It was only a charity do – a dinner at the Hilton hotel in Gateshead for the
Prince’s Trust – but in the community it meant a lot. So Gareth Southgate,
the Middlesbrough manager, was there and he had brought his players,
including Stewart Downing, the England winger, and David Wheater. Sunderland
sent Anton Ferdinand, one of their new signings, and Craig Gordon, the
Scotland goalkeeper. And representing Newcastle United: nobody.
“Magpies snub kids” the headlines read, but this was a clumsy oversight, not a
snub; a slip that encapsulates the rudderless mess that the club have
become.
The same absence of purpose and responsibility weighs down each aspect of Mike
Ashley’s floundering regime. From the pitch to the board-room, Newcastle
have become a big no-show. The directors are too frightened to turn up and
the players are hiding behind excuses, while the management thinks that each
day could be its last. It is not a recipe for disaster because, in terms of
the direction the club are taking, that has happened. It is a recipe for
relegation.
Footballers do a lot for charity, but like most of us they need a nudge. That
is why fundraisers exist – to organise and direct donations and to jog the
consciences of those in a position to help. If we put our hands in our
pockets without reminders, we wouldn’t need Lenny Henry and Comic Relief
every two years. And, hey, that sounds like a fair exchange, but the point
is it would have taken a bit of cajoling and work to get all the local
celebrities in the same place on the same night in Gateshead.
Southgate’s presence would have helped to get Middlesbrough’s star players
along and one look from Roy Keane would probably have done it at Sunderland.
Even so, behind the scenes there would still have been a put-upon club
official making sure that this famously unreliable breed knew times and
places, dress codes, whether a car would take them home, whether there would
be an auction or a raffle and if memorabilia was required or had already
been donated. A reminder of the good cause in question might have been
necessary, too.
Except at Newcastle, where no one bothered because everyone is too busy
looking over their shoulders for an angry mob, or a new manager, or Dennis
Wise, or an Arab sheikh with £400 million burning a hole in his pocket that
he is just looking to sink into an expanding black-and-white abyss. Even if
someone had rallied Newcastle’s players into attendance, the last thing they
want is to spend the night in a room full of ticked-off Geordies, tongues
and inhibitions loosened by hours at the bar. Handed an invitation, the
players would have shuffled awkwardly, offered a few lame excuses and made a
sharp exit. And, right now, no one at Newcastle has the authority to stop
them.
It is an indictment of Ashley’s regime that Freddy Shepherd, the former
chairman, is increasingly remembered with fondness. Who is in charge here?
Who was in charge as the club slipped into the relegation zone on Saturday,
with no prospect of a steadying hand on the tiller? Chris Hughton is the
caretaker manager, but no one is taking care of this club. There is a void
filled only with angry voices and the occasional bleating of the owner and
now the players have gone into hiding, too.
The turmoil has become mitigation for performances that have worsened since
Kevin Keegan departed. Newcastle were poor against Arsenal in Keegan’s last
game, but now the players have an excuse. Meanwhile, Ashley is flying around
the world in a desperate attempt to hawk the club to a buyer as impetuous
and foolish as he was. He has an executive structure that acts as a
repellent for any manager of substance, a painfully underpowered squad of
players and an overpowered mutinous army of supporters. But if he will not
turn up for games, why should anyone else?
No one is poking his head above deck at Newcastle, for any cause, and
certainly not for charity. The ship is drifting and the crew is nowhere to
be seen. Some compare Newcastle to the Titanic. Not quite: it’s the Mary
Celeste.
And another thing...
A matter easy to figure out
Next month is a big one for the London Olympics project. Decisions on team
funding, the financing of the Olympic village and security will be made; key
appointments to the delivery committees are expected. Then there is the
legacy issue, with Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, again raising the
prospect of a deal with football after the stadium has served its purpose in
2012.
To this end, he may be interested in the attendance at Gateshead for the first
significant athletics meeting after the Great Britain team returned from
Beijing, which featured Christine Ohuruogu, the 400 metres gold
medal-winner: 7,013. Not quite up there with the average gate at Bristol
Rovers this season, but pretty close.
Why maintain a vast stadium for a sport so few want to watch? There has to be
a compromise.
Capello’s central issue
Steven Gerrard’s performance in Marseilles last week, coupled with the form of
Frank Lampard, serves only to illustrate what nonsense it is to suggest that
one must be excluded for England when world-class talent is in such short
supply. As the two central midfield players of four, there may be a problem,
but the argument seems to have expanded until it is regarded as heresy to
suggest putting them on the same pitch.
Yet there is no reason why Gerrard and Lampard should not work together with
Owen Hargreaves or a disciplined Gareth Barry in between, or with Gerrard
starting wide and coming inside, as he has done to great effect for
Liverpool. Great coaches are problem-solvers and if Fabio Capello is the
best, he can address this without making one of England’s finest players
redundant.
