Newcastle United NUFC

Waking up on a Monday morning to discover it’s cold and wet outside is something we have grown used to over the years. Bloody Mondays! Bloody English weather! Sick of both of them. Let’s bugger off to somewhere where those things can’t bother us.

So here we are in Sydney, Australia and its Monday morning and it’s cold and it’s wet. I didn’t know they did cold and wet here. It was bad enough to discover that they had Mondays. We have been sold a lie! On Saturday we went to Bondi Beach and it looked like Tynemouth in November (except with less dogs), (and the sea was clean), (and it’s not near Whitley Bay).
I went out with my friend James on Saturday night to see Newcastle v Blackburn and a freezing rain was being blasted along Oxford Street in Paddington and the manager of his local wouldn’t change the channel from the Liverpool game. This being despite the fact that everyone else in the place was, not only not watching the telly at all but (as it was midnight) were all too drunk to notice what was on the bloody telly anyway. Did we travel this far to be walking home in the rain feeling disappointed? Apparently we did.
The worst part was that we were supposed to be looking after James’ mate’s house and dog but had delayed going over there because the nanny hadn’t gone on holiday with the family and could feed the dog. James also assured me that they didn’t like sport so wouldn’t have Fox Sports.
So we turned up for the house sitting gig on Sunday to find Doogie, the terrier, in good health and the nanny departed. This place is ours for a week. Hang on while I count the bathrooms (the pitter-patter of bare feet can be heard disappearing into the distance…. there is a long pause…. then the feet pitter-patter back to the monitor) I counted six then got frightened that I might not be able to find my way back. Yes readers we are staying in a mansion. Sharp contrast to that dusty hostel in Argentina with the shared toilet that was next to our bed, I can tell you.
The first thing we did was to put the massive TV on. Yes they have got Fox Sports after all, yes we could have seen the match here. Hmmm. On the upside there is a drum kit in one of the rooms, a pool, beer in the fridge and the extended highlights of our magnificent victory over Blackburn is going to be repeated. On Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. after Norwich v sunderland has finished. We had considered trying to avoid the score until then, like some Likely Lads episode directed by Ridley Scott, in that it goes on for 18 hours, but James says it is almost impossible to do that here.
He popped into his local to catch the re-run of our game at QPR and the barman said, “why would you want to watch a 0-0” before he could take the first sip from his schooner. (A “schooner” is smaller but strangely almost the same price as a pint.) And I myself thought to watch the rerun of Villa v QPR this morning but found the score out from three separate places before I got the chance.
So following Newcastle live here in Oz involves expensive technology and/or the ability to get through the day without any sleep. Not keeping up to date with all sporting news seems impossible because they like sport down here. A lot. The domestic league struggles for air against the rugby and Ozzie rules but the partisans who like their balls round (as nature intended) have taken great encouragement from the arrival of a couple of star names. Harry Kewell pulled in 3,000 fans for his first training session with Melbourne Victory and Brett Emerton (or “Emmo” as they insist on calling him here) has swapped Blackburn for Sydney FC. Nice of them to arrange for Lancashire style weather to help with his reintroduction….hang on…. the sun has come out. I’m in mansion with a pool in the garden and I’m sitting here, not bloody likely…. this must be why Australian Sports journalism is so bad (a pitter-patter of feet can be heard running… in the distance there is a splash… and possibly a scream).
A day later

Right where were we? I Woke up at half 5 this morning so wandered downstairs to feed Doogie and remembered sunderland were playing Norwich. I enjoyed watching the East Anglian Barcelona in the Championship last year so was extra pleased to see them embarrassing a hilariously desperate and shoddy sunderland. Glum gibbon-faced creatures in red and white and Mr Bruce looking fed up is a good start to any day. I thought Norwich’s 2-1 victory flattered sunderland immensely then, after a hearty breakfast, Fox Sport showed extended highlights of Newcastle 3 v Blackburn 1. Steve Bruce had somehow arrived there from Norwich… no hang on… this was before then (is this still the jet-lag or am I just stupid?) Anyway, I wondered if Bruce expects to get the Blackburn job after both he and Steve Kean get sacked next month? Incidentally is it true that Steve Kean was a double glazing salesman who did a part time football management course and got the Blackburn job despite never having actually seen a match before in his life. He talks like this is the case and my instant urge to want to slam a door in his face must come from somewhere.

So forgive me for being two and a half days behind everybody else’s enthusiasm but didn’t we play well? Balance, pace, organised, patient are not words we expect to see in a description of Newcastle United without the words “utterly” and “lacking” being tossed in there as well – so we have every right to be chuffed. Obviously Blackburn are pish but they always are pish and that doesn’t stop them winning in Newcastle usually. Granted there were less offside goals and folk punching the ball into our net than we have grown accustomed to but we seemed to make them look extra pish on Saturday. (That’s enough with “pish” – I don’t want people to think I’m Scots – but it is a great word)
(pish)
(ha)
We are stuck here in this mansion with Doogie until next week which has somewhat bollixed up our plans to visit the Melbourne Mags, which is shame because they sound like fun. I will be apologising to them sincerely but would appreciate it if someone tells them I mean it. We are due in Brisbane a week on Friday and Christchurch in New Zealand the Tuesday after that. We will try again to hit Melbourne in the New Year. Now if you excuse me the cleaners have just turned up.
I know, “cleaners”, this place will be the ruin of us.
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Wifey and I were in a bar called La Puerta Roja in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires. There is nothing to advertise its existence except the red door of its own name; no sign, no lights not even a sticker on the door. You ring the bell, they buzz you in and you climb the wooden stairs to the bar. After this point the surreptitious behaviour ends and you realise you are in a very good place indeed. Friendly staff, subdued lights, draught Quilmes (a beer of German origin, which might explain why we can’t stop drinking it), a pool table, not crowded, massive Johnny Cash poster on the wall and football on the TV.

