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Opinion

So Manchester United, what is the obsession with them? I just don’t get it. 

6 years ago
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Wow! Who saw that coming?

Well actually I did. Despite what Gary Neville would have you believe, Newcastle had actually not been on an awful run. For sure we had not won many but we have become very hard to beat, and while Man Utd had been on a good run, they are definitely not a team to be feared like they were in the Fergie era.

Of course the nation will say the gods were on our side and maybe they were a little bit, but yet again a stonewall penalty eludes us, and given what happened at Palace a week earlier it is becoming somewhat irritating.

Then we have a goalkeeper who reminded us that it is possible to command the box as a succession of clean catches and punches helps the two central defenders, who were also magnificent throughout. In all honesty everyone was magnificent and it is that spirit that will keep NUFC up this season.

Has anyone seen Mohamed Diame recently?

The impersonator turning up in Black  and White these days is indeed his double in every way, except he is actually a footballer, long may the real Mo Diame stay missing!

We might not have the most talented of teams but we have players with Buster Gonad sized testicles and that is something we have lacked in the recent past, and in our captain, we have a proper ‘in the trenches’ type leader.

So Manchester United, what is the obsession with them? I just don’t get it.

Of course their great team of ‘68 put them on the map a little bit, but they were relegated just six years later, and through the 70s and 80s they were mostly quite ordinary.

Their fan base was also dubious as they marauded across the UK bringing mayhem everywhere they went, that was until they turned up in NE1 where errr…your boys took one helluva beating!  Red Army General Tony O’Neill boasts about their escapades in his books, however he is honest enough ( unlike West Ham fan Cass Pennant who sneaks in a few untruths in his books and films) to admit when it all went wrong, it’s worth a read indeed if you like that sort of thing!

The other fixation is their so-called massive fan base, I have been in Old Trafford for games against them including an attendance of less than seventeen thousand for a midweek cup game (ok it was the Simod Cup), I have also been in a fifty thousand crowd where the NUFC contingent numbered five figures! Even today Old Trafford does not sell out for every home game, and when it does, the number of tourists wearing those silly half and half scarfs is sizeable.

For sure they are a worldwide brand but are they as big as they boast? It’s no more than ‘my dad’s bigger than your dad’ syndrome. Oh yeah, don’t get me started about their favourite son Bobby Charlton, a man who in my eyes has no NE roots whatsoever.

I don’t like them and I don’t get it: plastic club, plastic fan base, passionless and soulless.

Anyway, obsessive Manchester United rant over, the points are ours, get over it.

Around the relegation zone it is clear any number of teams could go down, our goal difference may yet prove pivotal.

However, it is delicious to see Alan Pardew slowly but surely get isolated at the bottom. I have no problem with WBA and their fans, indeed it is one of the better away trips, but I do take delight in seeing Mr Smug struggle to keep his cringeworthy calm demeanour. Then of course we had the ‘Brucey bonus’ of Daniel Sturridge limping off injured after five minutes last night, we did indeed dodge that bullet.

It is hard to pick who will go down, but my feeling is it will be WBA, Stoke and possibly Crystal Palace, now that the talented  Zaha is out injured.

The joys of social media bought my own humbling at the weekend, as at half-time on Saturday I put a silly Facebook comment about Bristol City declaring at half-time against Sunderland, only for our Red and White friends to confound everyone with a stirring comeback. Was I actually wrong? Maybe Bristol City did declare…how else can it be explained? Well two own goals goes some way to explaining the truth!

Football is a great game and the happenings last weekend is why we love it so much. The current owner does not get Newcastle United, so let us hope that when a takeover does happen the incoming owners do get what NUFC is all about.

Wow, a weekend off, let’s enjoy the breathing space and reflect on recent happenings.
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