Newcastle United – News Roundup – 14 August 2009.

Posted on August 14th, 2009 | 17 Comments |

Number one super guy
Number one super guy
Poor old Chris Hughton deserves a fair bit of credit for quietly taking over a job he doesn’t want and just getting on with it.

Ashley’s dumped him in it a few times now but Hughton simply remains unruffled, appearing to treat his frequent calls to stand-in as manager of one the most media-exposed teams in the country with no more alarm than he’d treat a hole in his sock.

According to The Chronicle, Hughton had this to say about the club sale saga at the club’s Benton training ground:

“I think the sooner there is a line drawn on the situation the better for everybody.

“I think that’s what everybody wants.”

That’s about as close as he gets to a complaint. If the man was any more relaxed he’d be horizontal. He puts me in mind of Hong Kong Phooey actually, although that’s probably more to do with my insane, laterally-articulated brain than anything else.

In the same article Hughton also confirms that Danny Guthrie and Nicky Butt will miss tomorrow’s game against Reading. He then left in his Phooeymobile to fight crime on the streets of Newcastle.

The Chronicle are also reporting that Newcastle are still tracking transfer targets despite the boardroom shambles. Apparently scout Norman Wooster was at the Ullevaal Stadion to watch Erik Huseklepp as Norway thrashed Scotland 4-0, a game in which Huseklepp scored the third goal. A ‘United insider’ said:

“The scouts are still doing their thing even with the club in its current state, and they have been following Skjelbred and Huseklepp for a while now.”

Amidst rumours that some bookies have suspended betting on who will be the next Newcastle manager, The Express reports that Kinnear’s the man. Meanwhile The Telegraph is reporting that talks between Newcastle and O’Leary have broken down. A ‘source’ said:

“He [Mike ashley] wanted to give David the chance to come back but was unable to come up with a package which suited both parties. The door is still open but there would have to be a rethink from both sides.”

Worryingly, the same article suggests that David Moyes has taken ‘significant steps’ towards landing Steven Taylor for Everton in an £8m deal.

As my colleague reported yesterday, Damien Duff is a target for some unnamed Premiership club. Nothing much to add to that except to say that the rumour-mill has either Fulham or Wolves as the main contenders for being the ‘unnamed club’ this morning.

Finally, according to Sky Sports, Ossie Ardiles fancies another crack at the manager’s job. Ossie said:

“If that was to happen then I would be delighted, of course, but I don’t think it will.

“I think whoever comes in will be looking for some other people, probably Alan Shearer because he is loved up there.”

Or possibly Joe Kinnear because we love him too.

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

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Posted on by Hugh de Payen in category: Chris Hughton and Damien Duff and Hugh de Payen and Joe Kinnear and Nicky Butt and NUFC gossip and speculation and NUFC sale saga and Steven Taylor , with tags: , , , ,
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17 Responses

  1. You’ve obviously got that Friday feeling Hugh. Enjoyed the Phooey tangent. Mixing it up a little, good to see!

  2. I do have a bit of a ‘Friday feeling’ and it has been an odd week. I play village cricket for possibly the worst team in the country, yet we won a match this week – our first ever win – which felt like winning the Ashes and has put me in a strange euphoric mood.

    Either that or it’s the drugs :)

  3. Blame the drugs, it’s probably cooler than village cricket.

    Just say no though kids, do football not drugs.

  4. Morning guys

    Cricket – now there’s a sport I don’t understand one iota, but well done on the historic win Hugh!
    Well just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, I hear some of the papers are predicting Joe Kinnear is on his way back! Bl**dy hell. Long ago I accepted that the likely outcome of the summer sale efforts, would result in Ashley staying, but if he employs Kinnear he has learnt nothing.

  5. geordie deb says:
    August 14, 2009 at 9:21

    Of course he’s learnt nothing!

    He’s a stubborn idiot who will never be told!