The game was Buenos Aires’ own River Plate, one of the country’s most famous and successful teams, playing in the second tier after being relegated last season. Well it can happen to the best of us I suppose. Except their fans trashed the stadium and tried to kill the owners and I bet Mike Ashley still thinks we’re unreasonable. River grabbed a late equaliser in a 2-2 draw, the next day Boca Juniors won 1-0 to go first in the top flight League. We consider ourselves Boca fans because River play in red and white and Nobby Solano played for Boca but not big enough fans to actually bother going to the game. They have two seasons per year here…. and that has exhausted my knowledge of domestic Argentine football so back to La Puerta Roja.
Into our second pint we made the mistake of starting a “what do you miss about our life in the UK?” conversation. No friends allowed because our best drinking mates are, at this point in time, scattered across five continents. And no Newcastle United either; I remember all too clearly my own outrage, when we used to be good enough to get to Cup Finals, when the local press would run stories about some bloody expat coming home from Timbuktu for the big game. Like they were somehow more deserving of a ticket than somebody who had stuck around and supported the team at the likes of Grimsby or Bristol Rovers; “no you made your f***ing choice and you chose to f*** off, so stay f***ed off!” I said and I stand by the sentiment even when looking down the barrel of it myself. Likewise workmates complaining about games not being on TV got short shrift – “If you want to see Newcastle play so bloody badly go to the bastard match.”
The starting place for seeing Newcastle United play is Newcastle, not South America. So I had little room for complaint when sitting in The Gibral the other day, with yet another pint of Quilmes, on discovering Spanish football and tennis on the channels we expected QPR v Newcastle to be broadcast on. Turns out we didn’t miss much anyway. With Joey playing for them and Shola playing for us it would have made for uncomfortable viewing, which might sound harsh, but Shola has drained my exasperation to the point where I think he might actually make me ill. Can you die from exasperation deficiency?
So what are we are missing? In no particular order we came up with; Rington’s tea, Match of the Day, black jeans and leather jackets (too heavy to pack), growing things, Sky +, MotoGP 2, Assassin’s Creed , cooking in our own kitchen, ordering CDs off Amazon, the new series of True Blood, not wondering where we will be sleeping tomorrow and wages. We also will be missing the Hug reunion (at the Star & Shadow, somebody tell Daz), Rise Against playing with Tom Morello out of Rage Against the Machine, Rammstein and The Smashing Pumpkins.
Ahh dear old Blighty, how we underestimated the draw of your charms. Perhaps we should abandon this fool’s mission and head home?
It took about ten minutes of listening to Radio 5 on the laptop to stop all that bollocks. We caught the news headlines about a disabled girl being tortured and killed and a phone-in about how hard life is for working mothers. Or more accurately we endured hearing how the most self-righteous group of moaning harpies on the planet want the rest of the world to provide their darling spawn with, not only the moon, but a silver stick to keep it on. By which I don’t mean mums with jobs who love their kids and get on with their lives but the sanctimonious semi-professional bellyachers who seem to think reproducing, like all other mammals seem to manage, is the most holy of rituals. People who believe the rest of us must worship at the feet of their ghastly offspring or else be proved the heartless swine we are. We nearly applied for Argentinean citizenship on the spot.
When checking the news we find ourselves thinking “When did Great Britain turn into such mean-minded, grasping, self-serving and poisonous bloody country?” Here’s a clue – today we accidently came across the memorial to the young men who died in the Falklands war and were so shocked by the amount of names on it that we were too embarrassed to take a photograph. Thank you Mrs Thatcher. But when you think about it adults in the 1970s thought being black, Irish or gay should be illegal so perhaps we are actually improving as a nation, I don’t know I’m not Desmond bloody Morris. Suffice to say the lure of home has waned.
We turned up in this city with no place to stay as the hostel we read about on the internet was full. We thought a long day traipsing around dispiriting rat holes loomed ahead. Not a bit of it; the lad on reception said, in brilliant English, “help yourself to coffee, breakfast and the internet and I’ll make a couple of calls.” He got us a place round the corner and remembered our names when we came back four days later. I can well imagine how that situation plays out in reverse, in London. If you stand looking confused long enough in this country somebody will come and ask if you need any help and the citizens of Buenos Aires are considered haughty by the rest of South America. Across the US, through Costa Rica, Chile and Argentina we have been genuinely astonished by how much time people have got for other people. Naturally kind and cheerful, not some disinterested waitress asking you five times if your pub-grub is alright because she is forced to for fear of being sacked from a job she clearly hates as much as she hates you personally.
Yeah I know I have got the rose tinted specs on and know that 30 years ago the authorities in Argentina were disappearing troublesome folk like me into the sea, but the people here right now have been astonishing and it’s infectious. People are nice to you, so you are nicer to the next person: why is that hard to understand?
To hammer the last nails into the coffin of our homesickness we got an email from our mate Jon who I shall allow the last word on the subject:
“You are missing something here. The grinding horror of the full implications of Cameron’s government; the spiralling despair at the decline in hope and civility; a football team that need only detain the committed and the most twisted of voyeurs; the sinking feeling that the clocks are about to go back. If you do decide to come back I will meet you at the airport – and kick your head in.”
Next stop Australia – Melbourne Mags, brace yourselves for disappointment, we are on our way.

Got an e-mail from Frankie in Newcastle scolding me for even thinking about the state of Newcastle United while out here travelling the world. He obviously has a point but he knows well enough that this affliction has never been a choice, that this sick addiction can’t be switched off. So as the transfer window slammed closed with a mighty THOOM, and poor Alan Pardew was left standing the wrong side of it with a number 9 shirt in his hand, I felt the same irritation in Salta, Argentina as if I were in the UK.

It seems our club was shopping in a narrow under stocked aisle in the footballing supermarket. Looking for strikers better than Leon Best who will play for wages Stoke players would laugh at. We all imagine that throwing real money at some quality would put 5,000 on the gate, shift a load of shirts, get the momentum up so we are on TV more and mean a higher up the League finish that would, in turn, more than pay for itself. But for some reason Mr Ashley thinks otherwise. But Frankie is also right; I shouldn’t worry about stuff that is out of my control.
We have moved twice since the last posting; firstly to Iguazu Falls which was awesome. The falls make Niagara look like a leaking tap and they have walkways that take you so close you feel giddy. And you can see Brazil. In town we were reacquainted with Sarah from Newcastle despite it being a week and hundreds of miles since we last saw her and we adopted an Argentinean girl (Maggie) while drinking Quilmes at a hostel pool party. She wouldn’t stop smoking so we left her behind just like she were an actual child of ours.
Now we are in Buenos Aires and I have to say at this point I adore Argentina.

