Loony Toons

Newcastle United are the new Princess Diana. A bold statement I know but think on. Like Diana they have thousands of overtly loyal followers who feel the existence of the object of their affections has a correlation with their own life because they once saw them in the flesh... from behind a barrier... a few hundred feet away. Remember the woman on Match of the Day after Kevin Keegan left who proclaimed "My whole life is ruined", I can't be the only one who suspected that she was one of those took a month off from work eleven years ago to mourn the 'Princes of our Hearts'. And, like Diana they are also receiving blanket and daily newspaper coverage as they move steadily towards their ultimate demise.

If you are a Newcastle fan, then beware of the following. If you see pictures of Newcastle United reclining on a yacht with a wealthy heir, then grainy footage of the club leaving a lift in a Paris Hotel, followed lastly by commemorative Magpies of Our Hearts plate offers in the Daily Express, then don't complain you weren't warned. Each of these occurrences is just the next step in your club's slow death-march to, well, probably to a bright new dawn.

Call me a cynical lower league fan if you will, but can the recent events at Newcastle really be classed as 'turmoil'? Given the money available to top flight clubs at the moment all this supposed demise can possibly mean is a club dropping from being a well-supported mid-table Premier League team to a well supported mid-table Championship team. Until Mike Ashley is hiring henchmen to set fire to the Gallowgate End or Joe Kinnear is picking his next-door neighbour in goal then the word 'crisis' need be used in connection with St James Park as seldom as the word 'overcoat'.

I have no sympathies with the Toon Army I'm afraid, as I am firmly of the belief that any group of people who describe a managerial partnership of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer as a 'dream ticket' has already crossed the fine line from loyal to madness. Keegan on his own is speculative, as his managerial carrer has had a distinctive downward arc to it since his initial spell on Tyneside. Shearer meanwhile as a pundit on Match of the Day has taken three years to hone his tell-the-public-exactly-what-they've-just-seen style of tactical incitement which is as necessary and useful as subtitles for the blind. Its a 'dream ticket' yes, but only for Sunderland fans.