Where’s our next trophy coming from?

Posted on March 14th, 2011 | 41 Comments |

Bobby
Only measure of success?
What do Newcastle United supporters consider to be success?

I haven’t been on top form lately so I’m just throwing a few things together to give us something to talk about.

It’s always rotten on a weekend when there is no game, particularly when it’s one where your wife cuts all your hair off with a pair of garden sheers. That’s true by the way. Ask Worky – he saw the photo.

Obviously I exaggerated with the garden sheers bit, although not by much. Hair has long departed this writer’s head and the prospect of adding the word ‘style’ after it is frankly ludicrous. It’s one of them oxymoron things that were all the rage a while back (although I could never afford one). So my wife set about me with clippers and a razor.

An hour later we’d mopped all the blood away, filed for divorce and torn the cat in half for custody reasons. And I came upstairs with bog roll on my head to stem critical blood flow and thought there are tougher things than being a Newcastle supporter, even if they don’t involve being married to a homicidal wife with a passion for murdering by haircut.

This got me, by my usual rambling way, around to thinking about trophies (although not those given out for haircuts obviously).

How much does a trophy matter?

Let me qualify that and tell you about how I was thinking. Under ‘The Entertainers’ era we came close to winning both the league and the cup and, yes, some of it was frustrating. But do you know what? We were still the better team. I must qualify that too. We had every neutral behind us just because of the way we played and I reckon that meant something in that we were ‘better’ entertainment.

But, still getting to my point (slowly!). I think sometimes a supporter has to take more than trophies as a measure of success.

Cups are luck. No, really, they are. One lucky win can get you there as opposed to 38 games over a season where, I think we all know, it’s money that counts most.

What are our prospects of trophies?

And whilst we wait on them what other measures of success do we use?

So, in 1, 3, 5 years time, what is a ‘successful’ Newcastle?

Off to bathe my head and glue the cat back together.

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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Comment on this post

41 Responses

  1. Still being in the premier lge, challenging the top 6, with 3 or 4 of today’s youth team becoming key first team players…..ie vuckic, street, airey

  2. Still being in the premier lge, challenging the top 6, with 3 or 4 of today’s youth team becoming key first team players…..ie vuckic, street, airey and others!

  3. entertainers never came near winning a cup…part of their problem was they couldn’t win the ‘big’ games. the really big games when it counted. that is the mark of a good team, winning the big games. there’s nothing lucky about winning a cup, that is the mark of a good team.

    your statements would qualify this years arsenal game as being a good team, which they are not. pleasing on the eye, yes, like the entertainers…. but a really good team, no.

  4. @3….so that 5 nil battering of man utd that rainy night wasnt a big win, or tino’s hatrick against barca, we had many many big wins? My god how far we have fallen off the beaten track. When will we next get the chance to play barca ffs!!
    Anyway, my idea of sucess is ashley choking on a meat pie from gregs…

  5. @4 think you’re getting your big wins and big games mixed up. they weren’t big games, they were early in the competition. not when it really mattered. we faced man utd at st james park in a far, far bigger game only 6 months previously and got beaten 0-1, that’s when it really mattered. or even in the charity shield at wembley a few months previously and got hammered 4-0. the barca game was the first game in the competition, hardly mattered, and who progressed in the competetition? not us. the entertainers could comfortably beat teams in the comfort of st james when there was nothing much to play for, when it really mattered they went missing, never reached a semi-final in any cup and blew a 12 point lead in the league. pleasing on the eye tho, great team to watch.

  6. The league cup is our best hope but even that is a gamble with a small squad, Birmingham may pay a heavy price for that and is it worth paying?
    As we stand at the moment, talk of winning anything is pie in the sky so not worth worrying about as survival is our target, only the big established squads have any chance of competing and we are light years away from them under the current regime.

  8. As long as we could play like we did during the entertainer era, I wouldn’t mind not winning a thing. I am used to it anyway

  9. off the beaten track here but the entertainers were the blue print for the arse baca sort of teams who attack for fun with oot us baca could be like bolton

  10. According to the table on the right there Bolton are right in the mix for a Champions League spot.Well done Bolton????

  11. Malchick,
    you have hit the nail squarely on the heed mate, & it’s a perfect analogy the arsenal one.
    Spot on mate.

  13. A club who regularly attracts 50,000 + fans at every home game should be looking at winning things – I include the league in that too.

  14. Jamming Toon @ 9

    I’m sure Arsene Wenger and Josep Guardiola would disagree with your comparison.

    Before Keegan got into his stride as manager of newcastle Barcelona had won four consecutive La Liga titles from 1991 to 1994. They beat Sampdoria in both the 1989 Cup Winners’ Cup final and the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley. They also won a Copa del Rey in 1990.

    We on the other hand won nothing.

