[Archived] Loony Toons: Newcastle Preview

[bob fleming]

Joke in 'ere!

If it was every in doubt it's not now, they'll be protesting at our match tomorrow. Every time we go up there there's a protest, it's been that way for about five years now, or at least every time I go anyway. What a club.

[Nelsta]

Apparentley Kinnear is only there till the end of October, Then Shearer will take over with Keegan being appointed as the director of football.

[gumboots]

Apparentley Kinnear is only there till the end of October, Then Shearer will take over with Keegan being appointed as the director of football.

Where'd you get that story from? Not the Kinnear bit which is widely reported but the rest? alan Shearer won't go in there with a director of football, not even Keegan and he's far too clever to go anywhere near a club in such turmoil as they are. If he takes over it will be when the ship has been stabilised and there's a reasonable chance of success. He can't afford to fail and tarnish his legend atatus.

[philipl]

Another cockney to keep the Geordies feeling inferior in their own club!

At least he won't be directly in charge but it will give the players a bit of a lift/incentive. As for the Nigerians buying Newcastle by the end of October- I think that is a bit far fetched but lets see.

[Nelsta]

Where'd you get that story from? Not the Kinnear bit which is widely reported but the rest? alan Shearer won't go in there with a director of football, not even Keegan and he's far too clever to go anywhere near a club in such turmoil as they are. If he takes over it will be when the ship has been stabilised and there's a reasonable chance of success. He can't afford to fail and tarnish his legend atatus.

Some Geordie reporter on TalkShyte.

Apparentley that's when the Nigerian take over is gonna happen.

[gumboots]

Some Geordie reporter on TalkShyte.

Apparentley that's when the Nigerian take over is gonna happen.

Yeah and they've been getting it right for the last umpteen weeks haven't they? They know nowt and say too much. Shearer said recently there's no way he would want to work under someone else who was buying players for him - he'd want sole responsibility for everything to do with the team and even if some Nigerian consortium does buy, it won't be fixed straight away, so I don't see him taking the job on. could be wrong but I think it's Geordie wishful thinking.

[Majiball]

Interesting that Ince hasnt ruled out playing Bunn in goal.

Would be a huge blow to Brown and I can see a lot of pressure on Bunn if he is thrown into St. James Park. Cant see it myself.

I'd be quite happy to see Bunn in goal, interesting he was being "bigged up" in the press today. He's highly rated and I've never had much confidence in Brown.

[RoverRich]

I'd be quite happy to see Bunn in goal, interesting he was being "bigged up" in the press today. He's highly rated and I've never had much confidence in Brown.

Was just about to mention that. Nelsen here praising him: http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/Bl...ooks.4533292.jp

[Amo]

Newcastle are there for the taking. Shambolic state of affairs, players in no man's land.

I'll dodge the cliché, and say we'll actually get something out of this.

2-1 Rovers.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

We're going to win 1-0 with Santa Cruz scoring with his hand.

[percy]

Joke in 'ere!

If it was every in doubt it's not now, they'll be protesting at our match tomorrow. Every time we go up there there's a protest, it's been that way for about five years now, or at least every time I go anyway. What a club.

Was there a protest last season? We actually hung around for 10mins at the end in the hope of catching one, but it never materialised. What a disappointment. We had to just take Derbyshire's well struck match winner as consolation instead. It was hardly worth the trip, I think I was shortchanged. They must have been tired or running late; something like that. Or maybe the lack of a protest was like a kind of protest in itself...they should make the guidelines clearer on the ticket. No wonder they want the cockney mafia out.

It's a rum do when you don't get to take in a protest whilst at St James, it's practically part of the matchday experience for most visiting fans!

Fingers crossed for all those going tomorrow - hope you get a belter!

[Manc Rover]

Apologies if this has already been posted but.....................wait for it............................Joe Kinnear is the new Newcastle manager. I guess Mike Bassett was unavailable!

[Roost]

From Toontastic.net......

On Second Thoughts: Alan Shearer

He is remembered as a Newcastle legend, but the most significant period of his career - by far - was at Blackburn

Alan Shearer never scored more than 30 league goals in a season for Newcastle. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Those observing from afar tend to rank another person's relationships purely on longevity. Size definitely matters. On the inside, it can be different: the person trapped in a loveless 30-year marriage might still long wistfully for the magic of that two-month fling back in 1974, or those final hours in 1976 before the injunction kicked in.

