Newcastle Football Club was founded in 1892 and is also commonly referred to as “The Magpies”. Their legion of fans is well known to be fiercely loyal and is termed, the “Toon Army”. It is obvious why - given Newcastle abysmal performances till date, the loonies can’t possibly get any loonier.
Currently sitting seven places behind archrivals - Sunderland, who is currently ranked 12th in the Premier League, the Magpies can only afford to ridicule a fellow avian kind – the cockerel from White Hart Lane. I guess, even birds of different feathers do flock together ONLY in the Relegation Zone.
Now, through my research on Newcastle, the word great came across numerous times. And please allow me to explain why. They are indeed a great club, but not because of their four Premiership/First Division titles, nor their 6 rusty looking FA Cups in their trophies room (which were all won more than half a century ago)
Like all things, what goes up comes down. NUFC, despite their glorious days in “medieval” times, was relegated to the 2nd Division in 1934 and more of such spectacular feats were repeated in 1961,and 1980 before achieving promotion for main flight football in 1992 – a whopping 12 years playing void deck soccer. Now, that is why they are great. If you cannot win the “Most Distinguished Student Award”, there is always the “Most Improved Student Award” and you can still be great.
Why the word bizarre you may ask. Well you see, Kevin Keegan returned as manager in 1992 to confirm his status as King Kev by hauling NUFC out of the 2nd Dvision and even claiming runner up spot in the 1993-94 and 1995-96 seasons. However, Lady Luck was to desert them once again and this time for good with the sacking of Sir Bobby Robson. A strange series of occurrences began to take shape. It all started with the brawl between Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer (2 key players). For F*ck you may ask. God knows. Can you imagine, if Wayne Rooney is to slap Cristiano Ronaldo in the middle of the pitch before pulling down his pants and ridiculing his birdie. Makes no sense doesn’t it?
That’s not all.. World class names, Emre, Albert Luque and most notably of all Jean-Alain Boumsong would come to Newcastle as hero and leave as zero. Furthermore, unexplainable occurring injuries besieged this “most improved student” club time and time again till I am simply too lazy to name them.
Please visit, http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_premier_league/clubs/16/newcastle_united_injuries.html for more details. Just a glance will do, you will know why. Basically, NUFC’s 05/06 season injuries saw no less than 340-days lost of players time because of injury. That sums it up.
Whinny Big Sam sought to put the injury ghost to an end with modern science and Chinese Feng Shui but I guess the Feng Shui was just too much for the fat man as he was sacked shortly afterward, paving way for the comeback of King Kev. Happy times are always short lived with NUFC. King Kev resigned within months of appointment and his successor, Joe Kinnear again proved why NUFC is no ordinary club. In an interview with journalists, he let fly a barrage of X-rated abuses which can be found here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/newcastle/3124831/Joe-Kinnear-press-conference-transcript-Football.html
In summary, a total of 36 F-words, 4 C-words, 6 B-words were extensive applied. Great sense of vocabulary the gaffer has.
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