Newcastle United – News Roundup – 12 July 2009.
Posted on July 12th, 2009 | 6 Comments |
Well, first cab off the rank today is, of course, Newcastle United’s first friendly of the season. Toon emerged fresh from their gruelling Irish “boot camp” to face the mighty Shamrock Rovers at Shamrock’s Tallaght stadium.
The Mirror’s Ciaran O’ Raghallaigh describes how “wobbly” Newcastle teetered on the brink of disaster, finally managing to “scrape” through by the narrowest of margins, three goals, scored by Steven Taylor, Shola Ameobi and Nile Ranger respectively.
Meanwhile, a report in the Mirror’s sister paper, The People, focused on Joey Barton in a piece by the risable Dale Finnigan, which describes how the Toon blacksheep, apparently, “failed to finish the game” and was “continually abused by the Irish supporters”. Translation: Hughton let the bairns have a bit of a run in the second half, and Barton received a few boos from the crowd when his name was read out.
Meanwhile the venerable News of the World reported that Barton’s performance in the first half was the highlight of the game, along with the pacy youngsters in the second half who gave Toon a “modicum of solace” apparently. The NOTW’s reporter, Martin Hardy has obviously been watching the last James Bond film recently.
Full match reports of this titanic encounter are available from NUFC.co.uk and NUFC.com. A Chris Hughton post match interview is also available here.
Returning to the “Mirror” group of drivel peddlars, Tyneside’s favourite football correspondent, “Anal” Alan Oliver fantasises reveals that he has been in contact with those “close pals of Shearer” once again. “Wor Anal” reports that these “pals” told him that Shearer is “more determined than ever” to land his dream job, and lead a charge back to Premiership glory. Alan then goes to quote this “pal” (the earlier “pals” seems to have shrunk to singular proportions) as saying:
“If Alan was going to walk away he would have done it by now. He is more determined than ever to become the next manager.
“Of course, he is frustrated at the way things are going and is impatient to get started so that he can try and put it all right.
“Alan’s as devastated as the fans at the terrible state the club is in – but he can assure them that his priorities have not changed one bit. He hasn’t had a holiday this summer because he wants to be on hand and ready to move into action if the call comes.
“At least he is getting his golf handicap down. But he’d swap the golf course for the Toon hot-seat any day.”
Oliver’s fantasy was also “mirrored” in another Mirror paper, The North East’s “Sunday Sun“, this time by Neil Farrington. This one informs us that this ubiquitous pal of Shearer’s also told The Sunday Sun personally of these astonishing revelations.
So who thinks well have an owner by the end of this week ?