Some years ago I realised I liked Argentina more than Brazil. Partly to be argumentative and awkward in the face of Brazil’s reputation as the team football fans are all supposed to admire but mostly because Argentina are brilliantly suited to modern football.

When Uncle Bobby described Maradona as “a rascal” he was, as often, bang on. Not “evil” or “malicious” but naughty. You see it in the eyes of the street kids here. We passed a park kick-a-bout and Wifey and I were both marvelling at the brilliant first touch all those kids had. A lad saw us looking and asked if we wanted a game. We declined and he said something that made all the other kids laugh but his grin was so cheeky you couldn’t start to take offence. You see it in the face of Jonas Gutierrez, that mischief, that sense of fun. Buenos Aires seems to vibrate with it. Then on the other hand we have Coloccini, colder and harder.

It’s the mixture of the two that makes Argentina as a footballing nation so intriguing; they can give anyone a game of football they have vision, intelligence and instinctive brilliance. They are also strong, quick and aggressive and if you want a battle they are right up for that as well. They are mentally tough and don’t carry that sense of privilege that Brazil do.
There was an article in The Mag last year from a lad who went to see Boca Juniors play River Plate in one of the World’s great derby matches. Sadly our chances of witnessing the fixture were ruined when River got relegated last season. The fans tore up the stadium and according to a guy I was talking to yesterday, “tried to kill the owners”. Between cigarettes Maggie told us her and her mates are River fans and they explained that they spent three years getting worse until relegation was inevitable. We have sided with Boca, not just because they are better than River but because River play in red and white and Nobby Solano used to play for Boca.

But it is a half-hearted affiliation and my thoughts have already drifted to seeing our game at QPR on Monday. An America Sports Bar owner said he would have the game on at his place (El Alamo) but they also promised that lasses drink free. Something we only found out was a lie when we came to pay for the crap food. There is a bar round the corner that has Quilmes on tap and brilliant fat and bloody burgers. So if you are passing The Gibraltar in Buenos Aires on Monday afternoon about 4pm – do pop in.
(Returning to our refusal to invest in quality (Drogba for two/three years would be a sensation despite his advancing years) I have come to the conclusion that we are victims of a sinister bet. Like in Trading Places or better yet My Fair Lady in reverse, with Mike Ashley dressed as Rex Harrison (Mike Ashley dressed at all being an improvement on the last picture I saw of him) wagering poor Alan Pardew that rather than taking a filthy flower girl and passing her off in polite society he can transform an internationally recognised football club into Wigan Athletic without anybody noticing. To win the bet we have to finish in the bottom half but not get relegated, for ten years. Which may sound depressing but at least we fans get to be Audrey Hepburn).

Above is the new book “Spitting In The Wind” which is out now!

£11.99 With Free UK Delivery

£16.99 Delivered anywhere in Europe

£19.99 Anywhere else on The Planet

I’m starting to recognise patterns in our behaviour as we lurch from country to country. An almost subconscious sadness on leaving some places is one thing but this knocks heads with excitement at getting somewhere else and trepidation that this “somewhere else” might be horrible.
Santiago was cold and the heating in our room inadequate to the point that some afternoons Wifey and I would sit in bed like Morecambe and Wise while answering our emails. It was also seriously brilliant, the beer was cracking, the wine delicious and the music intoxicating. I stopped adding the “Right Song Right Moment” at the bottom of postings because it was always something mysterious to me. Some Latino, reggae based, rhythmic blood-bumper banging out of a bar, shop or even bus sound system. Santiago was vibrant and thrilling and we barely scratched the surface, the almost cheeky good nature of everyone we dealt with made it even better.

Christian at the hostel said, “Are you sure you want to do this?” as we hauled our bags onto our backs and left his tender care. I always imagined having to stay in hostels a grim way to travel about; like public school dormitories with extra squalor and thieving. However the good ones are better than hotels because you can cook your own food and mind your own business or swap silliness and tales of exploits with strangers. There is a vast swirling tribe of travellers out here, they all seem to have more smarts and better language skills than us, which would be funny except they are all younger than us as well. I have lost count of the number of times I have cursed Mrs Davies, my French teacher, for making learning a language seem like a stupid waste of time. How the silly old bastard thought her singing Edith Piaf songs acapella of a Friday afternoon was going to induce any imagination or enthusiasm short of – “is it time to go home yet” is beyond me?
The bus to San Pedro de Atacama from Santiago took 24 hours, which I had been dreading. Unless I’m driving I can’t sit in a road vehicle for half an hour without getting arse-twitchingly bored. But there was more leg room than we expected and recent English language films with Spanish subtitles came on one after another. The Hurt Locker was OK but Australia was beyond redemption even with Wolverine out of The X-Men in it. Wifey nodded in and out of sleep easily but I kept wanting to know what film was on next so sat all the way through Minority Report thinking, “Is this just an exercise in making Tom Cruise look like an idiot” before the awful Enemy Mine finally sent me off to sleep. The best film was the first one; a reworking of Pride and Prejudice which is an odd enough realisation to make me feel the need to talk about football.
In Costa Rica it took three weeks of research to have the slightest inclination as to what was going on and quite frankly I lacked the will to start from scratch in Chile, suffice to say that not one single person, on discovering we are from Newcastle has said, “Ah, Clarence Acuna is a national hero round here.” However by the end of our stay we were composing emails to NUFC chief scout Graham Carr demanding he fly out to watch Colo Colo captain Estaban Paredes in the flesh. Damn that boy is good, unfortunately “that boy” is also 31 so is unlikely to have his head turned by the chance to play against Queens Park Rangers next week.

