‘You never saw the lips on that dog' (Tina Tyke, for the uninitiated)
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| Welcome to...the Sports Direct Arena |
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I can confirm otherwise. Having lived outside the north east for over 20 years, and having not seen the Super Reds at the Sports Direct Arena since the Premier League (19 years ago – how time flies!), I still despise them. Admittedly, the Mags have provided plenty of comedy over the intervening years (Bowyer and Dyer fighting on the pitch, relegations, crying Geordies, unpopular owners - I wouldn't change them for the world!) but every time I see a black and white striped shirt I still get that feeling of irritation, verging on hatred.
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| Like our chances..a tall order. |
Luckily these days, I don’t have to put up with their rubbish. Do they still think they are ‘bigger than Barca’? Do they still think they have a divine right to win things? Well, the short answer seems ‘yes’. Even on attaining promotion, all they do is bleat about whether Mike Ashley will give them the ‘war chest they deserve’. Mind, even Slacki fell into their trap. Something about ‘they should be in the Premier League, really.’ Christ, this raises my heckles. WHY should they? So, come to that, where should WE be? Cos if this is about size of club, size of crowds…what are we? Division 3? I actually quite like it the way it is, where the league is decided upon RESULTS and we supporters of ‘teams like Barnsley’ celebrate the small victories cos we know we’ll never win owt (major) while ‘teams like Newcastle’ spend the last 50 years wondering why they haven’t won the kind of trophy they 'deserve'. And by that, I don’t mean the division 2 title (isn’t this their 3rd in 30 odd years?)
Oh yes, there was a match. You all know the drill. We pay 32 quids to watch a match from the heavens. Though actually, it wasn’t that bad a view – for a seagull. You are high enough that you can see the action, though too high to (usually) know which player is which (though I can see Callum Elder is s*** from here). Dave complained of vertigo and (seriously) I found myself a little dizzy looking around the stadium.
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| The teams line up. |
And for 20 minutes we made it even more difficult to see, cos we were camped in their half, busy creating nothing. But neither were they. Then they broke on our left (the north eastern press raved about this, but all they did was get the ball across to where Elder can’t defend…then doubled up on him giving him even less than the no chance he already had, before a ball was cut back for Perez to flick home). It was all a bit too easy and no more than we expected, I s’pose.
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| Only in Geordieland...WKD on offer. |
Second half, we were pegged back. Davies started pulling out the saves but it was only a matter of time. They blazed one over an open goal before Davies parried another one straight to a Mag. 2-0, game over. Or was it? Weirdly, we had 2 big big chances to nick a goal, as Watkins came on and headed one at the keeper when he should have done better, while….I can’t remember the other chance (this IS 5 days later) but it was a good one. I think someone was clean through….anyway, imagine if both of those had gone in!
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| The north-east's biggest conservatory. |
By now, the Reds crowd was in good voice, baiting the silent Mags about the Championship championship going to Brighton, but then it happened. For the 3rd time that day Newcastle made some noise (3-0, £10m Dwight Gayle came on and scored within minutes) and before the cheers died down, news came through: those Albion idiots had conceded to 10 man Villa and the Mags could celebrate like they’d matched their finest achievement of the last 48 years. Which of course, they had. Let’s just say one advantage of this was that we only had to listen to a minute of crowing before it was full-time and we could escape the stadium and into the empty streets. Otherwise the only noise I heard outside the away end was the clatter of rain on the roof (it wasn't raining; it's the sound of Geordie applause at the SD Arena). As for us, like our season since January, our eagerly anticipated trip to the north-east was an anti-climax. Unlike some other teams, September cannot come SLOW enough for us.
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| Can you make out ANY of our (outfield) players? |
*** Davies. Saved us from conceding 5 or 6.
** Watkins. Came on and FINALLY we had a presence up front.
* No idea. The rest were just dots moving around a pitch.
Londontykes' MOTM: 1. Davies 2. James 3. Watkins
Despatches:
We might rate Scowen, but he was certainly muscled out of it today by bigger, better players. Hopefully the scouts were watching and he’ll stay! Elderwas a catastrophe. Nevermind the hapless defending, he sh*ts himself in possession, either miscontrolling or letting it go under his foot and out of play. Bradshaw was weak up front. I’m losing faith. Kent…guess what? Took on players till he lost it. I'll miss shouting at him when he's gone.
Pre-match north-eastern tradition that it is…where else can you find a topless bar before midday on a Sunday? Sure enough, Slacki and Andy found the right place. (***Note: they both SWEAR they didn't know this till the beers were bought).
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| Sir Bobby. Head and shoulders above the rest. |
Drink du jour: f** all pre-match (see above – Sarah wasn’t especially interested in drinking in a titty bar) though a multitude of quality ales later as we bar hopped; Kronenburg (strangely smelling Goth bar), Asahi (Wagamama – food pitstop), Brooklyn (cinema bar), Krusovice and some wheat beer in the craft pub. So my weekend wasn’t all wasted. Also enjoyed Slacki upturning his Jager in his Jagerbomb...so he drank pure energy drink, wondering where the good bit was...
The Damage:
£32 ent
£3 prog (anyone want a free Rafa poster?)
£42.25 travel
£24 travelodge
= £101.25
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| Pre-match outside #9. |
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| Sports Direct panorama. |
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| Those deemed not good enough. |
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| Outside the elderly (by SJP standards) East Stand. |
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| Inside, looking at the ginormous West Stand. |
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| The view from Row X. |
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| 'Dessert' Geordie-style. A dish of pork crackling. |
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