There are 283 miles between London and Newcastle, but geography and little else separates the Crazy Gang from the Loony Toons. The gags are wearing thin for Newcastle United supporters, but few would deny that theirs is a club inviting ridicule. Joe Kinnear is less a left-field selection than a desperate punt, although at least the former Wimbledon manager will be familiar with those.

As late as yesterday lunchtime there were slimmer odds on Roy Keane replacing Kevin Keegan than Kinnear and sense could only be made of developments at St James’ Park if Mike Ashley, the owner, were to be unmasked as a Sunderland fan. On August 17 Newcastle emerged from a visit to Old Trafford with a creditable 1-1 draw; somehow, shamefully, 41 days later, the club have imploded.

Joe Kinnear or joking here? “It’s astonishing,” Michael Martin, the editor of the respected true faith fanzine and a guiding force in the recent establishment of the Newcastle United Supporters Club, said. “It’s a joke appointment from an owner who has completely lost the plot. There is a considerable distance between Joe Kinnear and Terry Venables.

“At least Venables had a shred of credibility from what he’s done in his career and he has some standing in the game. But Joe Kinnear? Goodness knows how much he is going to get paid. Can you imagine what the likes of Shay Given, Nicky Butt and Michael Owen think of this?” Protests against Ashley’s regime, however short-term its tenure, will continue.

As it happened, Given was at Newcastle’s training ground to answer Martin’s question. In the circumstances, a brief to speak in public was a taxing one and the Ireland goalkeeper struggled to maintain his composure.

Was he pleased a decision had been made? “Pleased? No, I mean the club is still up for sale and we haven’t got a permanent manager, so I wouldn’t say pleased,” Given said. “It’s going somewhere, I suppose, but I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know what to say, where to start, but in an ideal world we’d like the club sorted out and a permanent manager. Joe Kinnear’s just to oversee things until we get one. It is not an ideal situation.”

Given, along with the majority of his team-mates, relished working under Keegan. Barbs were contained in the player’s reaction to Kinnear’s public contention that Keegan and Alan Shearer will return to the club when Ashley leaves. “I didn’t want to see Kevin leave in the first place, so that kind of answers that, but it depends on who takes over,” Given said. “No one wanted to see him leave in the first place.”

Investors from China, the United States and the Middle East have approached Seymour Pierce, the investment bank charged this week with handling the sale of Newcastle, but Kinnear stated yesterday that a Nigerian consortium is Ashley’s “first choice. He assures me that they have a buyer and the consortium coming in have Kevin Keegan lined up and possibly Alan Shearer.”

That four-man group is being led by Chris Nathaniel, the head of NVA Management and the agent of Rio Ferdinand, the Manchester United defender, and Obafemi Martins, the Newcastle striker.

“We’re at the stage now where our end are doing the relevant security checks on the individuals who have the money,” Nathaniel said yesterday. “We have a lawyer here who is doing those checks before finally submitting a bid to Newcastle.

“Kevin’s a legend on Tyneside and I think anybody looking to buy that football club would not be very smart if they didn’t have Kevin involved in some capacity. If I was advising anyone buying the club, I would certainly suggest Kevin would be the right man for the job.” Shearer, however, has already once previously rejected the opportunity to work under Keegan.

The prospect of a Keegan-Shearer partnership may entrance the fans, but there are more immediate matters to attend to. The team are next to bottom in the Barclays Premier League. The number of first-team players lost to injury and suspension stretches into double figures, but Kinnear, who will assume duties on Monday, is an optimist. As much can be gathered by his answerphone message during his Wimbledon days: “I’m out at the moment, but should you be the chairman of Barcelona, AC Milan or Real Madrid, I’ll get straight back to you. The rest can wait.”

Issues of credibility, relevance and quality will be raised. “I’m not scared of a fight,” Kinnear, who was once fined £20,000 and presented with a four-match touchline suspension for using foul and abusive language to a Newcastle fan, said yesterday. “I’m going in with my eyes open and if I do have a successful spell, then you don’t know where it will lead. I’m not daft enough not to know that everybody else has turned their back on it. What I intend to do is make an instant improvement at the club.”