leffe186
Well-Known Member
- Sep 2, 2004
- 5,359
- 1,823
I clocked the following article on a Newcastle Utd site. It's from the Times and is ostensibly about the Toon but clearly can be applied to all. Really good read:
Newcastle need their supporters more than ever - George Caulkin, The Times
I was in conversation with a football club director (no prizes for guessing that it wasn't anybody connected with Newcastle United) this week. He is a knowledgeable man, a man who has endured hardship as well as enjoyed success, who has coped with relegation battles, mid-table security, nervous run-ins and all the cliches that lie in between. He understands the pressure of making unpleasant decisions at frenetic times and has tended to get them right.
It was a general, informal chat and eventually it turned, as they often do, to the maelstrom that swirls around St James' Park. What would you do, he was asked? The club’s manager is in hospital recovering from heart surgery, but you want him to return - or at least you claim you do - but your league position is a source of huge concern. Bring someone in or leave it to the coaches? Stick or twist?
Difficult to say, the director replied. You look at the madness of Newcastle and it's impossible to think in rational terms like that. But one thing I would say is this: my experience has told me that at no time of the season is a manager less influential than now. Yes, I know this is when everything substantial happens, when clubs stay up or go down, win things or lose things, but even so.
Think about it, he said. Pre-season training, when a manager and his staff spend weeks honing the fitness of their players, getting used to tactics and systems, integrating new signings, is a distant memory. Footballers should be on auto-pilot in March; if they don't know it now, they never will. The transfer window has gone, too, so managers can’t buy any more and they can’t threaten to sell either.
Of course, he said, there are exceptions that prove the rule. There are moments when a manager has become so corrosive to a club, if he has lost the dressing-room, for example, that a fresh voice may be needed. And yes, granted, with an inspiring team-talk or crucial substitution, an individual match can be won (or lost), but in overall terms, this time of year is all about players. They've been bombarded with ideas and advice and orders all season, but now is when we find out if they’ve been listening. It's down to them.
In the context of recent events - and possibly future ones - on Gallowgate, it was an interesting argument. Is it relevant? That’s the thing about players, the director said. They love excuses. It’s never their fault. You build a nice stadium, they complain about the training ground. You build a great training ground, they blame the manager. They let a goal in, they blame the pitch. You lay a new pitch, they tell you that their family is unsettled. You look after their family and finally they say thank you. And the next day their agent is on the phone asking about a new contract to re-pay his loyalty. But, anyway, that’s what you try to do - build a culture where excuses wither.
At Newcastle there have been a myriad of distractions, a host of excuses. Most of them are pretty good. A manager they loved and believed in left the club when the season was still fresh. Rumours circulated that many of them had been put up for sale. The club was. And then it wasn’t. For those players whose contracts were due to expire, offers were slow to materialize and when they did, it came with a pay-cut. Morale slumped further. A caretaker manager was replaced by an interim manager. When the interim manager became the permanent manager - albeit one who is not committed to the club beyond the summer - he took ill. Now the caretaker manager is back. Too much confusion, not enough clarity.
Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, and Derek Llambias, the managing director, are now both regular visitors at the club’s training ground and it is easy to see why. Ashley’s £250m investment is in the hands of his employees. To borrow somebody else’s joke, the £8m profit he made on signings in January can’t play up front. A pile of £50 notes won’t tear up the wing. Ashley may be a billionaire but he is now just as impotent as everybody else; bringing in a firefighter, a short-term manager, is his only substantive option, although he will not need reminding that after a number of rejections, that was precisely where Joe Kinnear stepped in.
Eventually, it will be reduced to what’s in the dressing-room. Managers can only deal with what they have. If circumstances were different, would Sir Alex Ferguson keep West Bromwich Albion up? As things stand, would the influence of Tony Pulis undermine Manchester United’s chances of becoming champions? Unlikely. In the likes of Steve Harper, Nicky Butt, Ryan Taylor and Steven Taylor, Newcastle have a core of decency, people who know what football means to Newcastle. In Harper, Sebastien Bassong, Jonas Gutierrez, Obafemi Martins and, when fit, Michael Owen, they have players who can win matches. They need to start.
One more thing, the director said. What gets your victories? Goals? Yup. But energy, too. He talked about a recent game at his club, where the atmosphere in the ground changed the flow of the match, where it visibly made the opposition shrink. You need your supporters, he said, now more than any at other time. This is where one or two percentage points make all the difference.
Newcastle fans scarcely need the reminder. If it wasn’t so obvious, if the irony was not so scarring, it would be funny. Their loyalty has been stretched far beyond breaking point, they have been ignored, squeezed financially and utterly mistreated by successive regimes, they have been mocked unfairly in the media and they have done nothing to deserve it. And yet, and yet. It comes back to what it always has done. Eleven black and white shirts and singing themselves hoarse. It is what they do. Hopefully it will be enough.
Me:
The journalist is a Newcastle fan but regardless, the comments of the director are fascinating and ring true. In a nutshell, we as fans have a massive role to play now and on matchdays from now until May we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of booing certain players because they are, well, certain players and letting our nervousness transfer itself to the players. I know it's a bit rich of me to say this from Ohio but if you are going tonight, sing your little bloody hearts out as the Lane at full blast is something else. Remember that the Boro team will be used to empty seats and a lulling quiet. We are the 12th man.
