This year the Toon News will not be deleted after a few weeks. Instead it will be renewed monthly and the older months kept on this site !

Older editions so far are :-

Novembers Fixtures

Decembers fixtures

Saturday 28th November

 Newcastle 3 - 1 Wimbledon

Newcastle are devastated by the injuries of Alan Shearer, Andy Griffin and Robert Lee. Dabizas and Pearce are both suspended. so who comes into the team as captain???

You would never have guessed it, but making his first appearance this year having just come out of a fitness clinic in Wales is Newcastles longest serving player, STEVE HOWIE.

So the line up today is

Subs Harper, Solano, Ketsbaia, Dalglish and David Beharall.

David Beharall is a 19 year old Centre back from Walker, who has had a few games in the reserves having been in the youth team since leaving school. Photo in the gallery pretty soon. No sign of Albert or Pistone?

Newcastle take some time to find their feet, No one start s very well and Anderson is the worst of the lot. In the early part of the game he looks very uncomfortable. Just as they are starting to get their act together Stephen Glass goes off injured. On to a warm round of applause comes Peruvian Nobby Solano.

Just after the half hour mark Shay Given makes a poor clearance to To Gary Speed, He returns the ball on the volley towards given but in steps Marcus gale to pick up the poor ball and sticks Wimbledon 1 - 0 up. Heads don't drop for Newcastle and we are soon back in the game thanks to Gillespie who gets into the box, passes to Solano who bangs in the Newcastle equaliser. He becomes the first ever Peruvian to score in the premier league. 4 minutes later he almost gets a second when Ferguson knocks the ball down to Nobby. He blasts the ball into the top right hand corner of the net. Neil Sulivan makes a great save to keep them in it. The ref decides to play 2 minutes too long in the first half and Wimbledon get a goal from a corner, It was though deemed to be a foul on Shay given and the ref disallows it and blows his half time whistle.

News comes through that PETER REID has tried to take Adde to Sunderland on loan.

I wonder if Ruud will change his mind after the poor half time performance, or is he trying to hold out for a more permanent deal?

Any way back to the game and the last moment of the first half saw Given get an injury, it was more than a knock and he is not able to start the second half. On comes Steve Harper, the cricket playing Peterlee lad, making his debut for Newcastle. Solano and Gillespie get the better of the Wimbledon defence and we look the better team. With 18 minutes played stand in captain Steve Howie gets a ball out to Solano on the wing. He in turn plays the ball into the box where Ferguson is lucking. Although he scuffs the shot, it finds its way into the net and the new £8 million man gets his debut off to a great start . Newcastle 2 Wimbledon 1. Confidence is high and 2 minutes later another shot from Big Dunk, just wide of the post. The Toon army welcome big Dunk with rapturous chant of "Ferguson, Ferguson, Ferguson" , With 25 minutes played Big dunk goes forward like a steam train , but stretches at the last minute and looks like he is injured. He plays on and runs off the injury to the relief of Gullit and 35,000 chanting fans. Anderson is still having a bad game and would have come off if it weren't for us having used two subs already. At the other end of the scale Solano is having a great game. He must surely start the next game. As for my usual targets for abuse, and credit where credit is due they are both having decent games. Most surprisingly of all is Howie, having missed so much over the last two years he is having a great game. As is young Hughes and new boys Hamman and Charvet. Despite our injury problems, the lads on the pitch do themselves proud.

The last few minutes see a couple of corners for Newcastle the final one is aimed at Big Dunk and Guess what HE SCORES ANOTHER F*****G GOAL,

This bloke is gonna be a

BIG

BIG

STAR

"Duncan Ferguson, Tyneside Hero"

Wednesday 25th November

Duncan Ferguson signs a 5 year deal and joins Newcastle for a sum of £7 million (+ £1million later) from Everton. Their manager and fans can't believe it, he was sold without the managers consent . Neither can Brian Robson or Peter Reid, they both thought that they would be signing him. Gullit is well pleased as are the United board. A lot of the Toon army s are not too happy at "Drunken" Ferguson being bought. They say he cost too much, has a bad reputation, gets injured too much and compare him to out of favour Ex evertonian Gary Speed. Personally I think that he will be a great addition to the club. I think that Dunc may well in time become a cult figure. He reminds me of "Wyn the leap", Good with his head , scored quite a lot himself and made a load of goals for "POP" Robson . They were a great pair 30 years ago. Hopefully he and Shearer can become just as deadly a partnership as the fairs cup winning duo.

