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They were led back to the correct entrance in small groups. When they were allowed into the stadium they were in a compound with hundreds of riot police wielding batons. Then there was a large fence , on the other side were the Italian fans who had not had their possessions taken from them. The game starts and from the onset it is obvious that the Italian players were going to use dirty tactics. Their players go in hard and in the 13th minute, Ince is elbowed in the head by Albertini. He goes off and gets 6 stitches in his head. He is off the pitch for 8 minutes, in this time Italy fail to take the initiative. |
The Italian fans grow restless, some start throwing bottles and coins over the fence at the English fans. The English fans could not retaliate as they had all their possessions taken from them. The police told the English to move back, but they were already in a small enclosure so they stood their ground. This was the excuse that the armed thugs had been waiting for. They charged into the defenceless English fans Indiscriminately beating up the English Supporters with their batons. The English fans are Squeezed into a corner of the enclosure. Millions of T.V.viewers watch in horror as the Italian thugs carry on hitting the English fans ,many of them women and children. |
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 | On the field , things are getting worse. The Italians go in hard , trying to injure our superior players. But the English players are not intimidated.They ride the tackles and outplay the Italians.The midfield trio of Ince, Batty and Gasgoine are particularly strongAt half time it is all square. Despite our brilliant defence and midfield England could not manage many attacks. They were keeping it very tight and giving nothing away.The Italians became more and more frustrated as time went on. In all 6 of their players were given yellow cards. Among them Del Piero for trying to get a penalty, it was an obvious dive. |
The dutch ref was exceptional, one of the fairest I have ever seen. 13 minutes from the end Di Livio was sent off for an awful tackle on Sol Campbell. Despite Italy being down to 10 men England could not capitalize on it. With minutes to go Ian Wright hit the post. It would have been nice if it had gone in, but it didn't matter England only needed a draw and that's how it ended England 0 Italy 0. |
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When Glen Hoddle took over as England manager after Euro 96, Many doubted his ability. He has proved his critics wrong. England now go to the finals as one of the favorites to win the trophy. we are off to France to beat Brazil (the second best team in the world). then once again we will become World Champions Good luck Glen all of England is with you. |
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Immense speculation over the future of Geordie Maestro Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne has ended today After his good performances for Rangers and England. Many people on Tynside saw gazza as an ideal player to fill in for the injured Shearer and Asprilla. Newcastle United desperetly needed a 3rd world class striker. Gazza although not a striker could have played well in that position until the return of tino and shearer and then switched back to his more familar central midfield position. He would also have been great for set pieces, an area in which we are still sadly lacking. He allegedly held talks with Freddie Shepherd and Douglas Hall To discuss his future. He wanted to come home to tyneside but there were problems with the contract negotiations.The deal agreed with Rangers would have involved no cash. It would have been a straight swap with Warren Barton, and Ian Rush both going in exchange. |
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Newcastle United PLC were "excited " at the new Merchandise that Gascoigne would have promoted . Including Gazza shirts with plastic tits sewn on the front, Gazza ale with a special ingredient to make you fart louder than your friends, and a crying gazza doll, Pictured opposite with gazza blowing it up. |
The merchandise would have been O.K. The problem lay with Gazza wanting to release another record, possibly "FOG ON THE TYNE 2" But the PLC would not allow the Nation to suffer again. So Gazza has decided to move abroad at the end of season. He has expressed an intrest in going to Hollywood. Where he, being a loud mouth ,wife beating, alcoholic with little talent would fit in very well. Sorry Gazza you had your chance and blew it. |
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Those connected to the club are becoming impatient with, the poor recent results. Despite allegedly having over £6m to spend, K.D. has still not found a suitable striker to replace Les Ferdinand. A team with ambitions as big as Newcastles need 3 or 4 World class strikers , not just 2. He has been let down by Rush , Tomasson and others, and is starting to feel the pressure. Due to the recent injuries, extra time will be given to Kenny Dalglish to put things right. However if things don't start to improve soon then K.D. could be on his way back to Liverpool or Glasgow. It is felt that K.D may jump ship rather than be pushed out of Newcastle. |
With Liverpool also struggling to find form this year, Roy Evans could well be Moved "UPSTAIRS". That would leave an opening that K.D. would find difficult to refuse, having closer ties with Liverpool than with Geordieland. There will also be a managers job in Glasgow at the end of the season and Kenny may yet be tempted to go home. Lets all hope it doesn't come to that. Kenny Dalglish is a terrific manager. He has just not yet managed to get all the pieces for his Newcastle United jigsaw yet and has had some appalling luck with all of our top players having been injured this season. If he does leave, all would not be lost. Waiting in the wings is BOBBY ROBSON. |
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SEPTEMBER 17TH (hence forth to be known as "Barca Day") VENUE ST JAMES PARK
LINE UP FOR NEWCASTLE {*) = Riks Rating, out of ten
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The game starts very well for Newcastle, Tomasson misses 2 early attempts at goal probably due to nerves but the rest of the team look comfortable. Barcelona have a lot of possession but can't do anything with it.
