Eight more years for the three wise monkeys.If you have been reading Newcastle United stories in the media recently, you will probably have noticed the announcement that Mike Ashley has decided to give Alan Pardew and his backroom staff, John Carver, Steve Stone and Andy Woodman eight year contracts.
There has a recent precedent of course, with chief scout Graham Carr having already been given an eight year contract back in June. Both Derek Llambias and his Public Relations assistants in the the local (Trinity Mirror Group) media such as Lee Ryder and Mark Douglas have been getting excited to the point of tumescence about this latest round of contract extensions, with Douglas even having the impertinence to tell we fans, his readers, how we must think and behave from now on. He suggested that like all fans (and unlike Ashley and Llambias), we are simply primitive, bed sheet wielding “knee jerk” creatures of impulse, but that we must now bow down in obeisance to Ashley’s longterm plan and restrain ourselves from any form of criticism should the club have a bad run of results. (more…)
O'Neill: Tales of irregular ref visits from Toon.Speaking in a post match interview, Mackems manager, Martin O’Verrated O’Neill, cast light on the unusual sending off of Sunderland’s bad boy hatchet man, Lee Cattermole, who was given a straight red card by Wirral whistler, Mike Dean, a full two minutes after the final whistle had sounded. It brought his total number of bookings up to 64 yellow cards and 7 red cards in a total of 193 senior appearences so far.
It was a match marked by controversy, which of course is not an unusual thing in Geordie / Vagrant derbies. No less than seven yellow cards and two red cards were brandished by the Wirral whister. The indiscipline also spread to the dugouts, where Alan Pardew and O’Neill were shouting and waving their handbags at each other on two occaisons, with goalkeeping coach, Andy Woodman, also being banned from the dugout for the second half after what was reported as a “scuffle in the tunnel” at half time.
Coming back to the original story though, it transpired that “Clattermole” had taken issue with Dean’s second half decisionmaking in a not altogether polite fashion as the players and officials were walking off after the game. According to O’Neill, the Sunderland camp had also heard that a Magpie mafia had paid a visit to Dean’s dressing room at half time, possibly to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse?
Speaking on the incident, the Ulsterian explained that although Cattermole was a very naughty boy, there were mitigating circumstances, saying:(more…)
Elliot: Tough fight for a place.When two new players were officially signed by Newcastle United on August 30th, most of the attention was pointed in the direction of a certain ex Internazionale defender called Davide Santon, who has been compared in the past to no lesser figure than Paulo Maldini by legendary manager, Arrigo Sacchi.
This ‘blog certainly wasn’t the least guilty in that regard, however, I aim to put that right now with a feature focusing on the other signing of that day, ex Charlton goalkeeper Rob Elliot.
Elliot joined another ex member of the Charlton staff, goalkeeping coach, Andy Woodman, in what is becoming something of a Charlton mafia at St James’, with Alan Pardew previously working with Elliot and Woodman as manager of the South London ‘Addicks”. Until his move, the 25 year old Elliot had been on Charlton’s books since joining them as a 17 year old youth player from non league Erith Town. However, on becoming a professional player in 2004, he spent three years out on loan at Bishop’s Stortford, Notts County and Accrington Stanley respectively. (more…)
