Newcastle United LETS go

[BBKing]

Top British boroughs by population, IIRC.

I cheated a bit, since this is just how regional government draws the lines, which isn't necessarily something that makes much sense (it does seem that they try and get 150,000 to 300,000 people in an area, though). Where your argument does have some merit is if you say that Tyne and Wear north of the Tyne is pretty much Toon Army territory, which is probably true. I don't know enough intelligible Geordies to know where the line runs south of the river.

However, as I tried to make clear, given that most British cities now run into each other the lines are pretty much arbitrary whoever draws them, so comparing sizes is always going to be fraught (Man United are clearly a Manchester club, even though they happen to be in Trafford, but Sunderland aren't a Newcastle club even though they're in Tyne and Wear - it's not logical).

I saw that Ant and Dec in the pub on Saturday. Dec's a shortarse.

[cimt]

They got rid of him far too early, no one can work the magic in 8 months apart from Keane, and that was in the Championship which says it all really.

Originally Posted by BBKing

Happy to. Wikipedia puts the population of Newcastle at 260,000, which is about a quarter that of Birmingham and half that of Manchester, which rather alters the question, really.

For comparison:
Wigan: 305,000
Sunderland: 281,000
Bolton: 260,000
Derby: 230,000
Pompey: 196,000

The only place in the UK that can legimately claim to be rather under-represented is Leeds, which is a good deal bigger than Newcastle. Don't forget Bradford, too.

Of course, what I mean by 'Newcastle' is the middle bit of a conurbation (Tyne and Wear) of five main areas, but since this includes Sunderland it actually has two Premiership teams in it. You could try and divide the conurbation up into Mackem bits and Geordie bits, but then again you can divide Brum up into City and Villa areas, Manchester United's not really in Manchester*, and as for London, well Hammersmith & Fulham's got three clubs in it (Fulham, Chelsea, QPR) but poor old Ealing, population 306,000, has no professional clubs at all.

Small team, small town, big dreams, big delusions.

* Trafford, population 212,000. On that basis, if Newcastle has one Premier club, so does Manchester, which is bigger. Alternatively, if you refer to the whole conurbation, Manchester has two and Tyne and Wear has two. QED.

Since you forgot, Middlesbrough has a population of approx. 142,691, I remember reading somewhere that it's one of the smallest towns in the UK.

[Pierre]

Newcastle fans are the most deluded fans in the country. Still living on the fact they came close to winning the title 12 years ago.

They bang on about their great tradition and history but out of 116 years they've been in existence they've only spent 84 of them in the top flight 72% (not bad but not great) and they haven't won a major honour since 1955.

Yet they think they're entitled to be in the top four every year!! It's laughable.

I think Sam would have have done a good job given the chance.

As an Evertonian (a club with infinitely more tradition and success than Newcastle) the panic button could have been pressed many times and we could have got rid of Moyes on several occasions justifiably but we stuck with him and are now enjoying a degree of success.

Whoever takes over at Newcastle must be given time - personally though I hope they go into freefall and go back to the lower tier of English football.

[jonifen]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Whoever takes over at Newcastle must be given time - personally though I hope they go into freefall and go back to the lower tier of English football.

Exactly. I think that Newcastle (to an extent) have the potential to become a big club. My reasons for thinking this are:
They have the fans who will follow them wherever they play and they've never exactly been short of money and the chairmen always 100% backed their managers in the transfer market where possible (or so it seems at least).

Where it all comes unstuck though is when the managers have dabbled in the transfer market and haven't come up with the success that is expected by both the chairmen and the fans... so the manager gets the boot.

I think Sam's problem is that he has been at Bolton for a long time and has enjoyed success (he didn't actually win anything (off the top of my head) but he did alright) from playing like early 1990's Wimbledon FC (long ball etc). I doubt that Newcastle's fans would take kindly to that kind of thing. They expect "sexy football" (as per Ruud Gullit - who was also sacked if I remember right) and to win game in and game out. Basically to cut it short, they want to have their cake and be able to eat it.

[Cerberus]

Keegan's back

Here

[Shadow Demon UK]

Here's hoping we can have some more of this now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXpUdBlRZe8

[Cerberus]

Originally Posted by Shadow Demon UK

Here's hoping we can have some more of this now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXpUdBlRZe8

Quality

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Cerberus

Keegan's back

Here

Absolutely brilliant.

Confirmation that Mike Ashley knows nothing about football. I may live to eat my words but Keegan is a spent force. You only have to look at what he achieved with Man City and England to see that.

He had his shot and missed out. You should never go back (again as an Everton fan I can refer to Howard Kendalls 2nd and 3rd terms)

If he is not successful it will be interesting to see how the fans react to their one time messiah. He may warrant more patience than Allerdyce, but how much more???

This will be very interesting.

[phaze9]

When I heard that Keegan was back I thought it was a very bad joke he walked away the last time , doesn't perform well under pressure and he has done this with England and Man City ? I don't think that he is the man for the job and I am a Newcastle supporter and thought that Sam allerdyce should have been given more time.What we realy need is to get rid of the dead wood Owen, Viduka (who was the same a Celtic ) and possibly Smith, I realise that other fans would disagree with me but this is just my opinion.

[jonifen]

Originally Posted by phaze9

When I heard that Keegan was back I thought it was a very bad joke he walked away the last time , doesn't perform well under pressure and he has done this with England and Man City ? I don't think that he is the man for the job and I am a Newcastle supporter and thought that Sam allerdyce should have been given more time.What we realy need is to get rid of the dead wood Owen, Viduka (who was the same a Celtic ) and possibly Smith, I realise that other fans would disagree with me but this is just my opinion.

I agree with phaze9 on this one... Owen has never been the same since the last time he got injured whilst at Liverpool in my eyes. He has glimmers of hope and he ends up back in physio again. For a team wanting to get challenging for Europe, I think he is likely to be too inconsistent as a striker. If Newcastle had a million chances a game, he would score a few (a la Andy Cole in his United days) but he is no longer the world beater he once was/promised to be.

Viduka, I've never really rated him. I was surprised Newcastle even bought him in the first place. I think Morientes would've been a better buy for Newcastle, and I know first hand as a Liverpool fan how disappointing he proved to be in the Premiership.

I don't think anyone can doubt that Smith is one of those players who will give his all every game. I've seen many matches where he has ran himself ragged on the pitch. But while you can't complain about his effort, he does lack some quality and I think this is possibly down to United not pushing him more as a striker and instead trying to make him the new Roy Keane as a DMC.


One good thing has come out of players coming/going though at Newcastle... at least Titus Bramble was shipped out to Wigan, he has the concentration span of a goldfish. And that's being polite!