Can the Pardew soap opera ever have a happy ending?

SHORTLY before four o’clock this afternoon, Alan Pardew will emerge from the dressing room tunnel and make his way towards the technical area. If the familiar script is followed, his appearance will provoke a storm of jeers and derision from the home crowd. He will respond with a wave and a tight smile before ducking into his dugout. Moments later, a whistle will blow, Newcastle United will take on the champions of England, and a new season of the St James’ Park soap opera will be underway

Nobody knows what japes Pardew is plotting this season. Will he shove a linesman (August 2012)? Or bellow obscene insults at a rival manager (January 2014)? Or might he butt an opposition player who may have displeased him (March 2014)?

This endlessly capricious fellow is full of surprises. Now in some managers such unpredictability can be an appealing trait, but for the Newcastle public, Pardew’s appeal has long since worn thin.

Their feelings boiled over in the final game last season, when the manager was forced to take refuge in the dugout while the chant of ‘We Want Pardew Out!’ boomed from all four sides of the stadium and thousands staged a pre-arranged walkout. All this and Newcastle won by three goals! Had the club owner, Mike Ashley, been present, then he would have been left in no doubt about the depth of the fans’ feeling. But Ashley, as so often, was absent. In any case, the owner is aware that he is no more popular than his manager.

ASHLEY’S treatment of Pardew has, at times, carried a whiff of cruelty. There was his appointment of preposterous Joe Kinnear as ‘Director of Football’. There was the decision to put Pardew forward to defend Ashley’s disgraceful awarding of Newcastle’s shirt sponsorship to a legalised loan shark. Recent days have seen complimentary tickets withdrawn from the manager and his staff; a petty stricture, designed to demean. And now Pardew has been forbidden to speak to the media, outside his obligatory commitments.

We can all think of managers who would have told Ashley precisely what he could do with his job, but Pardew seems to treat each humiliation as a challenge. We are reminded of Monty Python’s incorrigible Black Knight, who loses arms and legs in a duel: ‘I’ve had worse … ’Tis but a scratch … Just a flesh wound’.

Every manager has a lively capacity for self-deception, but in Pardew it is developed to an unrivalled degree. Examples abound, but a personal favourite was his response to his seven-match ban and £60,000 fine for butting Hull’s David Meyler. ‘I will accept the punishment handed down by the FA’, he announced; as if he had a choice in the matter.

Cynics insist that the roots of Pardew’s attitude may be found in the extraordinary eight-year contract he was awarded in September 2012. Derek Llambias, who was then managing director, offered a memorable explanation: ‘It will reflect on the pitch, the fans will be happier, there won’t be all that chatter if the team goes through a bad patch.’ Apparently, that prophecy can still raise a chuckle in the boardroom.

Given Ashley’s record, we should expect he has new humiliations in store for his manager but, short of sending him out at St James’ Park in a Sunderland shirt, he must realise that Pardew seems quite immoveable.

A more sensitive man might have been crushed by his bruising experience at that final match. But Pardew took refuge in cod psychology. ‘It’s not something I want to experience again,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of frustration towards me and I understand that. Hopefully I can prove I can deal with it and come back better and stronger. Life is a rocky road and, when it gets rocky, you have to stay strong and focused.’ It wasn’t quite ‘When the going gets tough …’, but it was as close as you could get while keeping a straight face.

In fairness, Newcastle have spent money in the close season. Signings have been made, progress is promised. We shall see. But the fact remains that in the English city where the game is loved most dearly and followed most fiercely, the loyalists are on the brink of rebellion. Should the team lose, and lose badly, to Manchester City today, then the consequences could be calamitous.

But one thing is certain. If those Newcastle fans are expecting Alan Pardew to follow the example of Tony Pulis, climb aboard his high horse and gallop off into the sunset, then they will be disappointed. For the foreseeable future, this soap opera is stuck with its leading man.