Cole: Impressed by Howe’s new Newcastle. In an interview with Adam Drury, former Newcastle striker, Andy Cole, gave his thoughts on the Eddie Howe renaissance at St James’ Park.
Cole, who won his only Premier League ‘Golden Boot’ award with the Magpies in the 1993–94 season with a record 34 goals also went on to look back at his days playing for Kevin Keegan’s ‘Entertainers,’ a previous era when Newcastle were also improving rapidly, and looked to be heading to the very top. Sadly, it was not to be though. Whilst there were top four finishes and a pair of cup final appearances after that, the Magpies never quite turned it into cups. Moving forward three decades though, Drury asked Cole what he made of the new, improved Newcastle this season? (more…)
Time to break the Anfield hoodoo!Venue: Anfield, Liverpool. Date: Sunday, 4th November. Kick off: 4:00pm Referee: Anthony Taylor (Manchester). UK TV: Sky Sports.
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this afternoon’s away game against the Scousers.
As you may know already, Anfield has been an awful hunting ground for the Magpies in recent times, and you’d have to go back to the the days of the permed one’s “Entertainers” to find our last victory on the red side of Merseyside, and even that was in the League Cup! That was a 0-1 fourth round victory on Wednesday 29th November, 1995. Some of you will also remember that this was also the year which saw the first of two classic 3-4 Premiership encounters at Anfield (with the next one happening the season after). The first one, in April 1996, is of course regarded by many as one of the finest Premiership games ever, and was only settled with a goal by Stan Collymore in the second minute of stoppage time. For our last Premiership victory, you have to go all the way back to 16 April 1994, when we chalked up a 0-2 victory with Andy Cole and Rob Lee doing the honours on that occaision. Andy Cole scored a total of 41 goals in 46 games that season, which wasn’t a bad effort. (more…)
A drunken hooligan invades the pitch at Carrow Road.Venue: Carrow Road, Norwich. Date: Saturday 10th Dec, 2011. Kick-off: 3.00pm. Referee: Martin Atkinson. Pies: D.Smith.
The Magpies of Newcastle United will be looking to pick themselves up after a tough trio of fixtures and recent injury woes as they visit the Canaries of Norwich City.
Even though this is an away game, some may have thought this would be an easy three points, until recently that is. The loss of Fabricio Coloccini with a thigh strain, as well as Steven Taylor for the whole season with a knacked achilles tendon puts a new complexion on matters as our lack of strength in depth has eventually been exposed. Like ourselves, Norwich have been something of a “surprise package” in the Premiership so far. Though Norwich City’s entire first team squad is worth far less than the amount Mike Ashley received for Andy Carroll alone, they are currently sitting quite comfortably at 11th in the table. That is quite an achievement for such a modest squad who were expected to be rooted at the bottom of the table, and not to be sniffed at, especially in the light of our recent circumstances injurywise. More on that below however…
Tough acts to followOn arrival at Newcastle United Demba Ba was handed the number 19 shirt, leaving the number 9 shirt vacant. Does this indicate that there are plans to recruit another striker to fill it or is the shirt going to be retired for a while?
The Newcastle United number 9 shirt is of course sacred. Leaving it unfilled for a while – after Obafemi Martins moved to Wolfsburg – was a deliberate ploy by former manager Chris Hughton who said:
“It’s something I’ve done deliberately. We have a lot of strikers here and I’m quite sure that every single one of them would have wanted to wear the No 9 shirt. As soon as I came to this club I knew what it meant and it’s both my decision and a combination of a few things.
“It can be a heavy number to carry, a burden, and wearing it is an achievement which I want somebody to grow into. I want somebody to earn the right to be Newcastle’s No 9. I don’t want to suggest that the strikers here aren’t worthy of it because each of them has a real strong value.
“I don’t anticipate years going by without one, but I know what the number nine is and I don’t want it to be an issue. The only issue I want is the normal stuff of the team performing well or not performing well, winning games or not winning games, and that’s very much team based.” (more…)
Andy Cole: Sold by Keegan two weeks after this tattoo was done!January. Possibly the most disappointing month of the year.
Christmas is over, you are back to work and still wondering what happened on New Years Eve and where you are going to find the money to pay for all the presents, booze and food you went through during the festive period.
January 2011 turned started out as usual, nothing much was happening, nothing much was going to happen. The media tried it’s best to drum up stories to make us watch their television channel or buy their papers, but it just wasn’t working; NUFC were having a very uneventful January. This was a cause of much frustration for some, as it was well believed at the time that we needed strengthening. So, in time honoured NUFC tradition we waited until the last minute until we did something that took everyone by surprise. Not just us NUFC fans, but the footballing world as we sold Andy Carroll to Liverpool. (more…)
