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Newcastle United Loving Transfer Window Bingo

11 years ago
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We really do seem to be back to the “wrong kind of snow” or “wet leaves” syndrome

As a technical person I have watched my ex-colleagues move on to various “options” away from the shop floor.

It’s either training, or quality, or regulations but they all have one thing in common.

Bingo!

They undergo some kind of transformation that somehow, in their mind at least,  puts them above the rest of us.

And that change invariably manifests itself in the language they use.

A mate of mine, who I’ll call Stan (cos that’s his name) joined the government body that creates the regulations for our industry.

Not quite getting the hang of it, Stan now believes that he himself is the regulator.

Stan is now referred to in the business as Buzzword Bertie.

He must spend half of his life on the internet looking for the latest slang and buzzwords, then spends the other half finding every opportunity to throw them into conversations to impress the rest of us mere mortals.

If it’s not Collaborative Decision Making this, then it’s VSAT  that, or RNAV the other.

When we go into meetings with him we play ‘Buzzword Bingo’.

We all put a few quid in the pot then we each get a bit of paper that has a selection of 5 fashionable, technical buzzwords on it.

No bit of paper has the same 5 words.

As Stan goes through his repertoire during the meeting, you tick off the words on your paper as he mentions them and the first person to get all 5 words ticked off gets the money.

As some kind of consolation to the others, the winner has to shout out “Bingo” during the meeting to collect the cash.

There has never been a rollover and Stan still hasn’t cottoned on.

I wonder if they do the same thing at Newcastle Board Meetings?

Do they just wait for the meeting to start and just begin start ticking off the excuses?

‘The player wanted too much money’

‘They think we’re loaded, so the prices are unrealistic’

‘We won’t be held to ransom by anyone!’

‘The Agent wanted a huge fee’

‘They spread these stories looking for a better deal’

‘They wanted a sell on bonus’

‘We’ll only sign a player who is good for the team’

LINE!!!!

It really does seem that we get caught out every year.

We never get the players we think we are going to get, and we never get them ‘over the line’  in time. Oh.  BINGO!!!

How can we always be so naive? We know the other teams/players/managers/agents are going to play games with us but every season we end up with a Gomis or similar catching us out.

Pardew must be pi**ing himself laughing. No pressure on him now. He can just sit there and say “Well I had a word with Joe…..”

But like the wet leaves and the wrong kind of snow, we get caught every year with the same thing.

Ideally we would have the same person doing the job long enough to learn from their mistakes. Oooh! I’m sure there’s a name for that….. errr…. ah yes…. stability!

There again, maybe with a week to go to kick-off and 3 weeks to the end of the window, Joe’s just playing silly buggers with us.

Maybe he’s playing the bumpkin but has a string of signings lined up.

Maybe he’s playing us all for fools.

After all, we can’t have screwed it up again, surely, can we?

If we don’t get 2 or 3 more in by September surely Joe deserves to win the sack race and he’s not even a bloody manager!

Well, not yet, at least.

But if Luton is anything to go by, that could be just a matter of time.

This special issue of The Mag is a must have and along with special Silver Anniversary features we bring you the very best coverage of what is happening NOW at our great club, the best team of NUFC writers giving it their all.

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