The Toon – Twelve months on.
Posted on August 6th, 2010 | 131 Comments |
The new Championship season starts tonight. Remember that? You know, that thing we were in last season?
I remember the feeling back then, I think most if us do. Nobody knew what on earth was going to happen in a league which we hadn’t frequented for 16-years. It was a worrying time. I was there in our first game away at West Bromwich Albion, facing the unknown, well the relative unknown anyway as West Brom had been relegated with us.
We drew 1-1 that day, and it turned out to be the start of a very special season. We romped the league, despite the view from many indicating that we would be towards the bottom of the division come the end of the season. They were happy days in the end.
Now we are heading back into the Premier League, a place which could be described as home for us after so many seasons in the top flight. But to me, we will be returning to the Premier League feeling like strangers in our own house, so to speak.
I am getting that same feeling as I had last year, the unknown feeling. We may have only been away for one season, but what has changed since we left? We are now the outsiders looking in. Despite that, I happen to think we will be ok this season. I don’t think we will pull up any trees, I think we will suffer some hammerings throughout the season, but come May 2011 I believe we will survive.
The club has moved forward in the last twelve months. It hasn’t always been plain sailing, it hasn’t always been to some fans liking, but we have moved on. This is a different Newcastle United now, and whilst it may not have the star names included that previous Newcastle teams had, we do at least have the players that will work for the club.
That is a huge plus point in what is going to be a season of unkown quantities. We know the grounds, we know the opposition players, most of them anyway, we know the managers, we know a fair amount about the Premier League as a whole. What we don’t know is how Newcastle are going to stack up against them.
I believe we can cut it. Do you?
Yes I think we can cut it, but we may have a slightly blunt knife. But the never say die attitude thats developed is something that not many teams have as strong as us right now.
But hey lets see what happens. Imagine what it’ll be like seeing our first goal, our first win… here’s to hoping!