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With
Supporters Like The Toon Army, Who Needs Success? |
Newcastle-Online comment: 18th June 2004
 The
loyalty of the Toon Army is legendary, 35 years we have been waiting
for a major trophy, 50 years since an FA Cup and you'd have to go
back to 1927 since we last won the League Championship.
Newcastle supporters have been starved of success more than most.
A 52,000 plus sell-out every other week and a growing waiting list
for Season Tickets, Geordies are hungrier than ever before, yet we
never get fed, the knives and forks come out, but they are never Silver.
There is an old myth; put 11 donkeys in a Black & White shirt and
we would still turn up to watch, well we have had our fair share of
donkey's over the years to make this more fact than fiction.
We turn up in our thousands to buy our Season Tickets and our shirts
that we wear with pride. We do this without thinking, we do this because
we love the Toon and although come the start of a new season, we will
ask ourselves will this be our year, when the answer is an emphatic
NO! with extra trimmings in the most spectacular and hurtful manner
we still come back for even more beatings.
Having released our new away kit yesterday there might have been some
trepidation within the confines of the marketing Dept. at St. James'
Park after a poor season where supporters were literally took for
muppets, and that was just from the manager.
Once again though the Toon Army queued on mass to buy those replica
shirts that make up quite a large portion of United's revenue and
as pockets emptied and tills filled, hands were being rubbed in glee
from those filthy money men who continue to cash in on our loyalty.
Another happy customer, men in suits acknowledge as the sound of cher
ching echoes in the air...
Football is becoming more cynical as a business, always looking to
exploit money making avenues and cash generating schemes but hey we
don't care as long as we are winning trophies...Oh how I wish that
was the case. We don't even win trophies. But still we don't care...or
do we?
40,000 plus punters (club terminology not mine) demonstrated their
frustration at home to Wolves by booing and walking out before the
"lap of honour" (Club terminology not mine) following a quite pathetic
season and a hopeless UEFA Cup Semi-Final 2-0 defeat which before
K.O we were very much in command of a tie that by the end we simply
had no belief or desire in winning. Another trophyless season to remember...
Was that 35 years of pent up anger and frustration from loyal supporters
that had had enough of bankrolling a club incapable of doing something
that the likes of Leicester, Luton, Oxford, Wimbledon, Coventry and
those other small clubs such as Sunderland and Spurs had all managed
to do - win a trophy (or two)?
One can only hope that is how those in power saw it but don't be surprised
if they didn't. I mean we would still buy our Season Tickets and our
shirts wouldn't we? Of course we would and the club know it.
In fact we already have, or most of us have...another happy close
season's trading for NUFC.
The queues and overnight camping at St. James' Park to buy the new
away kit is further proof that the loyalty of the Toon Army doesn't
hinge on trophies. Our bitter, twisted small City rivals may sneer
at the word loyalty especially since our gates increased when Kevin
keegan revitalised the sleeping giant which of course brung hangers
on and glory hunters to infest the stands of St. James' Park that
were once reserved for genuine supporters and it's open to debate
whether 52,000 would turn up week in week out if we done a Sunderland
but then loyalty has never been gauged by numbers but by the lengths
an individual goes to follow his/her team and we are Champions in
that sense. The club knows it - 9th biggest turnover in world football.
But still we wait the return.
Maybe one day the club will go to extraordinary lengths to feed the
hunger other than opening club shops an hour early by putting some
bread on the table for us to tuck into.
God knows our loyalty deserves it. |
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