Since Ferdinand left , Newcastle's goals have dried up. We have been crying out for this kind of player for over a year now, we needed TWO TOP strikers up front , now that we have got two, along with our 2 good wingers. WE WILL SCORE A LOT MORE GOALS, and win a lot more games.

Monday 23rd November

Everton 1- 0 Newcastle United

The match was shown all over the world and it was very embarrassing, Shearer and Griff were injured Pearce was suspended . No one played well, All rated 3/10 except Given 6/10 who only let one shot (the penalty) past him and Sub Albert 6/10 who should play in the next game.Ruud said after the game that they were toothless and if they were to play another 90 mins they would still never score. Then The "Big Dunk" story brakes to cheer up the toon fans.

Saturday 14th November

Newcastle United V Sheffield Wednesday

Back to the premiership for a game that we should win. Although Sheffield latest signing Pavel the Geordie will want to stop that from happening as he makes his debut for Sheffield. Once again we are not at full strength. Stu Pearce is suspended so Griff starts again on the left. This means that Barton plays on the right.(I am saying nowt today about his inclusion) In the Centre of defence Hughes is partnered by Charvet as Dabizas is on International Duty. Rob Lee has recovered so he replaces Batty who had a poor game on Wednesday. He is partnered in the middle by Didi Hamman. Batty wont be too happy at his omission and speculation will no doubt grow over his future at Newcastle. Gary Speed comes in for Glass who is injured and Gillespie is given only his second game this season on the right wing. Up front Dalglish partners Shearer once again. Given manages to escape from his International call up so Harper must again bide his time on the bench. Outfield reserves today are Batty, Solano, Serrant and Adde is back after a long illness.

Fantastic start for Newcastle. Didi Hamman gets a free kick in the first minute . Its 35 yards out and PAV has a job to get a hand to it. The rebound falls to back to Hamman and he just shoots wide. We keep up the pressure , Riks favorite player " The B man" gets forward and has a shot at Pav , Once again he fails to hold it , this time Paul Dalglish gets onto the end of the rebound and opens the scoring . Three minutes gone and it's One Nil to Newcastle. As was the case on Wednesday night, Newcastle fail to capitalise on on the early lead. Sheffield get back into the game and were it not for a good save by Given from Booth they would have equalised. Indeed Booth does get a ball in the back of the net not long afterwards but was judged to have been offside. On the half hour mark Didi Hamman is replaced for no apparent reason by Batty. the last 15 minutes of the half see Pav making some more good saves and with Newcastle back in the ascendancy the half time whistle blows.

Second half sees a couple of very strange substitutions. Andy Griffin is replace by Carl Serrant and what's happening here ALAN SHEARER off and Adde brought on. The crowd were having a good old discussion about why Shearer and Griff had been replaced when Ginger spice Geri Halliwell, decides to liven up the proceedings by doing a topless streak across the pitch. The players, ref, stewards and police decide to let her have a bit of fun and liven up the crowd. The game is held up for a couple of minutes as she runs wild on the pitch. Carl Serrant is the lucky player that she decides to get closest to, as she jumps on him. At this point the stewards and police decide that enough is enough and remove her from the field. She is led off for a private meeting with the club owners and the game re-starts. The crowd have been woken up and St James's park reverberates with the chant of GERI, GERI, GERI .

