Why Newcastle really are United (From The Northern Echo)

Why Newcastle really are United

10:17am Friday 27th November 2009

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THERE has been plenty of mud thrown at Newcastle United in the last 12 months, and justifiably, much of it has stuck.

From the You Tube revelations of the Kevin Keegan court case to the ham-fisted manner in which the St James’ Park renaming wrangle was handled, Newcastle’s hierarchy have continually dragged the club’s reputation through the gutter.

On the field, things have not been much better. After nine months of chronic underachievement, the Magpies were relegated at Villa Park on the final day of last season without managing to summon a single shot on target in the whole of the second half.

Players, management, coaching staff, board – everything about Newcastle United smacked of failure.

Some things haven’t changed. Mike Ashley continues to treat the club’s supporters with contempt, while managing director Derek Llambias digs himself into an everdeeper hole on each occasion he opens his mouth.

But deep in the dressing room, change is in the air.

Where once there was disharmony, suddenly there is unity. Where once there was a laissez-faire attitude about life with the Magpies, now there is a steely determination to consistently give 100 per cent. And where once there was a steady string of defeats, now there is a fourgame winning run that has taken Newcastle back to the top of the Championship.

Having previously pilloried people for the mess that unfolded in the second half of last season, it is only right to now praise Newcastle’s players for the way in which they have attempted to turn things around.

Wait a minute, I hear you cry, shouldn’t effort, commitment and endeavour be minimum requirements for footballers who are still on up to £50,000-a-week?

Yes, I would have to reply, they should. But the footballing world is littered with players who feel they deserve better, and who either refuse to lower themselves to the standard they are forced to play at, or use off-field uncertainty and controversy as handy excuses for failure.

Let’s be honest, at the start of the current campaign, how many of you saw Jose Enrique and Fabricio Coloccini remaining on Tyneside to emerge as key components of the most successful defence in the Championship?

Did many people envisage Alan Smith emerging as a genuine leader and a captain fully deserving of the armband?

And did anyone imagine Kevin Nolan would be Newcastle’s leading scorer with nine goals from his last 14 matches?

Under-performers last season, a core of senior players have picked themselves up, dusted themselves down, and pledged to atone for previous mistakes.

Prior to the start of the season, they chaired a meeting in which their team-mates were ordered to put up or shut up. Some, like Obafemi Martins and Damien Duff, left. Others stayed behind to contribute to the promotion campaign.

Their efforts to this point have been thoroughly commendable, and along with the 40,000 fans who continue to support Newcastle through thin and even thinner, the players who make up the current squad should be applauded. They have prevented a bad situation becoming a crisis that is even worse.

IN many people’s eyes, the rot set in at St James’ when former chairman Freddy Shepherd sacked Sir Bobby Robson for finishing fifth in the Premier League. If Liverpool were to suffer the same fate next May, would George Gillett and Tom Hicks be wrong to get rid of Rafael Benitez?

I don’t think so. This week’s failure to qualify for the knock-out stage of the Champions League has seen Benitez’s stock plummet faster than Liverpool’s bank balance, and after five-and-a-half years at Anfield, the time is surely approaching for the Spaniard to move on.

A change of manager now makes little sense, as almost all the leading candidates to replace Benitez would be unavailable, but next summer, with a World Cup likely to free up a host of international managers, could be the right time for the axe to fall.

Regular bouts of boardroom bickering have hardly helped Benitez’s cause, but the Liverpool boss cannot claim that he has not been given sufficient money to challenge for the Premier League title.

With his side desperately in need of a striker this summer, Benitez spent £38m on a full-back (Glen Johnson) and a midfielder (Alberto Aquilani) who was always going to be injured for at least two months. It is hard to imagine Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger or Carlo Ancelotti doing the same.

I’VE banged this drum before, but I make no apologies for doing so again. Why is Phil Taylor never considered a serious contender for Sports Personality of the Year?

Last weekend, Taylor claimed his third consecutive Grand Slam of Darts title, beating his closest challenger, Scott Waites, 16-2 in one of the most one-sided finals imaginable.

In the last 12 months he has won every title going, bar the Premier League, where he lost to world number three James Wade in the final.

No other British sportsman or woman dominates their event to the same extent as Taylor, and if he was a member of the BBC-backed BDO rather than the Skysponsored PDC, it is hard to imagine he would be marginalised once again when Auntie hands out her honours next month.

MARTIN Johnson claims England’s rugby team are “getting there” after an autumn series that saw them lose to Australia and New Zealand and scrape a narrow win over Argentina.

He’s right, provided “there” is fifth in the Six Nations table, one place ahead of Italy.

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