Newcastle 6 v 2 Everton                                                      Friday 29th March 2002

Kick-Off: 2.00pm. (Live on Sky)                                                                    Att: 51,921

Everton : Simonsen, Hibbert, Weir, Stubbs, Pistone, Alexandersson, Gemmill, Gravesen, Unsworth, Radzinski, Ferguson

Bench : Gerrard, Watson, Chadwick, Moore, Blomqvist.

Subs: Watson for Hibbert (30m), Chadwick for Radzinski (74m), Blomqvist for Pistone (75m).

The team was as expected and it was nice to see Stevie Watson back on the bench. The talk around the crowd was what has happened to Toby, well we have heard that he hasn't recovered from the youth cup semi final on Wednesday night.

We got off to a really good start and were 1 up after five minutes. It looked to be a fluke for me. Duncan swung a leg at the ball which unbelieveably flew over Given's head into the net. We went bonkers!

Ten minutes later, Newcastle were 2-1 up. Shearer was clear through from a throw in - yes - a throw in! What the fuck was Pistone doing? There is something about this bloke that drives me fucking mad. He goes around, seemingly not giving a shit, giving everyone the impression that he owns the fucking place! I hope Moyesey gets rid of him first before anyone else.

Shearer scored. Cort made it 2 from a Robert cross.

Stevie Watson came into the game when he came on for the injured Tony Hibbert, who looked to be in a lot of pain. I hope he's okay.

We seemed to settle down and got back into the game after 35 minutes, when after a little game of head tennis, the ball broke to St. Nic who pushed it past Given for his second goal in 2 games. I really thought at this stage that we were going to collect all 3 points. I must be mad.

Half time 2 - 2

We seemed to be really comfortable for the first 15 minutes. It all went wrong after a shot was pushed for a corner by Simmo from a young kid called Jenas. From the resulting corner, O'Brien scored after a scramble - that was the end of the game.

We collapsed! Jenas and Dyer tore us to shreds. Newcastle went on to score 3 more goals, 2 from Solano and 1 from somebody else.

After a heated discussion with my fellow Kipper friends, Alan Stubbs was my Blue Kipper star man.

On Monday, we have one of them 'must win' games. We will win. We must win.

Quotes

Moyesy says: “The goals we lost were poor and we have looked at them already and spoken about them. But we have to remain positive. We have taken six points out of nine in the last three games and if we can continue like that between now and the end of the season we will be happy.”

Sausage: That was one bad second half. Who was your MoM

Kipper: Stubbsey

Sausage:Your fuckin joking, he was shite

Lard:Fuck off Kipper you can't pick him

Jogger: I'm not 'aven that Kipper

Kipper: It's my turn to write the report and I can pick who I want.

Hallo sailor! Welcome to The Yard!
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

After the return trip from Derby I discussed the implications of the win with Texyla. He made what might seem a simplistic observation but one which gets to the kernel of most footy, nay sports, playing problems. "Why," he asked nursing his pint of lager, "couldn't they perform like that under Walter?"

Of course the answer is three-fold. It is Smiffy's fault. It is the players' fault. And there was no so-called "chemistry" between them. Now you can talk about the latter until the cows come home. Fact is, nobody, not even a sports psychologist, has a clue what "chemistry" means. You just know it when you see it. If you could define it, then manufacture it, you would be worth a fortune. But you can't. Fact also is, the same players were out there in roughly the same formation Smiffy (or me or you for that matter) would have selected. Yet they looked completely different in their efforts and teamwork. If this is indeed their true level then they have been dishonest with Walter, so they have to take their share of the responsibility for his sacking. Which also makes their subsequent "I was shattered" comments somewhat self-serving. Which also leads to the obvious question: How long before they do the same thing to Moyesy? And if any of them do, will Moyesy do the sensible thing and get rid immediately?