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After 22 mins Tomasson plays a lovely ball to TINO, he is clear on goal. Ruud Hesp hacks poor TINO to the ground PENALTY. Tino steps up to take it, and hammers it in. Newcastle 1 Barcelona 0 The keeper wasn't very happy, but 30,000 chanting geordies are ecstatic. Robert Lee turns de la pena inside out .The Spaniards can't cope with his fitness and superior skill. Lee is brought down, the ball is played to Gillespie on the wing who beats Sergi and crosses to Tino. He leaps like a Salmon Its A Goal, St James's park erupts. 2 - 0. "Theres only one Tino" can be heard at my house 6 miles away. |
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Now its all Newcastle, wave after wave the TOON attack , Barcelona look pathetic. how can a team that cost so much look so bad? Newcastle play some of there best football ever in this period and tear Barcelona apart. Barcelona are very lucky that they make it to half time with only 2 goals conceded. Every time Newcastle get the ball they look like scoring. The second half begins as the first had ended with Newcastle tearing into Barcelona.Gillespie runs down the wing like an express train,once again beating Sergi and delivers an exquisite cross. Again the crazy Colombian had beaten the best defence in Europe as he rises like a phoenix to meet the ball. GOAL Newcastle 3 Barcelona 0 Tino gets his hat trick, Barcelona are shocked.Tino cartwheels to the crowd .They are ecstatic as there hero makes this a night that Tyneside will never forget .Newcastle then relaxed a touch and let Barcelona back into the game. As ever with Barcelona they didn't give up and tried there usual tactic of getting as many free kicks as possible hoping to score from a set piece. Luis Enrique pulled one back after 73 mins, but our defence held out and Shay Given made some fine saves.Barcelona got a late goal which saved them from being totally humiliated 2 mins from the end of the game.
Final Score NEWCASTLE UNITED 3 BARCELONA 2
Venue Olympic stadium in front of a hostile crowd of 100,000 Ukranians.
LINE UP FOR NEWCASTLE {*) = Riks Rating, out of ten
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The game starts at a cracking pace. After 4 minutes disaster strikes Albert and Bez fail to mark properly and Kiev take an early lead. Newcastle come back at Kiev well. Asprilla looks extremely dangerous. He puts the frighteners on their defence and the keeper Tino picks up a yellow card, then gets a free kick himself. As he takes the kick he seems to pull a muscle. He is stretchered off. Although we didn't realise it at the time this would be the last time that he would play in the Champions league this year. He underwent an operation and is out until Xmas. Tomasson cant get on to replace Tino. Barton does well and nobbles one of the Ukrainians.
But while we are down to 10 men Kiev score.Newcastles heads drop a bit. they struggle until half time. Kenny is not pleased. At half time K.D.inspires the lads. They come out after the break a different team In the 77th min Newcastle get a throw in, in a promising position. From the throw , the ball is chested down to Beresford, He shoots, The ball goes straight through the keepers legs. Its a goal. DINAMO KIEV 2 NEWCASTLE UTD 1. The keeper thumps the ground in anger, What a plonker .Newcastle rush to get the game restarted, with 12 minutes left ,still a chance Beresford had made up for his defensive error earlier in the game. The game resumes, 
Newcastle keep up the pressure.5 minutes later a corner to Newcastle Gillespie swings the ball into the box. It is knocked back to Beresford He hits it to the keepers left. A defender gets a foot to it. It takes a deflection , and heads off to the keepers rightIts A GOAL. He has done it again. DINAMO KIEV 2 NEWCASTLE UTD 2 only 7 mins left, Shay given makes another fine save. the last few minutes are hard to bear, Can we hold out? YES The whistle blows .What a game, What a comeback! ITS BEZ AGAIN.
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What an anti climax this game turned out to be. After the poor performance against Leeds on Saturday many of us expected something quite different. I had expected a little more flair from our players, a 
little more creativity from the midfield and a few more shots on goal from our strikers. we got none , Instead K.D. tried a new formation, Graham Taylor invented the Xmas tree formation, K.D will go down as inventing the Dwarf Conifer formation. It works like this , After the keeper you have 7 defenders, then 2 midfielders then miles away you have a lone striker.Its very boring to watch but quite effective as long as you don't make any mistakes. Unfortunately we made one in this game which resulted in a goal for Eindhoven in the 38th minute. In the second half K.D.tried to fix things by bringing on Albert as left back and letting Steve Watson go back to right back. this worked, however bringing on Ketsbaia, too late in the game and taking off BEZ who was playing quite well didn't get us the equalizer that we deserved.It finished 1-0 to Eindhoven.
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disappointing news for the toon army was that half of half of our team were still "on the Sick" . It was also pissing down in sunny Spain, Not what they had expected. Never mind the fans thought soon they would be in the magnificent Nou camp watching a wonderful game between 2 of the finest sides in Europe. How wrong they were. 
The Nou camp should be renamed the old camp . It is a huge crumbling hovel not fit for decent geordies to sit in. The seats were soaking wet and didn't fold up, so they had to stand up. There was no cover to shelter under so the fans got soaking wet. The isles were cramped and refreshments were sold out of little baskets by the locals, all in all the facilities were not what we are accustomed to . It would not have been to bad but the tickets cost an incredible £45. The ground would hold 116,00 Newcastle were allocated 3,500 another 3,500 went along in the hope of getting a spare seat, no worries there were 100,000 spare seats it was deserted.the fans still had to be put on the top tier about a mile away from the opposing fans who were all sheltering quietly under the lower tier.
The formation and Line up changed quite a few times during the game but basically it was like this with (Riks ratings in Yellow)
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He is currently not happy at his new job in Barcelona, as technical director. He wants to Return to Management and would love to fulfill his ambition lifting an English championship. He regrets turning down the Newcastle job last year. It just became available at the wrong time. He still had a point to prove, and a job to do at Barcelona. He has made it known that he wants to come back into English management and where better to do it than his native North East. He has turned down lots of jobs already this year fueling speculation that he is saving himself for "THE BIG ONE"