San Pedro de Atacama is a small dusty town on the edge of the driest desert in the world. The buildings are one storey adobe style dwellings, some with thatched roofs. Dry winds blow dust over everything and at our hostel we had to warn the people who ran it if we wanted a shower because the water was solar heated and limited. Some surprise then to wander past a bar with, not only a Motorhead tune rattling out the door, but also folk inside with their heads tilted at a tell tale angle. Arsenal v Udinese was on the three TVs but we were booked on a trip to go out to The Valley del la Luna to watch the sunset. We returned four hours later eager to sample all Bar Chelacabur had to offer. Litre bottles of Escudo primarily, with bar staff happy to promise English football the next day as well.
We couldn’t imagine why the hell a bar in the Chilean desert would be showing Scunthorpe v Newcastle but it did. The locals didn’t seem over-impressed as the game went into extra time but as Wifey explained, “This is Newcastle United, it’s shit and it goes on forever.” The quality tunes kept banging out of the sound system and our bottles of Escudo kept going empty on us so it was with some excitement that we greeted Sammi Ameobi’s winner as The Clash’s “English Civil War” was playing.
If that little encounter wasn’t weird enough; Wifey asked an English lass at the hostel if she had an adaptor we could borrow because all our stuff was on its last legs (net book, Kindle, ipods, phones –we have more wires than socks). Not only did the lass, Sarah, oblige but she just happens to live on Chillingham Road in Newcastle and was booked on our bus to Salta the next day.
Salta was a mere ten hour bus ride but it did mean crossing into Argentina. We got on the bus, drove round the corner out of San Pedro and got off the bus again to have our passports stamped. After a twisting drive over the Andes we got to Argentina where a considerably more drawn out and bizarre exercise took place. In all I put our rucksacks on the bus, to

ok them off, put them back on again and took them off in Salta.
Lesson 1: this is Argentina, assume everybody is trying it on. We were brought up to expect Argentineans to dive, elbow you in the face and try to steal unwanted corners of our empire. Short changing and overcharging are the street level equivalents. I watched one guy blag tabs off people with a cocky swagger, every time the bus stopped and now he was helping some filthy trousered bastard organise the luggage unload. A box was thrust at me and a tip demanded. “What the f*** would I tip you for?” I asked as the other passengers looked on. “You must pay tip!” said the blagger. “I put the bags on, I took the bags off, so f*** off and how many tabs have you had off people today?” I said and enough people laughed to make me think I wasn’t going to be stabbed. Sarah and her two mates didn’t pay either. “F***ing cheeky bastards,” we fumed but it was a good lesson. Very little has a price tag on it here and don’t expect a receipt – they charge what they think they can get away with. We got 30 pesos knocked off our hostel room just by turning round and heading for the door, with no hard feeling on either part.
This was at our second hostel, the first was in a dismal cardboard walled building site where it sounded like all the other residents had queued up to shit, cough, splutter, piss and shower in our wardrobe the following morning. However while the lad on the front desk prepared our room I dived onto a computer for the football scores and discovered Newcastle had beaten Fulham 2-1 while we were on the bus. “ Oh and Man Utd scored 8 (eight) against Arsenal.”
Now we are in a second storey room in an old colonial style government building, with a balcony overlooking a busy street. We saw Leon Best’s goals on Fox Sport Eurogoals (the turn for the second was quality), the food is delicious and the supermarket down the street is knocking out bottles of Malbec for about three quid each.
That’s another pattern of behaviour we have recognised; feeling we have “earned a drink” for getting somewhere, leaving somewhere, surviving a bad day or celebrating a good day.
Much like being at home really.

Above is the new book “Spitting In The Wind” which is out now!

£11.99 With Free UK Delivery

£16.99 Delivered anywhere in Europe

£19.99 Anywhere else on The Planet

We are well into the third month of the world tour. By this point I think I expected us to be as brown and tough as walnuts, multilingual, savvy, decisive and essentially, chilled. We have arrived in Santiago in Chile as confused as ever, I can’t even remember the Spanish words for left or right and the only thing chilled is the marrow in our bones.

The middle of August and it’s snowing! Not only that the cynicism and misanthropy I wrap myself up in for protection against the world has been worn down by the kindness and hospitality of utter strangers.
All across the USA people were helpful, chatty and genuine. In Costa Rica the guy who runs the hostel we stayed in rang us up to say “goodbye and thank you” the day we left. We arrived in Chile and the first person we spoke to after customs told us somewhere warm to get some sleep while we waited for the buses to start running.
Our Newcastle United contact in Santiago has been Norman and Norman has been especially helpful. His enthusiasm for the place was inspiring and his recommendations as to where to stay and drink have been priceless. It is bordering on the bloody tragic that Norman just happens to be back in Blighty while we are here.
We are in Bellavista and the first night we went out a huge roar went up from the dozens of bars that make the streets pulsate with energy as Barcelona went 3-2 up against Real Madrid. Chilean superstar Alexis Sanchez joining Barca from Udinese for a reported 37 million Euros recently and his part in the victory over Real saw him plastered all over the front of the next day’s newspapers. Perhaps some people here wanted a Real victory but defeat and the increasingly pathetic antics of Jose Mourinho silenced them.

We met Norman’s lass, Julie, in The Dublin on Friday night and she was quality. Not only reassuring, “I’ve been here 6 months and my Spanish hasn’t improved at all”, but full of information we need, “I don’t think the sunderland v Newcastle game is going to be on TV. You can come round mine and watch a live stream on the internet but Norman usually finds it annoying.” Three of her and Norman’s mates turned up; Toby, Ryan and Claire, the latter being Canadians who warned us about getting too near the ongoing student protests. “We have been tear-gassed twice in the last week and it’s not fun.” We wobbled home way past our bedtime.
The alarm went off at 6.50 am the next day. Ten minutes to kick off. I listened for footsteps on the creaky hostel floors and heard none. It was dark inside and out. A minute later it was 8.05, I creaked, rattled, skidded and thumped blindly out our room and down the stairs. “I can’t believe you got up,” said hostel owner Christian, a hilarious guy from Frankfurt who does a mean Yorkshire accent and has provided us with excellent advice as well as scrumptious breakfasts. He also saw the state we were in the night before.
“This is important,” I mumbled as he flicked through the TV channels for me. We found only Arsenal v Liverpool. Julie had been right. I flipped open the laptop and went to Twitter, once again at the mercy of other people’s selflessness. Nufcfans and Lee Ryder from The Chronicle were providing blow by blow updates and the score was 0-0 at half time. I raced back through time via Tweets to find the worldwide black and white tribe was in a state of fevered frenzy. To my shame Dean in NYC had been up and out for ages, George Caulkin at the Times described the prematch feel on Wearside: “Difficult to describe the atmosphere here. But you can smell fear, blood, beer, carnage. Nowhere in world I’d rather be today.”
I grip my coffee cup and close my eyes. I can feel it, the stadium, the hate, the twisting nerves and frenzied longing. The burning injustice of our ticket allocation being cut because they run on the pitch. Unfairness that Joey Barton is seen as a bad man when Lee thick as a bag of shit Cattermole is the most deliberately malicious bastard in The Premiership. I can see our fans, warrior dark and rowdy in contrast to the rest of the crowd that is the colour of infection. Their stupid faces contorted with suppressed inferiority and badly disguised terror. My heart is banging. Twitter promises new tweets I click and wait, heart in mouth. The teams are back out. I glance at Arsenal v Liverpool but couldn’t care less.