If that's the rule, Alan Shearer's career might be the exception. To the man himself only his nine-year career at Newcastle seems to matter, and at times you wonder if he's been to Lacuna Inc. to erase the memory of his four years at Blackburn. Yet to many an impartial observer, those years were significantly more exciting, rewarding and memorable than his time at St James' Park. When Newcastle meet Blackburn Park tomorrow, only one set of fans should still be chanting Shearer's name, and none of them will be topless.

The differences between Shearer's work at Blackburn and Newcastle are startling. At Ewood Park he was, as one blogger put it recently, "some sort of demented machine"; at Newcastle he grew into a caricature of himself, like Oasis's later albums. At Blackburn he was omnipotent on the field; at Newcastle he was only omnipotent off it, getting rid of managers such as Ruud Gullit and showing such a masterful grasp of politics that you feel it's not only his anodyne offerings that mean he should be somewhere else other than the Match of the Day sofa.

Even the ending of each club career was in stark contrast. Shearer's last act as a Blackburn player was to ram home a penalty for England in the Euro 96 shootout against Germany, having proved himself Europe's best centre-forward; his last act for Newcastle was to knack his knee against Sunderland and limp into retirement.

At Blackburn he scored 112 goals in 138 league games; at Newcastle he scored 148 in 303. That's an extra 165 games for 36 goals: Emile Heskey has suffered years of ridicule for less (or, rather, more). At Blackburn, Shearer scored goal after goal after gloriously inevitable goal, ramming the ball in viciously from all angles and distances. When Shearer scored a scorcher for England against Poland in 1996, Sir Alex Ferguson best summed up his quality by saying, "he hit it as if he meant to kill it."

Shearer was actually a Newcastle player at that point, and for his first season at St James' Park he was every bit as good as at Blackburn. Then, in a pre-season game at Everton ahead of the 1997-98, he suffered ankle-ligament damage and was simply never the same. The explosiveness that was central to his game had gone. It's nobody's fault his game dropped off after that, but that simple fact means that, in terms of seasons in which he performed at the very peak of his powers, it's Blackburn 4-1 Newcastle.

He hustled around 20 goals a season for Newcastle, and hit 30 in all competitions in 1999-2000, but his output could not match his earlier efforts. He still got by on a potent combination of experience and aura, and he never lost his finishing ability, which is something a No9 takes to the grave. But it was all a diluted version of what had gone before. He was a deluxe hasbeen.

Unthinkably, he even started missing penalties. Sometimes he was horribly ineffective. In his second, injury-hit season, 1997-98, he scored only two goals in 17 league games, and the only thing he connected properly with was Neil Lennon's head.

Shearer raised his right hand in celebration more than 30 times in the league for three consecutive seasons between 1993 and 1996, but never at Newcastle. Further analysis of his Premier League statistics show that he contributed 41 assists from open play in 138 league games for Blackburn, and 69 in 303 for Newcastle. He was a very good player for Newcastle, but for Blackburn he was a great one.

Yes he broke Newcastle's goalscoring record, an obviously worthy achievement, but as with so many records, that is a reward for longevity as much as excellence. And if he was as good as he and his disciples thought, why was he slumming it around mid-table for half his Newcastle career?

Shearer, with the ruthlessness and desire of the very top player, had no compunction about ratting his way out of a sinking ship in 1996; why not do so again? Many will cite simple love of the club. Do me a favour. Such a perception does not fit at all comfortably with Shearer's merciless edge, or the persistent rumour that he wanted to join another United, Manchester, in 1996. Just as the former West Indian fast bowler Colin Croft would, in the words of a team-mate, "bounce his grandmother" if he thought there was a wicket in it, so Shearer would do absolutely anything necessary to further his cause. It's what made him, briefly, so great.

In the opinion of many the reason, as Michael Hann noted, is because the club had become an "adjunct of his ego". You suspect Shearer knew he was gone at the very highest level - and a cynic would attribute his decision to retire from international football in 2000, ostensibly to focus on Newcastle, to this as well - and needed to fuel his ego in other ways. Shearer knew he could do no wrong; that, if he said jump, 40,000 Geordies would say, "Howay". Unsurprisingly, he fed off that.

