Last night I watched a film called the Peacemaker, an action movie about nuclear terrorism starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman which turned out to be a chase movie with the usual last second between a big bang and happy ever after. The film centres on a Serb Croat who appears to lose his child and wife in fighting and raises the two hundred million dollars required to have one of the stolen bomb. I am not sure who the Peacemaker was in the film or ever is, any more.
I write this while watching a BBC film God on Trial in which a group of Jews, some due to make their journey to the gas chamber at dawn and others who will live on in the concentration camp together with the new arrivals who have arrived a day early, debate the nature of God and the significance of human life in the universe where in our galaxy there are 1000 million stars with solar systems and planets. The drama comprises a series of moving and thoughtful statements included a factual analysis of the God of the Old testament in which evil was brought upon the Egyptians including the death of their first born innocent children because the Pharaoh the King decided against letting the chosen people go, although he was not punished and only the innocent, including his soldiers who had obeyed their orders were destroyed some in horrific and prolonged ways and concludes and reminds that the God of the Old Testament was not good or just, but just powerful and on the side of the Jews. This speakers concludes that all that has happened is that God has had decided to enter into a new covenant with Hitler.
Another took a different viewpoint reminding that it was irrelevant whether God existed in the form believed by the Jewish prisoners at that moment and the issue was that the only way Hitler who had tried to make himself God could convince his people that what they were doing to the Jews was right was not just to remove their wealth, their normal clothes, their hair, their teeth fillings and their dignity and make them live in filth but make them lose their faith, and therefore they use their faith as their final act of defiance. For although the setting of their deaths was dramatic and horrific it was shared whereas for many that final moment of realization that all the trappings of life were unnecessary and of no value, except how we live and how we face those final moment of physical self awareness.
The play ends with the group of contemporary visitors who are being told the story of Jews who put God on Trial standing among the physical souls of those who died that day as they prayed for forgiveness and eternal salvation, grateful the at they had been given those few moments of awareness to make peace with themselves and each other, and as the visitors to make their way to their coach, one reminds that despite the attempt of one man and his people to eradicate a whole race, we are still here, to which I add as the belief in God, despite the many faces, often held by people in conflict with each other.
Given this film of a play the future of one football manager and one football team has to be put into the perspective of the fundamental issues and choices now and times past. It was a day in which the nice manager of West Ham, the club he played for and loved resigned on principle because he had no control over who can and who left the club, especially the decision to sell two players to Sunderland in the last days and moments of the transfer window. His departure was not greeted with anything resembling the level of protests as built up in relation to the news that Kevin Keegan had effectively been sacked by the Newcastle Chairman and Board early on Tuesday morning following meetings held the previous day for what is believed to have been a similar situation when the club not only failed to recruit the number of players he needed to meet the situation he faced because of injury and developments at other clubs, but because of the attempts to sell players including Michael Owen who would be free to leave the cub in the New Year unless he signed a new long term contract.
For me the issue is no longer whether Keegan is the right person for the present situation, or ever was, of who did what and when or did not do what they should among owner, chairman, chief executive and Director of Football and his recruiting and buying team or whether the club or Keegan initiated the confrontation. For me this issue is that he is there and should stay and be supported in the way he wants to be because the alternative not just spells disaster for the Club, and for the morale of an important community, but would mark the final death of a great public participation sport with principles, confirming my fears that in the medium and long term the arrival of the bottomless millions of an Arab state into the Premiership is a very bad thing indeed. My hope is that not only will a way be found to keep Kevin as the Manager of Newcastle United Football Team but that the vents of the past 48 hours will shock all those involved in the management and promotion of the game to think again about the direction the game has taken and decide on a different course. I think this is unlikely but the hope is there.
I first supported Sunderland Football club when I came to the North East in 1974 as the first Director of Social Services for the new local authority of South Tyneside, and where I subsequently had a short spell as Director of Social Services for Sunderland, and my work included the management of several thousand employees and an annual revenue budget of ten of millions, and although a chief officer and fellow of the British Institute of Management, I was part of a management team headed by a Chief Executive and I was also accountable to an elected Council Committee equivalent to the board of a football club and which in turn was accountable to the board of the company controlling a football club. My main function however was the statutory provision of services to the most vulnerable and needy people in society, and I believed and acted on the basis that my duty to them took priority over everything else, including my personal interests and position.