Monday brought the glorious and longed for news: 'ARRY'S BACK WITH A THREE YEAR CONTRACT AT PORTSMOUTH! Yes, beloved former Yammer Harry Redknapp has been made manager in place of Graham Rix. With a bit of luck this will lead to some fun and games in the transfer market. 'Arry's brilliant at ripping off sticks-up-their-arse Suits like Ridsdale at Leeds. And don't we know it after the Bilic and Williamson episodes, the bastard. It's always funny when it's someone else who falls for his cockney barra boy act. Me, I'm 'Arry's number one fan…………………so long as we stay away from him when it comes to transfers and/or buying second hand cars. Which of course means Moyesy'll be down there buying two or three from him next week. Erk.

On Tuesday night a great Irish champion, Dennis Taylor, entertained everybody at our snooker club. He's a true gentleman and very funny in the grand tradition of celtic self-deprecatory humour. The southern English have never understood the true meaning of Irish ironic wit and probably never will. If only they knew who the Irish are REALLY taking the piss out of………………

Goddamn if we didn't go and lose to the Eyeties in a friendly international on Wednesday night. I must say the Italians looked splendid in their new kit, which had echoes of when players actually looked like athletes instead of itinerant Arab tents. The only people who suit that baggy shite are Generation Xer fatties and acne-ridden dwarfs, exactly the ones who have brought our country to its knees in almost every sense of the word. Not that I have any time at all for Italian footy, the most corrupt and rotten in Europe. Can't be otherwise while fascist gobshite Berlusconi runs their show.

So Wednesday night was spent in the company of the usual suspects at the FA Youth Cup semi-final first leg at GP. I am pleased to report that we won 2-1, though it should have been more and might not be enough in the return leg next week. Precocious sixteen years old Wayne Rooney once again caused havoc in the visiting defence and had a hand in almost everything which mattered up front. But the whole side played well and had Colin Harvey stamped all over them. When you coupled this with the new sense of excitement created by Moysey's arrival you couldn't help but feel good. Afterwards in the Royal Oak everyone was more animated than I have seen in ages, particularly Ian, who was beginning to look and sound like Sidney Greenstreet in a bad mood until Moysey clocked in.

During the day, ITV Digital went into bankruptcy and threatened to welch on their contract to the lower three divisions. The "risk-taking creators of wealth" strike again. The bubble begins to deflate in earnest by threatening the existence of a lot of clubs, perhaps as many as thirty thereof. Needless to say, the welchers blamed the victims in their usual gutless "entrepreneurial" manner. By this time, Swindon were already in receivership anyway. ITV Digital is owned by Carlton and Granada (purchasers of 10% of the pinkies) and their incapability now threatens the survival of a substantial part of our game. Nice one, Suits, you pricks. Just think, if our club had followed the bleatings from the Melledrew Tendency we might have been in the same situation through NTL. In which event, guess who Victor Melledrew and co. would have blamed.

Not coincidentally the clubs are beginning to talk about creating their own TV channel, a step I have been urging for years. Let's get shut of the Scab League and return to one league of four divisions, better organised and with more willingness to share the TV money around for the good of our game. The Parrys of this world can go and get fucked. It isn't impossible. All it requires is the will and hard work. But you can't expect Generation X to understand that, since they've been indoctrinated with enough balance sheet/MBA bullshit to divest themselves of any concept of co-operative action. In the end our society and our game will deserve what it gets if it leaves the decisions to right-wing shysters, salesmen and propaganda manufacturers.

[REALITY CHECK: The week opened with the annual TV pagan mass for Narcissus in HollywoodLand. This time it was held in the new L.A. Schlock Theeayter and featured a thousand stiff facelifts, pneumatic tits, sculpted bums, appalling Yank interior design and the usual line in mortifyingly bad speech prose. The only one who took it seriously enough to parody it unmercifully was Whoopi Goldberg: At the opening she descended from the ceiling strapped to a swing, wearing a kitsch costume with eclectic origins from the Road Runner's tail feathers, Mr. Chips' pince nez and Disraeli's topper. Whoopi got her schtick so right I turned off the set after she exited with feathers flouncing magnificently. My sides were aching too much. You couldn't possibly match THAT, though Russell Crowe's incredible attempt to look like a front row Cecil B. de Mille version of Jesus was a close runner-up. Why our species' dominant art form does this much tackiness to itself is one of the enduring mysteries of what's left of Western Civilization.

