Toon fans’ new call
WHATEVER happens when Newcastle face fellow strugglers Cardiff tomorrow, the atmosphere will not be as poisonous as the last time the two teams met in a Premier League game at St James’ Park.
It was May 3, 2014 – Newcastle’s final home game of a typically traumatic season and was to prove the beginning of the end for both managers.
The Magpies’ 3-0 win condemned Cardiff and their boss of four months Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to relegation – but it was an even more fateful afternoon for Toon manager Alan Pardew.
Then, as now, Newcastle fans vented their anger at owner Mike Ashley and his tarnished regime. The big difference was that while Rafa Benitez will be eulogised by an adoring crowd tomorrow, five years ago Pardew had become as much a hate figure as Ashley.
Newcastle went into that Cardiff game on the back of six straight defeats and were not mathematically safe. More significantly, it was the first time Pardew was back on the touchline after serving a sevenmatch ban for butting
Hull’s David Meyler.
The bile directed against him proved so venomous he was forced to spend most of the game sheltering in the home dug-out.
“It was one of the most surreal afternoons of my career,” recalled defender Mike Williamson, now at Gateshead. “As professionals, you try to block everything out and focus on the game but that day emotions were running high and it was impossible not to be aware of the fans’ anger.” Pardew was shaken by the hostility. “It was a tough day,” he said at the time. “The fans made it a really difficult atmosphere and I didn’t want to make things worse by antagonising them. They were very angry about our recent run and I just hope this is a small step towards repairing the damage.” Pardew never did heal the rift and in late December he quit to join Crystal Palace.
The odds are stacked against Benitez being in charge this time next year but while no one mourned Pardew’s exit, Tyneside will be plunged into collective grief if the Spaniard leaves.
Fans are ready to step up their actions against Ashley – although not until after the Cardiff game. They called off organised protests late last year when it emerged a Peter Kenyon-led consortium was looking to buy the club off Ashley. But with no sign of a takeover and Ashley having so far failed to back Benitez, the Magpie Group have announced a fresh wave of protests.
They have released a newsletter expressing “horror and resignation” at the lack of transfer business. The letter reads: “We are faced with the prospect of no takeover and little, if any, investment in a team which is in grave danger of our third relegation in 12 years under Ashley. “It is all but inevitable Rafa will walk at the end of the season, if not before. “In the light of the above, it was agreed that the primary aim of the group has to be regime change.”