While there are significant differences between a football club and a social services department and there has been a revolution the scale and organisation of both since I was involved with the latter I suggest that there are important similarities in priorities between both types of organisation then and now with the foremost a duty to serve and protect their best interests of the customers of the respective services.
On coming to the North East, I quickly learnt that the relationship between football clubs and the whole community, as it was between the local councils and the community was very different from that which I had previously experienced having worked in a senior management positions in the field of Social Work in the North West, in Yorkshire, and in London and where during this later period I held a national position which also enabled an understanding of the variations in the provision of social welfare services throughout Britain. The best way of describing this difference between the North East and other parts of Britain where I had lived, worked and studied is to say that the within communities there were great loyalties formed through common work and its hardships, commons faiths and common social livings which were and to some extent remain tribal and were all embracing to a level perhaps only found in the coal valleys of South Wales, the coal fields and industrial areas of Scotland and in Northern Ireland. This was also so because of the extended nature of families still living on one estate or within one town and that there had been had been only limited movement of people from other parts of the UK or outside these Island since World War II and that the overwhelming majority of people lived in council provide accommodation or low cost and standard rented private accommodation also grouped in high density estates.
Football in the North East as it was in the other cities and major towns was working class supported sport where you became part of a crowd loyal to one club and where you could give way to basic emotions, shouting and singing what you felt as and when you wished.
One of my first games was at Arsenal to see Stanley Matthews play for the opposing team, some sixty years ago. I then stood on the terraces at Crystal Palace when I knew all the faces around me as during years that the club required re-election for three consecutive seasons to the former third division south. I learnt to take extra care in the 1950's when the Palace played Mill wall because the reputation of some Millwall young men. I visited other grounds in the area where I was located between leaving home and coming to the North, including Oxford City and Liverpool.
Throughout the past thirty four years I have held season tickets at both Sunderland 1975-1990 and 2007-2008 and at Newcastle 1992-2007 and for this season I had decided attend matches at both clubs selectively and to watch others live on TV, partly because of the way the Premiership had developed and partly for non football reasons. During the eighties in to the nineteen nineties, visiting other grounds on organised supporters trips or through personally arranged transport, I experienced being stoned in a coach for over half an hour by pint sized children after leaving a match at Everton, was twice on an underground train wrecked by organised gangs associated with football in London, once by a Chelsea gang attacking members of the Sunderland London supports club and the second occasion when a West Ham gang broke out of the train to attack a Chelsea gang where both clubs had been playing other teams, this was on the night of cup game between Sunderland and Chelsea when Chelsea supporters within the ground attempted to attack Sunderland supporters, on a night where I was watching with several political leaders of South Tyneside Council from ordinary seats in a stand. There were also occasions within grounds including at Tottenham where I had to run for my life despite police protection and at Arsenal where the problem involved a young policeman who lost his head and where I agreed that the matter should be handled internally by the police.
I mention these things to demonstrate that I know something of reality of being a football fan and what it means to fans and to local communities in general, especially the passion and the rivalries.
I gave up on Sunderland in the early 1990's because I no longer enjoyed going to games, not just because the team lost but because of the lack of quality in performance which I was able to compare with other teams through the increasing showing of games on television. Going to my first match at St James when Newcastle returned to the Premiership was like switching between the Catholic and Protestant religions, but it was also a revelation, and having obtained a season ticket I then had that one period which perhaps only occurs once during any lifetime, of sporting bliss, when I found it difficult to wait until the next game. For me the team winning something was secondary to that rare combination of a team which played exciting and quality football, and which also won games, a manager who was able to communicate with everyone at whatever level of society. Who else could have convinced fans that selling Andy Cole to Manchester United was a good thing? We did not like it but we took it because you said so. We also took the disappointment of not winning the league title after coming close, as we did the disappointment of losing two subsequent visits to Wembley in the FA Cup.
