According to the media and an increasingly depressing parade of ex-players and "experts", we should all be very ashamed of ourselves. We owe Alan Pardew and Mike Ashley apologies for not keeping the faith, and for questioning why we aren't winning the World Cup every few months: so here goes...
We're very sorry for expecting to see more than 7 points won in four months.
Unrealistic expectations? Surely nobody should be castigated for asking why a club who can win four on the bounce in the Premier League cannot win one in a row for the four months previous to that fruitful period? No, apparently it's disgusting behaviour to kick an innocent, doe-eyed manager when he's down, despite his best efforts to win games almost getting the side relegated (twice). You can't want victory, because that's tantamount to abuse.
We're so sorry for the "Anti-Cockney Agenda".
We're sorry we hate Les Ferdinand. And Rob Lee. And Malcolm McDonald. We should stop being so parochial and welcome people into the club from everywhere - like Peru and France and Argentina and even Sunderland - without asking why they aren't Geordies. Oh no wait.
We're very, very sorry for wanting the best for our team.
Craig Bellamy spit out his accusation that Newcastle fans think they should be Liverpool or Man Utd with such glee that you have to question whether he's a little bitter about his time on Tyneside. (He is, by the way, but he's such a model professional that he'd prefer not to say. At least, not until the sequel to his autobiography, anyway). He's just the latest to question what Newcastle fans want from their team, as if desire is the same as expectation. Be careful what you wish for, Newcastle fans, because those wishes will no doubt be mistranslated by someone with an agenda as unrelenting demands: you might think you're just dreaming, but what you're really doing is holding a gun to the heads of the managers and the players. And that's clearly not fair.
We're terribly sorry for questioning Pardew's tactics.
According to the media personalities who are currently tripping over themselves to congratulate Alan Pardew on sticking with his plan and enduring the tide of white-hot anger thrown at him from the Toon Army, nothing needed changing. We should all be ashamed for questioning the stagnant 4-2-3-1 system that sought to play with Siem De Jong even months after he was ruled out by injury. We should hang our heads in shame for asking why Yoan Gouffran was still getting a game. We should be disgusted with ourselves for asking for natural width, for Paul Dummett not to play left-back and for Moussa Sissoko to play in the middle. Because, after all, Alan Pardew has addressed none of those issues... He hasn't adapted to the specific issues that formed the basis of the criticism levelled at him. He hasn't done exactly what his critics wanted of him. No, he's setting his team up as he always has, with the same personnel, the same shape, the same tactics, and he should be applauded for his stubbornness... Except that's not it is it? Pardew has adapted. Pardew has paid attention to the faults in his team, and he has changed things. And beyond anything else, that is what he deserves credit for.
We're incredibly sorry for celebrating when we win.
At no stage should any football fan ever change their opinion. If at any point you look at the fortunes of the team you support and make any kind of informed statement about it, you should be prepared to stick by that opinion even as the circumstances that defined it change completely. If not, you're fickle. You can't celebrate victory, nor ever What the entire media seems to be getting wrong at the minute is that opinions in football should be based entirely on what is happening on the pitch: you cannot live on reputations, and not adapting how you think based on what you see is little more than ignorance. Just don't tell anyone, obviously, because if you even remotely express that you might think Pardew is now doing well, after responding to his miserable run of form with a call to maybe re-evaluate his position, you are nothing more than a treacherous turn-coat.
But most of all, we're sorry for being fans.
Imagine living in a world where you had to justify loving something. Imagine a world where you'd have to answer to fellow fans and the media for saying you wanted better for the thing you loved. Imagine being roundly mocked for continuing to love that thing despite the bad times, and mocked even more for celebrating the good times. That's what it's like to be a Newcastle fan at the minute. You aren't allowed to protest, you aren't allowed an opinion that advocates drastic change in catastrophic circumstances, and you aren't allowed to celebrate without clarifying what that means in a wider context. Because of the way the media - and not the club - have built up an image of the knuckle-dragging, excitable Newcastle fan who wants Champions Leagues and Premier League challenges every season, we're not allowed the simplest of pleasures, or the right to complain. We're expected not to be fans unless we back the manager and the regime DESPITE what happens on the pitch, good or bad. If that's the way fandom is being shaped, it's probably best we all get off the merry-go-round now.
