The Dreaded Drop

So it finally happened. After all the years of mismanagement both at boardroom level and in the dressing room Newcastle United finally succumbed to the dreaded relegation.

When I decided to buy my ticket for the Villa away game I did so in the hope that it would all be done and dusted by the last game of the season anyway and that we could just enjoy the game rather than have to worry about the ramifications of staying up or going down.

However, when it became clear that it was going to go down to the last game of the season things became more and more nerve-wracking. I had spent the days leading up to the game in a state of resignation giving us little chance of staying up.

When I woke up at 6am yesterday morning, though, I did so with a renewed sense of optimism. Anything can happen in football and with Hull, Middlesbrough and Sunderland all facing tough fixtures I was confident that a point would be enough to keep us at the top level of English football for another season at least.

And I was right. A point would have been enough. However, the first fifteen minutes aside, we managed to produce one of our worst performances all season with Brad Friedel reduced to the role of a mere spectator for the second half of the game.

However, I left the stadium a proud man. The support from Newcastle United fans was truly unbelievable and will live with me till the day I die. We sang from the beginning till the end. Had the players on the pitch showed as much commitment as the fans did off it we would never have found ourselves in the position that we did.

So, now the rebuilding job begins. It is essential that we give Shearer the job. While at times he has looked like the managerial rookie that he is, there have been signs over the last few games that he is learning quickly. His decision to put Ameobi on yesterday will still be one that forever baffles me but he is not the first manager to make the mistake in thinking that Shola has something to offer.

The one thing that sets Shearer out from the rest is his character. He is not afraid to make big decisions as evidenced with his treatment of friend Michael Owen who has found himself on the periphery since Shearer returned to the club. The most important thing is that Shearer truly cares about the club, and in a season where Newcastle United has become a laughing stock, the full time appointment of the club’s greatest ever player will go some way to restoring the dignity to a team that so desperately needs it.

Time to walk away...

The events of early Sunday morning were extremely sad for Ricky Hatton and his millions of fans across Britain and the sporting world. Not only was he out of his depth, but found himself completely destroyed by the best pound for pound fighter in the world, Manny Pacquiao.

Of course there is no shame in losing to such a great fighter. Pacquiao is the man after all who destroyed one of the greatest boxers of all time when he demolished Oscar De La Hoya.

However it was the manner of his defeat that will have been most worrying for the Mancunian and his legion of loyal followers. He looked a shadow of his former self. A fighter who has seen his best days. Despite all the world titles and great performances (his victory over Kostya Tszyu will live long in the memory) when Hatton has come up against truly world class opponents he has fallen short.

There is no shame in this. He will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the legends of British boxing. Hatton was a brawler of the highest quality. Unfortunately against Mayweather and Pacquiao brawling wasn’t enough.

So what of Mayweather and Pacquiao. Well it appears that Pacquiao’s anointing as the new pound for pound king has stirred something in Mayweather who has announced that he will be coming out of retirement and will face Juan Manuel Marquez in July.

If Mayweather beats him, which he should it would set up a clash between perhaps the two most talented boxers of their generation, if Pacquiao were to accept the challenge which he surely would.

Hatton shared the ring with the very best that boxing had to offer, and gave it everything he had. There is no shame in being a gallant loser. Hatton still has his dignity intact. He should walk away from the sport while it remains that way.

Shear legend returns

Well it looks like Alan Shearer is going to ride in on his white horse and attempt to rescue his beloved Newcastle United from relegation. It is a decision that I think has surprised many fans of Newcastle United after Shearer was critical of the current ownership regime after the departure of Kevin Keegan as manager back in September 2008.

Many had also thought that Shearer had perhaps turned his back on the idea of management having turned down coaching and management roles at England, Newcastle and Blackburn since his retirement from the game in 2006, with him building a successful career in the media and keeping himself busy with his various pieces of charity work.

However it appears he has had a change of heart and will take charge of the team for the remaining eight games of the season as the players battle desperately to avoid dropping into the Championship. It is undoubtedly a clever bit of timing by Shearer to finally step up into the management game. He literally can’t lose. If we stay up he just adds to his already incredible legacy, and if we go down the blame can’t be attributed to him.

I for one think that by appointing him we have at least given ourselves a chance. Hughton and Calderwood proved in the last game that they are tactically inadequate. To bring Ameobi on when we had Guittierez kicking his heels on the bench was one of the most baffling decisions I have seen for years.

When Alan Shearer stepped up to take his penalty in his testimonial game the commentator marked the moment with these words.

“And Alan Shearer who has rescued Newcastle so many times before, has a chance to do so again.”

If anybody can rescue us now, Alan Shearer is that man.

Roddick Re-emerges

For many tennis can be quite a monotonous game. A great deal of people just cannot understand the appeal of watching two players hitting a ball as hard as they can at each other over a net for at least two hours at a time. I, however, have always enjoyed the game. When I was growing up the great rivalry was between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi who played some epic matches over the years. Following that there was the dominance of Roger Federer before the emergence of the player who will possibly emerge as the greatest of all time Rafael Nadal.

However what I have felt that the sport always lacked was real personalities, which is why I have been delighted to see the re-emergence this year of American Andy Roddick as a real force to be reckoned with on the Tour. Roddick is undoubtedly an outstanding player and would surely have added to his solitary Grand Slam had he not come across Roger Federer on the three other occasions that he has battled his way to a Grand Slam final.