There was also continuing hopes of a revival back to what had been glory days with the appointment of some, but not all of the subsequent managers, but after the departure of Sir Bobby Robson there was a growing discontent and lack of confidence that the situation would improve. The ground had been developed into an all seated super stadium and the core support also changed significantly, as did the atmosphere and the cost of attending games and for several years the stadium was generally filled despite poor play and losing streaks by players who were obscenely overpaid compared to the majority of those supporting.
I say this not just on the basis of my limited contact with other supporters at the ground, but as a regular listener to the Legends
' programme on Century radio and 606 on BBC 5, as a reader of local papers and watcher of regional TV sports news and programmes. In this context I have told Messrs Slaven and Horsewell at the Legends' programme that I will never listen again to the programme following their infantile, inappropriate and offensive approach to the situation during the first hour of the programme on Tuesday evening.
There was a combination of reasons why I did not renew my season ticket for the 2007-2008 seasons at Newcastle and bought one at Sunderland instead. It had become evident since the take over of Chelsea, and the input of Sky money, that without a similar injection of funds no team could hope to play on a regular basis in the Champions League or become a serious contender for the Premiership title on a regular basis. Having the funds was an essential but not the only ingredient for success, which also included the ability to pay the wages which the best contemporary footballers are able to command. The manager/coaching/ and back up staff had to possess the ability to organize and motivate a mixed group of millionaire performers over not one but several seasons, and cope with a continuous movement of some players between clubs, as well as working with the administration of a world wide business enterprise, and satisfying the supporters which included the interests of sponsors and hospitality clients, and achieve success not just now and again, but on a continuous basis. In addition this had to be achieved by providing Sky, and now Satanta and to a lesser extent the BBC and ITV and other TV channels showing and paying for live matches, entertaining spectacles and have a manager who is a larger than life personality who could front the club and handle the wall to wall 365 24 hours media interest for news and gossip.
Only four clubs appeared to possess the funds, management structure, stadiums and supporters to sustain these requirements. Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. I regard this situation as the death knell of the Premiership and the football leagues as they are at present, because the four clubs will become divorced from the rest and become a European and ultimately world wide Championship competition, breaking away altogether from the Premiership if they risk losing their position.
Monday 31st August appeared to confirm this view with the entrance of Abu Dhabi money, and while I was delighted for Man City supporters and the Man City Club which like Sunderland has attempted to remain focused on meeting the aspirations of its core fans, I speculated how long Mark Hughes would last if he fails to deliver. I also feared for the consequences of the development in the rest of British football.
I also used to follow American Football where what impressed me was the system for buying in knew players- the annual draft- which appeared to ensure that the teams performing badly had the first pick of each round of the draft and thus over a period of time every franchise had the opportunity to play and win the Superbowl as well as heading their Division. I suspect there is now no way to achieve more of a fair playing field between teams who make it into in the Premiership and except for the top four or five the rest can only hope of making it into competitions once or twice a decade, and winning one of the two cup competitions as happened this year in the FA Cup with Portsmouth. Only a similar Injection of funds to that promised to Manchester City will enable a club to join the first rank and remain there.
The problem with Newcastle is that it became a top four and world wide brand club under Sir John Hall and Kevin Keegan, doubling its season ticket holders, and one assumes also dramatically increasing its sponsorship and sales as well as administration and support staff as well as the new super stadium, without achieving trophies let alone sustaining a position after the departure of Sir Bobby Robson. It is now entrenched as a middle to lower Premiership position club and Kevin Keegan recently expressed the reality of this to the public.
As the situation went from bad to worse since the departure of Sir Bobby, the frustration and disillusionment of the core support has intensified although everyone also puts on a bold front when in contact of supporters of Sunderland and those of Middlesbrough and at away games. It became a different situation at home games where the atmosphere became increasingly depressing to match the performances. I decided not to renew my season ticket because I did not enjoy matches and I could not see any significant and lasting change despite the arrival of a new owner and his management and administrative appointees.
I turned back to Sunderland, (who I had continued to support through televised games) after going to the new stadium and the establishment of the new ownership and the appointment of Roy Keane, because there appeared to be a significant change with an emphasis on retaining and developing the supporter base and a honest and open manager who tried to ensure that the players never forgot who they were playing for first. The atmosphere in the promotion year was a throw back to times at Newcastle a decade ago and at Sunderland three decades beforehand.