Debate: Can Lampard and Gerrard play together? Click
here to have your say
Comolli in ideal position
Shortly after the dismissal of Martin Jol as head coach of Tottenham Hotspur,
I asked Damien Comolli, the club’s sporting director, what had to go wrong
at White Hart Lane for him to get the sack. Comolli was surprisingly vague
on this issue, but we now know that ending up bottom of the league after
five matches is not it. Nor is signing a series of failures or mishandling
transfer deadline day to such an extent that the star striker leaves for
Manchester United and is replaced by an Old Trafford reserve, late of Hull
City.
As the League Managers Association sends out distress signals over the way its
members are being marginalised by interfering owners, the position of
director of football goes from strength to strength. Judge me in ten years
is the mantra of men such as Comolli, while a manager is lucky to get ten
matches.
Sign when they’re winning
Not everyone is as suggestible as Robinho. Cristiano Ronaldo has made it clear
that if he walks out of Manchester United, a bus ride across town will not
constitute following his dream. The older Ronaldo, who is out of contract
after a less than impressive spell with AC Milan, however, seems only too
keen to fill the void. Buyer beware. Nothing would dampen optimism around
the Manchester City takeover quicker than a star-struck move for Ronaldo, or
any other expensive has-been. It may sell the odd shirt to more gullible
elements of the market in the West and East, but it would be a professional
calamity, particularly for Mark Hughes, the club’s manager.
There is no room for Ronaldo in an emerging team and any switched-on transfer
target would balk at the realisation that City were nothing more than a
fancy book for wealthy autograph-hunters.
Sweet FA outdid McClaren
Steve McClaren, the former England head coach, would be permitted a rueful
smile at the news that Fabio Capello, his successor, has chosen home matches
against Slovakia and Slovenia to prepare for World Cup qualifying games next
year. When McClaren needed an even break as respite from a difficult
European Championship group he was handed, in succession, matches against
Holland, Spain, Brazil and Germany. The FA would not take such liberties
with the new man.
The November friendly against Germany in Berlin was arranged in the Italian’s
first month, but, looking at the strength of England’s recent friendly
opponents, Capello has put his foot down since then in a way that McClaren
never could.
Paying a Queens’ ransom
Obviously, not everyone does badly in a recession, but Queens Park Rangers are
attempting to buck the trend spectacularly by minting the first £50 ticket
for football outside the Barclays Premier League. “Since the takeover, the
club has had massive investment which has enabled us to increase our
competitiveness in the Championship and provide a better standard of
entertainment,” a spokesman said. Maybe so, but QPR are six points adrift of
Wolverhampton Wanderers, who are top, and the season is barely a month old.
What will the board do if this team go up and they really have to put their
hands in their pockets? For a conglomerate of billionaires, it seems early
to send out the collection plate.
Uefa inspires French farce
One of football’s great mysteries is how French players are exported
successfully around the world when French football clubs are so ordinary.
Bordeaux, in losing 4-0 to Chelsea in the Champions League match at Stamford
Bridge last week, were extremely poor, yet Laurent Blanc, their coach, led
them to second place in the French league last season. Michel Platini, the
Uefa president, will argue that this is because the borrowed wealth of the
Premier League has made competition in Europe uneven, but equally
significant is the extravagant windfall of Champions League football.
Restricted to the same select few each year, it has made domestic leagues
increasingly uncompetitive. Lyons are on an unprecedented run of seven
consecutive French league titles and are four points clear again, when four
titles had previously been the longest sustained streak (Marseilles 1989 to
1992 and Saint-Etienne 1967 to 1970).
Uefa must take some responsibility for the corrupting influence of its
competition, which all of Platini’s much-vaunted Champions League reforms
will do nothing to change.
Artfully dodging the issue
Danny Guthrie, of Newcastle United, received only a three-match ban for the
tackle that broke Craig Fagan’s right leg and Hull City have been told that
the FA can do no more. Not true. Rule 6i of the FA disciplinary procedures
states that a misconduct charge can be brought against a player, even if the
incident has been dealt with. The problem is that the FA is terrified of
judging each case on merit, rather than with a statutory punishment, because
all decisions would be subjective and could be open to legal challenge.
Fagan is no angel, either. He was banned for three matches last season for
stamping on Álvaro Arbeloa, of Liverpool, then given an additional one-match
ban for making a frivolous appeal. So the FA can impose extra sentences for
the heinous crime of causing unnecessary paperwork but not for violent
offences that could end a player’s career.
In the meantime, the mayhem continues. Guthrie’s tackle was cowardly, but not
compared with what goes on at Soho Square.
