Barton acted as peace-makerTrouble at the Darlington v Newcastle United pre-season friendly receives condemnation from the press and the clubs themselves.
It seems the Darlington nonsense has (rightly) received a fair bit of condemnation. Pitch invasions are never welcomed these days and it does nothing good for the reputations of either Newcastle United or Darlington.
From what I can gather it started as a ‘light-hearted’ invasion with smiles all round and then turned nasty. The rozzers reported it as follows:
“There has been a crowd of more than 9,700, which is significantly more than expected based on ticket sales.
“Everything was peaceful until Newcastle scored their second goal and a pitch incursion occurred which was high spirited but not violent.
“A further pitch incursion of around 20 to 30 people followed – a Newcastle supporter being escorted from the ground and three Newcastle supporters were arrested for pitch incursion.
“The game ended without incident and crowds have subsequently dispersed.” (more…)
Pardew: No more anarchy at Benton.Alan Pardew has informed us that the lack of discipline that crept in under previous managers such as Chris Hughton and Alan Shearer will no longer be tolerated at the club.
Speaking in a rare interview, the tough talking, no nonsense supremo called time on the anarchy in and around the club’s Benton training ground.
On the lack of discipline when he arrived at the club he remarked:
“Just in and around the training ground it was a little bit loose.
“You know, a big club like Newcastle, I think it’s important that you have disciplines that carry on through the season, and obviously coming in mid way through the season I didn’t really put them in force so, and I think we’ve all had the benefits of that and the discipline in the training ground, and around it, has been terrific.”
I couldn’t really make much sense of the latter part of that as it seemed a little contradictory, though perhaps if any readers could enlighten me? (more…)
I wonder what tomorrow will bring?Due to my laptop contracting a rather unfortunate illness, it had been difficult to write about some of the recent events conspiring at the Sportsdirect.com@stjamespark stadium. Nevertheless, being British I shall try to prevail when no hope seems assured, put the kettle on, and soldier on with some recent thoughts I have had this past week or so…
Shy and retiring Alan Pardew has, in what I can only described as a show of pure commitment to us fans, given a long interview this past week with ‘Total Sport’ on BBC Radio Newcastle. Now it has been long overdue hearing from our leader, and many of you, I’m sure, were all relieved after listening (or reading) Alan’s take on the summer so far.
What I found interesting was how he talked about the amount of money FREE transfers cost etc. Now obviously agent fees and signing on fees are part and parcel of the modern game. That is football, that is the game today, we know it is not technically ‘free’ but what we do know is, no transfer fee was paid, so with that, it leaves us to speculate how much indeed has gone to the agents and the players. Demba Ba, Sylvain Marveaux and Yohan Cabaye could not possibly of dented our transfer kitty that much, taking into consideration the ‘£35 million’, TV money, sponsorship deals, gate receipts, sale of Nolan, Shearer’s bar: You get the point.
Would it not just be easier to be honest? If we have no money to spend then just say it? Whatever the ‘truth’ is, Personally, I’m bored of the spins and excuses that I hear frequently from the club every week. Maybe we will spend something, maybe we won’t, but for me it is hard to envisage us spending much.
This is the penultimate part of my transcription of Alan Pardew’s long interview for BBC Radio Newcastle’s ‘Total Sport’ programme.
I know I wrote that last time, and that this would be the final episode, however as many of you may know by now, once Alan Pardew starts blathering, you can take it as read that it will be quite some time until he stops!
In this one he tackles the three goalkeeper dilemma, the thorny issues of the £35 million Andy Carroll booty and the departure of Kevin Nolan, along with that of weaker members of the squad, and what’s to be done with them.
We begin this time with a question from Total Sport listener, ‘Phil’.
“Can you ask Mr Pardew about the goalkeeping sitution? Fraser Forster and Tim Krul, as well as Steve Harper on your books, so all of them will be wanting to play first team football obviously.” (more…)
Barca interest may be unfoundedBarcelona may not be after Newcastle United left-back Jose Enrique and Mevlüt Erdinç snubs Newcastle transfer.
It seems that recent rumours about Barcelona’s interest in Jose Enrique may be unfounded. Enrique’s representative (and brother) Salvador Sanchez said this about any alleged links between his brother and a move to the Nou Camp:
“We know nothing, only what has appeared in the press.”
Barcelona are known to want to strengthen their left side and, after recent attempts to sign José Ángel from Sporting Gijón fell through, it was thought they might turn their attentions to Enrique. However, it seems that Valencia’s Jordi Alba is actually their preferred target.
Some sites are saying that Barcelona have actually come out and said “We will not be trying to sign Enrique” but after a thorough search of the Spanish press for statements from Barcelona I can’t find any evidence of this. That’s not to say it isn’t true of course – my failure to find it might just be due to my incompetence with both the Spanish language and Google. (more…)
