Dear tf,

I am a student. Yes, I know, tax dodger. What-ever. I had my last exam today and went on the drink, after getting totally inebriated, and playing football at The Pitz which is a good laugh if your interested in that kind of thing, I lay in bed and had a bit think about how I've just paid £500 for my season ticket, not that I can afford it, but hey I've been going for about 6 years now, cant give up now. I sit with my brother and cousin and enjoy the banter. I started to drift off thinking what my hard earned/ tax dodging paid for. When I was little I saw Shearer arrive, when Sir Les was at his peak, and at the time, under Keegan, we saw quality player after quality player arrive; Ginola, Tino, etc I’d heard of them all, even at a young age, I then thought about the players we sign now. I simply can’t remember the last quality player we signed (Ed: - Parker, Owen, Emre, Solano?). All have had question marks above their heads. For example, Kieron Courtney Dyer, what a signing, at £6M should have been deal of the century. Hardly played any games. Hamann should have been good, but he had ambition, and alas signed 4 Liverpool. That's 2 I can name since the Keegan era, and am young and optimistic. my mates are bang on saying, "we've got Michael Owen" and I am sat here thinking "so fuck". I've been to all the home games and a fair few away games last season, however it still hasn't registered that he plays for us. I don't mean to sound ungrateful but Bellamy for 6mill is twice what Owen has been for 16mill. Anyway my point coming is that, since FFS has been the chairman, have we ever signed a player that we need to improve the squad, or do we just sign players that agents have available?

Maybe I am being a bit pessimistic. I used to think that it all went down hill from the summer of 2003. We finished 3rd, and signed Lee Bowyer on a free to improve our squad, not good, but really the problems have been about a longer than then.

Martin Hands, Ryton


Dear tf,

After more than fifty years of following the Holy Grail I have finally been forced to give up my season ticket. Unfortunately the reason is not football but fuckin' economics. I do no blame the Toon but footie in general has priced itself out of my market. £30 quid for a match is just beyond me. It's even worse when you break it down. I've just read somewhere that the ball is only in play during a match for 55 minute and FIFA are looking at ways of getting that time up to 60 minutes. If they succeed it means we will only be paying a tenner for the time when the ball is dead or to put it another way when there is fuck all happening. Nineteen games a season mean we have been paying £190 for nowt.

I've heard people complain about the cost of the telly licence, Sky subscriptions, going to the pictures, a ticket for a show at the Arena etc. Well I'm sorry but from where I stand they all look good value to me compared with the Premiership.

Football will implode if things continue as they are. Bring back a wage limit, restrict each club to only one gutless foreigner at a time, change the academy system so kids can play for their local team if not playing regularly in academy teams and finally tell Sky to piss off out of football which will mean footie matches at the proper time of 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and Match of the Day after a night at the pub. The revolution starts here.

Paul and Heather.

(Ed: do you think it’s the Scouser and the bird from Washington?)


Dear tf,

I HATE KIERON DYER

There, I have said it and it is a weight off my shoulders (even though all of my mates know anyway). I still can’t believe that we gave a player, who has been injured for more than 400 days out of the last 34 months, a massive pay rise and then state that we are going to build a team around him – madness! I know he plays for us but he is one of the most over-rated, under-achieving, footballers I have ever had to suffer. The final nail in his coffin for me came at the same venue that should have seen the ‘King of Bling’ pedalled from Newcastle in the first place. At the Beasts, at their place, he mis-placed a pass and just gave up and he had been on the pitch for about 5 minutes! Don’t dare tell me he was tired. Under SBR, he decided that both Newcastle United and the captaincy of the club, were below him. What happens? He is forced into a pathetic apology after being booed at SJP (at an England game) and we all seem to forget all about it. After this, he decides it is okay to take a piss in the street forcing the new manager to bail him out and then has a fight with another player on the pitch at SJP wearing our colours. Both of them should have been kicked out of the club on the spot. The hypocrisy of that decision made my piss boil – Bellamy goes because he was a dick head but think who we would have missed more, him, Dyer or Bowyer? All this, and he is welcomed onto the pitch at SJP like he is the love child of Alan Shearer and Supermac. We have got seriously short memories. He is laughing at us all in my opinion. Either (allegedly) flashing his knob at a poor hotel worker or allegedly parking in a disabled spot in his Bentley, this bloke is the most odious little shit we have ever had at our club in my opinion. Don’t cheer him onto the pitch and don’t believe the hype in the local press. He is doing nothing for our club and taking a reported £80,000 a week out of it. Just get rid and for fooks sake don’t talk about potential – he is twenty bastard seven!

Dave Edwards, Durham


Dear tf,

What’s going on at TF? This hatred of the World Cup and all things England is really starting to do my tits in. Think of the moments, Carlos Alberto’s goal in 1970, Maradonna - the hand of god, and Bobby Moore lifting the Jules Rimet. It is these images that dreams are made of, why kids start kicking footballs.

Fair do's, the domestic season is finished. NUFC (or FFS) has made no effort to add to our wafer thin squad. And I can understand your squabbles about everything being plastered with the St Georges Cross, and the car flags, which do indeed boil my piss.

But folk are just wanting to enjoy it, its summer and its top-drawer football for fucks sake. So sit back, crack open a beer and fucking enjoy it, and if we come back with the metal you lot will be dancin just like everyone else.

Denzil

Ed: it’s not the World Cup or England that gets our tripe, it’s the relentless hype, the media arrogance that the World Cup is just about England, the total, crass commercialisation, rip-offs and the total neds who attach themselves to the team. Other than that, its brilliant! Come On England!


Dear tf,

You cannot blame Shepherd if the manager's buys turn out to be shit. All the chairman can do is provide funds, it's up to the manager whether the player is up to scratch or not. However, it's not the chairman's money. It's ours. But still, if the chairman said: "don’t buy him, he's shit" he'd be hung drawn and quartered. You can't have it both ways.

Anthony


Dear tf,

I’m not particularly bothered Lee Bowyer has left Newcastle United, a handful of worthy performances in 3 years, acting a twat on the pitch with Dyer, often injured, suggests we shouldn't be crying in our world cup beers for too long. Now for what does bother me, no fecking transfer fee! surely he was worth a minimum of half a million. aah, we'll get a percentage of any future transfer fee! I can see the back page of the Evening Standard now "bowyer in £10 million move to Milan!", me thinks NOT! what was going on in the meagre mind of Fat Fred when he let this happen? distracted by a Greggs pie perhaps. also this leaves us woefully thin on cover for central midfield for Parker and Emre. if someone is brought in fair enough but as the priority will be a centre forward and cash is apparently too tight to mention then the head scratching becomes more intense. Emre will no doubt miss a third of the season injured again so who covers for him? Dyer? he'll be too busy racking up more air miles seeing the latest specialist in a bid to cure his lurgy. Butt? Faye? Lee Clark?. for me bowyer was the only player who could cover both Emre and parker. I’ve had people say his sale was to reduce the wage bill, I don't think it takes a genius to figure out which players are the biggest waste of a wages at NUFC. I wouldn't put bowyer on that list. My one hope is that he is not the first to go and the rest of the dregs will quickly follow and worthy replacements come in but that's all it is HOPE, which makes me wonder how long this treading water as a club will continue.

Vinny

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