WindyAlan Pardew thinks Newcastle United’s upcoming tour of America is the ideal preparation for the new season.
Alan Pardew has been talking again, which will come as no surprise to anyone, but this time he’s been extolling the virtues of the pre-season stint to the US of A.
It’s mid-season for Americas football (‘soccer’) leagues, so we’ll be facing players who are well into their competitive stride. This will be a hard test of our fitness as we look to complete a yankee triple over Sporting Kansas City, Columbus Crew and Orlando City.
Pardew feels the tour will set us up nicely for the new season though, saying:
“It is not a money-making exercise by any stretch of imagination.
“It is purely a break-even tour, which we feel is beneficial for the team.
“We go there because the facilities will be first class. It is going to be hot, so it will test us.” (more…)
2011/2012 fixtures outThe Premier League fixture list for the 2011/2012 season is out and Newcastle United find themselves at home to Arsenal for the first game.
It’s only June but the announcement of the fixture list somehow seems to bring the new football season a little closer.
Due to some ludicrous copyright law that was set in place by some dinosaur in 1956, you can’t reproduce a ‘substantial part’ of the fixture list without paying DataCo a few hundred pounds and a ‘substantial part’ is considered to be more that one match. And, yes, DataCo have gone after fan sites in maintaining their copyright.
We can, however, link to people who’ve paid for the fixture list, so:
3rd kitNewcastle United’s third strip for the 2011-2012 season is quite stylish in my opinion.
I think the Toon’s third kit looks quite nice (left, modelled by Shola), but then again I’m a fan of black (and black is the new black, as they say).
It’s much nicer than the second kit in my opinion.
I will admit that fashion isn’t my bag though. I’ve been a jeans and t-shirt (plain t-shirts, obviously) man for most of my life and that’s unlikely to change. I will admit to brief periods of the New Romantic and Miami Vice looks in the early 80’s and of course the 70’s were just ludicrous, but I’ve always gravitated back to a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt.
Although I do have a fondness for hats.
Just a bit of ‘blog maintenance news too. We will be offline for about 20 minutes at some point between 10PM and midnight tonight to replace a dodgy memory stick that’s caused a few problems over the last few days. I’m also taking this opportunity to add some more memory into the box, so the ‘blog should be even faster in future.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
I hope you all have a great weekend. It’s looking like barbecue weather down here in sunny Somerset.
Och, I'll have you PardewNewcastle United manager Alan Pardew voiced his doubts about the quality of Scottish football yesterday. Peter Houston makes the case for the SPL today.
Dundee United manager Peter Houston has struck back at Alan Pardew who yesterday said that the standard of Scottish football was basically rubbish.
Pardew, talking about his decision to bring Fraser Forster back from his loan period period at Celtic, said:
“We have watched that division [the SPL] and watched him all year. We’ve been very disappointed with the quality of the games, other than the occasional Rangers versus Celtic game. And even some of those have been poor, if I’m honest.”
Houston has however got his tartan in a twist over the comments and countered with:
