SuperMac's poisonous words.....Derby day fever has certainly caught up with me now, which is why I haven’t slept a wink all night and why I decided to get up at 5am rather than rolling around trying to get to sleep, and getting irritated in the process.
Anyway, I was perusing the ‘comments’ section on the ‘blog to see if I had missed anything and to catch up on the gossip when one thing struck me. It seems that the media bandwagon regarding the future of our manager is rolling on.
Those who listened to ‘The Legends’ radio phone-in during week will have heard Malcolm Macdonald bleating on about Chris Hughton and launching some quite scathing attacks on our current manager. The reason being that he is somewhat annoyed by the team selection that Chris Hughton made against Arsenal in the Carling Cup in midweek.
Now I see things differently and fully backed Hughton’s decision to rest a good number of first-team players in midweek as I wanted our best possible team to be available to play in today’s derby, but I understand that others feel differently and feel that fielding a weakened team during the week equates to us missing out on an opportunity to progress into the Carling Cup quarter-finals at the expense of a team that has scored an average of three goals in every game this season. (more…)
Supermac! Supermac! Found comatose and surrounded by empty whisky bottles in a bed-and-breakfast, it was a far cry from his glorious arrival at St James Park for his home debut. Then, little kids gasped as the car wheels on the white Rolls Royce came to a halt outside St James Park and they surged forward to get a better look at its passenger. Excitement filled the air at the sheer flamboyant spectacle.
It was 1971 and 21 year old Malcolm MacDonald, who was to go on to become another one of our legendary centre forwards, had arrived. A transfer from Luton Town costing an eye watering £180,000, huge money at that time, he would go on to take not only Newcastle but a lot of the country by storm.
Scoring a hat trick on his home debut against a Liverpool side which featured the young Kevin Keegan, and while attempting to go for a fourth, had a collision with the keeper which saw him being stretchered off to rapturous applause, a new Geordie hero was born. From that moment Newcastle fans adored him. (more…)