On Monday, precisely as forecast, the Post Office (now called Consignia as the Chief Messenger Boy hurries it toward privatisation [read: ripoff]) announced minimum overall redundancies of 15,000 in the Parcel Force sector, 400 alone on Merseyside. The overall total may even go as high as 40,000 by the time the Suits have finished. The more redundancies, the more the shares will be "worth." Needless to say our right-wing media couldn't give a shit at the devastation this will cause to tens of thousands of lives. Be interesting to see if the Yanks hoover up ownership the way they did in the energy and utilities field, Enron-style. So the privatisation scam goes on destroying families, just as it did in manufacturing industries transferred to so-called Third World sweatshops. One day the establishment will push this horror too far. They always do. It cannot be otherwise in a system which can only exist on the basis of expanding greed and self-delusion. It will only stop when sufficient people say enough is enough. Don't expect the Chief Messenger Boy or the Appointed Pretzel Prez to be one of them though. In the meantime, increasing millions of our citizens live in worsening poverty while the remainder are led into wilful ignorance by the nose by a jeering right-wing media.

But the Railtrack shareholders know nothing about poverty, not now they'll be getting, as of Monday, almost their share "value" when they were rightly bankrupted by Stephen Byers. Which of course is why the media hate him. Lest it be forgotten, these are the same shithouses who hardly raised an investigative peep when hundreds were slaughtered on our privatised railways due to the shareholders' inactions. Their only concerns are how much money they can make, even at the expense of lives. Me, I'd prosecute every last one of them for negligence, never mind give them compensation. They've had their money back through blood-money profits. Fuck them off without a penny. They are after all the very same people who bang on about "risk taking" and all the usual right wing garbage. Until of course it actually comes to being faced with the consequences of their own actions. At which point the scrounging self-pitying bastards come around with the begging bowl again.

Human nature, don't you just love it.

Yes I do. All except the Frenchies and privatised industries shareholders. The Gauls in particular because their food's lousy too, except for the sauces. Frankly, if you'll pardon the pun, there's no reason for their existence and it ought to be stopped as soon as the law, technology and evolution allows. Some people can't take a joke but the Frenchies are the only entire nation with a stick up their collective arse. Personally I think it is because us Rosbifs biffed the daylights out of them so often in the growing world empire stakes, and then the Krauts did it three times in seventy years too. When William Shirer was writing "Rise and Fall of The Third Reich" some Frog historians actually told him he shouldn't tackle any history younger than the Napoleonic years. Oh aye yeh, I bet they did. No wonder that Jean-Paul Sartre invented existentialism while Simone de Beauvoir was getting shagged by every gigolo in sight, and Chelsea are complete shite, and everyone of them at Arsenal wants to leave. You can see the link every time one of them gets excited and asks for a transfer, or is that "transfeur"? Nope, get rid of 'em all I say and do it right quick. Brittany belongs to us anyway. And as for that Emanuelle and that Ollie Dacourt, well, don't get me started on THEM. And no, none of this has anything whatever to do with the fact that they beat us at rugby the other week.

Great thing the internet isn't it. You get your opinions out uncensored or shortened by the media. People can take it or leave it and you couldn't give a shit one way or the other. And at the same time you manage to piss off the bribed lower middle classes out there in the quiet desperation of Daily Telegraph/Daily Mail/Sun sponsored suburbs. Bliss, sheer bliss.]

Match day, glorious and sunny, and we were in a minibus again. Which was not great, especially as I pulled out my back in one of those ludicrous innocuous moments as I levered myself out of the sack at 6.30 a.m. From which point I walked like those little toy robots in "Blade Runner."

