Down but not out

Newcastle were relegated. Boo hoo. After making my way through the five stages of grief (“We’re not down, we can’t be”, “Fucking hell! I’m going to lamp Mike Ashley if I see him!”, “If Phil Brown is caught match fixing I’ll give away my first born”, *sob* “What’s the point in following football anymore?” and “So what, we’re relegated. Not the end of the world”) I’ve came out of the other side and I’ve realised that there are some plus points to not being in the top flight.

Firstly there are more games. Championship teams seem to play every other day which means the depressing midweek lull after a bad defeat wont have time to set it as the players will be back on the pitch kicking the ball around in no time. Okay, I’ve no doubt that if some of our higher paid stars hang about they’ll bleat and moan about being tired but they already proved last season they’re feckless wankers. Any crying about fixture congestion and I’ll hunt them down and remind them that from the ages of 7 to 14 I played football almost every day for more than 90 minutes, not because I got paid but because I wanted to. There’s no doubt in my mind that the 17 a-side day long matches on the Oasis field required more physical fitness than 90 minutes in the Championship.

There is also the chance we’ll get to see some of the future stars we’ve been poaching play a few games. Nile Ranger, Haris Vuckic, Kazenga Lua Lua and Tamas Kadar were all on the verge of the first team in the top flight so they must be in contention for starts in the Championship. Oh, and we’ll probably get to see Tim Krul again, which almost makes up for the relegation in one fell swoop.

Prior to us going down I had nothing but disdain for those who said “Relegation will give you a chance to rebuild” as we could’ve rebuilt in the Premiership plus we wouldn’t have had to put ourselves in financial peril to do so. Now though I’m repeating the “chance to rebuild” mantra because it makes me feel better about the whole situation.

Sky can do one too. I don’t need to listen to Keys and Gray mull over every decision and examine every tiny error before chuckling to themselves and reminding the viewers that the Premier League is the best league in the world (It’s not. La Liga is).

The biggest plus though, is that we might win more than half a dozen games in a season. I’ve forgotten what that feels like.

There are some negatives though, the main one being that our searches for new managers and players aren’t going to land us with the best in the world. Our current search for a new owner too probably isn’t going to result in us being bought out by a mega rich oligarch or sheikh who’ll throw money at the club because they seem to prefer to buy teams already in the top flight. That’s a bit of a pain as I’m going to have to radically readjust the expectations I’ve carried since I was five years old. We’ve always made an attempt to get the best players in the world and while nine times out of ten it failed it was still bloody entertaining. It could take some getting used to.

Forgive me if I’m rambling or if i've made a tonne of spelling mistakes. This is just a very quick post as I’ve got a splitting headache and I don’t want to look at the screen for too long.