Unfortunately, everything that has come before the last couple of years has fed into the image of a clownish club teetering perpetually on the brink of comic implosion, and any serious attempt to make any changes are viewed with suspicion and occasionally - unfairly - outright mockery. When Mike Ashley changed the stadium name, genuine protests kicked off, but the only real attention went to a stunt involving a black and white coffin and a notoriously divisive local figure. When 20,000 fans tried to show their concerns over Alan Pardew's continued association with the club under the Sack Pardew banner, the media picked up on the "failure" that it wasn't 50,000 protesting fans. Because of this despicable, reductive portrait of Newcastle fans as those idiots who take off their tops, cry on TV, dress up like lunatics and punch horses, the protests are seen as fickle actions unworthy of real notice. That is why Leicester City fans - hardly known as the most committed or the most passionate - thought it "hilarious" to make a banner mocking the fans who had protested legitimately. And that is the great tragedy of Newcastle fans' attempts to save the club from mediocrity and drama; because of the soap opera stories that have seemingly defined the club in the past it is now impossible to be taken seriously, which feeds into Mike Ashley's agenda of distraction and dismissal. But hey, it could be worse - we could all support Sunderland.
