Magpies to tread the boards in honour of forgettable year
Football fans aren’t known for their love of theatre, but that could be about to change in the north east.
Two Newcastle season ticket holders are intending to depress cultured Magpies fans with You Really Couldn’t Make It Up, the stage interpretation of the Toon Army’s epic failures on and off the field in 2008/09, told through the ”witty, heartfelt banter of four ordinary fans coming to terms with life after relegation”.
Following a sold-out run there earlier this year, Newcastle’s Live Theatre hosts an updated version of “You Couldn’t Make It Up” starting this week.
Penned by father and son team Michael and Tom Chaplin (both season ticket holders at SJP) [Sarah Jessica Parker? - Ed.], “You Really Couldn’t Make It Up” recounts the story of Newcastle’s season from hell through the eyes of four fans.
Actors play the parts of Alan Shearer, Kevin Keegan and Mike Ashley.
Why are they getting actors to play the parts of Shearer, Keegan and Ashley, when they could probably get the real thing? It’s not as if any of them will be doing anything in the foreseeable future…
The Magpies would be bottom if their Messiah was there all season
The charming table above displays the records of all four Newcastle bosses this season and reveals where the club would have finished over 38 games based on each manager’s points average during their spell in charge.
It makes grim reading for Alan Shearer, whose record is only better than caretaker Chris Hughton’s because he was in charge for one less game. The statistics also suggest that Newcastle were well on their way to safety before Joe Kinnear had to step aside.
So is Shearer the right man to guide the club through a summer of wheeling and dealing - where Iain Dowie is likely to be influential in deciding who arrives having managed in the division with three clubs - or should someone else be given the chance? Let us know with a vote and comment below:
Former Middlesbrough man to fill Joe Kinnear’s boots
In their search for a temporary replacement for their temporary replacement for Kevin Keegan, Newcastle Utd are poised to approach Bryan Robson, say the Daily Express:
With Joe Kinnear facing a heart bypass operation and unlikely to return anytime soon, owner Mike Ashley is considering approaching Robson, the former England captain and ex-boss at North-east neighbours Middlesbrough, to take temporary charge.
Robson, whose departure from Sheffield Utd was ever-so-slightly acrimonious, is said to be the leading contender for the temporary post, and is very keen to offer his services.
He would love it if Fergie stopped criticising refs! Love it!
Liverpool are sitting pretty three points clear of the table ahead of this weekend’s games, but the pressure to stay at the top seems to getting to Mr Benitez. We all know he’s as mad as a box of frogs, but we’ve never seen him get quite as worked up as he did in a press conference earlier today.
Rather than talk about the upcoming Stoke game, Rafa chose to lay into Sir Alex, even suggesting that the powers that be should let Fergie write the fixture list to stop him complaining about it.
Benitez started his rant by condemning Ferguson’s lack of respect for referees:
“I want to talk about facts. I want to be clear, I do not want to play mind games too early, although they seem to want to start.
“During the Respect campaign - and this is a fact - Mr Ferguson was charged by the FA for improper conduct after comments made about Martin Atkinson and Keith Hackett.
“He was not punished. He is the only manager in the league that cannot be punished for these things.
“How can you talk about the Respect campaign and yet criticise the referee every single week?
“We know what happens every time we go to Old Trafford and the United staff. They are always going man-to-man with the referees, especially at half-time when they walk close to the referees and they are talking and talking.
“All managers need to know is that only Mr Ferguson can talk
MOTD’s worst pundit highly tipped for Kinnear’s job
According to our friends at the newly-designed chickendinner, Alan Shearer has dived past Joe Kinnear and Kevin Keegan to emerge as the new 11/8 favourite to become Newcastle’s next permanent manager.
A spokesman for SkyBet revealed that there have been a flurry of bets on the former Newcastle striker placed in the North East after reports that billionaire Philip Anschutz, who owns a stake in LA Galaxy, was keen on taking over at St James’ Park and had somehow come to the conclusion that Shearer is the ideal man to take the club forward.
This doesn’t seem like great news for the Magpies - just as they are beginning to gain some stability under their interim gaffer, a man with no experience and a thin grasp of the tactical nuances of the game (see any edition of MOTD for evidence).
Do you think he would be good for the job? Let us know with a comment below…
Forget Keegan and Shearer, could this man be the Messiah?
The laughter that greeted Newcastle’s decision to appoint Joe Kinnear as interim manager has died down somewhat after the Irishman ended a run of five straight defeats and delivered draws in two fixtures that the club lost last season.
If Habib Beye’s unjust 14th minute sending-off against Manchester City had happened a month ago you would have expected Newcastle to wind up losing by five or six, but last night they possessed a newfound resilience and were unlucky not to win.
Kinnear has admitted he would love to take the job full-time, but is he capable of turning Newcastle’s fortunes around on a full-time basis or would it be similar to when they appointed Glenn Roeder after a great spell as caretaker, only for him to leave within a year?
Hey, you love Jesus right? That’s because he was really cool about everything. But what if your nice beardy Jesus man had risen from the dead and returned to earth, livid and suing everyone - Judas, Peter, Herod, Buddha, Satan, Santa, everyone. Then where would your Christianity be? Yeah, exactly, you don’t know.
Which leads us seamlessly to Kevin Keegan, the Newcastle messiah, who is rumoured to be suing the club for £9 million in damages, sobbing about how he was unfairly dismissed, he didn’t want to sell Milner, it was all Llambias’ fault. Could his loyal apostles in the Toon Army really stand by him should he leave such a long smudge on the Newcastle history books?
Loading ...