deadline day after being allowed to spend a fortune first on players the next manager wouldn't want, and the board have been estranged from the supporters who despite still simmering with resentment after the 'Mary Poppins/shirt scam/women are dogs-gate' still make a virtue of turning up no matter what in vast numbers while deep down knowing they are being taken for mugs.
To add a headstrong and volitile manager hugely popular with those supporters to that mix was madness. It was like taking a flask of nitroglycerine on the dodgems. If the owners thought they could use his universal popularity with the punters as a shield for their business plan they were short-sighted to the point of stupidity. And when they compounded that basic error by bringing in a vastly unpopular man (and that is throughout football, not just in Newcastle) with a distinctively unimpressive dug-out record above the head of the Messiah they engineered a tectonic fault line with more inherent potential friction than San Andreas. The only surprise was that it didn't blow sooner.
But that structural paralysis is Newcastle's problem - and one that despite the collective emotional incontinence on display from the flip-flop waving flashmob gathered outside Shearers' Bar they have correctly identified with their demands that Wise must go. That won't solve the current crisis but it will assuage the anger and could prevent a repeat.
As the cameras whirred I went on to say that once the effect of eight pints of Schaudenfreude and the aching ribs from the regional banter and baiting had faded, then it must be seen as good news for Boro, if only because one of the main rivals in the Premiership's third tier have suffered a self-inflicted gunshot injury in their size nines. The only surprise is that their foot wasn't in their mouths at the time.
But for Boro fans, apart from the potential for the mandatory cruel humour in the situation, the one thing that should leap out is a kneejerk vote of thanks for Steve Gibson. In a week of madness in football with big money buyouts beyond comprehension and transfer fee hyper-inflation that makes Weimar Germany look like a model of prudence, Boro have shone out as a beacon of boring moderation and sensible strategic planning. A rational wage structure, a successful long term investment in the academy project, a clear vision shared by chairman, boss - and increasingly by the fans - and a rock solid guarantee of managerial security based on reasonable investment and achievable targets.
Boro are "an island of sanity in a sea of madness," as one perceptive blogger said on the Deadline Day thread. The crazy institutional ineptitude shown by Newcastle stands out in sharp contrast with Boro's low key stability, commitment to continuity and a realistic and sustainable model that holds out hope for the future. That model does not include spending vast sums of money that isn't there, betting the farm on the elusive prospect of future profit, loading the club with crippling debt, angling to sell out our heritage to a billionaire foreign chancer or lop-sided management structures that undermine the manager. Nor is it based on kneejerk reactions, washing dirty linen in public or tacky populism... you can't see Gibbo waddling around the Emirates in a replica top gurning with a pint glass in hand.
The turmoil and unseemly civil wor currently raging in Tyneside should make Boro supporters feel relief, quiet pride and gratitude. That's what I said for the cameras. How much of that will make the cut among the wall-to-wall stottifest I don't know but it bears repeating.
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