I was thrilled and delighted with the news of the return of Kevin Keegan to Newcastle as the Manager, initially assuming he had accepted the position only in the knowledge that he would have the resources and authority to rapidly move the club forward, bringing in players necessary and moving on those who could not or were unwilling to fit into the new team. The extent of the task was evident at the first match of the return, when I sat next to a father who had brought up his son from Norwich for the day as a special birthday treat and who would be returning home that evening after the game.
I was amazed by the appointment of Denis Wise after the failure to bring Alan Shearer back into the club in some managerial capacity. This is not intended to imply a criticism of Mr. Wise but I did not and do not see how such an obvious Londoner could ever become acceptable to the fans unless he was seen to produce an amazing new player or two, with Berbatov and Robinho being the two current examples. On Sunday when I went for a drink to supporters ' pub in Sunderland before game against Man City, everyone was watching Rangers play Celtic in preference to Chelsea V Tottenham, (and confirms my belief that Newcastle and Sunderland should seek to join the Scottish Premiership, just as Tyne and Wearside would be better served becoming part of an independent Scotland). I have always found the antipathy towards London clubs and Londoners as strong among Newcastle core supporters as it is towards Sunderland and donning a club shirt and supping pints as the new owner has been seen to do.
I also did not see how someone as charismatic and hands on as Kevin Keegan could work with some one devoting themselves to recruitment and transfers unless Kevin had the overall control and not the other way around.
I was also disappointed to learn that it was not the intention of the new owner to do a Chelsea which has to be done if one wants to break through the bar of getting into Europe competitions on a year in and out basis. The Bolton or Portsmouth approach can only ever involve competitive success for one year or two but cannot be sustained for a club intending to fill a 50000 seater stadium.
Part of the Newcastle brand appeal has been the ability to attract world class players able to perform in the Premiership and before the old Gallowgate. While the Gallowgate loved players with big personalities such as Malcolm MacDonald, Ginola and Tino Asprilla, they also worshipped those who score goals regardless of their media appeal such as Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand and Peter Beardsley. Because of his constant injury problems Michael Owen has been a great disappointment and is yet to prove himself. At present the club has no great scorer or personality players with perhaps one new signing indicating that he might become a new hero, and this situation fuelled the sense of gloom which led one passionate Toon neighbour from not renewing for the first time since reaching adulthood, although unlike me he would never switch to also supporting another club.
I suspect that like many supporters I was thrilled with the performance at Manchester United on the opening day and accepted the defeat at Arsenal in the context of Arsenal having suffered an unexpected setback the previous week. I applied to join the Members club so as to able to buy tickets in advance of the general public after the Arsenal game such was my confidence that Newcastle would have a better season subject to further transfers and the injury position.
Similarly players and supporters were mesmerized by the performance of Man City at Sunderland last Sunday, explained by the news the following day, and which I did not expect will affect the rest of the season given the purchases that have been made and the ability of the manager to motivate and organize. I would be surprised if either set of supporters expected miracles, but continued to hope for good run in a cup competition.
The circumstances which have led to the present situation between Kevin Keegan and the club are only relevant in that they will determine how a resolution can be found, however short term. The departure of Kevin for any reason at the present time could destroy Newcastle United. While this is likely to be reflected in attendances and purchases I was concerned by the depth of feeling, and not just the behaviour of the teenagers, having watched Sky throughout the day and listening to the first hour of the Legend 's programme.
As an outsider it is not easy to see a medium term solution which does not involve Kevin being given the authority and the funds to take the club to the next level.
I cannot see Mr. Ashley and his team becoming acceptable again to Newcastle supporters and the Newcastle Community unless they are willing to make it clear that Kevin has control of all football matters, including the selection of players transferring in or out of the club, subject of course to the interests of the players and their representatives. Mr. Ashley and his team will also need to make funds available enabling Newcastle to compete in the current and changing market. If Mr. Ashley is unwilling or unable to do this then he should arrange to sell his interest to someone who can.
I also wonder if there are not roles for Sir Bobby Robson and Alan Shearer at the present time as both are able to command the attention and patience of supporters
The choice is a simple one between making Newcastle United what is likely to now become a top six club or everyone admitting that this is not going to be possible in the medium term and accepting the consequence in terms of support, wages and club income and expenditure. Newcastle United is still a worldwide brand, but without a top notch product it could quickly become another Leeds.
