Nottm Forest (0) 0
Newcastle United(0) 0
Att: 25,762
Forest: Crossley, Lyttle, Pearce, Cooper, Chettle,
Phillips, Saunders, Campbell, Woan, Allen, Haaland.
Subs Not Used: Lee, Fettis, Howe, Roy, Walker
Toon: Srnicek, Watson, Elliott, Peacock, Albert, Lee,
Beardsley, Gillespie, Shearer, Ferdinand, Ginola
Subs not used: Hislop, Barton, Brayson, Clark, Kitson
Crawling down the A1 in the fog I felt quite optimistic ... Big Les back, this lot bottom of the league, three points, thank-you very much. I confidently predicted that we would be singing ‘jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way ...’ come 9.45pm. It is a constant source of amazement to my non-football friends that, after all these years traveling down the A1 to watch Newcastle, I still think we are going to stuff the opposition.
I took my seat in row AA and found that I had a perfect view, of the gravel track. In the second half a steward sat down on the track obscuring it and replacing it with a view of his fluorescent yellow jacket ... how thoughtful, a bargain seat at £18. There must have been about 3,000 toon fans. A hell of an effort on a Monday night before Christmas when it’s live on the box in the pubs and clubs back home. I know a few other clubs can match our away support for numbers but they do not have to travel from the North East. Most people would have taken the afternoon off work and would not get back until 3am.
Before kick-off I became aware of a repetitive thudding coming from the seats above me. Looking back I saw that The Usual Suspects from Toon Travel had brought a couple of drums with them and were banging along like that bloke out of ‘The Vikings’ (the one with Kirk Douglas in when they are on the boat and the slaves have to row to the drum beat) and getting the crowd singing. The Toon Army discover musical instruments for the first time and I was there! The drum was a good laugh but it must have been torture to sit one seat in front of.
The teams were announced and ... JOY, Keegan had reverted to a flat back four. Still no Clarkie in midfield, despite Batty’s absence, what is work-shy-fop Rob Lee paying KK? The extremely rare sight of a younger player on the bench as well. Only a sub mind, if KK had played Brayson that would have blotted his copy-book, youth policy of never actually giving a trainee a starting debut in four years as manager.
The teams came out and each Newcastle player handed a box containing a Christmas cake in it to one of the bairns in the toon end. Despite sitting on the front row, Steve Watson totally ignored me and gave his cake to a 4-5 year old lad sat behind me. I had a bit of a sulk until my Da reminded me that I was 22 years old.
The first half was pretty abysmal. We had much better shape than in previous games with a flat back four, giving Ginola and Gillespie much more freedom. The problem was that neither winger put one decent cross into the box the entire game. Gillespie had the beating of Pearce at times but his crosses always went miles over the front two or were defected for corners. Ginola kept cutting inside and crossing with his right foot, which is never as effective as when he beats the full-back on the inside and cuts the ball back from the line. Starved of the ball, Ferdinand and Shearer had to fight for it and try and create something for themselves, which never really came off although Les nearly scored from a Shearer flick on the stroke of half-time.
At half time we bumped into some bloke who claimed to have seen us in a bar in Metz, he thoughtfully repeated the song ‘one ginger bastard, there’s only one ginger bastard’ in an attempt to revive my memory. Seeing that we were perplexed he sang ‘there’s only one Dennis Wise, one Dennis Wise’ to an older, smaller, gentleman in our party. We have no recollection of the bloke, still - for all we know we may well have met Elvis in Metz.
The second half was a bit more exciting. It began with Watson heading the ball directly into the path of Dean Saunders, Pav had to save brilliantly. Remembering the cake incident I yelled a few expletives at Stevie from my advanced viewing position. He took notice and played a blinder after that.
Newcastle began to pressurize Forest, Ginola forced big fat Crossley to push the ball over and for a time it looked like we might go one up. We then had a golden chance, Watson crossed our one good ball of the game into the box and Les leaped above the defence, slow motion time as the Newcastle end held it’s breath but Les somehow missed the target with the top corner gaping.
Forest then proved why they are bottom of the league by wasting several sitters. Albert, in particular, was having a nightmare but we were surviving, just. A scandanavian looking Forest player (Haaland) hit the post and Campbell blazed over the rebound, it would have been harsh if it had gone in as Elliott had obviously been fouled in the Forest build-up. Woan then missed a sitter, if only he had struck the ball like that last season.
Newcastle were not out of it. Beardsley waltzed through their defence but blazed over from an acute angle just when we all thought he was going to score another wonder goal at The City Ground. Lee also screwed a shot just wide.
The game ended without incident. Our first goal-less draw since 1928 or something. If we are going to win anything we have got to get back to our free scoring ways. More has to come from the middle of midfield (yes I’m talking to you Mr. Lee). We need midfielders who are going to run through the middle and slide balls through for the front two, Lee Clark is the obvious answer, if KK is not going to play him then it’s time for SJH to whack out the cheque book or we will be out of this title race before it has begun! Gillespie wastes the ball too often as well, when you have £22 millions worth of centre forwards it’s useful if you put the odd good cross in every now and then. At least we played a proper system for once, if this is done regularly the players might start gelling together again.
Jingle Bells will have to wait ... until Coventry next week.