Traditional holiday Brit roads slaughter and blocked motorways had us travelling via Leeds and Harrogate in a tin can which couldn't exceed 50 kph unless it was travelling downhill with a following force ten gale. If I said we were all rigid by the time we got out it wouldn't tell you the half of it. Much worse than that, Fred was in full stentorian bellow mode on the back seat. Now, Fred is one of the most dedicated Evertonians you will meet anywhere on the planet. Unfortunately, he comes with no external volume control or on/off switch. And since he isn't inclined to operate the internal controls you want to crawl through to the back seat and belabour him with a rolled up newspaper full of lead. Even then, you get the feeling that he'd still be functioning like one of the dissembled droids in "A.I." He was relentless, as monotone awful and continuous as Lawrenson at his media worst. He wouldn't listen to anybody else. He wanted to control the whole proceedings. He wouldn't let anyone get a word in vertical. In short, he was, no IS, King of the Kids. After a while everybody shut down and went to sleep to the sound of his stentorian drone. The Bus lumbered on.

We arrived in Newcastle and disembarked at The Globe. But it was locked up. We all stood outside like one of those groups of forlorn inner city winos you can see everywhere in the world. Someone said, "Let's go to Rockie's Bar up the road." Yes, that's how it is spelled. I groaned inwardly. As we got near, a peeling paper poster yelled, "ROCKIE'S BAR! COME INSIDE AND SEE OUR LOVELY EXOTIC DANCERS! BEER £1.80! DOUBLE SPIRITS £2.00!" I felt a migraine enhance my back ache. A Fred-led (who else?) advance party emerged to say they wanted a £2 entrance fee. I brightened up immediately. I wasn't going to PAY to get into a pub and I don't know a true Englishman who would. Fred led us to The Yard, a pub about a hundred metres further on. It was empty. It was clean. First glance showed it had been fitted out with reasonable if multi-coloured skill. We fell on it like Lawrence at the water hole before Omar Sharif showed up in a mirage. It was £2.50 per pint but I didn't care. We settled down next to a window and started into the usual pre-match assessment and other civilized matters. Most of us figured a draw but wouldn't be surprised at a loss. A win would be a huge bonus.

Fred hovered in the background talking to the tanned barman. After a while he came over and said (in what was for him) sotto voce (i.e. Foghorn Leghorn decibels), "Er, dunno how to say this lads. But this is a gay pub." There was an embarrassed silence. We re-appraised our surroundings. A small poster in the window offered intimate advice about Newcastle's gay scene. Short term cultural group hetero paranoid panic ensued. To my knowledge none of us is gay, as if it mattered anyway. But if sexuality is a matter of preference then you can't help feeling your skin crawl if you aren't a tail gunner, and I'm sure it is vice-versa, if you see what I mean. Then common sense kicked in and everyone saw the funny side, that we were dead comfortable, that we weren't going to get gang-banged by a marauding band of hulking, hairy-arsed, tatooed Geordie welders with a lisp. We fell about laughing and settled down, even blew kisses to passing in-the-know Geordies who stared in. It might have been different if there had been some turd-burgling Frenchies on stand by. It was of course all Fred's fault. Ray-o even nicknamed the pub Fred's Place, haha. He'll never live this one down. At one point he offered a tumbler full of pastel coloured straws around. Bernie actually stuck a pink one in his Guinness but Ray-o said, "No ta. You never know where they've been." The only thing between you and an absolute paroxysm of mirth was a complete lack of imagination.

Thence to Newcastle's peculiar half-constructed stadium and it's useless away section up near Scapa Flow. There are fourteen flights of stairs and maybe one hundred and forty steps. I can't remember the precise figure because I'm still recovering. I am an impatient sod at the best of times and it always shows when I climb stairs at the rate of two at a time. By the time I reached the top I was the shape of Hampton Court maze. It was a relief to see everyone else was too. As usual, our away allocation was sold out, new pinky-prodding Peoples' Club banners everywhere. Equally as usual we were surrounded by positively the worst police force anywhere in England. Though they were reasonably behaved by their own appalling standards I have never seen so many apparently ill-intentioned bizzies in my life, not even in francoist Spain or gaullist France (where three thousand years ago I got a busted rib in the student revolt) or Daley's Chicago. A match at Newcastle has become the worst of all footy experiences. Which is a pity because Geordie fans are great fun when you get one-on-one in a sensible situation………………don't much like them en masse, though, far too fickle.

