Don’t Blame the Club! - 08/02/2002

I’ve seen the media jump on the usual bandwagon when it comes to footballers and alleged ‘drunken’ incidents. Once again, ‘bad news makes good news’ and the incidents have been blown out of proportion. It seems that the media drew up a campaign to knock Newcastle as a club, and in doing so criticised the players, management and directors. Now I’ve had a go at Newcastle in the past – and I know I upset a few people, but I’ll defend the club if I feel justified to do so. It is impossible for Bobby Robson to baby sit a squad of thirty grown men, and from time to time an incident will occur – it’s just that coincidentally, two occurred in a week. I’m by no means condoning this sort of behaviour, but you can’t blame the club. The responsibilities of playing for Newcastle are well know to the players and the club can only do so much, the rest is up to the maturity of it’s employees.

Some of the tabloids and even a broadsheet have made comparisons to the Woodgate and Bowyer incident in Leeds, this is just a sad attempt to sell more papers.

The respective players have been dealt with by the Police and dealt with by the club. What happened was wrong, but lets not get carried away and think that the club is rotten to the core. I hope Newcastle United can return to the back of the papers instead of the front – but then again, some elements of the media would have it other ways!

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