As did they. The fusion and the delusion suited both parties. Whereas Blackburn fans have moved on from being dumped, and still regard - and you'll like this - Simon Garner as Mr Blackburn, Newcastle fans are so in thrall to Shearer that, as Simon Barnes noted, the club cannot move on until Shearer has had his stint as manager.

The peculiar psyche of Newcastle, which encourages the fans to deify weaklings like Kevin Keegan and run proper professionals like Sam Allardyce out of town, means that they crave a hero who ticks certain basic boxes, and Shearer did that. In return he got an adoration entirely disproportionate to his achievements, and a reputation that consequently stayed intact despite compelling evidence to the contrary.

Which leaves only one problem. Shearer left Blackburn because he wanted to win trophies, yet at Newcastle the closest he came was being a fly on the wall during Arsenal and Manchester United's FA Cup final processions of 1998 and 1999. David May has more championship medals than Shearer. It was not supposed to be like this.

Shearer's signing was supposed to push Newcastle on from the heartbreaking failure of 1995-96 yet, though they finished second in his first season, they never mounted a significant title challenge. Shearer, and Newcastle, revised their expectations as time went on, which allowed them to present a picture of perfect, contented unison. Maybe that's truly how they felt. But for many of us, Shearer as we want to remember him - by some distance the greatest English centre-forward most of us have ever seen - will always be associated with blue-and-white halves, not black-and-white stripes.

[CrazyIvan]

Excellent article.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

An excellent article - but the truth is even more sad.

The Shearer of his first season in blue&white had an edge in pace that made him almost unstoppable. Each injury (including his first cruciate) took a little edge out of his game.

He will still go down as one of the greatest english centre forwards of the modern era. I sincerely believe that without his injuries he would have been judged as one of the worlds best ever forwards.

In all likelihood, Rovers would probably have finished second in their first season back (if he hadn't got injured) - and possibly won the Premiership a year early if he had been fully fit from the start of the season.

Probably the most disappointing from a Rovers fans perspective - I am sure that if Jack had persuaded him to stay in the summer of 96, Shearer would have insisted that Rovers go and buy the very best Europe had to offer to match his own ambitions. Oh what could have been.

As an aside - this article should be printed in the LET - maybe Rovers fans would then appreciate how truly lucky we were to have Shearer at our club in his prime.

[1864roverite]

I think its a great article. I also think DMTP might be slightly off in the supposition we may have finished second if Shearer hadnt injured his ligament, my view is such was the force of Rovers play we may well have actually won the league itself.

I have had my boos at Shearer on his return especially when he saluted the Blackburn End after scoring for the barcodes but, like one Simon Garner, there is and only ever will be One Alan Shearer and like the article so emphasises, his only honour club wise was with BRFC

[John]

Ince pretty much confirms that Jason Brown will start in goal tomorrow (Rovers World Video Interview)

[USABlue]

Newcastel, a club in crisis. No doubt we will put on our "charitable donation" heads and gift them the shot in the arm win they need. Tis written.

[Plastic Head]

Only 1 possible result given the circumstances.

4-1 defeat.

[Mr. E]

TBH Brown has been at the club for some time, and he may be solid but he probably hasn't shown anything fantastic in training, or else he would have been in the frame by now. And we most definitely need a fantastic goalkeeper - so make the gamble and give it to Brann.

Newcastel, a club in crisis. No doubt we will put on our "charitable donation" heads and gift them the shot in the arm win they need. Tis written.

Then we need to rewrite it. It's a mentality, nothing more. If Ince needs to have 1 thing going for him, it's to make the players listen to him. So we need to forget all about our past games and thrash this sorry club.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

The Shearer article is bang on, he was never the same player after the injury in the friendly v Everton.

[Anti-Dingle-Brigade]

TBH Brown has been at the club for some time, and he may be solid but he probably hasn't shown anything fantastic in training, or else he would have been in the frame by now. And we most definitely need a fantastic goalkeeper - so make the gamble and give it to Brann.

Then we need to rewrite it. It's a mentality, nothing more. If Ince needs to have 1 thing going for him, it's to make the players listen to him. So we need to forget all about our past games and thrash this sorry club.

Who is Brann?

[colin]

From Toontastic.net......

Padihampedro.

They stole it from The Guardian

here

[Fife Rover]

Who is Brann?

I think he might mean Mr Bunn the baker.

[Mr. E]

Who is Brann?

I'll remember his proper name if he starts and wins us the game .