An American guy comes down for his breakfast, I am fairly aware he is complaining about the coffee. We score, my mouth clamps shut and my fists press into the table as I fight the urge to scream. Now I can’t touch anything, I can’t consider a search for a live stream – everything has to stay exactly as it is – if I break the spell of my silence it will end in disaster.
1 new Tweet – that’s not enough for a goal. 8 new Tweets oh no no no. Substitutions, does a heavy sigh of relief break the spell? No. Me squeaking “5 f***ing minutes,” through gritted teeth as nufcfans report the injury time, might. Horrible nothing as the time since the last tweet counts up to 5. Before… at last… Victory.
I gush with gratitude at fellow Tweeters, the American wants to borrow my laptop to check plane times and I am so chuffed with the world that I let him.
“Breakfast now?” asks Christian as Wifey and I do a little dance. Yes yes yes.
Oh and hang on “derecha” is right and “izquierda” is left and life is sweet.

Above is the new book “Spitting In The Wind” which is out now!

£11.99 With Free UK Delivery

£16.99 Delivered anywhere in Europe

£19.99 Anywhere else on The Planet

The headmaster from my school, Jack we called him, was responsible for teaching me Geography but as he was a sweaty, sadistic, pervert prone to fits of unreasonable purple rage I didn’t respond well to his feeble guidance. My desk was merely a staging post for him on his way to try and peer down Suzanne Williams’ blouse so whether or not I had any grasp of rock formations was of no consequence to him and little interest to me. This is my excuse for not even knowing where Costa Rica was until about 6 months ago.

At some point I must have learned that heading south down the Americas you didn’t simply go; USA, Mexico then Brazil but I can’t remember when.
So, right, you know that skinny bit of land between North America and South America? That didn’t used to be there until it got shoved up out of the sea because two continental plates are moving at different speeds. Costa Rica is in the middle of that with Nicaragua to its north and Panama to its south. Costa Rica has 111 volcanoes (some of which are active), cloud forests, lush green mountains, a Pacific and a Caribbean coast so it has a bonkers micro-climate which means it has a vast diversity of plants, birds and animals.
In 1948 Costa Rica did away with its Army. “We don’t need that, let’s spend all the money we get for growing coffee and pineapples on schools and hospitals,” they said. They also manufacture and export shotguns and you can buy firearms in the shops here so don’t go thinking this is some Utopian Peace-heaven. When Nicaragua live next door that would be unwise. It is not a rich country but it is rich enough to do ecology well which means tourists come from all over the World. At the moment, because of the weak dollar and pound, that means loads of bloody French people. French people who seem to think any food left unattended in our hostel fridge is for them to help themselves. The C-bombs!
You could live here. You really could. Providing you could stand eating rice, black beans and eggs everyday for the rest of your life that is. However the most popular local beer is Imperial and you can buy that for less than a pound a bottle, even in the bars. We’ve been here a fortnight and haven’t met any locals who speak brilliant English but most speak a bit and when all you need is arroz, gallo pinto, huevos y cerveza, the amount of Spanish you require is minimal.

I’m wearing shorts sitting on a veranda and an iridescent green humming bird just flew up to me. We have been out on excursions and have seen monkeys, crocodiles, iguanas and all sorts of birds including a small green-backed heron which catches grasshoppers and throws them in the river as bait for fish, but it is the Costa Rican love for football that makes you think you could stay here.
The park two miles from here (here being downtown San Jose) on a weekend is swarming with people of all ages involved in kick-abouts. In the same park is the new 35,000 seater National Stadium. You can watch football 24 hours a day on TV although you need better Spanish than me or an encyclopaedic knowledge of world football to know what country a game is coming from. They show League games from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, USA, France, Germany, Italy and yesterday, over breakfast, we watched the Charity Shield live from dear old Blighty. (Didn’t realise how distasteful I found Manchester City these days until I involuntarily started clapping Man U’s late winner).
Our bus driver on a trip last week drove like a maniac to be home in time for Costa Rica v Australia in the Under 20s World Cup. A game interesting from a Newcastle United point of view because Mustafa Amini was playing for Oz. You might remember his outrageous ginger afro from the picture on nufc.com last season when we were linked with a move for the player. Costa Rica won 3-2 and looked odds on to qualify comfortably until they got battered 3-0 off Ecuador in the next game. Now they have a tricky game against hosts Columbia. The interest in the Under 20s was such that El Classico was moved back 24 hours so as not to clash. El Classico being Liga Deportiva Alajuelense v Saprissa, the big San Jose derby.
(Is the under 20s tournament widely covered at home? Do let me know, I have seen two of England’s three 0-0 draws. Amazingly, we are still in it and play Nigeria on Wednesday.)

