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Opinion

Newcastle United ruined my life

9 years ago
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Right, I’m sick of this, it was all supposed to be over now.

Not the season, although the belated euthanasia of this miserable campaign is very close. I realise things were always slated to drag on appallingly late in May, but not for me.

I had planned an early emotional detachment from all this well in advance and yet again they’ve gone and spoilt it. In the words of Al Pacino “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in”.

(Jamie is just one of our ever expanding team of regular/irregular writers, send in your original articles for our website to contribute@themag.co.uk and share them with the world – all views are the author’s own etc etc)

We’ve all discussed thoroughly how following Newcastle under Ashley has become a miserable business, and many have chosen to step away from it in order to focus on more enjoyable things in life. I was lucky enough to have plenty going on that would make the Swansea game my last of the season. I thoroughly intended to absolve myself of any interest and just forget about NUFC, basically refusing to let them pi** me off for a few months. Then it all happened.

A string of pathetic defeats sent United on collision course with relegation after the surrender to Swansea. This meant an immediate reversal of my decision to not even watch the Leicester game on TV. Of course I regretted this, but the shambolic display there put even more pressure on the game with West Brom. This was a pain in the arse for me as I was heading for a week in Cyprus with my family.

My intention while on holiday was to ignore football altogether, probably would have been futile at this stage given that United would be pointlessly ensconced in mid-table.

This wasn’t the case and I was now genuinely worried, so it came to pass that I bundled my 11 month old son into his buggy and trundled off to the Belsito bar in Ayia Napa to watch the game with a few pints of Keo, with young Smith enjoying a smashing time playing with his little trucks and being carried round in front of the screen while daddy explained how our team has gone to pot and can’t defend set pieces.

So, fourth bottom then and in real bother. On to the next Saturday, by which time I was back home and had got tickets for Newcastle Falcons final home game. I was looking forward to seeing a team representing Newcastle play like they actually give a toss, but Carver’s Cockups had other ideas.

I wore out my phone battery constantly checking on events at Loftus Road, as United served up another disgraceful submission. Falcons, by contrast, were serving up a magnificent victory over Harlequins in front of me, when I could bring myself to look up from the BBC live score updates.

So now, we come to the last week.

Other than the slightly ridiculous concept of us all having to hope Arsenal can cancel out the mackems goal difference advantage over us on Wednesday night, the weekend is set up as a real sh**-storm. Again, it’s a personal liberty.

I’m at a wedding in Embleton on the Saturday and staying overnight, with the lovely couple putting on a next day barbecue that promises to be epic. The plan was to attend this in full, but I’ve now had to inform my wife that we’ll only be calling in for a quick sausage as I feel the desperate need to head back to NE1 for 3pm, as United are trying to get themselves relegated.

Kat and Dan, please accept my apologies for this and my slightly agitated demeanour on your big day.

We all know that the best hope for Sunday is that Man Utd get our ill-deserving arses out of jail for us, but assuming they don’t repeat their last day favour of 2009, the air will be heavy with the misery of relegation for the immediate future.

This is again particularly galling for me, as I will be heading to the worst place in Tyne & Wear the very next day to see the Foo Fighters, and very excited about this I am too.

The edge that relegation would take off this could even be made worse, if Dave Grohl makes the massive misjudgement of endorsing the team at whose ground he is performing somehow, and I find myself in the middle of some sickening spontaneous mackem celebration of Newcastle’s demise led by one of the greatest humans in rock.

At least it will end there and, whatever our fate, I can spend a glorious couple of months forgetting all about it. What have our ambitions become?

Follow Jamie on Twitter @Mr_Dolf

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