I write this while watching a BBC film God on Trial in which a group of Jews, some due to make their journey to the gas chamber at dawn and others who will live on in the concentration camp together with the new arrivals who have arrived a day early, debate the nature of God and the significance of human life in the universe where in our galaxy there are 1000 million stars with solar systems and planets. The drama comprises a series of moving and thoughtful statements included a factual analysis of the God of the Old testament in which evil was brought upon the Egyptians including the death of their first born innocent children because the Pharaoh the King decided against letting the chosen people go, although he was not punished and only the innocent, including his soldiers who had obeyed their orders were destroyed some in horrific and prolonged ways and concludes and reminds that the God of the Old Testament was not good or just, but just powerful and on the side of the Jews. This speakers concludes that all that has happened is that God has had decided to enter into a new covenant with Hitler.
Another took a different viewpoint reminding that it was irrelevant whether God existed in the form believed by the Jewish prisoners at that moment and the issue was that the only way Hitler who had tried to make himself God could convince his people that what they were doing to the Jews was right was not just to remove their wealth, their normal clothes, their hair, their teeth fillings and their dignity and make them live in filth but make them lose their faith, and therefore they use their faith as their final act of defiance. For although the setting of their deaths was dramatic and horrific it was shared whereas for many that final moment of realization that all the trappings of life were unnecessary and of no value, except how we live and how we face those final moment of physical self awareness.
The play ends with the group of contemporary visitors who are being told the story of Jews who put God on Trial standing among the physical souls of those who died that day as they prayed for forgiveness and eternal salvation, grateful the at they had been given those few moments of awareness to make peace with themselves and each other, and as the visitors to make their way to their coach, one reminds that despite the attempt of one man and his people to eradicate a whole race, we are still here, to which I add as the belief in God, despite the many faces, often held by people in conflict with each other.
Given this film of a play the future of one football manager and one football team has to be put into the perspective of the fundamental issues and choices now and times past. It was a day in which the nice manager of West Ham, the club he played for and loved resigned on principle because he had no control over who can and who left the club, especially the decision to sell two players to Sunderland in the last days and moments of the transfer window. His departure was not greeted with anything resembling the level of protests as built up in relation to the news that Kevin Keegan had effectively been sacked by the Newcastle Chairman and Board early on Tuesday morning following meetings held the previous day for what is believed to have been a similar situation when the club not only failed to recruit the number of players he needed to meet the situation he faced because of injury and developments at other clubs, but because of the attempts to sell players including Michael Owen who would be free to leave the cub in the New Year unless he signed a new long term contract.
For me the issue is no longer whether Keegan is the right person for the present situation, or ever was, of who did what and when or did not do what they should among owner, chairman, chief executive and Director of Football and his recruiting and buying team or whether the club or Keegan initiated the confrontation. For me this issue is that he is there and should stay and be supported in the way he wants to be because the alternative not just spells disaster for the Club, and for the morale of an important community, but would mark the final death of a great public participation sport with principles, confirming my fears that in the medium and long term the arrival of the bottomless millions of an Arab state into the Premiership is a very bad thing indeed. My hope is that not only will a way be found to keep Kevin as the Manager of Newcastle United Football Team but that the vents of the past 48 hours will shock all those involved in the management and promotion of the game to think again about the direction the game has taken and decide on a different course. I think this is unlikely but the hope is there.
I first supported Sunderland Football club when I came to the North East in 1974 as the first Director of Social Services for the new local authority of South Tyneside, and where I subsequently had a short spell as Director of Social Services for Sunderland, and my work included the management of several thousand employees and an annual revenue budget of ten of millions, and although a chief officer and fellow of the British Institute of Management, I was part of a management team headed by a Chief Executive and I was also accountable to an elected Council Committee equivalent to the board of a football club and which in turn was accountable to the board of the company controlling a football club. My main function however was the statutory provision of services to the most vulnerable and needy people in society, and I believed and acted on the basis that my duty to them took priority over everything else, including my personal interests and position.