    If you are not old enough to remember the Busby babes or the ManU teams of Best and Charlton or the great double winning Spurs teams or the great Liverpool teams of Shankly and his bootroom successors let me tell you that they were great entertainers but unlike Newcastle they won trophies.

  15. Kamar,
    but i bet they knew how to or at least developed the ability to, win ugly when it mattered.
    Something we’ve never managed to attain.

  16. Clint,

    Yes, winning ugly and closing up shop are all the hallmarks of great teams who win trophies.

    Those teams I mentioned also had great defenders who took no prisoners.

  17. Kamar,
    damn right mate.

    Winning takes more than playing ‘lovely’ football.
    It’s great to watch, but winning tastes nicer afterwards.
    ;)

  18. CLiNT – The closest I’ve seen Newcastle come to “winning ugly” was last season. And guess what? We won something, albeit the fizzy.

    It didn’t stop people saying that our football was shyte for more than half the season though….

  19. wonder if hughton regrets not putting a proper side out against arsenal in the carling cup? with hindsight was a big chance to end the 50+ year domestic barren run.
    and might have kept him in a job.

  20. toonsy,
    aye mate, bang on there bud.
    Gotta say, i prefer that, it makes other teams set up differently against us & we can hit ’em on the break.
    Ya’ right though, it just garners groans from the ‘romantics’ among us.
    :)

    That’s a good point Malchick!
    ;)

  22. mighta kept hold of carroll as well with a cup final to look forward to. aaaarggh!! don’t want to think about it…..

  24. Where’s our next trophy coming from?
    in a million years with ashley in charge. im sick of us thinking about silverware , whats more important is we are 6pts off relegation man , we should quit talkn about silverware until we know we are safe in the prem

  25. lesh says:
    March 14, 2011 at 8:49 am
    And guys ‘n gals, here’s the reality check……

    couldnt agree on you more bud

  27. I have been going to St James since 1964. I missed a few years ( Keegan’s era) when the family took priority but have been a season ticket holder again for the last 10 years.

    Cup games can be exciting and it would be good to have a good run in one of the competitions again. However, I have had Wembley tickets In the past when we got to finals and gave them away. After each final it looked like a good decision, as the team has always “failed to turn up” on these occasions.

    I don’t expect us to win the league in my lifetime unless someone views us as the best purchase option outside the top 4, and then follows up with some serious investment. I don’t really want this, I am not sure that if I had been a Man City fan since 1964 that I would be happy with the current setup there.

    We had our chance under KK and we blew it. I would just like us to have a team that challenges near the top end of the league as per the Sir Bobby years. There were lots of things to happy about then on match days, particularly the matches at SJP. We lost our way bigtime after he was sacked.

  28. It’s not winning ugly, it’s winning dirty. NUFC players need to know how to dive when being watched and to kick, hold, claw and maim when no one is looking. Manu, Liverpool and the Italians know how to do this & win silver as a result.

  29. Wallsendlad,
    That’s a great point, well made mate.
    Buying the league, while, ‘officially’ you won the league, everybody knows it was ‘bought’.
    SBR years truly rocked.

    BeeGuy,
    you have a point also bud.
    Difficult to argue with.
    ;)

  30. Yea,
    we did just win a trophy last season like.
    Albeit, the chumpionship.

    More!

    :)

  33. Lesh,
    this is just a re,re,re,re,re,rehash of the fact that Jose et al have said they are waiting ’til we’re ‘safe’ before resigning.
    Nowt new to see round there mate.

    ;)

  34. Are the journalists and/or editorial staff on strike these days or is it a ploy to encourage readers to look elsewhere?

  35. Lesh,
    they are doing what they always do mate.
    If they can’t find any new shit to spread, spread some old shit, but give it a slightly different title.
    It works most days.
    The daily fail are arch-purveyors.
    :)

  36. They just don’t have it in ’em to write anything positive, especially about NUFC, although it’s pretty much the same for most teams.
    Tawdry gets!

  37. hugh,buy yersel a cutting gear,and cut yer own hair,you f**kin’ puff lol.
    nee way would i let a richard the third anywhere near my jossie blair.
    as for winning a trophy,we’ve never won nowt since nelson lost his eye,it will probably be another fowty year before we win owt,with the son of sam running the show.

  39. why aint there anything up for match predictions yet??? as yous can see on the score board i have alot of catching up 2do and im dying 2 get at least 1 score right in my life :)

  40. Now then CLiNT. Glad to see you’re firin’ with all barrels! Thought you were referring to Hugh and Worky when you said they were recycling old scheid – glad you clarified it was the daily pail you were aiming at!
    Glad to see the blog’s alive and kicking. Thanx to all involved.

  41. Lesh,
    alreet mate,
    yea, i shoulda made that clear first up.
    Then i got the idea to qualify what i typed.
    Sorry man.
    Ooops!
    ;)