Overshadowed

Newcastle United 0 Charlton 0


The only midweek Premiership fixture, but no one was remotely interested: Charlton were, before this game, 12th, and still are, but for the British sporting press, this was and is of no importance; what they did take the trouble to point out, once any reference to the game had been unearthed from all the comment about the Champions' League, Chelsea's pitch (not for the first time either) antics, Arsenal's victory in Madrid and so forth, was that Newcastle had been "held" by Charlton; that they had nevertheless moved up a place, and so on. Even my own friends congratulated Charlton vicariously, through me, on their away point, once they had asked me the result, sometimes as long as two days afterwards, if they did so at all. But why? The Premier League table shows both teams just below the middle of the table, with Charlton on 34 points and Newcastle on 33, and before the game they had one fewer each. So why the assumption that Newcastle v Charlton was akin to what, in the minds of the ITV commentators on Tuesday night, Real Madrid v Arsenal was? (Apparently, all the childish gurgling with excitement might have led you to believe it was Altrincham winning at Santiago Bernabeu, not Arsenal).

I can only put it down to the blithe assumption, which I referred to last time, that everyone regards Newcastle as a great big enormous and, more to the point, successful, club, rather than a fairly average to boring one which just happens to be based in a city which, unlike Sheffield; Manchester; Birmingham; Liverpool and even Nottingham and Bristol, for heaven's sake, has no other league club to divide the support. Excuses mount up time after time for their failure to achieve: bad managers; lots of players injured and so on. But if Charlton's directors know a good manager when they've got one, while that loud-mouthed idiot in charge of Newcastle doesn't, well whose fault is that? And all clubs have injuries, after all.

It's the script thing; someone somewhere has decided that Newcastle are basically a world-beating side who are having hard times. Even Michael Owen and our own once-beloved Spotty Parker have fallen for this one. There was great relief when Graeme Souness departed, and a feeling that now Newcastle would revert to type under the Very Wonderful Glenn Roeder (but don't mention his name to Burnley fans), aided and abetted by the Positively Saintly Alan Shearer. And lo! Newcastle managed two or three wins, albeit one of them a rather fortunate 1-0 home win against a lower-league team (take note, everyone, Southampton aren't in the Prem any more) in the Cup, only to have this winning run halted by mean ol' Charlton when the new regime's run of success might so easily have continued.

Reading proper match reports, I concluded that a draw was the fairest result, and that for every Newcastle near miss recorded by the BBC reporters, there were similar near misses which unaccountably went unmentioned, by the Charlton forwards. On paper there was no reason why Charlton could not have won quite easily, and yet... I give up.

On a cheerier note, the dreaded Lawro has been predicting more positively for Charlton lately, and correctly foresaw the Brentford result, though not the exact score. I contacted my fellow-scribe Frankie Valley, who designed the logo atop my page, but who has dropped it from the new design of his own, to see whether the campaign goes on or not. He tells me that Lawro isn't going to go away, so I am wondering whether to remove the logo. Maybe when I've thought of something else to replace it; how about Let's Kick Newcastle United Out Of Football? Wouldn't bother me; at least everyone would have to shut up about them. Anyway, for today's match at home to Aston Villa, Lawro has a 2-1 outcome, and Frankie, who has taken up the prediction lark too, has 2-0. So I shall await events later today before deciding exactly who ought to be kicked out of football. Not Frankie, though, I hasten to add.

Quiz matters in some detail next week, David, and I can't remember the exact score, anyway.