While there are significant differences between a football club and a social services department and there has been a revolution the scale and organisation of both since I was involved with the latter I suggest that there are important similarities in priorities between both types of organisation then and now with the foremost a duty to serve and protect their best interests of the customers of the respective services.
On coming to the North East, I quickly learnt that the relationship between football clubs and the whole community, as it was between the local councils and the community was very different from that which I had previously experienced having worked in a senior management positions in the field of Social Work in the North West, in Yorkshire, and in London and where during this later period I held a national position which also enabled an understanding of the variations in the provision of social welfare services throughout Britain. The best way of describing this difference between the North East and other parts of Britain where I had lived, worked and studied is to say that the within communities there were great loyalties formed through common work and its hardships, commons faiths and common social livings which were and to some extent remain tribal and were all embracing to a level perhaps only found in the coal valleys of South Wales, the coal fields and industrial areas of Scotland and in Northern Ireland. This was also so because of the extended nature of families still living on one estate or within one town and that there had been had been only limited movement of people from other parts of the UK or outside these Island since World War II and that the overwhelming majority of people lived in council provide accommodation or low cost and standard rented private accommodation also grouped in high density estates.
Football in the North East as it was in the other cities and major towns was working class supported sport where you became part of a crowd loyal to one club and where you could give way to basic emotions, shouting and singing what you felt as and when you wished.
One of my first games was at Arsenal to see Stanley Matthews play for the opposing team, some sixty years ago. I then stood on the terraces at Crystal Palace when I knew all the faces around me as during years that the club required re-election for three consecutive seasons to the former third division south. I learnt to take extra care in the 1950's when the Palace played Mill wall because the reputation of some Millwall young men. I visited other grounds in the area where I was located between leaving home and coming to the North, including Oxford City and Liverpool.
Throughout the past thirty four years I have held season tickets at both Sunderland 1975-1990 and 2007-2008 and at Newcastle 1992-2007 and for this season I had decided attend matches at both clubs selectively and to watch others live on TV, partly because of the way the Premiership had developed and partly for non football reasons. During the eighties in to the nineteen nineties, visiting other grounds on organised supporters trips or through personally arranged transport, I experienced being stoned in a coach for over half an hour by pint sized children after leaving a match at Everton, was twice on an underground train wrecked by organised gangs associated with football in London, once by a Chelsea gang attacking members of the Sunderland London supports club and the second occasion when a West Ham gang broke out of the train to attack a Chelsea gang where both clubs had been playing other teams, this was on the night of cup game between Sunderland and Chelsea when Chelsea supporters within the ground attempted to attack Sunderland supporters, on a night where I was watching with several political leaders of South Tyneside Council from ordinary seats in a stand. There were also occasions within grounds including at Tottenham where I had to run for my life despite police protection and at Arsenal where the problem involved a young policeman who lost his head and where I agreed that the matter should be handled internally by the police.
I mention these things to demonstrate that I know something of reality of being a football fan and what it means to fans and to local communities in general, especially the passion and the rivalries.
I gave up on Sunderland in the early 1990's because I no longer enjoyed going to games, not just because the team lost but because of the lack of quality in performance which I was able to compare with other teams through the increasing showing of games on television. Going to my first match at St James when Newcastle returned to the Premiership was like switching between the Catholic and Protestant religions, but it was also a revelation, and having obtained a season ticket I then had that one period which perhaps only occurs once during any lifetime, of sporting bliss, when I found it difficult to wait until the next game. For me the team winning something was secondary to that rare combination of a team which played exciting and quality football, and which also won games, a manager who was able to communicate with everyone at whatever level of society. Who else could have convinced fans that selling Andy Cole to Manchester United was a good thing? We did not like it but we took it because you said so. We also took the disappointment of not winning the league title after coming close, as we did the disappointment of losing two subsequent visits to Wembley in the FA Cup.
There was also continuing hopes of a revival back to what had been glory days with the appointment of some, but not all of the subsequent managers, but after the departure of Sir Bobby Robson there was a growing discontent and lack of confidence that the situation would improve. The ground had been developed into an all seated super stadium and the core support also changed significantly, as did the atmosphere and the cost of attending games and for several years the stadium was generally filled despite poor play and losing streaks by players who were obscenely overpaid compared to the majority of those supporting.
