THERE are many ways to assess a footballer's fame, but one of the most effective has always been the autograph test.

Never mind column inches, celebrity friends or an appearance on a TV chat show - the proof of players' popularity lies in the number of fans willing to chase them around Newcastle Airport in search of an all-important signature.

So, yesterday it was instructive to compile the inaugural Newcastle players league table as we waited to board our flight to Athens.

There was no surprise to see Alan Shearer on his own at the head of affairs, with a mixture of young and old descending on him before he had even got through the revolving doors.

Shay Given and Craig Bellamy filled the European spots, with the likes of Lee Bowyer and Jermaine Jenas revelling in Tottenhamesque mid-table mediocrity.

Stephen Carr and Nicky Butt found themselves battling against the drop, while the role of Crystal Palace was taken by third-choice goalkeeper Tony Caig.

"Tony who?" you might ask, and with good reason given that the same question was also being posed by more than one member of the North-East press pack.

Caig was a last-minute inclusion as additional cover for Given, whose wife is expecting her first baby.

The Newcastle No 1 could be called away at any minute and, should Steve Harper suffer an injury in training, Caig would find himself promoted to the starting line-up.

Should that happen, it is to be hoped Newcastle's defenders recognise him more readily than the club's autograph-hunting fans.

Newcastle's last European trip took them to Tel Aviv - a modern city built at the start of the last century - but in Athens, history meets you at every turn.

Simply driving from the airport was like sampling more than 2,500 years of human existence in a little over half an hour.

Towering over the heart of the city, the temples of the Acropolis underline just how pervasive Greek culture has been in the last two millenia.

Originally built in the fifth-century BC to honour the goddess Athena, the Parthenon, Dionysis Theatre and Temple of Athena Nike have exerted more influence on Western architecture than any other buildings in the world.

Greece's capital has also moulded Western society, introducing the concepts of democracy and suffrage to the rest of Europe.

With the North-East about to vote on whether or not to adopt a regional assembly, it is interesting to be able to peer out of your hotel window and see the very spot where the notion of a political assembly first became a reality.

The Greek philosopher Plato famously described democracy as "rule by the mob."

But his writings on the subject paved the way for the Enlightenment movement that spread liberal democratic ideas throughout Western Europe.

Without Greece's philosophical past, we would not be voting on the merits of regional devolution within England.

Regardless of whether you are for or against, it is thanks to Athens' political past that you have a choice at all.

As last night was my first night in Athens, I thought I would go for a meal in a traditional Greek restaurant.

And, while the food might have been nothing to write home about, the plates were certainly smashing.