Newsletter

Get your daily update and weekly newsletter by signing up today!

Opinion

Great to see issues between Alan Pardew & Newcastle fans understood by another club’s fans

8 years ago
Share

A refreshing change to see another club’s supporters having a proper understanding of just why Newcastle fans ended up having such a problem with Alan Pardew as manager.

Neutrals are normally only aware of what they are force-fed about the deluded Geordies and unrealistic expectations.

Which in Alan Pardew’s case often was crystallised into ‘why do/did they want rid of a manager who got them into fifth, think they should be winning Premier League, Champions League, World Cup etc etc…’

After this weekend’s defeat in the FA Cup, we carried our usual feature of finding out what the opposition supporters made of the match.

So we visited one of the top Watford fans’ forums (WFCForums) and showcased some very varied and interesting comments, which you can see HERE.

However, at one point in their discussion of Newcastle United the Watford fans on WFCforums strayed into a couple of lazy comments about what had happened between Newcastle fans and Alan Pardew.

Happily a few of the Watford fans had very welcome and well informed views to put them right, thought this was worth a separate article and here are what three of the Hornets’ fans had to say:

‘Newcastle fans wanted Pardew out because the football had stagnated. They were dying a death of a thousand cuts and simply needed a change of direction as all teams do from time to time, since the enjoyment of watching their side had evaporated. Doesn’t mean Pardew is a particularly bad manager or Newcastle a rotten team – it just happens that way sometimes.

When Pardew left, they could have reasonably expected a decent replacement. Unfortunately, what they couldn’t have foreseen was the utter dross they ended up with.

Obviously the press love a lazy story (as well we know) and delighted in presenting the Newcastle fans as a mob of disloyal ar$eholes who hounded out one of the brightest managerial prospects England has ever produced and were now getting the comeuppance they so richly deserved.

Of course most of them would have prefered Pardew to McClaren or Carver – but that’s only like saying “I’d prefer to eat sh*t than have my eyeballs pulled out”. Give them someone of Flores’ quality and it would have been an entirely different story.

The real problem at Newcastle (and Blackpool) lies much further up the chain of command and is a constant reminder of how unbelievably lucky we (Watford fans) are to have owners that are truly passionate about this club.’

‘As someone that occasionally visits their (Newcastle fans’) forums, I really don’t think it was that they wanted success particularly – they really just wanted to enjoy going to football matches again. Of course, an element of their support went way overboard in their campaign to get rid of Pardew, and that’s all we remember because that’s all that was reported.

I must say that I’m quite amazed at how, even with our own experiences of how way off the mark the press usually are, people are still perfectly happy to believe that they know their onions when it comes to other clubs! Laughable, really.

If you really want to know what’s going on in football, I can’t recommend visiting other forums enough. Of course, it suits some people just to ignore facts and make judgements based on what the press tell them. After all, it’s so much easier.’

‘I don’t think Newcastle have a bad team, individually they have some decent players but there just hasn’t been any strategy about who they have bought and why.

Thankfully we (Watford) have decent owners and a decent manager and players are bought to play in a specific position and strategy.

Despite having to put up with years and years of dross we are amazingly lucky to be in that position, rather than haphazardly buying random players and hoping they make a difference.’

Share

If you would like to feature on The Mag, submit your article to contribute@themag.co.uk

Have your say

© 2024 The Mag. All Rights Reserved. Design & Build by Mediaworks