The teams were announced but the sound system consisted of a single watt speaker slung under the edge of the cantilever roof a footy field length away. We were reduced to squinting at the tiny figures in the distance to try to identify them. You could only just see the numbers and even then only when they were square-on and static. This really isn't my idea of how to spectate. Once we move to the Kings Dock my season ticket's going to be in the very first level and I hope the Geordies get stuck on the fucking roof. Of the Customs Building.

Basically, the game carried on from the match at Derby in the frequency of its scoring. After five minutes we were in front. Another Sandro long throw on the left eventually got through to The Big Yin, left side, about four metres out from the goal area. He scooped a slow size fourteen at it, it looped up, their 'keeper got two high, uncertain hands on it and it dropped into the net behind him. Christ, I thought, suddenly we can't stop scoring. What's Moyesy got them ON.

Five minutes later The Skunks equalised when everybody went to sleep in our defence. Tony full fronted their wide left man and the ball went out for their throw in. Incredibly, our entire "defence" made an impressive mimic of The Man Who Never Was as the ball was quickly thrown to a completely unmarked Narky-Over-The-Hill Shearer with a clear route to goal. Well, you just don't do that sort of thing unless you're playing for your school. Even then your teacher might get purple faced with anger. Simo had no chance.

A few more minutes and we went behind to the best goal of the game: A neat move down the left, all good one-touch stuff, got their wide left man along the bye line, squeezing past Tony as he went, and he pulled it back for it to get sidefooted in, left edge of the goal area. Smashing goal, that, you thought as you screamed impotently, "Off side, you cheating Geordie Skunk!" The Thought Police stood up and scanned the crowd for the guilty party but there were too many culprits grinning back at their SS runes.

Now, had this happened only three matches ago, heads would have gone down and stayed down, on and off the pitch. Nice to see it didn't happen this time. There was no panic or collapse. Instead, play stayed tight, we played it well through midfield and even managed quite a few neat moves. Once again The Gravedigger showed some discipline. At times the ball even made it through four successive touches to our own. It was a real test and at this stage we came through with flying colours.

Meanwhile The Skunks ominously played it wide down both wings but both their wingers were either pushed too wide or lost it to good tackles at the last moment. Each time they were within one player of making a breakthrough. Once again Tony's inexperience came under a lot of pressure, though he tackled well and often. In the end he bladdered their man and himself and went off on a stretcher after half an hour. Stevie came on after his extended stay in the out patients department.

Play was so even it came as no surprise at all when we equalised through Nic. Their defence isn't much good and will (does in fact) get lacerated by better teams than us. This was never better demonstrated than when we got it in the box and it bobbled around on a few heads before Nic finally put them out of their misery with a close-in touch to bring it level.

Half time, I had a short conversation with Bernie. "If the pattern of play stays like this," I said, full of worldly wisdom, "we'll win. But we all know footy isn't that simple." Newcastle hadn't impressed me in the least, anymore than they did during that utterly weird match at Goodison.

I felt somewhat smug when we opened the second half with a few likely looking attacks. The Gravedigger had one of his long range unsuccessful shots. The question occurs to me: Does he do these without any real hope of hitting the target? For all that, by our standards this season we were playing reasonable footy, albeit one paced and over-dependent on the opposition's abilities, or lack thereof.

After a quarter hour we let through a goal as scrappy as our second. Similar, too, a close-in toe poke which crept over the line. And that was it, really. We collapsed in familiar fashion and let in two quick goals to good right wing moves and bad marking around the edge of our goal area. Dunno what happens to Davey and Stubbsy in these situations, suddenly they're AWOL.

