I’m sick of getting out of bed at stupid o’clock to get on a train/bus/aeroplane to follow this shower of sh*t around the country. I left this report till the day after on purpose as I thought it might allow me to be a little more balanced in my view of the game but it hasn’t dampened down my ire in any way shape or form. A terrible result and a rubbish performance against a side who looked as determined not to win as we were and the typical smug smiling bull shit from a manager (head coach or whatever his title is) has just left a very sour taste in my mouth. Even bumping into Paully in a flamboyant hoodie outside an off licence on the way back didn’t make it any better!

We boarded the bus in Durham at 7.30 on Monday morning with cans in hand and hope in our hearts (ok maybe not but blind optimism is what we are all about isn’t it?). Father Ted had his ten your old grandson with him and I have my simian shaped cousin with me. It was going to be a long day. We stopped at Tamworth on the way down and were promptly told we wouldn’t be getting served in a Weatherspoons because we were in a group of lads! One look around any Weatherspoons at 11am will show you what you are being compared to and to be less attractive to the manager than the druggies and drunks who were already in the place was a damning verdict on us. Anyhow, we wandered about 100 yards up the road to a more ‘mob friendly’ establishment and proceeded to give his tills a Christmas boost instead.

We arrived down at the Hawthorns at about 2.15 so grabbed a bottle of beer and watched the world go by. The usual mixture of Mags were on view with old heads being more than outnumbered by the young bucks. Canny crack though and thankfully, there wasn’t the usual beer throwing wanky bit to contend with. The game started with a team showing one change as Elliot was replaced by Darlow in goal cos he didn’t feel well. We started slowly with McClaren putting his faith in the same shit formation that got nowt against Everton and drew with Aston Vile (Liverpool and Spurs are long gone now and we shouldn’t be trying to play counterattacking football against the likes of these three sides ‘ we need to start taking the game to the opposition but we’ll never do that with Colback and Anita sitting in front of the back four) and apart from a contentious penalty decision where it looked like Evans pulled back Mitrovic, not much really went on. Wijnaldum hit a shot straight at Myhill but we looked disjointed and outfought all over the pitch. I hoped that half time would see us come out on the front foot and start the second half well but we didn’t. The game got progressively scrappier and we had a couple of last ditch clearances to keep the score level and we hit the woodwork during a couple of goal mouth scrambles but we didn’t really create clear cut chances. In the 78th minute the only goal of the game arrived. A free header about seven yards out from Fletcher somehow squirmed through / under Darlow and into the net. The kid looked nervous all day and this didn’t really help. They had a couple of more strikes on goal which Darlow dealt well with but we still didn’t really create anything. A couple of subs came on, De Jong for Perez ( no idea why cos hid did nowt at all) and Thauvin for Colback in the 86th minute ‘ another complete waste of time. The game died off and finished to a chorus of loud boos and abuse directed at players and staff (which they completely deserved) and which McClaren denied after the game. He is seriously deluded if he thinks we will support that level of shite in the coming games.

The trip back was miserable and all I could wish for was to have been as comfortable and asleep as Father Ted’s grandson but that wasn’t to be.

So goodbye and good riddance to a miserable 2015 and I can’t see 2016 started off on a high with a trip to Arsenal coming up soon.

Happy New Year to you all and I hope 2016 brings you joy cos Newcastle United won’t!

Team: Darlow, Janmaat, Mbemba, Coloccini, Dummett, Sissoko, Colback (Thauvin 86), Anita (Tiote 27), Wijnaldum, Mitrovic, Perez (De Jong 72).

Subs n/u: Elliot, Mbabu, Lascelles, Gouffran

Attendance: 26,313

Our Fans: 7 ‘ moments of good crack and plenty of abuse for the performance at the end

Their Fans: 3 ‘ only chanted about three times in the last ten minutes

Ref: Mike Jones 6 ‘ I think he had a decent game but bottled the penalty decision

Dave Edwards

Have a listen to McClaren’s post-match remarks and tell us what you think.

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