{"id":10782,"date":"2025-02-06T10:22:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T10:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10782"},"modified":"2025-02-09T09:38:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T09:38:33","slug":"bewitched-bothered-and-bewildered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10782","title":{"rendered":"Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By ClockEndRider & 21st Century Gooner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Well, that was fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having played so well at the weekend, it was with considerable anticipation that we made the journey into the nether reaches of the kingdom of the land of the Seal People.   Up at Sparrow\u2019s Fart and off to Heathrow, we started the day bright eyed and bushy tailed.  A Breakfast of Champions at the airport, and then on to the 45 minute flight.  What a pleasure it was not to have a seven-hour coach journey as we did in November.   Landing at an empty Newcastle Airport was a pleasure too and reminded me of the way air travel used to be \u2013 a thoroughly pleasant experience.  Straight onto the train into town, having been assisted to buy the correct ticket by a very nice and helpful gentleman who informed us that he wasn\u2019t a Geordie but a Mackem and he hoped we slaughtered Newcastle.  Having dumped our bags at the hotel, we enjoyed a very pleasant walk around the town, which was buzzing with young people.  It must be a great town to go to University in.  A walk in the bright but rather watery sunshine down on the Tyne was further enhanced by a pint in a riverside pub and a walk back towards the train station, stopping in another hostelry or two along the way.  We finally settled in the Gunners, over the road from the station and enjoyed a good chat and a pint or two with some very nice and knowledgeable Geordie fans, before skipping off down the road for a pre-match dinner, also thoroughly enjoyable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team which was to start was pretty much as we would have wanted.  And at that point the good bits ended, because next to come was the game itself. A raucous away end saluted the players onto the pitch and we kicked off.  In 3 minutes, Newcastle were ahead with an excellently taken finish from Isak when he had been put through by Gordon after some faffing in the midfield.  It was excellently taken by Isak but finally, after an interminable wait, it was ruled out for a marginal offside.  Apparently the referee announced the decision to the ground over the PA system. At least that\u2019s what the match highlights showed, but it wasn\u2019t in any way audible in the ground, unlike the booming, frankly appalling entrance music which was played as the players came out, so that introduction seems to be purely for the cameras, like so much of the work PGMOL do.  The cancellation was a let-off but the nature of the attack was a precursor of what was to come for much of the remaining 87 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard had a chance in the 18th<\/sup> minute, put through by a pass from Martinelli but his shot hit the outside of the post under pressure from one of the towering Orcs in the Barcodes defence. A minute later and the game was over. A pass from Gordon to Isak, very similar the earlier one put the striker through and he touched once to control and then lashed his shot against the bar from outside the box. Unlike \u00d8degaard\u2019s effort a minute earlier, the rebound came back kindly across the goal enabling Murphy to slot home, with Raya unable to recover.  For much of the half we huffed and puffed without really looking as though we would blow Howe\u2019s house of bricks down and half time gave us the opportunity to regroup. Seemingly it was an opportunity which we chose not to take along with the half time oranges. After a mere 6 minutes in the second half, the coroner was called and pronounced the game dead.   Raya played a quite appalling pass out towards Rice just outside our box, seemingly failing to see the big bloke wearing black and while standing only yards away from him.  Said walking Everton Mint simply pressured Rice who managed to nick the ball forward to Gordon who passed the ball into the goal.  What a polite bunch of gentlemen we are, offering up such lovely opportunities for the opposition.  The rest of the game passed in a barely memorable series of dulled attacks. We left the ground serenaded by the home fans singing a song about how Arteta blames the ball, referring to a question asked in the media a few weeks ago in reference to the different ball used in the Carabao Cup, which the manager failed to see as a booby trap to be used to create a wholly untrue story about him blaming the ball.  Quite bizarre and indicative just how utterly stupid people can be.  We came back to the hotel bar after the game and it was noticeable how the previously really friendly and nice home fans were now pretty ugly in mood and attitude.  I suppose this is what comes of supporting a northern Tottenham.  Done nothing for 60 odd years but just enough to keep alive the flickering embers of falsehood about being a big club.  Sorry to appear bitter but they were pretty horrible post-match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frankly, over three  games this season so far, Nice Eddie has totally had the number of Mikel,  We have hardly laid a glove on them in 3 games   They haven\u2019t battered us, but they haven\u2019t had to.  They have been relatively efficient in front of goal, and we, erm, haven\u2019t.  Overall, it was another enjoyable trip to a very pleasant city that was somewhat soured by the 90 minutes of football we went to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To end, a few points about Geordie Land that I (21CG) would like to make are the people of Newcastle are for the most part, thoroughly decent chaps. I\u2019m sure you would find some colourful characters in the city centre at 2am on a Friday\/Saturday night but they are a friendly bunch. St James\u2019 Park is located pretty much bang in the centre which is always convenient. Plenty of things to do, places to eat and drink pre or post-game. Getting in and out of the ground could not have been any easier. I suppose the fact our hotel was only five minutes down the road probably helped but it was very impressive how the flow of fan traffic was managed.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have bigger fish to fry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ClockEndRider & 21st Century Gooner Well, that was fun.  Having played so well at the weekend, it was with considerable anticipation that we made the journey into the nether reaches of the kingdom of the land of the Seal People.   Up at Sparrow\u2019s Fart and off to Heathrow, we started the day bright […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10782"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10800,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782\/revisions\/10800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}