I say this not just on the basis of my limited contact with other supporters at the ground, but as a regular listener to the Legends
' programme on Century radio and 606 on BBC 5, as a reader of local papers and watcher of regional TV sports news and programmes. In this context I have told Messrs Slaven and Horsewell at the Legends' programme that I will never listen again to the programme following their infantile, inappropriate and offensive approach to the situation during the first hour of the programme on Tuesday evening.
There was a combination of reasons why I did not renew my season ticket for the 2007-2008 seasons at Newcastle and bought one at Sunderland instead. It had become evident since the take over of Chelsea, and the input of Sky money, that without a similar injection of funds no team could hope to play on a regular basis in the Champions League or become a serious contender for the Premiership title on a regular basis. Having the funds was an essential but not the only ingredient for success, which also included the ability to pay the wages which the best contemporary footballers are able to command. The manager/coaching/ and back up staff had to possess the ability to organize and motivate a mixed group of millionaire performers over not one but several seasons, and cope with a continuous movement of some players between clubs, as well as working with the administration of a world wide business enterprise, and satisfying the supporters which included the interests of sponsors and hospitality clients, and achieve success not just now and again, but on a continuous basis. In addition this had to be achieved by providing Sky, and now Satanta and to a lesser extent the BBC and ITV and other TV channels showing and paying for live matches, entertaining spectacles and have a manager who is a larger than life personality who could front the club and handle the wall to wall 365 24 hours media interest for news and gossip.
Only four clubs appeared to possess the funds, management structure, stadiums and supporters to sustain these requirements. Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. I regard this situation as the death knell of the Premiership and the football leagues as they are at present, because the four clubs will become divorced from the rest and become a European and ultimately world wide Championship competition, breaking away altogether from the Premiership if they risk losing their position.
Monday 31st August appeared to confirm this view with the entrance of Abu Dhabi money, and while I was delighted for Man City supporters and the Man City Club which like Sunderland has attempted to remain focused on meeting the aspirations of its core fans, I speculated how long Mark Hughes would last if he fails to deliver. I also feared for the consequences of the development in the rest of British football.
I also used to follow American Football where what impressed me was the system for buying in knew players- the annual draft- which appeared to ensure that the teams performing badly had the first pick of each round of the draft and thus over a period of time every franchise had the opportunity to play and win the Superbowl as well as heading their Division. I suspect there is now no way to achieve more of a fair playing field between teams who make it into in the Premiership and except for the top four or five the rest can only hope of making it into competitions once or twice a decade, and winning one of the two cup competitions as happened this year in the FA Cup with Portsmouth. Only a similar Injection of funds to that promised to Manchester City will enable a club to join the first rank and remain there.
The problem with Newcastle is that it became a top four and world wide brand club under Sir John Hall and Kevin Keegan, doubling its season ticket holders, and one assumes also dramatically increasing its sponsorship and sales as well as administration and support staff as well as the new super stadium, without achieving trophies let alone sustaining a position after the departure of Sir Bobby Robson. It is now entrenched as a middle to lower Premiership position club and Kevin Keegan recently expressed the reality of this to the public.
As the situation went from bad to worse since the departure of Sir Bobby, the frustration and disillusionment of the core support has intensified although everyone also puts on a bold front when in contact of supporters of Sunderland and those of Middlesbrough and at away games. It became a different situation at home games where the atmosphere became increasingly depressing to match the performances. I decided not to renew my season ticket because I did not enjoy matches and I could not see any significant and lasting change despite the arrival of a new owner and his management and administrative appointees.
I turned back to Sunderland, (who I had continued to support through televised games) after going to the new stadium and the establishment of the new ownership and the appointment of Roy Keane, because there appeared to be a significant change with an emphasis on retaining and developing the supporter base and a honest and open manager who tried to ensure that the players never forgot who they were playing for first. The atmosphere in the promotion year was a throw back to times at Newcastle a decade ago and at Sunderland three decades beforehand.