It was a fairly quiet second half, and the streak looked like it was going to be the talking point of the day as the game was destined to end 1 - 0. that was until 10 minutes before the end of the game when Newcastle made a horrendous cockup. One guess only on who was to blame....yeah the "B" man. He simply let the ball go past him thinking that Charvet would get it, Charvet thought Barton would get it. He just stood still and let Petta Ruudi run past him and toe poked the ball into the net. Once again BARTONITUS had struck. What can I say that I haven't already said.>>>>>>>>> BARTON IS SHITE<<<<<< GET RID OF HIM. Game over

Todays lineup, Riks Ratings in RED

Subs Harper, Solano, Andersson, Serrant and Batty,.

Wednesday 11th November, The Worthless Cup

Newcastle United 1 Blackburn Rovers 1

aet, Blackburn go through to the next round winning 4 - 2 in a penalty shootout

After the good result at the weekend The Toon Army were expecting the same line up that had played so well just 4 days ago. Inexplicably Ruud changed the defence, out went Charvet and Griffin and in Came Pearce and BARTON. Big Big mistake, by Ruud, It was like starting with 10 men. BARTON , must be the worst ever player to have worn a Black and white shirt in recent times. How he still gets picked now and then is beyond comprehension. Not only does Barton play so poorly , when he does play , he seems to infect the players around him, and they too start playing shite. The older they are the worse it affects them, the longer the game goes on , the worse they get. Its like a disease that infects the whole team. Indeed I strongly believe that it is a disease and as discoverer of this disease I think I will name it BARTONITUS.

The symptoms of Bartonitus are :-

Not thinking straight when in possession of the ball, often giving the ball straight back to the opposition

 Always passing sideways and backwards.

 Watching the ball when you should be watching the players around you.

Never finding a space or doing anything positive.

Generally playing like a frightened schoolboy playing for the under 12's side for the first time.

Like I say being on the same field as Barton affects the older players worse than the younger ones who seam to resist for longer. At first Newcastle started off playing quite well . Indeed after only 8 minutes Hamman crossed the ball onto the head of Shearer and we went one up. As the game progressed though Bartonitus started to take hold. Worst affected wee the older player, Pearce and batty were particularly badly affected . on the half hour mark, Barton gave away a corner from which given managed to punch clear. The ball fell to kenna who crossed to Sherwood and he with their first shot at goal got the equaliser.

Half time soon came and went , we got worse as the game went on. There was no width about the team at all, when Solano had been playing in earlier games we used the whole width of the field. Georgiados, looks like a good play but was constantly drifting inwards, as was glass on the left. We were looking at the same tactics that failed us last year under "THE DOUR ONE" , 4 players in the centre of midfield just doesn't work against a team that have 10 men behind the ball. Dalglish and Shearer were moving to the wings, but thats not where they belong, We should have spread the ball more. When I saw the sub warming up just after the restart I thought great here comes Solano, but it wasn't it was the other Barton , "GARY SPEED" . at this point I knew that we weren't going to win. Admittedly Glass had had a poor game, but that was because of his position, he must have been told to play in the centre of midfield, It just hadn't worked. Gary Speed s introduction was a waste of time , he plays as always like Gary speed does and the game looked like it was going into extra time. With just 4 minutes on the clock Shearer chipped a ball to Geordiadis, he was just about to take a shot when he was hacked to the floor. PENALTY.... up steps Alan Shearer to finish off the match. But Bartonitus was to strike again, this time it was to affect Al as he shot straight over the bar. No sooner had he taken the penalty at one end , the other end of the pitch saw Batty foolishly bring down Sherwood and Blackburn were also awarded a Penalty. Jeff Kenna struck the ball well, but the only player so far to have resisted Bartonitus pulled off a brilliant save and the game went into extra time. Extra time was something of a non event. Shearer did get a shot at goal but it ricochets off old boy Darren Peacock and off the top of the bar. It was destined to go into penalties and that's just how it ended.

Luckily neither Barton , Batty or Speed volunteered to take penalties.

