From Shearer at the San Siro to a pizza night in Ponteland ... how United have fallen
IF EVER a night highlighted how far Newcastle United have tumbled down football’s elite, it was the club’s pizza summit in Ponteland.
We cannot exaggerate too much about standards and expectations under the current regime.
Newcastle do not aim high these days, they aim low – as an outlay of £23m on permanent transfer deals last summer tells us all.
Yet what we can say is fans from a certain generation once sat back on Champions League nights and watched Newcastle take part in Europe’s best competition.
It did happen, didn’t it?
Tino Asprilla’s hat-trick against Barcelona?
Or 20,000
Geordies taking over at the San Siro in Milan? Or Shola scoring at the Nou Camp?
Yes, Newcastle ARE capable of getting back to those nights with the right leadership and TLC. Younger fans can only dream of the Champions League anthem chiming out around St James’ Park but that used to be the aim for a club which is stumbling from one gaffe to another. Back in 2009, Toon officials were irked by the fact the media highlighted how far Newcastle United had stumbled since their days in Europe.
It was October that year when Newcastle lost 2-1 to Scunthorpe in the Championship on the Alan Shearer celebrates one of his two goals at the San Siro in 2003 anniversary the club beat Euro heavyweights Juventus at St James’ Park.
Those headlines rattled the powers that be back then but there is now a feeling of apathy around Tyneside.
As fans walked happily to hear Kevin Keegan speak on Tuesday night it was to go on a nostalgia trip to take them away from the club’s current miserable existence.
However, things are a far cry from the era in which United faced the likes of Barcelona and Inter Milan – and every United fans knows it.
Never mind Europe’s top table nowadays, though, here we are watching the squad troop into a pizzeria on Champions League night! You could not make it up. Let’s get this straight, Toon fans these days don’t expect to be in the Champions League.
That is not what they are protesting about.
It is the running and neglect of a club which once dreamt big but now “cannot and will not” – in the words of Ashley – compete with the big boys.
Newcastle fans travelled to Ponteland hoping this might be the last supper for Ashley.
However, it could end up proving to be the last scupper for Rafa Benitez if things do not improve after such a staged event up in Northumberland.
Benitez will go at the end of the season unless Ashley is prepared to show some ambition.
If this was supposed to be a PR exercise to show all is well at the club then it backfired in a serious way.