Newcastle United - All Eyes Are On You
 Saturday
13 August 2005
By Gaz
Pearson
The countdown to the start of the new Premier League season is reaching
its final hours and minutes. The final preparations and motivational
team talks are taking place on the twenty training grounds up and
down the country. The summer transfer merry-go-round is slowing to
a gentle turn. Fans are making sure their replica kits, merchandise
and memorabilia is all primed, ready for the start of the upcoming
campaign to follow their team through the turmoil, heartache, jubilation,
and triumph or failure that befits them during the course of the next
ten months.
Us Newcastle fans are ready for a season that will surely be an improvement
on last? Some fans are optimistic and claim we have a bright future.
Well hopefully many will agree with me when I say that the future
is now as far as Newcastle United Football Club is concerned.
Why should fans of Newcastle be looking five or so years down the
line when the fans of Liverpool, Arsenal, Man Utd and even the likes
of Spurs and Middlesbrough are looking to this season to be challenging
for major honours? Liverpool won the Champions League last season
yet who at the start of that campaign gave them a cat in hells chance?
It just goes to show, it’s not about the individual players, it’s
about teamwork and self belief.
How many more years are we to kid ourselves that we are a big club?
Do the stadium and legions of fans give us that label? Does our tradition
enable us to be honoured with such phrases? Does the fact we haven't
actually won a sausage for decades mean anything? Time to wake up
and smell the coffee, we need to win big and we need to win as soon
as possible before we find ourselves in a real crisis at this football
club.
Those who will sneer at the fact we could face possible crisis need
only look a few miles down in Yorkshire where a certain one-time League
challenger and Champion League Semi-Finalist reside and look at their
predicament. They too had an outspoken chairman and they too were
at the time considered a 'big club'. Football is a fickle game, treat
it with contempt at your peril.
We have not got five years to wait, we need success to be delivered
now, this season. What do you deem as a successful season for Newcastle
United football club? When I say I want success delivered now I DO
NOT mean the Premier League. I have thus far avoided mentioning a
certain team from London due to the fact they are currently not on
this planet as far as their squad, manager and chairman go, the less
said about them the better.
No, all I mean is that something like the Carling Cup will be a great
start. How many teams are guilty of playing weakened teams to purposely
get out of that competition? Are we ourselves not guilty of this?
Like I say, treat football with contempt at your peril. Respect is
the key word. We should respect all domestic competitions and perhaps
the domestic competitions will respect us? The future is now.
The honeymoon period for Souness and co. is over. The chairman expects
results. The fans expect results and I for one am not willing to wait
another five years for silverware. God knows I have waited long enough
and there are those out there who have waited even longer. I am not
prepared to let millionaires earn more money for the next five years
and then never live up to 'potential'. The future isn't anything,
it's an unknown. Only now in the present can we alter the course of
our future. Newcastle United the season 2005-6 is approaching, and
all eyes are on you. Time to deliver!
© Gaz Pearson
 Write
In... Did you enjoy this article? Did you disagree/agree
with this article? Write in to Newcastle-Online.com and we will publish
your views.
Notes: We read all e-mails but cannot promise that
we will respond, however all e-mails sent in regarding NUFC related
issues, get published on our pages. |