Shearer stepped up and made amends for his first penalty by putting us one up,and when Blackburn missed their first we thought it was to be our night . Pizza man Pearce made it 2 - 1 before Hamman missed and it went to 2 - 3 . Finally young Hughes stepped up and shot wide. Blackburn only needed to score and they would go through. They did and we went out.

Todays lineup, Riks Ratings in RED

Hopefully one big lesson can be learnt from tonights game. Don't ever play Barton again he is SHITE and makes everyone around him play SHITE, Next time Harry Redknapp comes making a low offer for Barton, Ruud should take it. His contract runs out at the end of the season so anything is better than nothing. I gave him 1 point for putting her shirt on the right way round, thats all he did do right, my granny's pet poodle looks as pretty as Barton and can play a damn site better. He must go ... he is crap !

A Nice and easy game to start the month with

AWAY TO MAN UNITED

A couple of injuries with Lee and Pearce and Pistone the most noticeable absentees. Aaron Hughes comes in for his first game of the season, Charvet moves to right back and Griff switches to the left, a position that he played in for Stoke last year. Speed has been replaced in midfield after his pathetic performances recently. Hamman although not fully match fit is thrown in at the deep end along with the most surprising change of all Georgios Georgiados, who plays at right wing instead of Nobby, who is on the bench, but likely to be brought on at some stage in the game. Upfront Dalglish gets another game and is likely to remain as Shearers partner until a top International is brought in.Its a no lose situation for Ruud today , No one expects Newcastle to win, so why not try some of the other players . It will be an interesting game whatever the outcome.

Its a comfortable start for Newcastle, we get a lot of possession in the first half, without really creating to many chances. On the left Andy Griffin wins the battle against David Beckham in the centre birthday boy Aaron Hughes snubs out the threat from Andy Cole on his nineteenth birthday. On the right Charvet has a good start , getting forward more than Georgiados who is anonymous in the first half. The centre of midfield sees Hamman getting forward to support the front two leaving batty to cover Scholes and Keane.All in all its a well balanced side that holds its own against arguably the best team currently in Europe. the nearest we come to scoring is a free kick in the 22nd minute . It comes from Shearer ,beats the wall but fails to beat Schmichael. Jesper Blomquist is Man Uniteds main threat having the only real chances for them . One which goes wide and one shot saved well by Given. It is a dull game for the spectators with few shots on target, we pass the ball well and deny Man U possession. Things do liven up in the last five minutes of the half with Dalglish almost getting a penalty as he latches onto a header from Shearer only to be brought down in the box. the ref waves play on and the last five minutes of the game are quite lively with some end to end football. Shearer is being man marked by Stam who is given a yellow card for the close attention to our makeshift captain. Half time and it's still 0-0.

The second half is certainly more lively , both teams pick up the pace. Shearer gets a yellow card after a clash with Roy Keane. Cole almost opens the scoring in the second minute, then at the other end Wes Brown makes a cock up, Dalglish gets on the end of a poor back pass, but Schmichael is alert and makes a fine save. Man united come more into the game, but we hang on , Aaron Hughes looks like a seasoned pro and Dabizas has decided to defend today. They held on during a fifteen minute onslaught. Ruud saw the problem and sorted it by replacing the exhausted Hamman with Gary Speed. It worked and Newcastle started to get more possession once again. Although we didn't score a goal neither did they and we earned a vital point away from home. We might only move up to one place to 13th , but it must we noted that only 3 points separate the teams between 4th and 14th in the league. (SEE TABLE) If it weren't for the dodgy ref last week we could well have been in 4th place.

Final Score Man United 0 Newcastle United 0

Todays lineup, Riks Ratings in RED

Subs Harper, Barton, Speed, Solano and Pearce (although not fully fit, still makes the bench)

 We now have 7 winnable league games for the rest of the year and certainly a game that we can win in the cup on Wednesday night. Ruud Gullit will be well pleased with the effort that the team put into the game today and although we have a few players injured and on International duty next week, we shouldn't struggle too much to get the 3 points at home against Sheffield next Saturday.I can see no reason why we can't be in the top 4 at the end of December..

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