However since 2006 and his last Grand Slam final appearance Andy Roddick has been written off by many with 2008 being one of the worst seasons of his career. In the Grand Slam events he only managed a quarter final place in the US Open, missed the French through injury, progressed to the third round at the Australian and gave one of his worst ever performances at Wimbledon, being knocked out in the second round.

It would have been a mistake, though, to write him off completely, and Roddick has come roaring back this year. He progressed to the final of the Qatar Open where he was defeated by Andy Murray before progressing to the semi finals of the Australian Open, beating defending champion Novak Djokovic along the way.

He will no doubt depart the French Open in the early rounds like he always does, but will be a genuine threat on the grass and hard courts of Wimbledon and the US Open. Andy Roddick is back.

Big year for Poulter

2009 is undoubtedly a big year for many sport stars but none more so than Ian Poulter. If he ever wants to win a major in golf this is his chance.
Poulter is in the form of his life. In 2008 he came of age, and finally started fulfilling some of the promise that he always said that he had. He came extremely close to winning The Open only to be edged out by a truly inspired Padraig Harrington, which was enough to see him granted a somewhat controversial wild card pick by Captain Nick Faldo.
However despite many people’s misgivings about his selection he was undoubtedly the star performer on both sides and announced to the world that he was capable of taking on the best players in the world and winning.
It was about time that he started to justify the hype. Poulter is a one man self promotion machine with his most famous comment being that when he fulfils his potential he will be the equal of Tiger Woods.
At 32 years of age it is now make or break for Ian Poulter. He is in the prime years of his career and with Tiger still feeling his way back into the game after his terrible knee injuries it is now or never for the Arsenal fan.
If he doesn’t win a major title in 2009, he never will.

Chambers deserves second chance

As Dwain Chambers opened his latest can of worms this week with some damning allegations with the serialisation of his autobiography Race Against Me many people will have missed the fact that Chambers stormed to gold in the final of the European Indoor Championship in Turin. Perhaps even better than his victory in the final was his sensational performance in the semi final, which was the third fastest run over that distance of all time.

However despite his performances Chambers continues to polarise opinions. This was no more evident than in the BBC’s coverage of the event. Steve Cram, Jonathan Edwards, and Colin Jackson could barely hide their contempt for the British runner. Considering the BBC’s commitment to impartiality their behaviour was nothing short of a disgrace.

The plain facts are is that Chambers, sadly, is a victim of his own honesty. Had he feigned innocence, like most convicted drug cheats with the normal party line of ‘I have never knowingly taken a banned substance’ he would have been welcomed back into the sport with open arms. Which in 2006 he was. Take for example this quote from Kelly Holmes just after Chambers made his first comeback into the sport before the European Championships in 2006. Talking to Five Live’s sportsweek our double Olympic champion said, “ It was right that he was out of the sport for the time he was, but he’s come back. He’s a great athlete, and we probably need him back in the sport.”

Fast forward two years, however, and Holmes has seemingly had a vast change of heart. “We believed him when he said it was a mistake. That was before it came out that he had taken this drug knowingly. I believed there was a big mistake but then he admitted he had taken drugs. That changes your views about a person.”

But the righteous one didn’t stop there.

“He is being treated in the way he deserves to be treated. He needs to start looking at himself and realise why people don’t believe he should be in the sport.”

It is impossible to understand where Holmes is coming from on this. What she is basically saying is that if Chambers had denied all knowledge of how the drugs had got into his system he would have been welcomed back with open arms. However, because he was honest and brave enough to own up to the mistakes that he made he has been ostracised.

He has been spurned from all the top European meetings and his competitive running opportunities are now extremely limited. Some have said he should have been banned from the sport full stop. This is wrong. Chambers committed the crime and served his time. Everybody deserves a second chance.

Dwain Chambers is no different.

Peitersen plan backfires

No doubt the biggest story in sport over the last few days has been the rift between Peter Moores and his captain Kevin Pietersen, which today it seems has resulted in both of them leaving their jobs. Whether they resigned or were pushed is a moot point. What is increasingly evident is that Pietersen’s biggest strength, his ego, has come back to haunt him.
He thought that he could force Moores out of the system and decided to flex his muscles with the ECB in the hope that he could get the result he wanted, and have a coach of his choice appointed. However it has undoubtedly backfired on the abrasive South African as he faces losing the captaincy and the possibility that he may abandon the England team for the riches of the IPL.
So what now for English cricket? In my mind they need to start looking at the best ways to tackle the short term goals. What England face this year are seven test matches against the West Indies, the Twenty20 World Cup, then of course followed by the Ashes series against Australia.
So who should be the new captain and coach? With the cricket in the West Indies due to start in the next couple of weeks, three things need to happen to make sure England enjoy a successful 2008. Andrew Strauss should be given the captaincy in all forms of the game and restored to the one day squad. He has craved the captaincy since his elevation to the international game and has done reasonably well when he has filled in on a temporary basis during the injury problems of Michael Vaughan. Ashley Giles should be given the coaching job with a contract until the end of the Ashes series, and will no doubt steady the ship with his calm measured approach to the game, and will mean that it gives the ECB a chance to take their time and appoint a top class coach with Graham Ford and Tom Moody amongst the favourites for the job.
One more thing that I think England should consider is the position of Marcus Trescothick, who recently announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket due to his stress related illness. However if Bell or Collingwood fail in the West Indies, the England selectors should do everything in their power to persuade him to play for England throughout the course of the summer. If you want to win matches, you need your best players and Trescothick would be a fantastic asset as English cricket attempts to drag itself out of this self inflicted mire.