  6. For anyone else who didn’t have a clue what the writer was on about – I’ve found the wikiref for “Hong Kong Phooey”:

    The series stars Hong Kong Phooey, the “number one super guy” who travels about the city in his “Phooeymobile”, fighting crime with the aid of his manual “The Hong Kong Book Of Kung Fu”.[1] The stories begin at the police headquarters, where Hong Kong Phooey’s alter ego, Penry, works as a mild-mannered janitor under the glare of Sergeant Flint (“Sarge”). Also at the police station is Rosemary, the telephone operator, who has a crush on Hong Kong Phooey. After Rosemary gets a call and explains the crime, Penry runs into a filing cabinet and (always getting stuck) transforms himself into Hong Kong Phooey.

    A less than competent super-hero, Phooey’s crime solving is done either by fortunate blunder or, most likely, with the help of his faithful companion, Spot the striped police cat. Hong Kong Phooey is a respected superhero who always gets full credit for Spot’s success.

    A running gag is that Hong Kong Phooey is such a respected hero that when his incompetence caused him to crash into, harm, or otherwise inconvenience a civilian, the passerby declares what an honor it was to have so interacted with “the great Hong Kong Phooey.” For example, he drives the Phooeymobile through some wet cement, splattering the workers, who say that it was an honor to have a whole day’s work ruined by “the great Hong Kong Phooey.”

    I’m still digging on what might be a “laterally articulated brain” …… no joy so far, but sounds to me like a disease that Mike Ashley might have……

  7. Apologies, I had assumed Hong Kong Phooey would have had reruns on some Sky channel for those not old enough to remember the great superhero from the first time around.

    Then again I can see that, even if there were reruns, it might not be first choice viewing with over 8’s.

  8. geordie deb says:
    August 14, 2009 at 9:21 am (Edit)

    Cricket – now there’s a sport I don’t understand one iota, but well done on the historic win Hugh!

    =====

    ‘Morning deb.

    I’m not sure I understand cricket either, which might be one reason our team is so dreadful.

    I am very bad at most sports. I always wanted to be good at football of course but I’m an oaf. I suppose I can bowl quite fast at cricket, which at the level we play is sometimes enough, but I’m not particularly good at that game either. I tried racket sports such as tennis and squash but I was just too uncoordinated. I did some boxing for a while too, which I was a tiny bit better at, although I got beaten up more often than not and eventually quit because it hurt too much. The boxing led me to weight training though and I did some power-lifting for a few years, which I wasn’t too bad at for a while, but my right knee and lower back gave way under a 450lb squat once and the injuries niggled thereafter, so I had to give that up. And my golf is just laughable – I played twice a week, solidly, for about 3 years and the best I could manage was a 24 handicap and a lot of lake work.

    So, anyone for a game of darts?

  9. Hugh de Payen says:
    August 14, 2009 at 8:40 am
    I do have a bit of a ‘Friday feeling’ and it has been an odd week. I play village cricket for possibly the worst team in the country, yet we won a match this week – our first ever win – which felt like winning the Ashes and has put me in a strange euphoric mood.

    Either that or it’s the drugs

    hugh ive been there i used to play for u 13s and 15s for 3 years and im pretty sure we were worse than you and in those 3 years we won 1 game against morpeth(i think)and we cheated by using overage players the problem was that no one on our team except a couple actually liked cricket we just played it because there was nothing else to do

  10. Beye, I don’t actually dislike cricket, I’m just not particularly good at it.

    I can watch most sports actually, although I draw the line at things like ice dancing, synchronised swimming and anything to do with horses (I mean, WTF is ‘dressage’ all about?).

  11. Ladies Beach Volleyball is a fascinating game – its so complicated, I have to watch for hours to figure out the amazing tactics etc

  12. I miss the sheepdog trials on telly, I used to love watching Phil Drabble and the gang in “One man and his dog”.

    But of course, watching Northumberland’s greatest ever linguistic genius, Sid Waddell, commenting on the darts is the pinnacle of all sport. No question about it!

  13. Lol, yeah Sid Waddell’s a talent alreet. He’s up there with Rolf Harris amongst my all time favourite people.

  15. Really? I can’t imagine Rolf putting much fear into people unless he threatens to whip out his didgeridoo.

  16. Hugh,

    My friend had to do some story on Rolf’s house flooding. Apparently it was an annual event, and they covered the same, boring story every year. Anyway, the year before, someone else reported on it and they got something wrong, so Rolf told my friend “If you get it wrong this time, I’ll beatheshiddouddayer!”