Newcastle United – News Roundup – 19 July 2009

Posted on July 19th, 2009 | 16 Comments |

Owen moans
Owen moans
Sky Sports is carrying a report about how Michael Owen is hurt by the crticism he’s received about his time at Newcastle United. Owen said:

You learn to understand the reaction but if you do step back, you think it is strange or unfair.

When you are being relegated, nobody is interested in listening to you. But I knew it was all to do with me not scoring.

If you don’t score and you don’t win, you are wrong to have a helicopter and fly home each week to see your kids. You are wrong to have a business outside of football. You are wrong to plan for the future.

If the goals had been going in I would have been a great lad, popping home to see my three kids and be a family man on a Tuesday after training. I would have been thoughtful and innocent little things would not be misrepresented.

Well as far as I’m concerned Owen’s missing the point. His lack of scoring might have been due to the fact that he wasn’t getting the service from a poor midfield but what about his disinterested attitude? Or the fact that as Captain he said little about any responsibility he felt for us being relegated and just cleared off as fast he could to play Champions League football while leaving us to rot in the Championship.

Hull City are now denying any interest in Barton according to Sky Sports. When asked if there was any truth in the rumours of Hull’s interest in Barton, assistant manager Brian Horton said:

No. Joey Barton is a very good footballer. I know him, I have done things with him in Manchester.

He has obviously had issues and that is a shame because he can be a very good footballer but at this present time I don’t think it’s an area that really needs to be looked at.”

The BBC claim to have reporters in every city of every country. One of their catch phrases is “when the news happens we’re there” but they didn’t seem to have a reporter in Darlington for yesterday’s match. In a major news story coup, proving that NUFCBlog.org is in fact better than the mighty BBC, we did have a (roving, or possibly raving) reporter there and there’s no better review of the game than BowBurnMag’s own.

There’s a small piece stuffed in the middle of a non-sport article in The Times where Arsene Wenger gives us a little boost. It’s only a short piece entitled ‘Geordies’ French Toast’, so I’ll include the whole bit here:

If the bankers at Seymour Pierce needed a little je ne sais quoi to smooth the planned sale of Newcastle United, they might have found an unlikely helper in Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager.

Speaking last week at a dinner hosted by Pi Capital, the investor network, in aid of the Willow Foundation charity, Wenger was asked whether he would ever consider managing another English club. Certainly not, he replied emphatically, insisting he would be staying in north London. Wenger then began to appraise the rash of investment in English football, pointing out that Newcastle is a club with enormous potential and one that “demands success” for its loyal fans. With an endorsement like that, a sale can’t be far off.

The Star – somewhere between Bikini Babes and Video Vixens – claims that 5 of our players broke a boot camp curfew to visit a bar but were not punished by Hughton for doing so.

There isn’t much about the takover in the papers but that’s probably because everything that can be said has been said and it’s now just a matter of waiting, so that’s about it for now.

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

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16 Responses

  1. Owen is definitely making it easier for me to dislike him. No Michael, from a personal point of view, the reason you were criticised was because of your apparent contempt and disrespect for the paying customers who allow you those luxuries. Yes, you weren’t the goalscoring, team-leading legend we all hoped for but you never convinced us you were ever here by choice and when you arrived you never missed much of a fist of it. That’s predominantly why you lost my support.

    52 – what did you think of the game?

  2. “missed a fist of it”????

    I think I probably meant “made a fist of it”!

  3. Off topic I know, but I’ve just been watching the match highlights from yesterday. That first goal of Ameobi’s was canny. He certainly didn’t look like “Bambi on ice” there.

  4. 52times says:
    July 19, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    “Generally Arsene Wenger has always been more than fair to us.”

    Beneath that sensible, logical exterior, he’s a bit of an old romantic.

  5. Worky I agree re the ‘Fenham Eusabio’ (as you called him-LOL). I thought he took both his goals well. Maybe he is feeling more confident or just finding his level

  6. geordie deb says:
    July 19, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    “Worky I agree re the ‘Fenham Eusabio’ (as you called him-LOL).”

    I wouldn’t want to take any credit for that one, Deb. That’s an old piece of Geordie sarcasm about the West End assassin.

  7. geordie deb says:
    July 19, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    “Ok worky, well to whoever penned the description, it was masterful!”

    Ray Parlour of Arsenal was often referred to with some humour as ‘the Romford Pele’. Perhaps this was the inspiration?

  8. I was always thought Shola was from Walker.
    Maybe because of the Walker Central link but I knew he’d gone to my school and the lads below me always talked like he was from over here. Mind you, we had plenty of people from over the West End.

    I’ll stop thinking outloud now…..

  9. When I say ‘over here’, I mean Heaton!!

    I forget I’m 20-odd miles down the road…..

  10. yeah i like wenger he has always said nice things about us and he seems to like us for what ever reason

  11. bowburnmag says:
    July 19, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    “I was always thought Shola was from Walker.”

    Aye, he played for Walker lads, and he may have lived there at some stage. But when his family moved ower from Nigeria, it was to “a cramped terraced house in Fenham” apparently. It was there where little Shola first noticed that the weather on Tyneside isn’t quite the same as the weather in Nigeria.

    “I still remember the shock of the cold. For the first three months I slept in all my clothes and a jacket” the hitman once said in an interview.

  12. “I still remember the shock of the cold. For the first three months I slept in all my clothes and a jacket” the hitman once said in an interview.

    Bless him, I bet it was a shock arriving from the heat of Nigeria to winter on Tyneside!

    On another note did anyone see the review of Seve Ballesteros on TV at lunchtime today? What a man. Still fighting the cancerous brain tumour found eight months ago, and after 4 operations and half of his gruelling chemo, he was out practising as he wants to play in next years open at St Andrews. A true champion. Pity some of our lot don’t show a small amount of the courage and determination he shows.Good luck to you Seve, brings a tear to your eye