LOCKER ROOM:Oh, the wonders of Mike Ashley and his lost millions. Just when things were looking up, he obviously missed the hardship of digging a hole for himself and started a new one, writes TOM HUMPHRIES
IT WAS an awful thing, no doubt about it, having the brightest and most decent manager in the Premiership done over by a numbskull in a shiny tracksuit. Yet the sacking of Chris Hughton warms the cockles of the heart. Football is still mad and sometimes football is still about people. Mad people.
How wondrous it was on Match of the Daythis Saturday night to survey the splendid Falstaffian girth of Mike Ashley ( Corrie, you killed the wrong Ashley, quoth a million japesters) a man who had apparently stopped digging a hole only to start again because he missed the hardship. To get rid of Chris Hughton. For Alan Pardew? What fresh hell is this?
The wonder of Mike Ashley and his lost millions! That a man can pour money into a well to the extent that he becomes a laughing stock and can keep pouring when it becomes clear that nobody else will buy the well, and still take no advice. Still not to be able to realise quality in the most important post of his club. Still to be hankering for, well, for Alan Pardew.
What a betrothal the marriage of Ashley to Newcastle United was. That two such celebrated realms of lunacy should have found each other in the first place. Newcastle has been run like a happy asylum for as long as anybody can recall. Ashley came a courting wearing his cap and bells. And for all football’s financial reports and careful monitoring there is still no law hindering the separation of a fool and his money.
Just when Ashley, despite his better instincts, had found himself with a manager who might make Newcastle a respectable going concern again, he ran off and did something crazy.
Pardew is a return to the flakiness of a Toon past which has seen Newcastle coveting the brittle Kevin Keegan, losing him (and millions in compensation) by appointing Denis Wise, of all people, and then plonking Joe Kinnear on the bench.
Ashley bought Newcastle lock, stock and barrel. First lashing out €66 million three years ago for a 41 per cent share and finally, having gotten the club taken off the stock exchange, arriving at 100 per cent ownership when he had parted with €160 million.
He bought recklessly and fecklessly without informing himself of some key facts and spent weeks opening up can after can which turned out to be full of worms. More money and more money. By the time Sheeeer-ah (Alan) ushered them into the Championship we were looking as always at a cockney geezer club which has been mislaid in the hard-bitten north east.
In this return to type, if we may digress for a minute, there is more reassurance. Clubs, even in the Teflon-coated era of crazeeee money and prawn sandwich-fed followers, have personalities which are virtually indelible. In his recent autobiography John Giles talks about the seminal FA Cup clash between Leeds United and Chelsea in 1970 and the differing personalities of the squads, their management and their people.
Forty years later Leeds and Chelsea would both reflect the same qualities. Leeds, apart from one celebrated experiment of 44 days’ duration, still tell prospective managers that they don’t have to be dour but it would help. Chelsea are still flash and brash.
West Ham are flakey. Crystal Palace are louche. Liverpool overly sentimental. Arsenal have always had that Bank of England solidity to them which Wenger personifies. Manchester United will always be a successful cross-breeding of Chelsea and Arsenal. Ipswich, no matter how long Roy’s personality radiates from the sidelines, will most likely always be the gentle haven of Sir Alf and Sir Bobby.
So Chris Hughton has got lucky. He walks out of the asylum leaving behind a club which is indisputably in a better condition than when he found it. And he is universally well thought of. He will get the job he deserves by the end of the season and the wage he deserves. One of Ashley’s solecisms was to disrespect Hughton with a puny wage and a short leash of a contract. In essence the 20 years Hughton spent at Spurs as a wise and stabilising force were the years that made him and the years when he was most valued.
Newcastle didn’t deserve Hughton. And soon they will forget him.
It is worth noting, however, just one more time before Newcastle revert to being the great funhouse of the north east just what is being left to Alan Pardew by Christ Hughton.
After yet another stint as caretaker manager, having held the hand of various bigger names during their northeastern crack -ups, he brought Newcastle straight back to the Premiership, produced a sheaf of memorable home wins, including Aston Villa (6-0) and north-east rivals Sunderland (5-1), and big news away wins against Chelsea (league cup) and Arsenal. The trajectory for next year or the year after was looking as if it would include a top-four finish.
More remarkably he tamed the menagerie that is the Newcastle playing staff. Andy Carroll got down to looking like one of the more serious prospects to become a good old fashioned English striker. Joey Barton has shut his mouth and seems to have become acceptable in the society of his team-mates.
On Saturday 51,000 fans came to St James’ Park.dot.com Stadium, or whatever it is called this year, to remonstrate with their owner. They saw their side beat Liverpool 3-1 and went home soothed and happy. Memories are that short. On Thursday Ashley’s actions had a two per cent approval rating in local polls. In a few weeks the other 98 per cent will be chanting Alan Pardew’s name.
Pardew is a lightning rod for the sort of controversy which cripples Newcastle. Since he walked out on Reading seven years ago, Pardew appears to have had as much difficulty running his mouth as Mike Ashley has running a club. He has had public rows with Iain Dowie and Arsène Wenger (which developed into a shoving match). He has been caught running down West Ham's fans after he moved from West Ham to Charlton. He has run onto a pitch to get involved (or break up) a fight and drawn a modest bag of complaints to the Match of the Dayoffice after apparently describing one player as raping another during a game. Pardew says he used the word "rakes".
Either way, Newcastle is the sort of madhouse wherein Pardew will be subjected to more scrutiny than ever before. It’s about personalities. The great and the mad. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