The derby was a big deal but who to favour? Alajuelense play in smart black and red stripes (in a kit designed by Puma, proving once again they can do stripes, just not for NUFC) and Saprissa play in purple. Initially I was draw to the Saprissa because Alajuelense are champions and I didn’t want to look like a glory hunter but my new mate Alberro follows Alajuelense and they have got a striker called McDonald (Jonathon) which made me feel like we are following Newcastle in the 1970s.
We watched El Classico with Alberro in our hostel because the game was sold out and McDonald was everything you would hope for in a striker; quicker and stronger than any defender, with tied back dreadlocks but without the inclination to talk painfully slowly or to slag off NUFC players. He smashed in the goal that looked like winning the game for Alajuelense but that reckoned without our recent recruitment to the cause. Saprissa, despite being down to 10 men and without their best player (Joel Campbell who was still at the U20 World Cup – Arsenal reportedly offered £900,000 for him in July) equalised in the 93rd minute.
Costa Rican football has a problem that is bigger than their small population – when we were in the park there were about 5 games going on with kids of all ages in Alajuelense kits. Half wore bibs so it was likely the club’s youth project. In one of the games, one of the kid’s mums was in goal. Then we noticed that in other games across the park the ‘keepers were girls, old people or (as is traditional world-wide) the fat kid. Nobody wants to be in goal, two of the goals in the loss to Ecuador were aberrations. If Steve Harper could find a Costa Rican grandparent he would be treated like a God down here. Players at all levels will lump the ball into the stand rather than pass the simplest of balls back to their goalkeeper. ‘Keepers aren’t trusted to kick straight and the rest of the time they treat the ball like it was on fire and they flap uselessly at it.
On Sunday Alajuelense were due to play Belen (who I promised not to call Bell-end despite the obvious temptation) but Belen’s ground is too small so the game was moved to the International Stadium. It was less than a fiver to get in, so we went. It started badly, improved as Alajuelense went 2-0 up (goals from Kevin Sancho Carlos Mendez and our own new Super Mac) then died on its arse in the second half. We passed the 61 minute point where Newcastle v Fiorentina was abandoned, lounging over our backless seats in baking sunshine. Belen got one back and the Alajuelense fans, who vastly outnumbered the “home” fans in the unsegregated stadium, started whistling for time with about 5 minutes left. Despite our presence and nearly seven minutes of stoppage time the game ended 2-1.
Outside the stadium a merchandise vendor pointed at a very fetching black away top and then at me which was very perceptive of him. I nearly bought it but was glad I didn’t. Despite it being Sunday lunchtime and the crowd being good humoured and a family affair to the extent that we saw three babies at the game, a large police presence escorted the main body of black and red fans back to town. We easily slipped away and went in search of the bus stop for our next out of town adventure. This took us into the path of the police-escorted Saprissa fans whose game had also just finished. The games must have been four or five miles apart but it looked like the cops were leading the fans towards each other. Within seconds fans in purple were running towards where we had left fans in red and black. The inevitable sirens began and cops on bikes and in cars rushed along with the fans.
As to what happened next, I couldn’t tell you. Wifey and I have a long tradition in dealing with football violence which involves walking away from it in the direction of a pint. My lifelong skill in avoiding violence means Jack caned my brother but never got me. Shortly after he retired I saw him being harassed by a gang of glue-sniffers while trying to walk his dog, he looked terrified. Not entirely relevant but strangely pleasing never the less.

P.S. Costa Rica under 20s came from a goal down to lead Columbia 2-1 before the host nation equalised. In the third minute of injury time Columbia were awarded a penalty so controversial that three Costa Rica players were booked for dissent. The penalty was dispatched after a lengthy delay then members of the coaching team had to be restrained from the officials as they left the field. The ref? Well that would only be our own darling, Consett born, Mark Clattenburg. For what it’s worth I think it was a penalty but Alberro looked disappointed with me.

Many people on discovering that we were going to be in The United States this month assumed, quite understandably, that Wifey and I had planned to be here to see Newcastle United’s pre-season fixtures. The truth is we are here for quite the opposite reason and are in fact fleeing in horror at the state of our team and resent them pursuing us across the Atlantic.

