Fellow Newcastle United fans – Reasons To Be Cheerful and That’s Enough Of That.
Reasons to be cheerful, Pt 3: the title of a well-known song by the late, great Ian Dury’s album Do It Yourself.
That’s Enough Of That: another less well-known song from a later album by the same artist.
Welcome to another article celebrating three Reasons To Be Cheerful about Newcastle United.
Along with this Polyannaish positivity, I’ll offer you one thing that’s getting on my wick – see That’s Enough Of That below.
Reasons To Be Cheerful:
1 Proper football
Go on, admit it, you don’t care about international football either. Who does?
On Monday night, we have an opportunity to build on a solid start to the season at Coventry. A chance to accumulate points* against Frank Lampard’s struggling Coventry side.
*Thank you, Steven Roger Bruce.
It’s Monday night football ffs. And it’s an away game. We could find ourselves going down a snake rather than up a ladder.
I remember a visit to the old Highfield Road ground, it must have been some point in the dark days of the 1980s. I’m sure Coventry had a revolting brown kit, the likes of which have never been seen before or since, thank goodness. I’m pretty sure they also had one of those dodgy plastic pitches. I can’t really remember. My attention was drawn by the crumbling walls and the ever-present threat of violence on leaving the ground. Maybe other people with long memories might remember the details. Coventry were perennial strugglers. One of those teams, like us, Man City, Chelsea, West Ham and others, whose existence revolved around avoiding relegation or trying to get promoted from the old Division 2.
Although we’ve had a solid start, the current league standings are based on five games. It’s no more than a form table.
Hopefully we can come back from the Midlands with points in Matty’s natty man bag.I imagine him keeping a dossier on the opposition teams in a slim, elegant leather man bag presented to him by Ralf Rangnick, tastefully embossed with the initials MJ in gold. I myself have never owned a man bag, nor do I wish to own one as long as I live. But I’m an unreconstructed old goat, and Matty is, as we know, a classy lad.
Despite all of the talk about XG, shots against and all the rest of it, points are points. Remember, we’re ahead of Chelsea, Manure, Spurs and The Unwashed. For now.
2 Reinforcements
Despite the dubious assertions of confidentiality about injuries from our new manager, it’s an open secret that injured players will be easing back into the squad this month. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing BDB bossing the defence and scaring the socks of defenders at set pieces. Just ease him in gently.
Hopefully Will Osula will be back soon. What are his technical and tactical attributes? I don’t know. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. He’s an agent of chaos. A charging testosterone-fuelled moose. Or as John Gibson put it, an octopus in football boots. To paraphrase Shearer, defenders don’t like it up ‘em, and they won’t like facing the marauding tangle of limbs that is Will Osula. I don’t even think he’s that good. I just know that his presence will spook the opposition and the more technical lads can swoop in to benefit from the carnage.
3 Henchmen
Has anyone else noticed Jaissle’s henchmen? Like a Bond villain, he has an army of handy looking lads in the background. They’re particularly noticeable when they all wear the beige/gold coach kit that looks like an oversized romper suit. People say they’re his coaching team, but I know bona fide henchmen when I see them.
One of my regrets about the modern world is that henchmen have fallen out of fashion. Henchmen were a staple of films and TV when I was a kid. Fair play to Matty for reintroducing them. Now he needs to choreograph them. They need to lurk menacingly in the background, attending to unspecific tasks, then spring into action on Herr Jaissle’s command: “After them you fools!”
Henchmen. This is what football needs right now.
That’s Enough Of That:
This time, I’ve had enough of pundit clothes*.
Like you, I despair of the media circus that surrounds modern football, so I don’t watch much of the so-called analysis on TV. But you can’t help the odd glimpse, can you? I’m both appalled and mystified by the clobber these ex-players and rentagobs wear to go on telly. Surely they have agents, wives or partners who aren’t afraid to give them an unvarnished opinion about their dodgy threads?
I wouldn’t even know where you could buy such tat. My dear departed Mam would have described their togs as “chatty”. She was often right about things. Maybe more than I allowed for, back in the days when I knew everything. I imagine your Mam was often right about things too.
I can’t even begin to describe these hideously ill-advised outfits. All I can say is this: go and hide behind the settee and watch any football on TV. The pundit clobber is barely credible. Especially when you see the standing up shots on the side of the pitch, where a capable, presentable female anchor person is earnestly encouraging ex-players to offer their dubious wisdom, while they stand awkwardly to give stilted responses.
I’m still recovering from the sight of that muskrat director of football bloke who led an attempted destroy and exit mission. Paul Mitchell, that’s the one. I didn’t trust him the minute I saw him wearing a nice v-necked sweater with a shirt and tie. Under a suit jacket. He looked like an overgrown kid in their new school uniform, kitted out at C&A, BHS or Matalan. Except with stubble. And his little mate Buncie emulating the look. An uncomfortable sight, I’m sure you’ll agree.
But Mitchell looked positively elegant next to the pundits and their shocking schmutter. Is it just me?
*I was going to say “all of the baloney about Man City”. But that’s getting enough coverage and a lot of it is tosh. We just want to see how it plays out when sanctions are announced just before Christmas. I wonder how far we might benefit? Like Bethlehem, not very far, I reckon.
For a clear-eyed analysis of the Man City case, there’s a good audio piece on BBC Sounds this week with football finance brainy bloke Kieran Maguire. It’s called “More Than The Score”.
Maguire’s message? Don’t get your hopes up.