Newcastle need their supporters more than ever - George Caulkin, The Times
I was in conversation with a football club director (no prizes for guessing that it wasn't anybody connected with Newcastle United) this week. He is a knowledgeable man, a man who has endured hardship as well as enjoyed success, who has coped with relegation battles, mid-table security, nervous run-ins and all the cliches that lie in between. He understands the pressure of making unpleasant decisions at frenetic times and has tended to get them right.
It was a general, informal chat and eventually it turned, as they often do, to the maelstrom that swirls around St James' Park. What would you do, he was asked? The club’s manager is in hospital recovering from heart surgery, but you want him to return - or at least you claim you do - but your league position is a source of huge concern. Bring someone in or leave it to the coaches? Stick or twist?
Difficult to say, the director replied. You look at the madness of Newcastle and it's impossible to think in rational terms like that. But one thing I would say is this: my experience has told me that at no time of the season is a manager less influential than now. Yes, I know this is when everything substantial happens, when clubs stay up or go down, win things or lose things, but even so.
Think about it, he said. Pre-season training, when a manager and his staff spend weeks honing the fitness of their players, getting used to tactics and systems, integrating new signings, is a distant memory. Footballers should be on auto-pilot in March; if they don't know it now, they never will. The transfer window has gone, too, so managers can’t buy any more and they can’t threaten to sell either.
Of course, he said, there are exceptions that prove the rule. There are moments when a manager has become so corrosive to a club, if he has lost the dressing-room, for example, that a fresh voice may be needed. And yes, granted, with an inspiring team-talk or crucial substitution, an individual match can be won (or lost), but in overall terms, this time of year is all about players. They've been bombarded with ideas and advice and orders all season, but now is when we find out if they’ve been listening. It's down to them.
In the context of recent events - and possibly future ones - on Gallowgate, it was an interesting argument. Is it relevant? That’s the thing about players, the director said. They love excuses. It’s never their fault. You build a nice stadium, they complain about the training ground. You build a great training ground, they blame the manager. They let a goal in, they blame the pitch. You lay a new pitch, they tell you that their family is unsettled. You look after their family and finally they say thank you. And the next day their agent is on the phone asking about a new contract to re-pay his loyalty. But, anyway, that’s what you try to do - build a culture where excuses wither.
At Newcastle there have been a myriad of distractions, a host of excuses. Most of them are pretty good. A manager they loved and believed in left the club when the season was still fresh. Rumours circulated that many of them had been put up for sale. The club was. And then it wasn’t. For those players whose contracts were due to expire, offers were slow to materialize and when they did, it came with a pay-cut. Morale slumped further. A caretaker manager was replaced by an interim manager. When the interim manager became the permanent manager - albeit one who is not committed to the club beyond the summer - he took ill. Now the caretaker manager is back. Too much confusion, not enough clarity.
Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, and Derek Llambias, the managing director, are now both regular visitors at the club’s training ground and it is easy to see why. Ashley’s £250m investment is in the hands of his employees. To borrow somebody else’s joke, the £8m profit he made on signings in January can’t play up front. A pile of £50 notes won’t tear up the wing. Ashley may be a billionaire but he is now just as impotent as everybody else; bringing in a firefighter, a short-term manager, is his only substantive option, although he will not need reminding that after a number of rejections, that was precisely where Joe Kinnear stepped in.
Eventually, it will be reduced to what’s in the dressing-room. Managers can only deal with what they have. If circumstances were different, would Sir Alex Ferguson keep West Bromwich Albion up? As things stand, would the influence of Tony Pulis undermine Manchester United’s chances of becoming champions? Unlikely. In the likes of Steve Harper, Nicky Butt, Ryan Taylor and Steven Taylor, Newcastle have a core of decency, people who know what football means to Newcastle. In Harper, Sebastien Bassong, Jonas Gutierrez, Obafemi Martins and, when fit, Michael Owen, they have players who can win matches. They need to start.
One more thing, the director said. What gets your victories? Goals? Yup. But energy, too. He talked about a recent game at his club, where the atmosphere in the ground changed the flow of the match, where it visibly made the opposition shrink. You need your supporters, he said, now more than any at other time. This is where one or two percentage points make all the difference.
Newcastle fans scarcely need the reminder. If it wasn’t so obvious, if the irony was not so scarring, it would be funny. Their loyalty has been stretched far beyond breaking point, they have been ignored, squeezed financially and utterly mistreated by successive regimes, they have been mocked unfairly in the media and they have done nothing to deserve it. And yet, and yet. It comes back to what it always has done. Eleven black and white shirts and singing themselves hoarse. It is what they do. Hopefully it will be enough.
Me:
The journalist is a Newcastle fan but regardless, the comments of the director are fascinating and ring true. In a nutshell, we as fans have a massive role to play now and on matchdays from now until May we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of booing certain players because they are, well, certain players and letting our nervousness transfer itself to the players. I know it's a bit rich of me to say this from Ohio but if you are going tonight, sing your little bloody hearts out as the Lane at full blast is something else. Remember that the Boro team will be used to empty seats and a lulling quiet. We are the 12th man.