Our plans were in place some time before the NUFC tour was announced and the only thing they had to do with our football club was that they were similarly sketchy, ramshackle in organisation and ill considered towards our lasting benefit. For example midweek in Las Vegas we were booked into a very cheap but very comfortable hotel for only two days. Then we planned to be in a scruffy hostel in Salinas for five days which left us a single day, at the mercy of American public transport, to make it to Los Angles in time for our flight to Costa Rica.
One of the upsides of our Amtrak experience early on being so wretched was a lasting aversion to the f***ers so a new plan was needed. We have many guardian angels watching over our welfare while we are away who will all be thanked in due course and rewarded insufficiently at some point – but special mention to Michelle at Dawson & Sanderson in Newcastle who reacted brilliantly to our plea for help by sorting two extra days in Vegas at the same hotel and arranging a hire car with no “one way drop off fee” to get us to LA. Our main advice to this travelling lark is “get advice”.
Wifey was glad to see Las Vegas shrinking in our Ford Focus’ mirrors, I felt we left just as it was about to get interesting; we got some helpful Tweets about bars downtown and apart from Alkaline Trio we would also be leaving before Queens of the Stone Age, Russell Brand and the Amir Khan fight. We also didn’t go to The Grand Canyon but what looked like a two hour drive on the map would have been a ten hour round trip in a car. As it was we were on the road all day before collapsing into a motel bed in California, from which we could hear gunshots popping in the night.
Right Song at the Right Moment: Thursday 21st July lots of contenders because we were driving for hours but “Wardance” by Killing Joke (the updated 2005 version with Dave Grohl guesting on drums and playing like drumming is the best job in the f***ing world) took a flamethrower to all other contenders except Mariachi El Bronx who have been suspended for being too good.
Friday 22nd- “I Get Around” The Beach Boys: which was the closest we have come to cheating. It came on my I-pod about 80 miles from the Pacific Ocean so we switched to Wifey’s MP3 player so we could have it on with surf in sight as we twisted up Route 1.
Saturday 23rd – “Prevent This Tragedy” Alkaline Trio. Yes I am still grizzling on about missing them in Vegas but it also tied in with hearing about Amy Winehouse. When we saw her in Newcastle she was mesmerising and she was young enough to be that good again – if she had only had better friends.
Anyway, Newcastle United are in the country and half a lifetime of thinking “I can get to that game” doesn’t wash away overnight. Ipswich on a Sunday lunchtime, Barnsley on a Tuesday night, Orlando in Florida when I’m in California? Much the same impulse, except this time I am looking at a sea otter in the Pacific Ocean and couldn’t make the kick off if they leant me the space shuttle. I take a moment to inspect my silly brain to demand what the hell it is thinking? How many of our collection of rag-tags, reserves, half-fit players (many of whom would rather be somewhere else) and bloody Shola do I want to witness in a pre-season game in a mostly empty stadium near Disneyland? Not sodding many of them is a slightly depressing answer but I don’t think I was drawn to the players, Suffolk, South Yorkshire or Florida: I am drawn to the club because I’m programmed that way and more importantly I had mates at the game. Some are new online mates, who certainly come across as being fun, others I know guarantee a laugh, so I regret not hooking up with them. Consequently the game being 0-1 and a further embarrassment on our lamentable reputation is of no consolation.
What is more than adequate consolation is that we are running around behind football’s back with another sport, giddy on our own wanton naughtiness. Motorcycle racing, The MotoGP to be precise. My mate Berb was into bike racing, we worked together and would spend all day arguing about everything. I only got into bikes to learn enough to piss him off. Gilaz and BJ would feed me lines to wind him up and I would arm myself with other barbs on a Sunday afternoon watching the races on TV. Then one Sunday I had one of those moments where you step back and observe yourself and I realised that at that very moment both Wifey and I were standing on the furniture screaming as Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner battled for first place at Laguna Seca in an thrilling contest of breathtaking bravery and idiot recklessness.
Using football speak; there are three divisions of GP racing, MotoGP is The Premiership, MotoGP 2 is The Championship and the soon to be defunct 125cc is the First Division. The World Super Bikes (SBKs) are different altogether but riders can move between Leagues. Further description is awkward because if you are into bike racing I know virtually f*** all in comparison to you but if you are not into bike racing I know a lot more than you are interested in. We will leave it at: only the MotoGP comes to Laguna Seca the other races here are American Super Bikes. Cal Crutchlow is English, obviously dead canny, in his first year after moving from SBK and if he finishes inside the top ten of any race he has done brilliantly. We have our Newcastle United.
At the track we make straight for “The Corkscrew” in time for morning practice. The Corkscrew is the most violent plummeting, twisting drop in MotoGP. Cal tweeted the night before the race that, “it is like riding off the edge of the world.” I text BJ that I am so excited I think I might be sick. The noise as the bikes crest the ridge and drop down towards us is exhilarating and we can see familiar liveries; arrogant World Champion Jorge Lorenzo, this year’s leader Casey Stoner, Valentino Rossi, the sport’s Manchester United, (except Rossi is brilliant and charming) and there, in the black leathers and green helmet, Cal Crutchlow. The problem with The Corkscrew is that its terrifying elevation means you can see nothing of the rest of the track – so we take the long walk up to Mario Andretti corner which overlooks the second corner and two thirds of the rest of the track (which is a higher percentage than the amount of pitch I could see when I stood in The Gallowgate). It is a cracking view, almost perfect in fact, to witness Cal Crutchlow (running 9th and looking good) sliding into the gravel on lap 3. As I said, “we have our Newcastle United.”
Rossi is on a relatively poor bike this year and the Yank riders are off the pace so the biggest cheer is for Stoner as he bolts past Lorenzo on the straight and makes it stick through the corners below us. The rush is intoxicating and they have people dispensing cold beer (including Newcastle Brown Ale) to keep you occupied between races. As Wifey said as we left (Stoner won by the way – I noticed our own Joey Barton Tweeted his congratulations) – “ I fear I may have an expensive new hobby.”
Right Song at the Right Moment: “Waiting For An Alibi” Thin Lizzy over the track tannoy, “Valentino’s in a cold spot”- indeed he is.
Monday 25th “Another Girl Another Planet” – Blink 182; stuck in LA traffic with less than quarter of a tank and no map we suddenly saw a sign to “Return Car Rentals” and bolted to freedom. Next stop Costa Rica.

