Mission Erfüllt

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Neil


…Or how to survive relegation without really understanding how…

In case you’ve been following the story…

And as I have time between beers and watching Jennifer Lopez pretend to be a singer on Wetten Dass.

We won our last game of the season 10-1. Against 8 men. Medizin Friedrichshain have problems getting players on Saturdays. And your intrepid reporter scored the first goal with a ludicrous dummy-cross shot which looped into the top corner. Expertly. After a few minutes. I also set up three more (although only got the credit for two assist). Flo, my partner on the right flank for most of the season (when I wasn’t in goal) scored two and got three assists.

Prenzlauer Berg kicked off an hour earlier, and won 4-0 against Grasshoppers, who also didn’t/couldn’t field a full team. Our manager wouldn’t tell us this score until after the game though.

Rudow kicked off an hour after us, so as we enjoyed a post-game beer on the pitch (before the downpour started), we had no idea if we were safe or relegated. We found out a few hours later (some of the team in the pub, me at home) that Rudow lost to second in the league, so that left all of us level for the last relegation place on 27 points on Berlin Freizeitliga Survival Sunday.

Except our goal difference was the worst. Despite our win.

We had known for a few days that, while goal difference was usually a decisive factor, for promotion or relegation, head-to-head was the decisive factor.

We received confirmation about 17:00 that we were safe. We had beaten Rudow twice, and won one and lost one against Prenzlauer Berg. And Rudow and Prenzlauer Berg had split their games.

Rudow ended up going down.

And a few of their players have since made remarks on our team’s guestbook (in German).

I understand their point. We won most of our games by one goal, and then beat a good mid-table game by such a margin. But Prenzlauer Berg also beat an under-manned team this week.

I have spent the last week or two saying we deserved to go down to everyone who listened to me.

But the more I think about it, the more I like this kind of tie-breaker. It removes the walkovers and such from games, and takes it down to the nuts and bolts of a team’s battle against it’s direct competition for a place.

And fortunately for us, we had done well against those two teams.

And unfortunately not well enough against the others to avoid this situation.

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No Nolan, no cry?

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Neil


…Or how to dismantle the greatest team spirit a club has ever known by following our easy step-by-step process…

Club captain. Leader. Inspiration. Goalscorer.

Fat. Lazy. Slow. Passenger.

“Who are yee cahllin fat, like!?”

Kevin Nolan has been called a lot of things by a lot of fans in his time at Newcastle, but no-one can deny the effect he has had on the club since joining two and a half years ago.

After largely disappointing performances in our relegation season, he, alongside Steve Harper, Alan Smith and Nicky Butt were largely credited with uniting what remained of that team to form the team spirit that saw the club promoted at the first opportunity (as division winners), and then finish comfortably in our first season back in the big-money league.

And, as it stands, Steve Harper will be the only one left come next season’s kick-off, and possibly not as number one.

The exits of Butt (age) and Smith (huge wages for not many games) could easily be accepted. The exit of Nolan is harder to swallow. He has two years left on his contract, and there would be an argument to – if the club didn’t want to renew it – at least keep him another season before cashing in. As seen by Nicky Butt and Alan Smith, players can have great influence without playing every week.

And it would be no means certain, don’t forget, that Nolan would play every game next season. He does lead from the front, but in one of the fastest leagues in the world he does seem to get passed by. He does score goals (30 in two and a half seasons), but usually they came against ‘lesser’ teams and in batches. In fact, of the 12 league goals he scored last season, 6 came in the hammerings of the mackems, West Ham and Villa.

I am a fan of incentivised contracts – anyone who seen players like Viduka, Geremi and EMO play for us would be, but you can’t help but get the impression the club could have tried a lot harder to reward him for his influence in helping get the club where it is today on what has been, let’s face it, a minimal outlay. Hell, we could have at least kept him another season to supplement our threadbare squad before cashing in on him.

Since 2006, Newcastle have profited by more in the transfer market than any other team in the Premier League. Cost-control is an admirable policy, and can certainly be understood within the context of the club, but trying to run the club on the bare minimum can only lead in one direction. We survived last season despite this because of the leadership offered by the senior figures in the dressing room.

The question is, how will we survive next season without them?

Barton looks to be going, as there is only one year left on his contract. Enrique also. And why would players like Tiote and Coloccini want to stay when there is a fire sale going on around them.

As a Newcastle fan, today is the reality check after the excitement of signing a French international (who, admittedly, most of us have never seen play), and being linked with a wide range of much-needed strikers. This is the reminder that most of our significant business under Ashley sees players leaving, not coming in.

So, to Kevin Nolan, on behalf of our fans:

Thank you.

Thank you for staying with us and helping to put the club right after relegation. You may not have been the greatest player we ever had, or the fastest, or whatever. But you had heart. And the fans appreciated that.

And to Newcastle fans:

A long summer is ahead. Who will be next?

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Abstiegskampf: Teil Zwei

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Neil


…Or that feeling you get when you know you’ve blown your season…

The weekend didn’t work out brilliantly for the mighty Sportfreunde Berlin 06.

We threw away a lead to lose at home to Living Legends 2-1, despite having good chances. They are a good team, but didn’t create too many clear chances, instead trying to play extravagant patterns on the edge of our box, which we coped with well.

I ended up in goal as our goalkeeper just didn’t turn up. I had to borrow gloves from our tallest defender (he lived closest), and the size of them on my hands made it almost impossible to catch balls, as I quickly found out in the warm-up to my great annoyance. However, with a bit of tape they were a bit better once we kicked off.

But, anyway, based on that result, relegation is both likely and deserved. We have had plenty of chances to pull ourselves clear and haven’t taken them, so it is hard to feel too strongly about impending relegation. If we were good enough, we would not be where we were. It’s annoying, but deserved.

There is, however, a small hope as we go into Berlin Freizeitliga Survival Sunday (this Saturday):

The league table. Yesterday.

Habay are relegated. Friedenau play on Thursday, but need six points from their two games to have a chance to stay up, which is unlikely. Rudow are effectively safe, with their goal difference being far superior to ours and Prenzlauer Berg’s.

Basically, we fight it out with them on Saturday. We need to get more points than them due to their goal difference being better, so we need a positive result, and to hope that they don’t win or draw (unless we win).

So, what it comes down to:

09:00 Prenzlauer Berg – Grasshoppers Tegel

10:00 Sportfreunde Berlin – Medizin Friedrichshain I

We have a chance, but it is not in our hands. Unfortunately.

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