Then we let in an absolutely ludicrous sixth through Stevie's notorious inability to track back in defence when it is most needed. Doubtless it was aided by his recent inactivity and lack of match fitness. Nevertheless, it pissed me off to see one of theirs draw away from him so easily wide left before squaring it to yet another unmarked Skunk to bang it in.

No question, had the game gone on much longer we would have let in more goals. We were completely spent at the end. As usual, there was no second gear. And that has been one of our more obvious problems. That said, for an hour we competed well and played reasonable footy against one of the contemporary "top" teams. A second gear through more skilful players capable of pacing themselves and we would have got something out of this game. But wider perspective is in order too. Newcastle don't impress me in the least and I am willing to say now that they won't do much next season if they have the same players and team framework.

As usual, the game turned on midfield and ours disappeared altogether as we passed the hour mark, all of them. It gave added significance to Moyesy's comment that the squad is under-fit by one third. Yes, I know the arithmetic is a bit simplistic but reasonably observant fans won't disagree too much. It has been the same all season. Late on, we have had to battle to hold on to whatever slim pickings we've had. Maybe Davey and Stubbsy are just plain tired at playing King Canute.

So now Moyesy has seen us play against the bottom, mid, and top of the table. It would be fair to say he has seen all the good and bad sides of his inheritance. Since we are within two victories of presumed safety it will be interesting to see what he does if we achieve those quickly. In his three games in charge we have seen eighteen goals, or six per game, two of them victories. This was a ratio undreamed of under Smiffy. In our circumstances you can't have it both ways. Understandably, Smiffy played it safe and it kept us, well, nervously safe……………just. The minute the safety margin went so did Smiffy, equally understandably. Incredibly, had we won this match we would have got a nose bleed at tenth position, a real tribute to the three-points-per-win stroke of genius.

As for Moyesy, we might have been pissed off at the way we collapsed in the last half hour of the Skunks game, but none of the fans were dismayed. Incredible the way human feelings react. Makes it all worthwhile. As the unrelenting banner said at the Hall of Fame "do"……………………Welcome To The Big Time Mr. Moyes.

Next up, Bolton at home on Easter Monday. Another match to keep up the average goals per game? Be interesting too to see how our midfield copes. I have a feeling Davey-Stubbsy will have to be on their toes again. Like Moyesy out at the dotted line. Can't wait, meself.

Team News

Stevie Watson is determined to be involved in as many games as he can for the rest of the season. He played an hour for the Reserves on Tuesday night

Stevie had this to say:“The injury is fixed now and what I’m feeling now is just the after-effects of the operation. It shouldn’t get any worse and if it does, then it’s not a serious problem, certainly enough to stop me playing.”

The 3 Ikea sisters survived 45 minutes for Sweeden last night. Jesper was in good spirits after laying on a goal. He said:"I can't describe the feeling. It's great. I think it went quite well. It takes a while to get used to the new players"

Davis Weir and Scot Gemmill came through their 5-0 defeat ok. And Joe-Max Moore came on as sub against Germany.

Bad news for the Blues is Super Kev misses the trip to Newcastle.

David Moyes said:"Hopefully the problem is not too serious and Kevin should be fit in a few days time.

"I just thought it would prove detrimental in the long run if he was involved in the game whilst carrying a slight injury.

"I have said in the past few days that we need as many bodies available to us if we are to get ourselves out of the situation we are in."(28/03/02)

Lee Carsley is a major doubt for the easter week-end games. He was replaced on Saturday by Nic after 28 minutes.

David said This about Lee: “Lee has tweaked his medial ligaments and it looks as though he will be out for the next few weeks.”

Another slight doubt is Alan Stubbs. He left the field of play on Saturday with only 7 minutes to go. It looked to be in a mess, but thankfully he should be ok.

David said :“Hopefully it’s not too serious. Alan has bruised his back and we would hope that within a day or two that will settle down.”

We may have two ex-Newcastle players back in contention for Fridays game. David Ginola and Stevie Watson. (25/03/02)