I was thrilled and delighted with the news of the return of Kevin Keegan to Newcastle as the Manager, initially assuming he had accepted the position only in the knowledge that he would have the resources and authority to rapidly move the club forward, bringing in players necessary and moving on those who could not or were unwilling to fit into the new team. The extent of the task was evident at the first match of the return, when I sat next to a father who had brought up his son from Norwich for the day as a special birthday treat and who would be returning home that evening after the game.
I was amazed by the appointment of Denis Wise after the failure to bring Alan Shearer back into the club in some managerial capacity. This is not intended to imply a criticism of Mr. Wise but I did not and do not see how such an obvious Londoner could ever become acceptable to the fans unless he was seen to produce an amazing new player or two, with Berbatov and Robinho being the two current examples. On Sunday when I went for a drink to supporters ' pub in Sunderland before game against Man City, everyone was watching Rangers play Celtic in preference to Chelsea V Tottenham, (and confirms my belief that Newcastle and Sunderland should seek to join the Scottish Premiership, just as Tyne and Wearside would be better served becoming part of an independent Scotland). I have always found the antipathy towards London clubs and Londoners as strong among Newcastle core supporters as it is towards Sunderland and donning a club shirt and supping pints as the new owner has been seen to do.
I also did not see how someone as charismatic and hands on as Kevin Keegan could work with some one devoting themselves to recruitment and transfers unless Kevin had the overall control and not the other way around.
I was also disappointed to learn that it was not the intention of the new owner to do a Chelsea which has to be done if one wants to break through the bar of getting into Europe competitions on a year in and out basis. The Bolton or Portsmouth approach can only ever involve competitive success for one year or two but cannot be sustained for a club intending to fill a 50000 seater stadium.
Part of the Newcastle brand appeal has been the ability to attract world class players able to perform in the Premiership and before the old Gallowgate. While the Gallowgate loved players with big personalities such as Malcolm MacDonald, Ginola and Tino Asprilla, they also worshipped those who score goals regardless of their media appeal such as Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand and Peter Beardsley. Because of his constant injury problems Michael Owen has been a great disappointment and is yet to prove himself. At present the club has no great scorer or personality players with perhaps one new signing indicating that he might become a new hero, and this situation fuelled the sense of gloom which led one passionate Toon neighbour from not renewing for the first time since reaching adulthood, although unlike me he would never switch to also supporting another club.
I suspect that like many supporters I was thrilled with the performance at Manchester United on the opening day and accepted the defeat at Arsenal in the context of Arsenal having suffered an unexpected setback the previous week. I applied to join the Members club so as to able to buy tickets in advance of the general public after the Arsenal game such was my confidence that Newcastle would have a better season subject to further transfers and the injury position.
Similarly players and supporters were mesmerized by the performance of Man City at Sunderland last Sunday, explained by the news the following day, and which I did not expect will affect the rest of the season given the purchases that have been made and the ability of the manager to motivate and organize. I would be surprised if either set of supporters expected miracles, but continued to hope for good run in a cup competition.
The circumstances which have led to the present situation between Kevin Keegan and the club are only relevant in that they will determine how a resolution can be found, however short term. The departure of Kevin for any reason at the present time could destroy Newcastle United. While this is likely to be reflected in attendances and purchases I was concerned by the depth of feeling, and not just the behaviour of the teenagers, having watched Sky throughout the day and listening to the first hour of the Legend 's programme.
As an outsider it is not easy to see a medium term solution which does not involve Kevin being given the authority and the funds to take the club to the next level.
I cannot see Mr. Ashley and his team becoming acceptable again to Newcastle supporters and the Newcastle Community unless they are willing to make it clear that Kevin has control of all football matters, including the selection of players transferring in or out of the club, subject of course to the interests of the players and their representatives. Mr. Ashley and his team will also need to make funds available enabling Newcastle to compete in the current and changing market. If Mr. Ashley is unwilling or unable to do this then he should arrange to sell his interest to someone who can.
I also wonder if there are not roles for Sir Bobby Robson and Alan Shearer at the present time as both are able to command the attention and patience of supporters
The choice is a simple one between making Newcastle United what is likely to now become a top six club or everyone admitting that this is not going to be possible in the medium term and accepting the consequence in terms of support, wages and club income and expenditure. Newcastle United is still a worldwide brand, but without a top notch product it could quickly become another Leeds.
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