Thursday, 17 January 2008

Alan Shearer: Black & White Widow

I try to avoid footballing matters on this site (I'm a Leeds fan, so insert your own punchline here), but the seemingly farcical goings on at Newcastle are reaching a fever pitch at the moment. Hilariously, it seems that they've retreated to the past and given Kevin Keegan, that old Donny Rovers reject, a chance to re-live former glories by making him manager again. A move that may be inspired, but more likely will end in yet another televised melt down. I'd love it, I'd really really love it...

Anyway, Alan Shearer seems to be attempting the interesting juggling trick of appearing to stay out of it while, at the same time, presenting himself as a man of influence. Over at the Guardian, Michael Hann asks whether this influence is, or was, a good thing. He comes down on the side of bad:
His behaviour over the course of this season has been, frankly, cowardly and cruel. He allowed Sam Allardyce to be hung out to dry in his name, without ever saying a word about his own intentions or feelings. He's displayed breathtaking arrogance in his apparent belief that he has nothing to learn from any more experienced managers. And his failure to discuss any of this in any meaningful way has displayed incredible contempt for his employer, the BBC, and Newcastle's fans. And still he is fawned over. It's baffling beyond belief.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

having read the article, i must say that its the biggest load of bollocks i have ever read about big al. the reason, quite rightly too, that he is revered, is simply down to the amount of goals he scored for the toon. and he is, don´t forget, the clubs leading goalscorerof all time.

Paul said...

It's interesting that the article in question was only up for a short while before the comments were closed down. I guess its main purpose was to enrage Toon fans.

It seems to have worked.

Anonymous said...

Anyway Paul - who would trust "Captain Elbows" anyway. Always been my contention that a lot of the ills of the England side at the time - (and there are numerous ones now as then) was that all managers tried to fit the team around Shearer when he should have been the first casualty as all systems which involved him still failed miserably - but of course it was always the others fault not his. And he's still a boring twat and he's even shite on MOTD. As you may gather - I'm not his biggest fan. Unfortunately me partner thinks he's sexy and fills his trousers nicely - there you go - a nice shallow gay viewpoint if it was needed. But then me boyfriend is a Villa fan and I'm a Man City fan so we can't argue about managerial shenanigans. Must get back to Donny as me team then- especialyy since they beat your boys at Eland Road on Saturday. Enjoy.

Paul said...

You know that Donny has been my second team for a while now. Ever since very nearly stuffing Arsenal that time (and the couple of games previous to that, but let's not dwell on them, ahem). So I was actually torn at the weekend's result. I came down on the side on being happy for Rovers and hope that this blip in (or perhaps return to) form for Leeds ends pretty sharpish.

The whole idea of having a second team is probably an argument for another day, though...