Seems a rude question for a guest to be asking or answering. Judging by a lot of the evidence you would think so. We flick round the TV channels in a succession of cheap motels making our way back to Denver to drop the car off and the news is all spectacularly apocalyptic. Texas is parched and the peanut and cotton crops are all but ruined, New Mexico is mostly on fire, pine beetles are killing trees by the million, flash floods, tornados and extreme weather bombard the nation. Wifey has become addicted to the Weather Channel and you can’t blame her when it rattles along like a disaster movie. How will anyone survive?
I wrestle the remote control from her and find an episode of The Simpsons I haven’t seen but have to turn up the volume because the hailstones outside are coming down so hard. They interrupt The Simpsons to tell me it is hailing. They must be telling people individually because they name the street our car is parked on (unless that was just luck) but “stay indoors because the hail is the size of golf balls.” How did we measure hail before golf was invented? They return to The Simpsons in time for the credits and the next ten minutes of adverts.
The adverts are a terrible indictment of the state of The States by the way: “Did you take this drug in the 90’s? Were your children born with 11 toes or are you a drooling vegetable? – we’ll sue them for you” followed, with no irony apparent, by something that goes along the lines of; “take these stress pills, they will stop you being stressed – oh but don’t take them if your name begins with a B or you will bleed internally until you are dead.”
A fat man with a trimmed beard and a smart suit, looking very serious, turns up every half hour to ask if the Tax authorities are after you. Employ him and he’ll help you not pay. Cool. Then they cut back to the news that President Obama can’t cut a deal with the Republicans to increase the national debt by a few trillion so as to pay the 26 million people that expect their welfare cheque next month.
The republicans are saying “no new taxes”, the democrats are saying “don’t cut welfare or medicare while multi-billion corporations aren’t paying any tax at all.” While the Tories slash at costs in the UK Obama is trying to spend his way out of trouble. I can make this shit vaguely interesting to you – no really – watchmenow: The USA is Manchester United. As you know despite being one of the biggest clubs in the world they are balls deep in debt – what do they do? Do they choose the Newcastle United option or the sunderland option? The Newcastle option is stop spending, cut costs and live on the bread line until things look up. Be fitter than everybody else when the recession lifts. The sunderland option is spend and spend, keep the wheels turning despite the fact that the forecast is poor? This is horrible because that makes us David Cameron and sunderland Barack Obama. But that is it in a nutshell.
Right Song at the Right Moment:
Thursday 14th July – “Too Late” – Dead By Sunrise – tenants have moved into our house in Newcastle, we can no longer lose our nerve and run home.
Friday 15th “Strong Will Continue” – Nas/Damian Marley; same reason but with the line from “from New York to Cali’” for good measure. Although driving round and round Denver bloody airport looking for the car hire place didn’t exactly feel like progress. Denver has been a revelation by the way; a brilliant city, clean, exciting and with endless things to do, eat and look at. 300 days of sunshine. Can you imagine a guarantee like that in the UK? Look for “My Brother’s Bar” if you go – we didn’t want to leave, so were very bad at doing so.
Saturday 16th.
The Americans who do pay tax don’t pay that much. To hear them go on about it (for decades) you would think they did but income tax is around 9% – one of the problems, I think, is the sales tax which is just bloody rude, seemingly impertinent and means that nothing costs what it says it does. You get quoted the price then before you can hand the money over they have added the tax which always leaves you seething, worse off and with a pocketful of worthless cents. You feel for the blue collar working class because they are getting a proper hoofing, for example they didn’t ask to be born into a society where you have to have a car. Can’t afford a car – how do you get to a job, even a poxy service job, on a retail park 15 miles out of town?
We found ourselves down amongst the carless in Denver, at the Greyhound Bus Station having to carry our bags instead of throwing them in the back of the Taurus. The bus station looks exactly like you imagine it. Go on, imagine it! It looks like that. A harsh wake up call made even harsher when a kid jumped up in the waiting hall and started battering a skinnier kid. The assailant fled from the security guard who was armed with a revolver and a belt full of assorted violence. Charming.
Greyhound operates a policy of first come first served so people start queuing up over an hour before the bus pulls in. But this is America, so for $5 extra you can be called to board before the queue. We considered getting one priority ticket then have me get on the bus first. The plan was then to take a double seat, remove my shirt, start kissing my tattoos, trying to bite my own nose and snarling at anyone who tried to sit next to me until Wifey arrived. The plan was abandoned when this behaviour was clearly going to make me a desirable travel companion compared to some of the folk in the queue.
Our magnificent collection of freaks, drop outs, boozers ,fatties, skinnys, skag-monkeys, LA gang types, wide-eyed religion enthusiasts and trainee prostitutes arranged themselves politely as Alan, our driver, read out the rules. A rare and dry wit Alan, “I only ever left one person behind on purpose but she deserved it, so help me out and check the person next to you is still there from time to time.” He also managed to tell people exactly how loud they were allowed to talk while making them laugh at the same time. “Tell me if anyone is bothering you,” Alan said.
“Alan. There is a Frenchman behind us and he, like many of his countrymen, thinks deodorant is offensive to his very Frenchness. This is why it is so amusing that cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew is French. However if I am expected to sit downwind of the swine for 15 hours I am likely to re-enact Agincourt using my boot and his f***ing face.” Both Wifey and I thought. Less than half an hour into the journey a bare and smelly French foot appeared between Wifey’s head rest and the window. I took a minute; forcing myself not to stick the corkscrew from our camping knife through the offending appendage before poking the f***er awake and explaining why this was unacceptable. He grunted and moved.
There were regular cigarette stops. At the first of these Pepe followed me off the bus. “Oh please f***ing start,” I thought – he didn’t, all his money for soap had gone on tabs. This was all that ever stirred him and it made the fact that the bus stopped every two hours more annoying. Alan, then his replacement Steve, called them “bathroom breaks” but a couple of times there wasn’t even a bathroom, it was just an excuse for three quarters of the bus to file off and spark up. One old Mexican guy, who probably had “smoker” on his fake passport where it said ‘occupation’ lacked the strength to stand up straight but he could hot-box four tabs in twenty minutes if we had that long.
At Grand Junction, where we lost Alan and gained Steve, we had over half an hour while they cleaned and refuelled the bus. Ample time to nip off and grab a pint if only our weakness was catered for as enthusiastically as that of the chimney squad.
Saturday 16th – Right Song at the Right Moment: “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors as the rain lashed against the windows as the bus pulled into Vail.
Sunday 17th “Clown Powder” – Mariachi El Bronx; not long after Steve announced “and there it is Lost Wages” as Las Vegas loomed up out of the desert. “Your bags will be at the front of the bus. For those of you not familiar with buses the front is the bit you have been looking at since you got on. If you are travelling on to Los Angles listen carefully because there is going to be a test. If you pass the test you will be on the bus as it pulls away.”
We were in a taxi before the results were posted.
Our taxi driver was Ed, an ageing gentlemen who took on the role of tour guide and friendly uncle. He pointed out two massive constructions that are hotel/casinos which ran out of money before they were finished. One was towers of beautiful blue reflective glass stretching skyward but is apparently hollow and abandoned. Another casino recently closed down and they flogged off all the fittings. What you would want with a roulette wheel if you don’t own a casino is anybody’s guess. Perhaps you could put different dinner ideas over each number and choose what to have for tea by what slot the ball landed in. Oh that’s good. Now I want one.
We found a bar where the bottles of Miller worked out at about 60p each and got silly while the US Women’s football team lost the World Cup Final. This will help them understand football properly – a cruel and unapologetic sport where your team doesn’t win in the end no matter how much you think they might deserve to.
A guy next to us complained to his girlfriend of being down $400.
On the way to our room smart suited types tried to sell us tickets for shows. “Which of these shows takes your fancy?” one of them asked incredulous at our lack of enthusiasm. Motown reviews, superstar female impersonators, Celine f***ing Dion, Donnie and Marie Osmond. “I don’t know why don’t you guess?” I said. He did. We laughed. A laugh that came back to haunt us as we found out that not only did we miss Alkaline Trio by two days in Denver but we would also be missing them by a day here.
So is America f***ed. It’s hard to tell overall but we have come to admire the defiance and the resilience in the face of so much actual catastrophe. Perhaps people don’t notice the trouble they are in. Perhaps they do and have decided they can’t do anything about it. Vegas is busy. I mean really crowded. It is both the most revolting and exciting city you can imagine. It is a decadent snakepit designed out of sand and nothing to fleece people out of their money with the promise of things they can have but can’t keep; great wealth, plastic titted girls and glamour. People travel from all over the world to throw money at the place but Las Vegas city administration itself is bankrupt. So I don’t know the answer to the question at the top but I do know I am presently in the wrong place to find out.

Right Song at the Right Moment: “Quinceniera”- Mariachi El Bronx. Seriously I am considering banning Mariachi El Bronx from this game, they just turn up and win anywhere with soul, humour and smashing Spanish trumpet.